by Corinne Murdock | Oct 11, 2023 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
In a since-deleted article, “Three Women-Led Organizations That Helped Flip Arizona Blue,” principal actors behind several of the most powerful leftist dark money organizations in the state bragged about engineering Democratic voter turnout in the 2020 election.
Vianey Olivarria, then-communications director and current executive director for Chispa AZ, credited work done by her organization and others to turn out Democratic voters. Olivarria also served as a director of Activate 48, a coalition of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) organizations.
“Arizona turning blue is a victory a decade in the making and owed to the tireless work and dedication of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people who organize for justice and liberation,” stated Olivarria.
(Original article linked here; archived article linked here).
Chispa AZ is a 501(c)(4) project of the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), another 501(c)(4), and sponsored by Way to Win, a national donor network aimed at defeating Republican candidates. Way to Win served as the sponsor to Progress Arizona, formerly and once again led by Gov. Katie Hobbs’ ousted spokeswoman Josselyn Berry.
Per the IRS, a 501(c)(4) organization may engage in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to candidates so long as those activities aren’t the organization’s primary activity.
Discrepancies exist in various organizations’ tax returns disclosing contributions to Chispa AZ’s political arm, Chispa AZ PAC. Neither “Chispa AZ” or “Chispa AZ PAC” exist within the IRS database. Also, Chispa AZ has claimed the same EIN as LCV publicly; however, different organizations’ tax returns have cited multiple, nonexistent EINs for Chispa AZ.
In their 2018, 2019, and 2020 tax returns, LCV listed an EIN number for Chispa AZ PAC that yielded no results in the IRS Tax Exempt Organization database. In their 2019 tax return, LCV listed an organization called Fuerte Arts Movement for the Chispa AZ PAC’s address, and listed the same EIN number from 2018. They used the EIN again in their tax return.
In the 2019, 2020, and 2021 tax returns from the California-based Grove Action Fund, a different address and EIN number from that used by LCV were listed for Chispa AZ PAC. The listed address was the correct address for Chispa AZ; however, the EIN listed also doesn’t exist in the IRS database.
Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona’s 2020 tax return listed that same nonexistent EIN number as well, and offered the Fuerte Arts Movement address.
Tax returns from the Green Advocacy Project (2020) and the Wilderness Society Action Fund (2019) also listed the nonexistent EIN given by LCV, but listed the correct address.
Publicly collected data reflects that Chispa AZ PAC has managed at least around $8.5 million in contributions since 2017. Yet, Chispa AZ has claimed to have total revenues of nearly $26.9 million, net assets of over $18.4 million, and expenses of over $18.9 million.
Chispa AZ is also part of MiAZ, a coalition of nonprofits focused on turning out minority voters.
Other Chispa organizations exist in Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, and Texas.
Chispa AZ isn’t the only dark money entity lacking a clear IRS status to have an outsized impact for Democrats in recent elections. There’s also the two Arizona Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AZ AANHPI) related organizations: AZ AANHPI for Equity and AZ AANHPI Advocates. Although AZ AANHPI wasn’t featured in the deleted 2020 article, their communications director was: Alexa Rio-Osaki. She spoke on behalf of a different dark money nonprofit also part of MiAZ: Our Voice, Our Vote.
“We’re doing what we can to ensure everyone’s represented,” said Rio-Osaki.
Rio-Osaki has her hands in multiple leftist dark money organizations: in addition to AZ AANHPI and Our Voice, Our Vote, Rio-Osaki served as the director of Progress Arizona.
Recently, AZ AANHPI for Equity has engaged in lawfare against non-party conservative organizations, demanding transparency of private documents while operating in the dark itself.
AANHPI for Equity and AZ AANHPI Advocates have independent websites, social media pages, and staff, yet the pair are presented as one entity in multiple locations (for example, on the AZ AANHPI for Equity “about us” page). Both were founded in July 2020 by Jennifer Chau, who has served as the director for AZ AANHPI for Equity, an unspecified nonprofit, and executive director for AZ AANHPI Advocates, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, since their inception according to her LinkedIn page.
