Conservative activists push voter fraud claims to recruit an army to police California recall polls

Conservative activists who have long promoted unproven and often false claims of voter fraud in California are spearheading a major new effort to capitalize on the upcoming gubernatorial recall vote, attempting to recruit tens of thousands of volunteers to police the polls on election day. In California, the top cop is Linda Paine, a former Santa Clarita tea party activist who founded the Election Integrity Project and claims California — which has one of the country’s most permissive approaches to voting — is part of a national scheme to replace the “constitutional Republic” with a “globalist socialist oligarchy.” In an email to The Times, Paine said her group has “trained thousands of volunteers and it is very uncommon for them to violate” its policies. Though reports filed by the organization’s observers make clear that they challenge ballot signatures, Paine said the Election Integrity Project does not train them to do so but instead instructs them to observe procedures and “ask questions of those in positions of authority.” Paine and other election fraud activists portray California as an ominous warning for the rest of the nation, claiming without evidence that election rules adopted to boost voter turnout, particularly in poor and marginalized communities, allow noncitizens to vote and open the door to widespread fraud. In the rare instances in which a volunteer violates the group’s policies, “we take immediate steps to rectify the situation as we did here.” :: The Election Integrity Project and the Institute for Fair Elections promote themselves as nonpartisan, but neither is apolitical and both have strong ties to the California Republican Party and conservative Republican organizations nationwide. He ruled that the Election Integrity Project and its co-plaintiffs — 13 defeated Republican congressional candidates — could show no harm, and he rejected their claim that the state’s adoption of pandemic voting rules meant California was no longer a “Republic.” A Republican activist in San Diego County recently told members of a local political club that the California Republican Party leadership has held monthly meetings since December with Paine in preparation for the recall, even as the state party launches its own poll watch campaign.