Elections

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt (R) announced Wednesday that the state has removed nearly half a million ineligible voters from its voter registration list.

According to the state, since 2021, 453,000 individuals — including 194,962 inactive voters, 143,682 who moved out-of-state, 97,065 deceased voters, 14,993 with duplicate registrations, and 5,607 felons — have been purged from its rolls.

‘Only U.S. citizens who are residents of Oklahoma may register to vote in our state.’

The update was provided by the governor and state election officials as a part of their “ongoing efforts to maintain Oklahoma’s status as a national leader in election integrity,” according to a recent press release that noted “routine voter list maintenance” is required by law.

Stitt stated, “Voting is our most sacred duty as Americans— and every Oklahoman wants to know their vote is securely cast and properly counted.”

“The State Election Board and the Secretary of State’s office continue to go above and beyond in their responsibility to ensure only eligible Oklahomans can vote in our elections. Their progress reassures me we will continue to lead the nation in election integrity efforts,” the governor added.

Secretary of State Josh Cockroft said that the collaborative efforts between the governor’s office, the State Election Board, and lawmakers have ensured that “Oklahoma has fortified our electoral process.”

“We’ve aggressively pursued policies to ensure voting is secure and accurate, and we’re innovating to protect our elections from emerging technology like AI. In Oklahoma, every eligible citizen will have their vote counted and their voice heard,” Cockroft stated.

In a recent post on X, Stitt wrote, “You may have heard about ‘ballot harvesting’ in other states. That doesn’t happen in Oklahoma.”

“Only U.S. citizens who are residents of Oklahoma may register to vote in our state,” he continued. “And Oklahoma state law explicitly prohibits non-citizens from accessing voter registration services.”

Last month, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) made a similar announcement, noting that his state had removed more than one million ineligible voters from its rolls since 2021, Blaze News reported. Abbott attributed that sweeping clean-up to Senate Bill 1, which created uniform voting hours across Texas and banned drive-through voting and unsolicited applications for mail-in ballots.

Abbott called SB 1 the “strongest election laws in the nation to protect the right to vote and to crack down on illegal voting.”

“These reforms have led to the removal of over one million ineligible people from our voter rolls in the last three years, including noncitizens, deceased voters, and people who moved to another state,” Abbott remarked.

According to the governor’s office, more than 6,500 of the one million individuals removed from the voter rolls were noncitizens. Additionally, 1,930 of them have reportedly previously voted in an election. Those instances of noncitizens voting were referred to the Attorney General’s Office for an investigation.

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There’s no doubt Donald Trump is a popular candidate among patriotic Americans — but is he popular enough to win the election?

In a clip on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Rogan asked Bret Weinstein this question, and Weinstein’s answer came in the form of a warning.

“Let’s imagine it is dirty, and you really can manipulate elections,” Rogan says to Weinstein. “How much can you manipulate it by? Can you manipulate it by 30%?”

“To your point about how much can they cheat? I call that factor, which none of us can put a number on,” Weinstein answers, “I call it the cheat factor.”

“One of the things that I’m trying to convince people of is that it’s not hopeless because they can cheat, but it means that you have to succeed at a level that exceeds their capacity to erase it,” he continues.

“Like, maybe they can cheat by 10%,” Rogan responds.

“Right. And what we know, and I think actually we owe Trump a huge debt of gratitude for proving something that I couldn’t have told you if it was true because he won the presidency, which is, is there still enough democracy left in the system for something to upend the plan,” Weinstein explains.

Vivek Ramaswamy agrees with Weinstein and tells Dave Rubin of “The Rubin Report” that “we need a landslide” in order to win the election in the face of potential cheating.

“We are skating on thin ice. I think that 50.1 is not a sufficient margin, but even for the purpose of governing, I think we’re going to need to do a lot better than that in order to really have decisive change in this country,” he adds.

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Fourteen Republicans voted Wednesday with Democrats of the U.S. House of Representatives to defeat a bill meant to fund the government and avoid a shutdown at the end of the month.

The funding measure failed by a vote of 220 to 202.

‘The play that we ran tonight was the right play. … I’m very disappointed that it didn’t pass.’

