Counties Switching to Hand Counting Ballots as Election Integrity Advocate Provides Model

Counties across the U.S. are switching to hand-counting election ballots instead of using electronic tabulation machines over concerns about the accuracy and security of the devices.

At the forefront of the transition is election integrity advocate Linda Rantz, who says her model, now being used in a Missouri county, is less expensive than critics continue to say it is.

Read More

Texas, Georgia, Arizona: Three Cases Studies of State Oversight of Troubled Local Elections

Republican-run Texas and Georgia have given state officials oversight of some local elections following issues in Democratic counties, while Arizona didn’t do so there was a Republican administration. 

Last week, the Texas House passed two pieces of election integrity legislation that were previously passed by the state Senate.

Read More

Wisconsin Legislative Budget Committee Axes Controversial Plan for Office of Election Transparency and Compliance

The Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee this week rejected a plan by the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) to create a $2 million Office of Election Transparency and Compliance. 

While the proposed bureaucracy’s name suggests election integrity, it would be built by WEC Administrator Meagan Wolfe, the same bureaucrat who has presided over an agency riddled with election integrity complaints and election law violations. 

Read More

Senator Grassley: A ‘Triad’ of Media, FBI, and Democrats Tried to Thwart Investigation into the Biden Family’s Corrupt Business Dealings

In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee’s first hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) detailed how a “triad” of partisan media, FBI, and Democrats used disinformation from a Russian agent to smear their investigation into Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings.

In addition to Grassley, the committee on Thursday heard from Senator Ron Johnson (R- Wis.), Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, former FBI agent Thomas Baker, Professor Jonathan Turley, and former FBI agent Nicole Parker.

Read More

Review of 2020 Election Continues as Texas, Pennsylvania Counties Find Ballot Total Discrepancies

An audit of the 2020 election found a discrepancy of nearly 600 absentee votes in a Texas county, while a hand recount in a Pennsylvania county found a far smaller disparity, as more states seek to implement election reviews.

In Smith County, Texas, an audit of the 2020 election showed 584 more absentee voters than absentee ballots, according to KLTV, a local ABC News affiliate. Seven county races were within the 584-vote margin of error, including council races and propositional elections. The audit also found five different totals for absentee ballots.

Read More

Simon Conway Guest Host Matt Kittle Talks to Kari Lake About Upcoming Event in Iowa and America First Policies

Live from Des Moines Tuesday morning on The Simon Conway Show with Matt Kittle – broadcast on Des Moines, Iowas, 1040 WHO (4p-7p weekdays) or in the Quad Cities on 1420 WOC (4 p.m.-6p.m. weekdays) – guest host Kittle welcomed former Arizona Governor candidate Kari Lake to the show to promote her upcoming event in Iowa and America First policies.

Read More

Feds Adapting AI Used to Silence ISIS to Combat American Dissent on Vaccines, Elections

The government’s campaign to fight “misinformation” has expanded to adapt military-grade artificial intelligence once used to silence the Islamic State (ISIS) to quickly identify and censor American dissent on issues like vaccine safety and election integrity, according to grant documents and cyber experts.

Read More

Victor Davis Hanson Commentary: Is There Anything the FBI Won’t Do?

The FBI on Wednesday finally broke its silence and responded to the revelations on Twitter of close ties between the bureau and the social media giant – ties that included efforts to suppress information and censor political speech. 

“The correspondence between the FBI and Twitter show nothing more than examples of our traditional, longstanding and ongoing federal government and private sector engagements, which involve numerous companies over multiple sectors and industries,” the bureau said in a statement. “As evidenced in the correspondence, the FBI provides critical information to the private sector in an effort to allow them to protect themselves and their customers. The men and women of the FBI work every day to protect the American public. It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency.” 

Read More

Michigan, Minnesota Among States Democrats Move to Rewrite State Voting Laws After Midterm Wins

Democrats are moving to implement new voting laws at the state level following their midterm wins, according to The New York Times.

