Dark money, Soros' nonprofits, election lawfare, pushing to count mail ballots for a week past election day in Kansas
Follow the money: who is funding election lawfare in Kansas?
Three nonprofit groups filed a lawsuit last week to overturn a new Kansas law requiring mail ballots be returned by election day.
The 2024 Kansas legislature passed Senate Bill 4 eliminating a 3-day grace period that was law since 2017.
AN ACT concerning elections; relating to advance voting ballots; requiring the return of such ballots by 7:00 p.m. on the day of the election
Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the bill on March 24, but both houses of the legislature overrode the veto and the bill became law to be implemented next year.
The remedy suggested in the lawsuit if the law were overturned was to extend the old 3-day grace period to 7 days — making procrastinators some sort of protected legal class?
If timing were such a problem, why did plaintiffs not ask to have advance ballots mailed a week earlier but still require ballot arrival by election day? That would eliminate problems with missing postmarks since all ballots would be accepted on or before election day.
Let’s take a look a deeper look at the plaintiffs and their counsel in this case.
Litigants
Plaintiffs
These plaintiffs seem to have a lawfare business of suing governments over election matters, which costs them very little when pro bono counsel is paid by unknown outside sources.
The first two nonprofits below receive funding from “dark money” sources, George Soros’ nonprofits, and other progressive nonprofits.
The third nonprofit receives almost all of its funding from the federal government. So, federal government money is involved in getting this case started in Kansas district court?
Kansas Appleseed Center for Law and Justice
A Feb. 2023 Capital Research Center report said Kansas Appleseed Center “uses nutrition and public health as cover to push voter turnout campaigns and election ‘reforms.’ The group demands expanded use of absentee ballots and drop boxes to collect them, and it rails against allegations of election fraud.”
Kansas Appleseed’s largest donor is the Kansas Health Foundation, which spent millions on “Integrated Voter Engagement” from 2017-2024. Kansas Appleseed received $606,000 for IVE from KHF, but also received another $135,000 from Kansas City area healthcare foundations for IVE.
Kansas Appleseed received $50,000 directly from George Soros’ Foundation to Promote Open Society nonprofit, as well as $155,950 in “dark money” funds from the Tide Foundation.
Kansas Appleseed in a report thanked the Kansas Health Foundation and the Movement Voter Project for supporting Appleseed’s work to “increase civic participation and health in Kansas.” The Movement Voter Project has received considerable funding from George Soros’ Open Society Policy Center nonprofit.
See details in this article about Kansas Appleseed:
Loud Light
Davis Hammet has been building Loud Light and the sister Loud Light Civic Action organizations in Kansas for several years.
Loud Light says their mission “engages, educates, and empowers individuals from underrepresented populations to build community power that has an impact on decision makers.”
But Loud Light cannot find the largest underrepresented population in the state? Male voters are underrepresented in Kansas: there are more males than females for age intervals under 60 years, but females have more voters than males in all age intervals except for the 18-19 interval.
Loud Light has received $755,000 from the Alliance for Youth Organizing and Loud Light Civic Action has received $267,000 from Alliance for Youth Action. These “Alliance for Youth” nonprofits are heavily funded directly by George Soros’ nonprofits, and a number of “dark money” organizations, including Arabella Advisor funds and Tides Foundation/Tides Advocacy.
See details in this article about Loud Light and Loud Light Civic Action:
Disability Rights Center of Kansas
Disability Rights Center historically has received about 98% of its funds from federal government grants — it’s almost like being an extension of the federal government.
IRS990s show total amounts from government grants, but not the source of the money.
USASpending.gov shows that during the approximate dates of the IRS 990s above, DRCK received $13.7 million in funding from these three federal agencies:
Dept. of Health and Human Services, $8.57 million (63%)
Social Security Administration, $2.64 million (19%)
Department of Education, $2.49 million (18%)
So federal funds are being used to create a lawsuit against Kansas state government?
Congress should require nonprofits that are substantially funded by the federal government to be subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, like other federal agencies, so the public can learn more about how tax dollars are spent.