According to the IRS, AZ AANHPI Advocates had its federal tax exempt status automatically revoked in mid-May for not filing any tax forms in the entire three years of its existence (EIN:85-2344934). The IRS issued its revocation posting earlier this month. No IRS records exist for AZ AANHPI for Equity.
Yet, both organizations’ websites continue to solicit donations and market themselves as nonprofits. The Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) awarded AZ AANHPI Advocates good standing for its status as a nonprofit in mid-July as well. No ACC records exist for AZ AANHPI for Equity.
Like Chispa AZ, AZ AANHPI has used EIN numbers of another organization in receipt of funds. In 2021, AZ AANHPI for Equity received $25,000 from Solidago Foundation and gave the EIN belonging to One Arizona, the 30-nonprofit coalition to which all five Arabella Advisors nonprofit arms issued funds. Also that year, AZ AANHPI made its name synonymous with “One Arizona” and used its EIN in its receipt of $35,000 in funding from Asian Americans Advancing Justice.
On its website, AZ AANHPI Advocates discloses that it receives funding from top leftist dark money organizations The Future We Need and Arizona Wins!. The listed address for The Future We Need is the same address for the Arizona Education Association and Progress Now Arizona (now Progress Arizona); yet, no such organization as “The Future We Need” exists per ACC, the IRS, the Federal Election Commission (FEC), or the secretary of state’s campaign finance databases. There does exist a similarly-named dark left political action committee (PAC) entity, “The Future We Want.”
In their entire three years of advocacy and fundraising, only AZ AANHPI Advocates had any campaign finance records filed within the state: just one receipt of $10,000 from Invest in Arizona in August 2021, for “signature gathering.” According to the secretary of state’s campaign finance database, AZ AANHPI has never filed any reports on their contributions or expenditures.
The deleted article was published by Supermajority News: a project of Supermajority and the Supermajority Education Fund, the latter a project of the Arabella Advisors’ New Venture Fund. Arabella Advisors is behind one of the biggest dark money funding networks in the nation; their shadowy dealings prompted the District of Columbia attorney general to issue subpoenas to the organization last month.
Along with their Arizona-based compatriots, Supermajority will also be working to turn out more Democratic voters in the upcoming 2024 election.
Last year, Supermajority reported turning out over 959,000 voters: nearly 116,200 in Arizona. The organization had over 8,000 active members in Arizona. Supermajority reported that they ensured the turnout of 30 percent of women ages 18 to 35 years old, specifically to ensure the re-election of Sen. Mark Kelly and election of Gov. Katie Hobbs. The organization disclosed that their approach consisted of contacting female Democrat voters that sporadically voted in presidential elections but hadn’t voted in midterm elections.
“At the state level, we were able to help elect and support progressive governors who would protect and expand women’s freedoms in their states,” stated Supermajority.
Supermajority took credit for Kelly’s re-election and Hobbs’ election, declaring that 92 percent of Kelly’s margin of victory was made up of their voters and that their 116,200-voter turnout far surpassed Hobbs’ 17,100-vote margin.
The organization also noted its plans for the upcoming 2024 election: contacting 432,300 female Arizona voters who didn’t vote last year, overcoming the projected 10,500-vote victory margin, and electing a Democratic senator to take independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s seat. The organization also plans to target Georgia and North Carolina.
“We need a Democratic senator in AZ who will work alongside Sen. Mark Kelley [sic],” stated Supermajority.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Dec 20, 2021 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
Recent IRS filings revealed that Arizona received nearly $5.17 million during the 2020 election from the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), pumped with over $350 million from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to funnel into election offices nationwide. The Zuckerberg funds were intended to provide COVID-19 relief; in large part, they funded controversial election methods like ballot drop-boxes. The Capital Research Center (CRC) first announced the CTCL IRS filings.
