By Katy Grimes, California Globe
California’s November 3, 2020 election was marred by significant voting and registration irregularities, the Globe reported in June, following a alarming report by the Election Integrity Project California.
Mass irregularities in California’s registration and voting numbers continue to erode voter confidence, which is why Ric Grenell and his team at Fix California have launched a statewide legal survey analyzing the current status of voter rolls throughout the state, and they are prepared to start suing counties.
Some California counties have an astoundingly high number of ineligible registrants:
Sacramento County: 36,737, Orange County: 92,014, San Diego County: 247,671, Los Angeles County: 1,138,910, even tiny Alpine County with 924 eligible citizens has 85 ineligible registrants.
It is important to note that California’s National Voter Registration Act Manual says: “[c]ounties must maintain all records concerning the implementation of programs and activities conducted for the purpose of ensuring the accuracy and currency of official lists of eligible voters.” (California NVRA Manual, Chapter 4, Section I n.2)
The California Globe has talked with Richard “Ric” Grenell several times – and again this week – about his long term “Fix California” plan, which places a specific focus on legal, free and fair elections.
Grenell, the former Ambassador to Germany and President Donald Trump’s former Director of National Intelligence, says in California, state and county election officials have abandoned their responsibility to protect elections and ensure that the voices of Californians are heard. He says Fix California is committed to holding these officials accountable while establishing a better process that protects every legal vote.
Fix California has already contacted 26 of the largest counties in California, and put them on notice that they plan to inspect records related to county voter list maintenance obligations, through California Public Records Act requests.
Grenell says his team at Fix California is prepared to sue 26 counties – “Clean up the voter rolls or we’ll take you to court,” Grenell said.
Grenell reports they have been strategically and systematically working to address all three pillars of Fix California: (1) Election Integrity, (2) Voter Registration, (3) Education Reform.
As Grenell explained, “this is not a sexy, quick fix like one hyped-up statewide race. This is a four-year campaign to fix California and to do the long-term reforms that we know we need.”
With the 26 county information requests including Los Angeles County, San Diego, Riverside, Kern, Fresno, Ventura, Placer, Orange, and Sacramento, Fix California is looking for inactive registrations, voter registrations cancelled, registrants not satisfying the citizenship requirements for registration, deceased registrants, individuals who moved out of state, the number of voter applicants providing applications to vote with either a blank affirmation of U.S. Citizenship or an affirmation of non-citizenship for 2016 to date, out-of-state change of address requests.
These public records requests will allow Fix California to cross check voter data with the California Secretary of State, Department of Motor Vehicles, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Postal Service’s National Change of Address database, California Attorney General, any California Superior Court, the County Health Systems, county and city district attorneys’ offices, and county and city election departments.
This is cross checking which should have been going on all along by counties. And that’s Grenell’s concern: “through our work on the data front, we are identifying key areas where there appears to be high concentrations of inaccurate or poorly maintained voter rolls.”
Grenell is right. As the Globe recently reported, California has 1.8 million more registered voters than it should – that we know of.
The Election Integrity Project identified critical problems with the voter rolls:
- 124,000 more votes counted in California’s November 3, 2020 election than voters recorded as voting in that election. Most of the discrepancy driven by 116,000 vote-by-mail ballots with no apparent voter identified in VoteCal’s voting histories? Click here for a list by county.
- More than 7,700 voters have TWO November 3, 2020 votes credited to their voting histories. These are two votes credited to each of 7,700 unique (non-duplicated) registration ID numbers in the state database. This indicates mass double voting, a significant programming error in the state’s registration system, or both.
- California has 1.8 million more registered voters than eligible citizens. Why did this overage rise 72% in the 2020 election cycle? Click here for a list by county.
- California’s on-line and DMV registration systems changed 33,000 foreign-born voters’ birthplaces of record to “California” or “United States,” potentially masking non-citizens unlawfully registered to vote. Similarly, 76,000 birthplaces changed from another U.S. state to California? Click here for a chart of birthplace changes.
Grenell’s Fix California is also committed to registering and engaging a new, diverse coalition of pro-freedom Californians around issues and causes that will improve the lives of every resident. They are concerned because many hardworking Californians are not registering to vote.
As for fixing what ails California, Grenell says he watched closely as Stacey Abrams came up with a 4-year plan to “fix” Georgia. “We thought at the time, ‘oh c’mon man,’” Grenell said. “But, we must understand her vision of 4-years… and now we have two Democratic Senators from Georgia – a (formerly) red state,” he said. “I want to do to California what she did to Georgia.”
“We’re not going to cheat like Abrams, but you’ve got to be in awe of what she accomplished.”
“We will be focused on needs, county by county,” Grenell said. “Anyone involved in politics not talking about voter integrity won’t get support. There’s a huge appetite to fix the problems.”
*Republished with Permission
ABOUT CALIFORNIA POLICY CENTER The California Policy Center is a non-partisan public policy think tank that aspires to provide information that will elevate and enlighten the public dialogue on vital issues facing Californians, with the goal of helping to foster constructive progress towards more equitable and sustainable management of California’s public institutions. Learn more at CaliforniaPolicyCenter.org .FACEBOOK | TWITTER | LINKEDIN | WEBSITE
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