Three Democrats crossed the aisle and voted with Republicans in favor of the bill.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana had tied an election integrity bill to the funding legislation in an attempt to pressure Democrats to pass it all at once.

“It is members across the conference who share the same concern that we do about this,” said Johnson about the SAVE Act earlier in September. “And we believe it’s one of the — perhaps the most urgent issue, the most imminent threat facing the country, is the integrity of this election cycle.”

After the bill failed Wednesday, Johnson spoke to reporters.

“The play that we ran tonight was the right play. It’s the right play for the American people. It’s the one they demand and deserve,” he said.

“We have two very important objectives right now,” he continued. “Congress has an obligation to fund the government. Congress has an obligation to ensure that our elections are secure, fair and free. This vote tonight could have accomplished both. I’m very disappointed that it didn’t pass.”

Earlier in the day, former President Donald Trump demanded that Republicans refuse to fund the government without passing the voter integrity bill.

“If Republicans don’t get the SAVE Act, and every ounce of it, they should not agree to a Continuing Resolution in any way, shape, or form,” he wrote on Truth Social. “A Vote must happen BEFORE the Election, not AFTER the Election when it is too late. BE SMART, REPUBLICANS…”

The election bill would require proof of citizenship before voting, but Democrats claim election fraud is already illegal and the new law would only prevent legal voters from turning in their ballot.

“In reality, the SAVE Act would make it harder for millions of legal citizens to register to vote,” read a statement from Rep. Mike Quigley of Illinois. “Americans would not be able to use military IDs or Tribal IDs alone when registering to vote. People who have changed their names, including millions of married women, would not be allowed to use their birth certificates when proving their citizenship.”

The government will shut down in 13 days on Oct. 1 unless legislators can agree on a funding bill.

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This week, Arizona officials announced that nearly 100,000 registered voters may not be able to vote in state and local elections this November after they may not have provided proof of U.S. citizenship as required by state law.

The apparent “flaw” in the voter registration process in Arizona was discovered last week, Maricopa County recorder Stephen Richer said in lengthy X post on Tuesday, even though it had been around for decades.

‘In all likelihood, they almost all [are] U.S. Citizens. But they have NOT provided documented proof of citizenship.’

The issue involves a complicated nexus of state and federal law and rules governing an Arizona driver’s license.

Arizona has a unique system by which prospective voters in federal elections may register using a federal form that does not require documented proof of citizenship. Documentation is required, however, for those casting ballots in state and local elections.

Since 1996, those wishing to obtain a standard Arizona driver’s license have had to show proof of U.S. citizenship. Green-card holders are given an alternate license.

Thus, everyone who has registered to vote in Arizona using a state driver’s license since 1996 has been presumed to be a U.S. citizen and therefore eligible to vote in all federal, state, and local elections since they would have had to furnish the necessary documentation when they applied for a driver’s license.

Beginning in 2004 though, the Motor Vehicle Division changed rules so that those applying for a renewal or replacement license had an updated issue date stamped on it.

This system allowed one group of registered voters to, in Richer’s words, fall “through the cracks” regarding proof of citizenship. This group of about 97,000 individuals from across the state received a driver’s license before 1996 but received a replacement license sometime after 2004 and then used that updated license to register to vote.

“All of these people have attested under penalty of law that they are U.S. citizens,” Richer explained. “And, in all likelihood, they almost all [are] U.S. Citizens. But they have NOT provided documented proof of citizenship.”

According to Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, the affected voters are likely between the ages of 45 and 60 and lean Republican.

With the November election fast approaching and military ballots going out later this week, Richer, a Republican, is filing a “friendly” lawsuit against Fontes, a Democrat, in hopes that the state supreme court will provide clarity on the issue — and soon.

“It is my position that these registrants have not satisfied Arizona’s documented proof of citizenship law, and therefore can only vote a ‘FED ONLY’ ballot [in 2024],” Richer said.

Fontes believes that the issue cannot possibly be resolved fairly in such a truncated timeframe and would therefore prevent many otherwise lawful U.S. citizens from participating in state and local elections. “We do not want to see this happen,” he said. “We are advocating for status quo.”