Plaintiff’s Counsel
In Aug. 2024 in a separate election legal matter involving Kansas Appleseed and Loud Light from 2021, Kansas Appleseed’s litigation director, Teresa Woody, acknowledged being “grateful to our pro bono partners, The Elias Group and Irigonegaray, Turney, & Revenaugh, for their partnership.”
Is it reasonable to assume Elias Law Group and Irigonegary & Revenaugh are pro bono partners in this matter?
Elias Law Group
In 2015 Hillary Clinton’s top campaign lawyer, Marc Elias, was behind a multi-state push challenging voter ID laws. At the time Elias worked for the Perkins Coie law firm, which was funded with a pledge of $5 million from George Soros according to the Washington Free Beacon.
In 2020 Elias sued to overturn ballot harvesting bans in Georgia and Arizona but failed.
Elias was involved in 2022 with the Congressional Integrity Project as he split from Perkins Coie to form the Elias Law Group. “Dark money” at that time funded CIP to discredit investigators in the new GOP majority.
So, is the involvement by the Elias Law Group in Kansas (or any state) election matters a surprise?
IRS 990 tax forms from the Hopewell and North Funds, two of the seven Arabella Advisors’ dark money funds, show a staggering $40 million in funding for the Elias Law Group in recent years.
These documents cannot prove a George Soros connection via the Hopewell or North Funds, but Soros’ nonprofits have given $444 million to Arabella Advisors and other “dark money” funds from 2016 to 2023.
Marc Elias, founder of “Democracy Docket,” documents his firm’s lawfare cases online. This case is already mentioned there.
Irigonegary and and Revenaugh
Attorney Pedro Irigonegary’s name appeared as a member of the Kansas Appleseed Board of Directors in their IRS 990 filings from 2016 to 2021.
No documentation has been found for payments for legal services to Irigonegary. However, Pedro Irigonegary has represented progressive causes in Kansas for more than two decades.
Lawsuit
Download and read the 30-page petition:
Great question. I may need to write an article about this! I guess I just did:
Douglas County Clerk Jamie Shew, a Democrat, is likely a defendant in the case since his office has been using a “Ballot Scout” tool to track the return of advance ballots. He has hard numbers for tracking mail ballots for several elections.
The Lawrence Times article shows Jamie Shew was using Ballot Scout for the Aug. 2022 election
https://lawrencekstimes.com/2022/07/25/mail-ballot-deadline-tuesday-redistricting/
The Douglas County clerk’s web site says they’re using “Ballot Scout” for this tracking now.
https://www.dgcoks.gov/county-clerk/voting-and-elections/your-voter-information
But where did the “Ballot Scout” tool come from?
Ballot Scout is a tool that is provided by a progressive nonprofit Democracy Works along with vendor Enhanced Voting, which is described on their page https://www.ballotscout.org/
Pierre Omidyar (Ebay Founder) is perhaps #2 behind George Soros in funding progressive election causes. In 2020 Omidyar’s “Democracy Fund” gave $1 million to Democracy Works to help fund Ballot Scout during COVID:
The description given for this $1 million Democracy Fund grant in 2020:
“Democracy Works’ Voting Information Project, How to Vote, & Ballot Scout programs address voting and election administration issues brought about or exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The Voting Information Project is a well-hidden progressive project that dates back over 15 years that has given the left many election advantages that most on right do not even know about.
As the elected county clerk of Douglas County I find it troubling that Jamie Shew plugs the KSVote.org web site on the official county government registration page:
https://www.dgcoks.gov/county-clerk/voting-and-elections/register-to-vote
There is no disclaimer on the Douglas County site that ksvotes.org is a nonprofit BluePrint Kansas, where Jamie Shew serves as the secretary/treasurer. See “officers” in this article
https://watchdoglab.substack.com/p/history-financials-statistics-of . Loud Light, which is mentioned in the article, was also actively involved in the creation of KSVotes.org .
Shew helped develop the nonprofit KSVotes.org web page to register voters, where private information can be captured by the nonprofit, that is in competition with the normal web page he runs as part of his county clerk position. Is that right? Especially without a disclaimer?
Why is the Douglas County Clerk a defendant? That seems odd. Am I missing something?