The CTCL numbers concurred with AZ Free News reporting earlier this year on CRC data, which reported that CTCL spent just over $5 million in Arizona. In fact, the CRC estimate turned out to be slightly lower.
According to the IRS filings, CTCL’s biggest grant was Maricopa County at over $1.84 million. The runner-up grant amounted to over $950,400 awarded to Pima County. Several counties received slightly under or over half a million each: Navajo County received over $593,700, Apache County received nearly $589,700, Coconino County received over $524,500, and Pinal County received over $472,500.
Yuma County still received a six-figure grant: over $180,700. La Paz County was the odd man out with a $17,500 grant.
President Joe Biden won the following counties funded by CTCL grants: Maricopa (50.3 percent), Apache (66.2 percent), Coconino (60.9 percent), Pima (58.6 percent). Biden also won Santa Cruz (67.2 percent), which had no CTCL grants.
Pima County Supervisors Ally Miller and Steve Christy voted against certifying the 2020 election over the Zuckerberg grants, as Miller explained in an opinion piece published in the Arizona Daily Independent last month. The supervisors didn’t believe the grant money was helping to secure the election.
Of those counties he won, Biden flipped Maricopa from the 2016 election — which Hillary Clinton lost by over four points. He also earned about four percent more of the votes than Clinton in the counties they both won.
Biden lost the following counties funded by CTCL grants: Navajo (45.2 percent), Pinal (40.6 percent), and La Paz (30 percent). However, he lost by a smaller margin than Clinton did, gaining an average of two more points in both counties.
CRC’s reported grants varied slightly from those given in the filings: they reported learning of nearly $3 million to Maricopa County, over $806,000 to Pinal County, nearly $614,700 to Coconino County, and over $593,200 to Apache County. Their estimate of La Paz County’s grant was accurate. CRC didn’t have data on the grants awarded to Navajo, Yuma, or Pima counties.
AZ Free News reached out to Maricopa County about the grant total discrepancy. They didn’t respond by press time.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Jul 16, 2021 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
On Thursday, the Arizona Senate held a hearing on the election audit as it heads into its final days of work. Election auditors testified that they discovered a sweeping variety of discrepancies within the election proceedings, including: ballot numbers and quality, voter rolls, cybersecurity, and signature matching processes. Additionally, the auditors reported that they were still lacking the chain of custody logs and routers, which were included within the Senate’s subpoena. The three audit officials testifying were Senate Liaison Ken Bennett, Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan, and CyFIR founder Ben Cotton.
Among their findings from over 80,000 hours of work, the auditors testified that they discovered a surplus of over 74,000 mail-in ballots received and counted than were mailed out, 4,000 individuals were registered to vote after the October 15 deadline, over 11,000 voters disappeared from the rolls after the election but reappeared a month later, over 17,000 voters were removed from the voter rolls after the election, thousands of duplicate ballots lacked a serial number, most ballots were vulnerable to over-voting or unintended voting due to being printed out of calibration, election security systems on the machines weren’t updated after 2019, and a sizeable number of ballots were discovered with bleed-throughs.
Notably, only 52 out of around 1,700 boxes of election materials were reportedly secured with tamper-evident tape. The remainder were secured with regular packing tape. Logan assured the Senate that they would return these boxes numbered with new seals of tamper-evident tape.
Cotton explained that system updates on election machines are crucial for cybersecurity. Without updates, any system may grow increasingly vulnerable to hackers. Since the machines weren’t updated after 2019, hackers had several years to breach the system. This may explain the 38,000 inquiries for blank passwords that the auditors reported discovering.
At least one incident of hacking likely occurred with the Maricopa County election systems in the 2020 election. Federal agents raided the home of an individual named Elliot Kerwin on November 5 over intelligence indicating that he’d breached the systems sometime from October up through Election Day.
