Ric Grenell and Fix California are succeeding at an improbable task
By Katy Grimes, California Globe
Ric Grenell’s Fix California started a statewide inspection of the 58 counties’ voter rolls in July 2021 pushing voter integrity, as well as an effort to register Conservative voters.
An alarming report by the Election Integrity Project California following California’s November 3, 2020 election showed the election was marred by significant voting and registration irregularities. The non-partisan organization analyzed the state’s official voter list of February 9, 2021 and reported its findings to California’s Secretary of State Shirley Weber June 17, 2021 – to no avail.
Grenell and his team at Fix California launched their statewide legal survey analyzing the current status of voter rolls throughout the state.
Specifically, Fix California has been looking for and cross-checking 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.
Public records requests have allowed Fix CA 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 been 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.”
Results are starting to pour in for both voter integrity and voter registrations.
Upon founding Fix California only last year, Ric Grenell said he wanted to re-align California, the bastion of liberalism, to a place where conservative ideas and policies have a fighting chance. After this year’s pilot program, where the organization invested high-six figures into a statewide voter registration effort, he may be onto something. Fix California is currently registering over 10,000 conservatives a month at a fraction of the cost of many other national organizations.
Fix California spent 2021 investing in an extensive data analysis to:
(1) Identify California voter roles that were out of data. The organization put every county on notice through a broad legal effort to clean up their voter roles.
(2) Identify a target list of unregistered conservatives. All-in-all Fix California identified 1.4M unregistered conservatives.
In 2022, Fix California ran a two-phase pilot program in the months preceding the June Primary and November General Election working to begin registering these targets.
In total, over 50,000 of Fix California targeted residents have been registered, averaging more than 10,000 registrations per month – ahead of the 2022 Midterm Elections.
According to Grenell, these conservative registration efforts consisted of digital peer to peer engagement via SMS text messaging, emails, and digital advertising.
Fix California also ran engagement via phone banking, with callers making over 136,000 total phone calls to get conservatives registered to vote before the election.Volunteers were recruited at “Take Action” rallies held by Fix California in both Southern and Northern California, where hundreds of attendees came to hear speeches from local conservative leaders, headlined by Ambassador Ric Grenell.
Since the rallies, over 400 people have signed up to volunteer, and Fix CA has trained over 100 of them to use the phone banking system to call conservatives and get them registered to vote.
While the RNC typically spends over $45 per registration during voter registration efforts, Fix California spent under $15 per registration during 2022.
Fix CA’s 2022 engagement was targeted to Contra Costa, Imperial, Kern, Los Angeles, Nevada, Orange, Placer, Riverside, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Joaquin, and Stanislaus counties, determined to be most important for this year.
While Fix California is a non-partisan, non-profit organization, an independent review of the data shows the counties targeted by Fix California may have had major impacts in competitive state and federal elections. (The most recent data is from Friday 11/18/22. Vote/registration data is not finalized).
- In Assembly District 7, Fix CA registered at least 1,037 new voters. Republican challenger Josh Hoover appears to be down only 906 votes to the incumbent Democrat Assemblyman Ken Cooley (D-Sacramento). It’s a surprisingly close result.
- In Assembly District 47, Fix CA registered at least 1,847 voters. The Republican Greg Wallis is only down by 1,138 votes, with Democrat Christy Holstege at 83,352 votes, and Wallis with 83,284 votes. The current result is so close, the Secretary of State reports candidates are tied at 50% each.
- In Assembly District 40, Fix California registered 3,431 voters and Republican Assemblywoman Suzette Martinez Valladares appears to have defeated Democrat Pilar Shiavo by approximately 1,850 votes.
“California is broken, but it’s only because conservatives have focused their attention and dollars elsewhere, while liberals have taken over,” Grenell said. “Fix California is bringing the attention–and the investment–back to where it belongs, right here in California. Californians want a new direction, and we are seeing residents finally getting off the sidelines because we are providing solutions and an opportunity to make a difference. Our work is having a tremendous impact, and if we can continue, we can fundamentally change the future of California by seeing conservative policies succeed in Sacramento.”
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