Democratic governors and state legislators have expressed plans to push automatic voter registration, voter pre-registration for minors, an expansion of early and absentee voting and criminalization of election misinformation, according to the NYT. The party retained most of its governors in the 2024 election and maintained its hold over several key state legislatures, creating a clear path to instating many of its favored voting policies.

Read More

Trump Calls for ‘Termination’ of Election rules in Constitution after Release of the Twitter Files

Former President Donald Trump called for the termination of the Constitution’s rules regarding elections after the release of information about the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020.

“So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION?” Trump wrote on TRUTH Social.

Read More

Court Orders True the Vote Leaders Released from Jail over Contempt of Court Charge

A federal appeals court in Louisiana has ordered the release of two leaders the election watchdog group True the Vote after they were detained for contempt of court late last month.

A panel of three GOP-appointed judges for the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals late Sunday ordered group President Catherine Engelbrecht and one-time board member Gregg Phillips to be released, show court documents obtained Monday by Just the News.

Read More

Congressional Republicans Deploy Election Observers to Watch Tight Races, Investigate Irregularities

Determined to use their oversight authority to ensure election integrity, House Republicans are deploying dozens of trained observers to key races around the country while dispatching letters putting federal and state officials on notice to look for any shenanigans in the midterms.

The effort led by Rep. Rodney Davis, the top Republican on the House Administration Committee, includes investigating how federal agencies are implementing President Joe Biden’s executive order instructing the U.S. government to expand voter registration, along with the training and deployment of House staff as observers under the authority of Congress.

Read More

Judge Orders True the Vote Leaders Jailed for Contempt of Court

A U.S. district judge on Monday ordered that two leaders of a conservative election integrity watchdog organization be detained for a day following their failure to comply with a court mandate to hand over evidence as part of their legal battle with Konnech, a Michigan-based firm that provides poll watcher management software to election offices.

After holding both in contempt in a Thursday hearing, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt ordered that Gregg Phillips and Catherine Englebrecht comply with the court order to name an unidentified individual whom they say was present at a 2021 meeting during which they purportedly received evidence to substantiate their claims against Konnech.

Read More

Twitter Removes Warning Flag on ‘Just the News’ Ballot-Harvesting Story After Direct Appeal to Musk

Elon Musk

Twitter has removed its warning label on a post from the account of Just the News editor-in-chief John Solomon about his story on a whistleblower alleging ballot harvesting in Florida, following Solomon’s direct appeal to the platform’s new owner, Elon Musk.

Solomon made the post Thursday that included a link to his interview with the whistleblower. The label was put on the post Friday, and as of Monday morning, it was no longer there.

Read More

Commentary: Voter Rolls Are Essential to Victory in the Election Integrity Fight

Voter rolls are the most important election integrity documents. They tell election officials who is eligible to vote. The voter rolls also tell election officials where to send mail ballots, so it is even more important that they are accurate in states that automatically send registered voters mail ballots.

It is essential that states have accurate and up to date voter rolls. This includes removing individuals who moved, have died, and duplicate registrants. Many states across the country are failing to do this essential voter list maintenance that is required by federal law.

Read More

Watchdog Files Lawsuits in Minnesota over Voter Registration Duplicates, Finds Millions Lacking Required ID

With midterm elections a month away, an election integrity watchdog has filed multiple lawsuits in Minnesota over duplicate registered voters while also finding millions of voter registrations in New York missing personal identifying information.

Public Interest Legal Foundation, a conservative election law nonprofit, filed six lawsuits in Minnesota counties over 515 duplicate registrants. The lawsuits were filed in Nicollet, Dakota, Hennepin, Olmsted, Todd and Ramsey counties.

Read More

The DNC Wants to Block Wisconsin Lawsuit over Incomplete Absentee Ballots

The Democratic National Committee is looking to join the legal fight over incomplete absentee ballots in Wisconsin.

