AZ Mirror

he movement to try to catch illegal voting at ballot drop boxes in Arizona, which is spurring complaints and lawsuits alleging voter intimidation, is not the local grassroots effort it appears to be.

This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.

The drop box watchers are part of a coordinated fast-growing national effort with thousands of volunteers who say they want to help try to collect evidence of people illegally depositing others’ ballots during the midterm election, according to a Votebeat review of internal discussions among group organizers, internal contact lists, and posts and videos on right-wing media sites.

One group behind it all: True the Vote, the Texas-based nonprofit organization that has repeatedly promoted debunked conspiracy theories about election fraud via drop boxes. True the Vote created the “2000 Mules” movie claiming widespread “ballot harvesting” at drop boxes, without offering evidence to back up the claims. This new project appears to be an attempt to gather the evidence missing from their first try.

“This is the greatest opportunity for us to catch the cheaters in real time maybe that’s ever existed,” True the Vote’s Gregg Phillips said on a video posted on Rumble.com a few weeks before early voting began in Arizona. “So, we’re excited about it.”