Maricopa County claimed that it used ballot paper thick enough to prevent bleed-throughs. However, the auditors said that they discovered the opposite was true. Logan said that anything from ballpoint pens to Sharpies could cause bleed-through.
https://twitter.com/AuditWarRoom/status/1415743378776477697?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1415743378776477697%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Farizonasuntimes.com%2F2021%2F07%2F16%2Felection-auditors-report-surplus-of-over-74k-mail-in-ballots-4k-voters-registered-after-deadline-18k-voters-removed-from-rolls-following-election%2F
The SharpieGate debacle concerned this very issue. Although several court cases were filed after voters were unsure whether their Sharpied ballots counted, but ultimately that case was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds.
Senate President Karen Fann (R-Prescott) reminded viewers and the floor that this audit was devoid of political agenda or allegiance to previous President Donald Trump.
When Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Warren Petersen (R-Gilbert) asked the three men what more they would need to finalize their report. Logan responded that they would need the routers, splunk logs, portable media and external drives, chain of custody documents, the network diagram, election management data backups, records of all papers sent to vote centers, the total of all ballots sent to eligible voters, and a full backup copy of the voter rolls.
He added that they would also need copies of the election policies and procedures, including information on ballot adjudication processes. While those documents are available in part to the public, Logan explained that there were more detailed documents given to election officials and workers that they required.
A day before the hearing, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform submitted a letter to Logan requesting information about their audit process, leadership, interactions, and findings. The request letter listed a number of grievances against Cyber Ninjas’ conduct of the audit, citing multiple times their “lack of election audit experience.”
Congress further cited reporting on the audit to bolster their claims of mismanagement. One citation included a reporter’s indication that blue pens were used during the audit in violation of Arizona election law. That reporter later retracted her claim in part, noting that those pens were during training and cleared from the floor before any live ballots were brought out.
Fann offered a parting thought on the resistance by Maricopa County, as well as Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, to this audit.
“I do not know why Maricopa County has fought this so hard,” remarked Fann.
Corinne Murdock is a contributing reporter for AZ Free News. In her free time, she works on her books and podcasts. Follow her on Twitter, @CorinneMurdock or email tips to corinnejournalist@gmail.com
by Corinne Murdock | Apr 2, 2021 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
A bill proposing to strengthen election integrity was withdrawn from a Senate committee this week, after passage in the House. It was introduced by State Representative Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek).
The bill would have prohibited any government officials from changing election-related dates, on the threat of a class 6 felony. Specifically, no state officers or agents, political subdivisions, or agencies could modify deadlines, filing dates, submission dates, or any other statutory election dates.
Class 6 felonies are the least harsh of all felonies, and may entail a year’s prison time.
The bill passed the House in a close, party-line vote 31-29.
An amendment to the bill would provide an exception to the proposed bill if a court ruling were to come into play. However, it would prohibit election officials from agreeing to modify deadlines and other election-related dates as part of a settlement agreement.
Last year, the state saw a spike of over 52,000 voters added to the rolls after an 18-day extension for voter registration. The initiative was cut short after a federal appeals court ordered the extension to end over a week early. Even with the order, the court allowed citizens a two day grace period to continue registering.
The challenge to the extension largely arose from the additional burdens that such an extension caused to local election officials. The extension would have allowed voters to register up to a little more than one week out from Election Day. In the past, election officials had nearly a month before the election to process registrants.
Currently, the state is pending an audit for the 2020 election. The audit would focus on Maricopa County, where The Senate hired four companies to review around 2.1 million Maricopa County ballots. Last November, the Senate issued subpoenas for all county ballots and voting machines for another audit. A federal judge ruled that the county didn’t have to comply with that request, since the Senate had improperly filed it.
Once the Senate refiled, legislators and county officials engaged in a heated battle over transparency. The judge quickly ruled on the side of the Senate.
It is unclear the reason for the bill’s withdrawal. Following the 2020 election, Hoffman was banned from Twitter and Facebook.
Corinne Murdock is a contributing reporter for AZ Free News. In her free time, she works on her books and podcasts. Follow her on Twitter, @CorinneMurdock or email tips to corinnejournalist@gmail.com.
