Restoration of America (formerly Restoration Action) is the advocacy arm of the right-of-center Restoration PAC. According to The Daily Beast, following the 2020 election, Restoration of America has spent millions of dollars on ads opposing Democratic Congressional incumbents and on its subsidiary, Voter Reference Foundation, which advocates for election integrity. ¹

Background

Restoration of America is a right-of-center advocacy organization that advocates for increased election integrity laws. It is the official advocacy group of Restoration PAC, sharing staff with the PAC. According to OpenSecrets, Restoration of America has spent $424,000 on Facebook ads since 2018, some of which supported Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation in 2020. OpenSecrets also reports that Restoration of America spent millions of dollars during the 2021 and 2022 election cycle on ads opposing Democratic incumbents. ²

Restoration of America owns Voter Reference Foundation (VRF), which was incorporated in Ohio in 2021 to publish voter registration data for people to check for discrepancies. ³ In an interview about VRF’s work, Restoration Action and VRF Executive Director Gina Swoboda advocated for increased transparency and review of elections and stricter election integrity laws, including voter ID laws and using additional forms of identification such as requiring a person to present the last four of their social security number to vote. ⁴

Voter Reference Foundation

Vote Reference Foundation, more commonly known by voteref.com or VoteRef, states on its website that it is a subsidiary of Restoration of America. It publishes publicly available data including the names, addresses, registration status, party affiliation, and voter history of individuals for people to search for discrepancies between vote counts and registration data. According to OpenSecrets, VRF is run by former Trump campaign official Gina Swoboda. ⁵

According to ProPublica, in August 2021, VRF claimed it had found discrepancies in Arizona’s vote count and voter registration data for the 2020 general election, but these claims were disputed by election officials as being “fundamentally incorrect.” In the following months, VRF made similar claims for over 18 states, including swing states such as Georgia, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. ProPublica contacted election officials in Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin regarding the data VRF publishes and reported, “officials said that the methodology used to identify the discrepancies was flawed, the data incomplete or the math wrong.” ⁶

In March 2022, Voter Reference Foundation announced that it filed a lawsuit against New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver (D) and New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas (D), claiming they and New Mexico law violated the first and fifth amendment by blocking access to voter rolls. The lawsuit sought to compel the officials to allow VRF and the public to access voter rolls. ⁷

Financials

According to its tax returns, Restoration of America reported receiving $64,000 in total contributions and revenue and $79,000 in total expenses in 2019. ⁸

In November 2022, The Daily Beast reported that it had obtained Restoration of America’s 2020 and 2021 tax returns prior to the IRS publishing it. It reports that in 2021, Restoration of America received or $20.5 million and spent over $9.6 million on “conservative causes” including election integrity advocacy. One anonymous donor gave over $19.8 million to Restoration Action during 2021 and $44 million to the group since its inception in 2015. ^{9 10 11}

Leadership

Restoration of America and Restoration PAC were founded by Doug Truax, who unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate in Illinois in 2014 as a Republican. ¹² He is an American businessman who since 2012 has worked as the founder and CEO of Everlong Group Medical Captive Services, a health insurance-related company. ¹³

1. Sollenberger, Roger. “Inside the Billionaire-Backed ‘Hub for Election Denial’.” The Daily Beast. November 28, 2022. https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-the-billionaire-backed-dick-uihlein-hub-for-election-denial-restoration-action.
2. “Millions of Dollars Poured into a ‘Dark Money’ Group Tied to Billionaire-Backed Super PAC and Efforts to Expose Voter Rolls.” OpenSecrets News. March 10, 2022. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/03/millions-of-dollars-poured-into-a-dark-money-group-tied-to-billionaire-backed-super-pac-and-efforts-to-expose-voter-rolls/.
3. “Millions of Dollars Poured into a ‘Dark Money’ Group Tied to Billionaire-Backed Super PAC and Efforts to Expose Voter Rolls.” OpenSecrets News. March 10, 2022. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/03/millions-of-dollars-poured-into-a-dark-money-group-tied-to-billionaire-backed-super-pac-and-efforts-to-expose-voter-rolls/.
4. “Voter Reference Foundation’s Gina Swoboda: Clean Elections Depend on Clean Voter Rolls – the Georgia Star News.” Voter Reference Foundation. Accessed December 19, 2022. https://www.voterreferencefoundation.com/video/voter-reference-foundations-gina-swoboda-clean-elections-depend-on-clean-voter-rolls-the-georgia-star-news/.
5. “Vote Reference.” Vote Reference. Accessed December 19, 2022. https://voteref.com/.
6. O’Matz, Megan. “Billionaire-Backed Group Enlists Trump-Supporting Citizens to Hunt for Voter Fraud Using Discredited Techniques.” ProPublica. March 7, 2022. https://www.propublica.org/article/voter-ref-foundation
7. “VRF Sues New Mexico Officials in Federal Court to Make Sure Public Has Right to See Voter Rolls.” Voter Reference Foundation. March 30, 2022. https://voteref.com/press_releases/23-vrf-sues-new-mexico-officials-in-federal-court-to-make-sure-public-has-right-to-see-voter-rolls.
8. Restoration of America. Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990). 2019. Part I, Lines 1-17.
9.  Sollenberger, Roger. “Inside the Billionaire-Backed ‘Hub for Election Denial’.” The Daily Beast. November 28, 2022. https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-the-billionaire-backed-dick-uihlein-hub-for-election-denial-restoration-action.
10. “Millions of Dollars Poured into a ‘Dark Money’ Group Tied to Billionaire-Backed Super PAC and Efforts to Expose Voter Rolls.” OpenSecrets News. March 10, 2022. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/03/millions-of-dollars-poured-into-a-dark-money-group-tied-to-billionaire-backed-super-pac-and-efforts-to-expose-voter-rolls/.
11. O’Matz, Megan. “Billionaire-Backed Group Enlists Trump-Supporting Citizens to Hunt for Voter Fraud Using Discredited Techniques.” ProPublica. March 7, 2022. https://www.propublica.org/article/voter-ref-foundation.
12. “Millions of Dollars Poured into a ‘Dark Money’ Group Tied to Billionaire-Backed Super PAC and Efforts to Expose Voter Rolls.” OpenSecrets News. March 10, 2022. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/03/millions-of-dollars-poured-into-a-dark-money-group-tied-to-billionaire-backed-super-pac-and-efforts-to-expose-voter-rolls/.
13. “Doug Truax.” LinkedIn. Accessed December 19, 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/doug-truax-272a42.