ElectionIntegrityCaucus.us

The group claims that voters who preferred the 2016 presidential campaigns of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D) to Donald Trump (R) were “probably victimized by voter suppression and hackable machines.” ⁴ ElectionIntegrityUs.us also opposes interstate crosschecks of voter registration and supports a resolution that calls voter ID laws “Jim Crow” and “racially discriminatory.” ⁵

History and Leadership

ElectionIntegrityCaucus.us was created in 2018 in Petaluma, California. ^{1 6 1}

Dale Axelrod appears to lead ElectionIntegrityCaucus.us. ⁷ He is a Democratic Party of California delegate ⁸ and the chair of the outreach, advocacy, and legislation standing committee of the Sonoma County Democratic Party. ⁹

Activities and Funding

ElectionIntegrityCaucus.us is a left-of-center election activist group that is a co-signer of a letter written by left-of-center Scrutineers and National Voting Rights Task Force in support of the “For the People Act,” which aims to federalize the administration of U.S. elections. ²

ElectionIntegrityCaucus.us has a national network of different affiliated organizations that are engaged in left-of-center election activism at the state level. As of February 2023, this network includes organizations in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. ¹⁰

The organization’s advocacy goals include elections with an increasing “voter convenience” in elections, automatic and universal voter registration, same day voter registration, voter education, the prevention of internet voting, and a hand-marked record of a voter’s intent so that ballots could be hand-counted. ³ ElectionIntegrityCaucus.us runs a mailing list  ¹¹ on these topics and has co-hosted or promoted events with left-of-center organizations including SMART Elections, ¹² National Voting Rights Task Force, ^{13 14} Citizens’ Oversight Projects, ¹⁵  and the California Clean Money Campaign on these topics. ¹⁶

ElectionIntegrityCaucus.us defines “voter suppression” as at least 12 “institutional barriers” including felon disenfranchisement, difficulty in voter registration, cross-state checks of voter registration, reduced number of polling stations, moving of polling stations, broken machines, selective use of identification for voter ID, residency requirements, and others. ¹⁷

Political Activities

ElectionIntegrityCaucus.us encourages supporters to join its e-mail list and urge the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to take action on voting-related issues. The organization supports an “Election Protection Resolution” that opposes interstate crosscheck of voter registration, calls gerrymandering a “voter suppression tactic,” and calls voter ID laws “racially discriminatory” and “Jim Crow. ”⁵

During the 2020 election cycle, ElectionIntegrityCaucus.us’ top three priorities to “unrig” the election included replacing paperless voting machines with verified vote systems, challenging the changes to the voter rolls, and local election activism. ¹⁷ Also in 2020, ElectionIntegrityCaucus.us co-signed a letter by the left-of-center California Clean Money Campaign with other left-of-center election activist organizations that asked California to change certain voting conditions before giving final certification to the Voting Solutions for All People (VSAP 2.1). ¹⁸

In 2018, ElectionIntegrityCaucus.us launched the Unrig the System Summit in New Orleans to address what the group calls securing the U.S. election. ElectionIntegrityCaucus.us also claimed that voters who preferred the presidential campaigns of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D) to Donald Trump (R) were “probably victimized by voter suppression and hackable machines.” That same year, the organization released a “Protect US Elections” guide that claimed victories by Donald Trump in large-sized precincts in Wisconsin were the result of vote manipulation. ^{4 19}

Suggested Resources

On its website, ElectionIntegrityCaucus.us offers a curated directory of resources for organizations that showcases like-minded organizations. Featured organizations on this list include the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Alliance for Youth Organizing, AUDIT USA, Black Box Voting, the William J. Brennan Center for Justice, Center for American Progress, Citizens’ Oversight Projects,  Center for Civic Design (CCD), Coalition for Good Governance, Common Cause, Democracy Fund, Democracy Labs, Democracy Works, Demos, Election Verification Network (EVN), Electionland from ProPublica, ElectionLine, Election Protection Coalition, Equal Citizens, FairVote, Fair Elections Center, Federal Election Commission (FEC), Indivisible, Indivisible 435, Independent Voter Network, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Lawyers for Good Government, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights (LCCHR), Let America Vote, Lift Every Vote, League of Women Voters (LWV), Mi Familia Vota, NAACP, National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), National Committee on Voting Integrity, National Conference of State Legislatures, National Election Defense Coalition, National Task Force on Election Crises, National Voter Corps, National Voting Rights Task Force, Nonprofit VOTE, Project on Government Oversight, Reclaim the American Dream, RepresentUs, Rock The Vote, Scrutineers, Secure Elections Network, Secure Our Vote, Smart Elections, Spread the Vote, State Voices, Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), Trust the Vote Project, Untied States Election Assistance Commission, U.S. Vote Foundation, Vote at Home Institute, Vote.org, VoteRiders, Voter Participation Center, Voting Rights Alliance, When We All Vote, Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), and others. ²⁰