“If even one vote has been illegally cast, or if the integrity of just one election
official is compromised, it diminishes faith in the process.”
– U.S. Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams
Welcome to the Pigpen Project
In Nevada, there’s a new reality when it comes to elections.
In the 2021 legislative session, universal mail-in balloting was passed and “ballot harvesting” was permanently legalized. You don’t have to be a “conspiracy nut” to recognize that these changes have made it easier to cheat and harder to catch.
In fact, of the 120,000+ examples of alleged voting fraud the Nevada Republican Party claimed following the 2020 presidential election, only ONE was actually documented and prosecuted.
While there are many problems and legitimate concerns about the new system, none are bigger than the fact that so many voters remain on the “Active” voter list who shouldn’t be – including deceased voters and voters who no longer live where they’re registered.
Ken Kurson, writing in the Nevada Globe in December 2021, noted that “Nevada ranks second to last in election integrity per a survey conducted by The Heritage Foundation.” In the survey, Nevada scored only “16 out of 30 for accuracy of its voter registration lists.”
Fact is, the only way to reasonably secure the integrity of our elections is clean up our “dirty” voting rolls and remove dead voters and voters who don’t live at the address where mail-in ballots are sent BEFORE the election, not after.
That’s the goal of the Pigpen Project.
Named after the Charlie Brown comic character who always walked around with a cloud of dirt and dust following him, the Pigpen Project is focused on cleaning up the voter rolls in Nevada by removing ineligible voters from the “Active” voting list to block them from automatically receiving a mail-in ballot that could be used to cast a fraudulent vote.
“This is a simple strategy that is not glamorous,” wrote Mac Madden in American Thinker in December 2022, “which is why nobody talks about it.”
And, as election attorney Cleta Mitchell of the Election Integrity Network points out, such an undertaking “requires engagement and involvement year-round, year in and year out; it is not something to think about only the 30 days before an election.”
In addition, this is NOT a partisan issue. “The election system must be trusted by the people as fair and honest,” Mitchell writes, “giving neither side, no candidate, and no political party an advantage.”
As such, the Pigpen Project is a project of Citizen Outreach Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Donations are tax deductible.
Chuck Muth
President
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Pigpen Project was launched in January 2023 and is a project of Citizen Outreach Foundation (COF), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Since the project is non-partisan in nature, financial support is tax-deductible.
The primary objectives for 2023-24 will be to identify suspected ineligible voters on Nevada’s voter rolls, confirm and document their ineligibility, and work with local and state election officials to remove them from the voter lists so ballots aren’t mailed to individuals who shouldn’t be getting them.
As a “swing” state in national elections, the Pigpen Project intends to not only better secure elections in Nevada, but also serve as a model for cleaning up the voter rolls in the other 49 states, as well.
Political Analysis
Much sound and fury was generated in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election in Nevada, with largely-unsubstantiated claims of voting fraud and allegations of “cheating” and “stealing” elections. This led many voters to conclude their vote wasn’t going to count and, as such, those voters opted not to vote in 2022.
Restoring confidence in the security and accuracy of elections is a key objective of the Pigpen Project. Former U.S. Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams, an Obama appointee, put it best: “If even one vote has been illegally cast, or if the integrity of just one election official is compromised, it diminishes faith in the process.”
Now that Nevada has embraced universal mail-in balloting – where every Active registered voter is automatically mailed a ballot – it’s critical to clean up the voter rolls so that only legally eligible voters are on the mailing list.
Without clean voter lists, the potential for voter fraud increases dramatically. The accuracy of the voter file is of paramount importance. However, the process of cleaning the files is complicated and time consuming…
a.) Nevada is a bottom-up state, which means responsibility for cleaning the voter lists starts at the county level, with the data then sent up to the Secretary of State’s office.
b.) Federal law specifies certain procedures that must be followed before someone is moved from the “Active” voter file to the “Inactive” file, in addition to permanently removing someone from the list altogether.
c.) Currently, the process for removing voters from the “Active” file is based on mail being returned to the county elections office by the post office after a notice is sent. However, this process misses thousands of voters who have died or have permanently moved without notifying the post office.
d.) Because Nevada is such a transient state, with voters moving in and out on a regular basis, the challenge in keeping the voter lists clean and up-to-date is far more difficult. In addition, voter turnout is markedly higher in presidential election cycles, meaning the potential for fraudulent voting will be higher in 2024 than in 2022.
Cleaning the voter lists is not something you can do just 30 days before an election. It’s a year-round project designed to deter potential voting fraud BEFORE an election (“an ounce of prevention”), not after.