The DNC on Monday filed to join the lawsuit seeking to allow local election clerks to continue filling in missing information from ballots they receive this fall.

Read More

Ron Johnson: We Need Whistleblowers in Order to Stop Federal Bureaucrats from Meddling in Another Election

Federal bureaucrats meddled in the last two presidential elections by promoting false Russia collusion claims and suppressing the Hunter Biden story, and more whistleblowers are needed to keep that from happening again in 2024, says Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.).

“I think that started in 2016 when they tried to meddle in the election, and they did meddle in that election,” Johnson told Just the News in a wide-ranging interview. “They tried to get Hillary Clinton elected, and they failed. But in 2020, they succeeded by downplaying the Hunter Biden laptop by censoring, by suppressing that.”

Read More

Election Integrity Event Organizer Says Fake Police Showed Up at Her Home, Detained Her

A Gwinnett County woman who held an election integrity panel over the weekend to educate Georgians says men who she believes were impersonating police officers showed up at her home and detained her hours before the event began.

“The long and short of what occurred, is I had an encounter with the police right before I went to the event,” Surrea Ivey told The Georgia Star News. “Initially, I didn’t think anything about it. When somebody – I say somebody because I subsequently found out it was not the police – when these individuals knocked on my door, they were in police uniform and they said they had reason to believe I was in possession of government equipment.”

Read More

Citizens United Sues Biden Admin for Records on Election Executive Order

Citizens United filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the State Department and the Interior Department for records relating to President Joe Biden’s “Executive Order on Promoting Access to Voting.”

The conservative nonprofit submitted a FOIA request to the agencies on June 16 but did not receive a response within 20 working days as required, Citizens United stated.

Read More

Commentary: Ahead of Midterms, 14 States Improve Election Integrity Laws

by Jack Fitzhenry and Hans von Spakovsky   With primaries underway and with midterms and other fall ballot contests looming, multiple states are demonstrating a commitment to ensuring that their elections remain worthy of public confidence. Since 2021, The Heritage Foundation has been tracking the content of every state’s laws…

Read More

Biden, Soros Spearhead Efforts Against Election Integrity Ahead of Midterms

While federal agencies under the Biden administration are seeking to increase voter registration and turnout, a group linked to left-wing megadonor George Soros is pushing for a constitutional amendment in the battleground state of Michigan that would allow Zuckerbucks to be used in election administration.

Read More

New Election Integrity Fears: Georgia County Ballot Machines Off by Thousands When Hand Counted

The Democratic primary for a Georgia county has been called into question after a hand count revealed the voting machines were off by thousands of ballots.

Marshall Orson, a Democratic DeKalb County school board member running for the county commission, asked the local elections board on Thursday to not certify the results as scheduled on Friday due to “numerous issues” with the race.

Read More

Blake Masters: ‘Political Hack’ Mark Brnovich Wanted Trump to Lose in 2020 for AG’s Personal Political Gain

Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed Arizona GOP Senate hopeful Blake Masters about his primary opponent Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s failure to pursue evidence of election misconduct in the 2020 election.

Read More

Wisconsin Republicans Vote Against Decertifying 2020 Election Results, Removing Assembly Speaker

Wisconsin Republicans over the weekend rejected resolutions to rescind the state’s Electoral College votes that were cast for President Joe Biden and to remove Robin Vos as speaker of the state Assembly.

Delegates at the state party’s annual convention outside of the capital city of Madison rejected both resolutions, while adopting close to 50 others that include calling for all ballots in the state to be cast on paper and hand-counted on Election Day, according to the Associated Press.

Read More

Voters Increasingly Returning to In-Person Ballots over Mail

In many states across the country, voters appear to be returning to in-person voting for their top preference, after vote-by-mail was greatly increased and heavily promoted during the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the Associated Press, many states, including key swing states, have seen massive drops in the number of requests for mail-in ballots. In Georgia, where nearly one million ballots were cast by mail in the primary elections in 2020, only about 85,000 voters have requested mail-in ballots for this year’s primary. Other states that saw similar declines include Ohio, West Virginia, and Indiana.