The news comes on the heels of lawsuits filed against all 15 Arizona counties by America First Legal, a group with strong ties to former President Donald Trump. As Blaze News previously reported, the lawsuit, filed September 4, accused the counties and their respective recorders of failing to purge foreign nationals from their voter rolls in defiance of state law.

“We are taking emergency action to secure our elections,” former Trump adviser and current AFL president Stephen Miller told Blaze News in a previous statement. “… America First Legal will do everything in its power to fight mass illegal alien voting and foreign interference in our democracy.”

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Hundreds of thousands of residents in the San Antonio area may have received voter registration applications this month without asking for them after county leaders approved a mass mailing in defiance of Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

On September 2, Paxton sent a letter to Bexar County — a heavily Democratic region of Texas where San Antonio is located — demanding that officials there strongly reconsider sending out the applications. In the letter, Paxton expressed concerns that such an unsolicited application “potentially confuses residents” about their eligibility to vote and may even convince some unscrupulous ineligible residents to circumvent state and federal law and “provide false information” that would allow them to register to vote.

‘The target of the mailing — qualified individuals who recently moved to or within Bexar County — have received those forms, and perhaps have already returned them.’

“Either way, it is illegal, and if you move forward with this proposal, I will use all available legal means to stop you,” Paxton warned.

The warning apparently fell on deaf ears.

On September 3, the commissioners court in Bexar County voted 3-1-1 in favor of sending out approximately 210,000 voter registration applications. The voter registrar gave the lone “no” vote.

WOAI indicated that only “eligible” residents of Bexar County would receive the applications, though the outlet did not clarify how such unregistered “eligible” voters had been identified.

County officials did not mail out the applications themselves but instead shelled out nearly $400,000 to have Civic Government Solutions do so on their behalf.

Civic Government Solutions is a self-described “nonpartisan company,” though domain information associated with its website, civicgs.com, appears to be directly linked to Civitech, according to Texas Scorecard. On its website, Civitech brags that it is a political outreach company “trusted by Democratic and progressive leaders.”

Paxton filed suit against Bexar County the following day, and his attorneys argued in court that county officials lacked the authority to approve the mass mailings and that they failed to consider competitive bids from other organizations besides Civic Government Solutions.

At a hearing on Monday, Bexar County Assistant Criminal District Attorney Robert Piatt noted that “the target of the mailing — qualified individuals who recently moved to or within Bexar County — have received those forms, and perhaps have already returned them.”

Judge Antonia Arteaga was apparently persuaded by the defense’s case, ruling that Paxton’s lawsuit was moot since the applications had already been sent.

“Our position from the very beginning was that the commissioners had every right to do what they did, and we are very pleased with the judge’s ruling today,” said Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales, according to CNN.

Gonzales also indicated that Paxton’s attorneys had not shown up for a previous hearing about the issue, prompting Bexar County to proceed with the mailings.

A spokesperson for Paxton confirmed to Blaze News that the attorney general has already filed an appeal of Judge Arteaga’s ruling.

“In a display of bad faith, Bexar County engaged in dirty tricks to avoid appropriate judicial review of a clearly unlawful program that invites voter fraud,” Paxton said in a statement. “These actions demonstrate that Bexar County knew what they were doing was wrong, yet expedited the mailout of unsolicited registration forms before the issue could be argued in court. I will fight every step of the way to hold them accountable.”

Paxton has filed a similar lawsuit against Travis County, home of the capital city of Austin. Harris County, where Houston is located, considered sending out voter registration applications en masse but ultimately decided against it.

In response to Blaze News’ request for comment, marketing Vice President Tracy Davis denied that Civic Government Solutions had partnered with any partisan group. She also described the controversy surrounding the mass mailing “concerning.”

“At Civic Government Solutions, we are committed to ensuring that every eligible voter has the opportunity to register — an essential investment in the future of our state and nation. As a nonpartisan company, our focus is solely on identifying and assisting unregistered individuals. We do not use demographic, political, or any other criteria; we simply segment eligible records based on county and registration status,” Davis said.

In response to Blaze News’ question about a possible connection between Civic Government Solutions and Civitech, Davis said: “CGS is a subsidiary of Civitech, but has its own bylaws, operating procedures, etc.”

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