Count Every Vote

The campaign is operated by Issue One, a left-leaning advocacy group that promotes left-of-center changes to election laws, increased lobbying restrictions, and increased restrictions on campaign speech. Count Every Vote’s main program is the National Council on Election Integrity, a coalition of 40 former Republican and Democratic national security officials and cabinet members that spent several million dollars on advertising before and after the 2020 election to convince Americans that the presidential election was conducted securely and without foreign interference. ¹

Both Count Every Vote and Issue One are known for partnering with center-right former Republican officials to make the organizations appear bipartisan. Nonetheless, both organizations are connected to the Democracy Alliance network of powerful left-of-center donors, which classifies Issue One as a “recommended organization” and provides financial support to the organization. ²

Background

The Count Every Vote campaign was founded in 2020 as part of a larger effort by left-leaning groups connected with the Democracy Alliance to prepare for a contested presidential election if then-President Donald Trump refused to concede. Those in the coalition pointed to statements made by President Trump casting doubt on mail-in ballots and other aspects of the upcoming election. The organization and connected groups pulled in former elected and national security officials to explore potential emergency powers that President Trump could potentially enact to challenge vote totals in certain states and to provide resources for various challenges to vote totals and the certification process. ³

The Count Every Vote campaign was founded by Issue One, a left-leaning advocacy group that promotes left-of-center electoral and lobbying policy. Issue One was founded in 2014 when the left-of-center Fund for the Republic and Americans for Campaign Reform merged with one another. The Democracy Alliance, a funding collective of left-of-center political donors, provided institutional backing to Fund for the Republic, coordinating $1.6 million in financial support for the group in 2014. ⁴

Issue One has kept its association with the Democracy Alliance and is promoted by the Alliance as a recommended organization. Issue One supports restrictions on lobbying, restrictions on campaign finance, and decreased electoral security measures. ⁵ In addition to Count Every Vote, Issue One runs the ReFormers Caucus, a group of Democratic and centrist Republican former members of the U.S. Congress who lobby their former colleagues on changes to campaign finance policy; The Fulcrum, a left-leaning news outlet; Don’t Mess with US, a project focused on foreign interference in elections; and the Rebuild Congress Initiative, which helped to form the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress. ⁶

In 2021, Time profiled Issue One as a member of a coalition of predominantly left-of-center organizations, including several Black Lives Matter groups, that organized to oppose any legal challenges to the 2020 election results in the event that President Donald Trump refused to concede. ⁷

National Council on Election Integrity

Activities

In 2020, the National Council on Election Integrity, a Count Every Vote project under Issue One, announced plans to spend $20 million in advertisements to convince Americans that the 2020 presidential election was accurately counted. The advertisements concentrated on battleground states such as Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. According to Dan Coats, former Director of National Intelligence in the first Trump administration, the focus of the council was to “ensure that the election’s results are accepted as legitimate.”  ⁸

Following the 2020 election, the National Council on Election Integrity announced an $150,000 advertising purchase to urge Congress to “do its job”⁹ at the January 6 joint session to count electoral votes and affirm then-President-elect Joe Biden and then-Vice President-elect Kamala Harris the winners of the 2020 election. ⁹ Following the violent protests that unfolded on January 6 during the breach of the U.S. Capitol, the organization launched an additional $400,000 campaign addressing the nation following the attack, using  it as an opportunity to make a statement in support of left-of-center election policy. The statement accompanying the advertising campaign called for Congress and states to implement new election administration laws and to provide additional funding to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). ¹⁰

In March 2021, the National Council on Election Integrity issued a statement criticizing states for considering and passing voter integrity reforms. The statement criticized the states for making it more “difficult to vote.” ¹¹

In April 2021, the National Council on Election Integrity, along with its parent group Issue One, hosted a conference on “disinformation,” which Issue One’s CEO Nick Penniman called “among the greatest threats facing our democracy today.” The panelists urged regulation along the lines of “Canada, Australia, the UK, and other European countries” and supported the “deplatforming” of then-former President Donald Trump from social media companies after the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. The panel also called for more funding for “old-fashioned journalism.” ¹²

In October 2021, the National Council on Election Integrity supported a federal takeover of elections called the Freedom to Vote Act which would have imposed federal mandates on states to require early voting and vote by mail. ¹³

In December 2022, the National Council on Election Integrity applauded the passage of changes to the Electoral Count Act which allowed only one slate of Electors from a state, raised the threshold for objections to a state’s Elector slate to 20 percent of a chamber of the U.S. Congress, and reiterates that the Vice President’s role in certifying the presidential vote is ministerial. ¹⁴

In March 2023, the National Council on Election Integrity released a statement by current and former election officials condemning certain Republican-led states for withdrawing from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a voter-roll management nonprofit that was established by the left-of-center advocacy and grantmaking group Pew Charitable Trusts. The statements claimed that the withdrawal from ERIC would mean voter rolls would be less accurate. ¹⁵

In August 2023, the National Council on Election Integrity applauded the indictment of then-former President Donald Trump in Georgia on alleged offenses related to the 2020 election claiming it “details more troubling allegations into the actions he and his team took to remain in power by overturning the will of voters.” ¹⁶

In February 2024, the co-chairs of the National Council on Election Integrity denounced former President and then-presidential candidate Donald Trump for claiming that elections were “unsafe” and “not free and fair” claiming it “mirrors the playbook of our adversaries who only wish to divide and weaken our republic.” ¹⁷

In February 2024, National Council on Election Integrity co-chairs and former U.S. Representatives Tim Roemer (D-IN) and Zach Wamp (R-TN) called for more federal funding for election infrastructure in the wake of reports of increased Russian interference in the 2024 elections. ¹⁸

In March 2024, the co-chairs of the National Council on Election Integrity sent a letter to NBC News urging the network to reconsider the hiring of former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel denouncing her for the “propagation of baseless conspiracy theories significantly undermined public trust in our electoral processes” which they claim led to violence. ¹⁹

In July 2024, the National Council on Election Integrity condemned the attempted assassination of former president and then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. ²⁰

Membership

During the 2020 election, the National Council on Election Integrity consisted of 40 former cabinet members and national security officials at the time. Members of the council included retired Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff James Cartwright, former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge (R), former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, former Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Bill Owens, former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and former commander of U.S. Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency Admiral Michael S. Rogers.  ^{21 22}

The Council also included elected officials, including former U.S. Representative Barbara Comstock (R-VA), former U.S. Representative Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), former U.S. Senator and former American Constitution Society for Law and Policy president Russ Feingold (D-WI), former Arkansas Governor and presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson (R), and former House Majority Leader and presidential candidate Dick Gephardt (D-MO). Aside from public officials, the Council included the heads of a number of left-of-center organizations, including National Vote At Home Institute CEO Amber McReynolds, National Urban League president and CEO Marc Morial, former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair Donna Brazile, and UnidosUS president and CEO Janet Murguía^{21 22}

As of 2025, the co-chairs of the group are former U.S. Representatives Barbara Comstock (R-VA), Donna Edwards (D-MD), and Tim Roemer (D-IN). ²²