Read More

Kamala Harris Delivers Democrat Talking Points in TSU Commencement Speech

Aaron Gulbransen, a Political Reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network, reported from the Tennessee State University undergraduate commencement in Nashville, Tennessee where Vice President Kamala Harris was the featured speaker.

Read More

Commentary: If Elections Are to Be Trusted, They Must Be Trustworthy

early voting

The way we cast our ballots matters. Some methods are not secure. Some methods are overly complicated. Some methods are not transparent. Any of these shortcomings is enough to undermine public confidence in the outcomes of our elections – and thus undermine our democracy itself.

Voting by mail suffers from every one of those shortcomings. In 2020, the avalanche of nonprofit monies used to turn urban election offices into partisan turnout centers identified and exacerbated these flaws and the impact of legal violations.

Read More

Tea Party Patriots to Focus on Election Integrity in Wisconsin

The latest focus on election integrity in Wisconsin will mean training for poll workers and a conversation about relationships.

The Tea Party Patriots are launching a new statewide integrity tour on Monday.

Read More

Citizens United Doc ‘Rigged’ Knocks Zuckerberg’s Election-Skewing Nonprofits Out of 2022 Midterms

Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed David Bossie, the president and founder of Citizens United, about his new documentary ‘Rigged.’

Read More

Election Integrity: New Complaint Alleges Illegal Ballot Harvesting in Green Bay

The nonprofit, conservative law firm the Thomas More Society has filed a new formal complaint against the city clerk of Green Bay, Wisconsin, for allegedly participating in illegal ballot harvesting in a close, April 5 city council election.

The complaint was filed Thursday against city Clerk Celestine Jeffreys with the Wisconsin Elections Commission for allegedly accepting multiple absentee ballots from the hand of a single person several times, according to the Epoch Times.

Read More

Georgia Gov. Kemp Used Lieutenant to Block Ban on Zuckerbucks, State Senator Alleges

Geoff Duncan and Brian Kemp

Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan (R), the chair of the state Senate, refused to bring up an election integrity bill for a vote on Monday because Republican Gov. Brian Kemp wanted it scrapped, Senate GOP leadership said, according to state Sen. Brandon Beach.

Senate Bill 89 would have dealt with chain of custody for ballots and prohibited private, “Zuckerbucks”-like donations from going directly to counties by routing them first through the State Election Board for distribution.

However, a vote on the bill was blocked by Duncan on Monday, the last day of the 2022 legislative session.

Read More

Commentary: Republican Election Integrity Efforts Work

Person with mask on at a computer.

After the serious election integrity issues of 2020, Republican leaders and the Republican National Committee have not been idle, but responded on behalf of voters to ensure that free, fair, and transparent elections remain a hallmark of American democracy. Joe Biden and Democrats predictably have done everything under the sun to smear these efforts, even calling those everyday Americans who oppose the efforts racist. But now, over a year later, the results are in, and Democrats have been totally wrong.

Georgia and Texas are perfect examples. Almost a year ago, after the passage of SB 202 – a highly popular Republican-led election integrity law which expanded early voting, poll watching, and voter ID requirements – Democrats pulled out all thestops and started lying. They said the law was “racist,” would “suppress” voter turnout, and even backed a boycott meant to hurt small businesses, many of them black-owned.

Essentially, they shamefully tried to stir up chaos along racial lines. But on Election Day, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution depicted a different scene entirely, writing that voters saw “short lines,” “few problems,” and no “obstacles at the polls.” It is time for all race-baiting Democrat politicians to stop their lies and admit their claims aren’t based in reality.

Read More

Trump-Endorsed Rep. Jody Hice Running Against Brad Raffensperger ‘to Take Him Out’

Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, a constellation of 11 state-focused news sites, which includes The Georgia Star News, interviewed Rep. Jody B. Hice (R.-Ga.) about his race for Georgia secretary of state.

