The Democrats were in a bind, falling behind and looking to make a steal.
An estimated 3.5 million people voted in the Georgia Senate runoff election. State Voices, a leftist nonprofit, claimed that it had made 3 million voter contacts for the runoff.
ProGeorgia, the local partner for State Voices, bragged of having conducted “31,000 face-to-face conversations, 10 million texts, and 133,000 phone conversations” and of registering “tens of thousands for the midterm election” so that “voters of color turned out in early voting at higher levels than their white counterparts”. Such an outcome was inherently partisan and could and only did benefit one particular party: the Democrats.
While such claims are commonplace among party activists, State Voices and Pro-Georgia are both 501(c)(3) nonprofits. That means that they’re funded by tax-deductible contributions and are not supposed to be involved in elections. But they’re also typical of a massive network of political nonprofits which not only advocate for the Left but help Democrats win races.
“We leaned on our trusted partners in our fight for our democracy. Partnership for Southern Equity, Georgia Equality, Black Voters Matter, Coalition for the People’s Agenda, Georgia STAND-UP, and GALEO were instrumental in securing this critical win for people power,” ProGeorgia’s director, Tamieka Atkins, boasted.
The Black Lives Matter Fund has a 501(c)(4) that focuses on recruiting voters and a 501(c)(3) which engages in “capacity building assistance for community based organization” which can accept tax-deductible contributions. This is likely where ProGeorgia partnered with BVM.
“Georgia voters practically handed victories to President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris with a historic election outcome,” BVM head LaTosha Brown boasted. “Georgia owes tremendous gratitude to its Black voters, who turned out and voted in record numbers.”
BVM benefited from a $100 million voter outreach and engagement war chest from the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC is also a 501(c)(3), but so are many of the Democrat organizations which are swinging elections using tax-deductible funds to bring in voters.
State Voices, through its various partners, claims similarly massive results across the country with “over 140 million voter contacts”, “1.9 million calls, 34.5 million texts”, “90 million emails” and 1 million door knocks. Parker Thayer at the Capital Research Center pointed out that these numbers trumped the 50 million voter contacts that the RNC had described as a new record.
While State Voices claims to be nonpartisan to retain its 501(c)(3) status, its partners are universally leftist groups including extremely partisan organizations like MoveOn and Color of Change. The IRS has ignored the close integration between C3s and C4s, whether it’s BVM or the ACLU balancing dual C3 and C4 arms or C3s like State Voices and ProGeorgia working closely on political goals with C4s. Either way the distinction between groups that are allowed to take in tax-deductible donations and those that are not has become a minor technicality.
And it could not have happened without the complicity of the IRS.
State Voices recently released a survey in three states on what people think “are problems and messages they may be most responsive to on issues” while emphasizing that it “encourages affiliates and partners to apply the guidance found in this research towards year round 501(c)(3) civic engagement activity” for “relevant legislative action and civic education work” but cautions about applying it to “voter registration or nonpartisan voter engagement activity without consulting counsel.” The legal firewall between polling voters about their views on abortion and then using it for “civic education”, but not “nonpartisan voter engagement”, or partisan voting engagement is equally thin.
Ever since the days of the NAACP, identity politics has been a convenient hook for setting up voter engagement organizations that appeal to particular demographics on particular issues. Nonprofits claim to be conducting “civic education” when they engage voters on the pet causes of the Democrats. But what’s the line between “civic education”, “nonpartisan voter engagement” and campaign activities? The IRS has made those lines meaningless.
And as a result, billions of dollars in tax-deductible funds have been used to finance Democrat campaign activities. This money passes through a series of ‘Russian nesting doll’ organizations as money from leftist megadonors like George Soros and foundations like the Ford Foundation is fed through smaller, but still huge middlemen like...
The Black Lives Matter Fund has a 501(c)(4) that focuses on recruiting voters and a 501(c)(3) which engages in “capacity building assistance for community based organization” which can accept tax-deductible contributions. This is likely where ProGeorgia partnered with BVM.
“Georgia voters practically handed victories to President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris with a historic election outcome,” BVM head LaTosha Brown boasted. “Georgia owes tremendous gratitude to its Black voters, who turned out and voted in record numbers.”
BVM benefited from a $100 million voter outreach and engagement war chest from the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC is also a 501(c)(3), but so are many of the Democrat organizations which are swinging elections using tax-deductible funds to bring in voters.
State Voices, through its various partners, claims similarly massive results across the country with “over 140 million voter contacts”, “1.9 million calls, 34.5 million texts”, “90 million emails” and 1 million door knocks. Parker Thayer at the Capital Research Center pointed out that these numbers trumped the 50 million voter contacts that the RNC had described as a new record.
While State Voices claims to be nonpartisan to retain its 501(c)(3) status, its partners are universally leftist groups including extremely partisan organizations like MoveOn and Color of Change. The IRS has ignored the close integration between C3s and C4s, whether it’s BVM or the ACLU balancing dual C3 and C4 arms or C3s like State Voices and ProGeorgia working closely on political goals with C4s. Either way the distinction between groups that are allowed to take in tax-deductible donations and those that are not has become a minor technicality.
And it could not have happened without the complicity of the IRS.
State Voices recently released a survey in three states on what people think “are problems and messages they may be most responsive to on issues” while emphasizing that it “encourages affiliates and partners to apply the guidance found in this research towards year round 501(c)(3) civic engagement activity” for “relevant legislative action and civic education work” but cautions about applying it to “voter registration or nonpartisan voter engagement activity without consulting counsel.” The legal firewall between polling voters about their views on abortion and then using it for “civic education”, but not “nonpartisan voter engagement”, or partisan voting engagement is equally thin.
Ever since the days of the NAACP, identity politics has been a convenient hook for setting up voter engagement organizations that appeal to particular demographics on particular issues. Nonprofits claim to be conducting “civic education” when they engage voters on the pet causes of the Democrats. But what’s the line between “civic education”, “nonpartisan voter engagement” and campaign activities? The IRS has made those lines meaningless.
And as a result, billions of dollars in tax-deductible funds have been used to finance Democrat campaign activities. This money passes through a series of ‘Russian nesting doll’ organizations as money from leftist megadonors like George Soros and foundations like the Ford Foundation is fed through smaller, but still huge middlemen like...