Following The Money

Money does not always determine the outcome of an election (see the presidential election of 2016), but in many cases, large amounts of money can make a difference. Name recognition is important in an election, and being able to purchase ads to answer false charges against an opponent is also important. The mid-term elections are crucial for the Democrats–if enough Republicans win who care about government integrity, the Democrats may not be able to survive the investigations that follow. So the Democrats need lots of money from various sources.

On Tuesday, The Washington Examiner posted the following headline, “Fake charities are spending millions to help Democrats win elections.”

The article reports:

In fact, what the IRS isn’t doing in the nonprofit (or “public charity”) sector will affect the midterm elections far more than any FBI raid ever could.

A big part of the IRS’s job is the oversight of 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations that are awarded tax-exempt status because of the beneficial work they do. There are many different rules that 501(c)(3) nonprofit groups must follow to maintain their favored status, but the most important is that 501(c)(3)s are forbidden to engage in partisan electioneering, or efforts to aid political candidates and affect the results of elections, in any way.

Advocacy and political bias are allowed, but elections are strictly off-limits.

Enter fake charities such as the Voter Participation Center, State Voices, and the Voter Registration Project that siphon tens of millions of dollars every year from billionaires and their charitable foundations to use in ways that the IRS strictly forbids. By abusing their knowledge of racial demographic voting trends and enormous microtargeted voter databases, these groups can ensure they only register people likely to vote for Democrats and function as tax-exempt Democratic PACs.

The partisanship of these “civic participation” nonprofit groups has been an open secret for decades.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is the best and earliest example — and the one most people know. During the 2008 election cycle, ACORN harvested voter registration forms from over 1.3 million people, and the organization crumbled after numerous ACORN activists were investigated and charged with forgery, fraud, and bribery related to voter registration work.

Later, in the 2012 book The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns, liberal journalist Sasha Isenberg wrote of the Voter Participation Center (which raised $88 million in 2020): “Even though the group was officially nonpartisan, for tax purposes, there was no secret that the goal of all its efforts was to generate new votes for Democrats.”

Remember Lois Lerner, director of the Exempt Organizations Unit of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), who was the central figure in the 2013 IRS targeting controversy. The IRS denied conservative groups tax-exempt status outright or delayed that status until they could no longer take effective part in the 2012 election.  The Democrats have always understood the value of politically-aligned groups. It’s time all of those groups were recognized for what they are so that the public can make informed decisions.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. What has happened to our elections in recent years may result in the end of our representative republic as we know it.