Hice said it was frustrating to watch Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger botch the 2020 election, and be unable to do anything about it, and this frustration motivated him to run against him.

Read More

Wisconsin State Rep. Timothy Ramthun Talks to Steve Bannon About His Resolution and Hearing on Election Fraud

Timothy Ramthun

Tuesday morning on War Room: Battleground, host Bannon welcomed State Rep. Tim Ramthun from Wisconsin’s 59th district to describe his resolution and hearing next week proving alleged election fraud.

Read More

Election Watchdog: ‘Not Ready for 2024’ Elections, ‘Still Have Many of the Same Problems’ from 2020

Election integrity issues from the 2020 presidential election have yet to be resolved, “so we are not ready for 2024,” Phill Kline, Director of the Amistad Project, warned on Monday.

Kline was asked by “Just the News, Not Noise” TV show cohosts John Solomon and Amanda Head if election integrity issues had been solved after the 2020 election. “No, we still have many of the same problems,” he replied, explaining that this is “because the legislatures have not taken the time to understand the problem.”

Read More

Former President Trump Raises Concerns over Wisconsin Election Integrity

Former President Donald Trump on Friday raised concerns over election integrity in Wisconsin, citing potential irregularities that have been proposed over the past year.

In the statement, Trump called on lawmakers within the state to put forth a resolution to “decertify” the state’s election results.

Read More

Commentary: States Have the Power to Restore Faith in Our Electoral System

Person voting in poll booth

The faith, trust, and confidence in our election process has been in steep decline for decades. Concerns over hanging chads and dimpled ballots from 2000’s presidential election may now have been replaced with questions about photo ID and drop boxes – but the overall result is the same: The American people simply don’t trust the outcome of elections.

In fact, recent polls show only 57% of voters believe Joe Biden was legitimately elected in 2020. Similarly, just 61% of Americans believe Trump legitimately won in 2016.

Read More

Wisconsin Representative Steil: Biden Is Questioning Integrity of Future Elections

Representative Bryan Steil (R-WI-01) responded to President Joe Biden’s press conference, calling out President Joe Biden for questioning the integrity of future elections. Steil said in a press release to The Wisconsin Daily Star, “For over a year, Democrats have been saying anyone who questions election integrity is paramount to treason.”

Read More

State Rep. Brandtjen Questions Integrity of Wisconsin Elections Commission

The lawmaker in charge of one of Wisconsin’s election investigations is asking more questions about the state’s Elections Commission after they refused to provide her answers about the state’s voter rolls.

Rep. Janel Brandtjen, R-Menomonee Falls, on Wednesday asked why the Elections Commission is fighting a request for information about who has access to the state’s voter database.

Read More

Top Democrat Supports Localized Election Regulation While Party Pushes Federalized Elections

California Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar, vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus and member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said localities have the “authority” to allow non-citizens to vote in certain elections.

Aguilar’s comments come as Democrats move to pass the Freedom to Vote Act, which includes federal rules that localities and states would have to follow such as not requiring a photo ID or Social Security number to cast a ballot.

Read More

Democrats Resist Election Integrity Probes, Reforms Nationwide

Elected officials and like-minded activists across the country are refusing to cooperate with ongoing efforts to thwart voter fraud and promote the integrity of future elections, lambasting such efforts as antidemocratic campaigns to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The apparent resistance of mostly Democratic and some Republican figures to investigating allegations of election fraud and supporting reforms to decrease its likelihood comes at a time when millions of Americans say they don’t have faith in the country’s electoral process.

Read More

Wisconsin Voter Alliance: State Elections Commission’s Zuckerberg Decision Not Surprising, Necessary

The Wisconsin’s Elections Commission has determined the so-called Zuckerbucks are not technically illegal.

Elections commissioners on Wednesday sided with a staff attorney who wrote “the Commission finds that the complaint does not raise probable cause to believe that a violation of law or abuse of discretion has occurred.”

Read More

Wisconsin Gubernatorial Candidate Rebecca Kleefisch Aims to Recruit Hundreds of Republican Poll Workers

Former Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor and GOP gubernatorial candidate Rebecca Kleefisch on Friday announced that her campaign located hundreds of potential new, Republican poll workers.

Kleefisch’s campaign, which identified 600 potential recruits, has sought to have poll workers for each county throughout the state.

Read More

State Sen. Nass: Voters Should Have ‘No Confidence’ in Wisconsin Elections Commission

There’s growing support among Republicans at the Wisconsin Capitol to do something about the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, on Wednesday said he’s fed up with the Commission and its response to the questions about last year’s election.

Read More

Head of Wisconsin Election Probe Accuses Two Big-City Mayors of Coverup, Stonewalling

A former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who is leading one of the investigations into the state’s 2020 elections says it’s clear to him there is a cover-up going on.

Former Justice Michael Gableman told the Assembly’s Committee on Elections on Wednesday that the state’s Elections Commission, its administrator, and the mayors of Madison and Green Bay have refused to answer any of his questions about the Mark Zuckerberg-funded Center for Tech and Civic Life, and continue to refuse to cooperate with the subpoenas issued in the case.

Read More

Anti-Trump Group Donated $85k to Atlanta Election Judges, Now Auditors Want Some Repaid

A liberal nonprofit that accused President Donald Trump of unleashing a “surge in white supremacy and hate” donated $85,000 last fall to election administrators in Georgia’s largest county as part of a campaign to turn out black votes in the 2020 election. Auditors now want some of that money returned.

The Fulton County Auditor declared this month that county election officials failed to spend all of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s grant for buying absentee ballot drop boxes and did not comply with one of the grant’s primary requirements to publicly disclose how many ballots were collected in the boxes.

Read More

Nearly One Third of Iowa Voters ‘Doubtful’ Their Vote Will Be Counted Properly in 2022

Nearly one-third (32%) of Iowa adults said they are “mostly doubtful or “very doubtful” that, “across the country,” votes in the 2022 general election will be counted as voters intended in a November Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll.

The remainder were very confident (26%), mostly confident (37%) or not sure (6%) votes would be counted properly. Selzer & Co. conducted the poll of 810 randomly selected Iowan adults between Nov. 7 and Nov. 10.

Read More

Head of Envoy Sage Promises Unbiased Investigation of Pennsylvania Elections

Woman voting at booth

In a call with reporters this week, the president of the firm selected to conduct a probe of recent elections in Pennsylvania promised a nonpartisan effort to determine what facets of election security in the Keystone State need improvement.

“We have no preconceived notions of what we will or will not find,” said Steven Lahr, president of Dubuque, IA-based Envoy Sage. “The facts, as they are gathered, both digital and physical, will drive our investigative services. We will handle all concerns, data or information presented by the citizens of the Commonwealth through the [investigation] website, or to us by the committee, with fidelity, due diligence and the utmost discretion.”

Read More

Commentary: Taking Advantage of COVID to Change the Way Americans Vote

Rahm Emanuel, the former mayor of Chicago and chief of staff for President Barack Obama, famously said in 2008 that you should never let “a serious crisis go to waste” because it is “an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.” Liberals in 2020 took Emanuel’s political tenet to heart and used the COVID-19 pandemic to try to implement through litigation and executive actions by state government officials the reckless changes in voting and election procedures that they had been wanting for years.

That effort involved voiding basic security protocols on election procedures, including absentee ballots, and pushing for the equivalent of all-mail elections, which would give their activists a free hand in pressuring, coercing, and influencing voters in their homes in ways they are unable to do in polling places. To force these changes, they ended up filing more election-related lawsuits than had ever been filed in an election year in U.S. history. The prior record was almost 200 lawsuits before and after the 2000 election when George W. Bush beat Al Gore; by late October 2020, more than 400 election-related lawsuits had been filed across the nation, the overwhelming majority by the Left.

Read More