Doing so is completely non-partisan. A Republican voter casting a Republican ballot for an ineligible Democrat voter is just as bad as a Democrat voter casting a Democrat ballot for an ineligible Republican voter. The objective is to prevent ANY ballot to ANY ineligible voter from being mailed in the first place.
Reducing the number of wayward ballots from floating around will reduce the potential for voter fraud, which is especially important in “swing” districts – as well as statewide – where voter registration is narrowly divided between competing political parties.
Research
The first step to cleaning the voter lists is to read and understand the various federal, state and county election laws, procedures, and deadlines so that all actions of the Pigpen Project are conducted lawfully and ethically.
That includes researching the laws and rules related to voter registration and list maintenance – including those of the postal service (USPS) – as well as the differing procedures and processes used by local officials to remove invalid registrations in each of the state’s 17 counties.
Regularly obtaining and analyzing the most current, up-to-date, official voter files – the ones the counties use to mail out ballots – is the next step. The Pigpen Project will retain an individual or vendor with experience in database management to obtain, maintain and manipulate the project’s data files.
Research will also be conducted on Election Integrity efforts in other states to learn what’s worked and what hasn’t so as not to “reinvent the wheel.”
Strategy
While there are numerous aspects to election integrity – including ballot harvesting, photo ID, signature verification, poll observation, drop boxes, etc. – the primary focus of the Pigpen Project is to analyze the voter files looking for “red flags” of potentially invalid registrations.
Red flags are anomalies in the list that raise questions about the legitimacy of certain registrations. For example, if we find 13 people, all with different last names, living in the same one-bedroom apartment, that’s a red flag deserving of further investigation.
In addition, we’ll work with vendors who will take the official voter file and match it against various other databases – such as the National Change of Address list or property tax records – looking for anomalies indicating a voter might have moved permanently or has deceased.
Armed with a list of suspicious voter registrations, the Pigpen Project will then seek to obtain actual, usable and verifiable proof that a voter should no longer be included on the “Active” voter file, which means that voter will no longer automatically be sent a mail-in ballot.
In addition, “boots on the ground” field workers of the Registration Verification Task Force (RVTF) will conduct site visits of suspicious registration addresses – such as vacant lots, abandoned houses, commercial addresses, etc. – and provide evidence, including photographs and affidavits, per county requirements, necessary to remove bad registrations from the “Active” voter file.
The project will also monitor new registrations and look for anomalies or patterns indicating suspicious activity.
RVTF workers will be trained to assure that any and all interactions with the public are professional and respectful and conducted in a manner that does not intimidate, accuse or harass any voter.
While any fraudulently-cast ballot disenfranchises legally eligible voters and boosts doubts about the integrity of elections, priority will be given to investigating voter registrations in districts with a history of close elections and/or narrow registration advantages.
The objective of the Pigpen Project is to clean the voter files without partisan bias. As such, no consideration will be given to suspicious registrations based on party affiliation. As the national Election Integrity Network states…
“The election system must be trusted by the people as fair and honest, giving neither side, no candidate, and no political party an advantage.”
Organization
The Pigpen Project is organized as a coalition of individuals, groups and outside entities working together to better secure our elections. Management will include a small executive committee that will allow for quick strategic and operational decision-making.
We’ll maintain a list of contacts for each group and individual working on election integrity issues in Nevada and serve as a platform and clearinghouse for interested parties to collaborate, coordinate and communicate ideas and needs so the left hand knows what the right hand is doing.
Volunteers will be recruited, trained and provided the resources needed to conduct voter registration verifications. Field workers will be trained on laws that protect voters from being harassed, intimidated, or threatened so as not to run afoul of the Department of Justice. We will also work with lawyers and third-party groups when necessary to resolve conflicts in law/administration and file lawsuits as appropriate.
The Pigpen Project will work with anyone who shares the desire to protect the integrity of elections; however, we will not get distracted by personality clashes and petty squabbles. We are laser-focused on getting results, not stroking egos.
Communications
Election integrity efforts have gotten a bad name in Nevada after what the media has labeled as “election deniers” leveled unsubstantiated allegations of election fraud following the 2020 presidential election.
Because election laws are so convoluted and complicated, a lot of misinformation – from both sides – has entered the public conversation and resulted in increased suspicions about the security of our elections.
The Pigpen Project will seek to be a responsible and reliable provider of election integrity information for election officials, members of the media and the voting public. The project has built a dedicated website (pigpenproject.com) and social media sites for this purpose, as well as an email list of individuals interested in or working on this issue.
Members of the project will attend election-related meetings of government bodies and communicate directly with local and state election officials, including the Secretary of State’s office, the Attorney General’s office, state legislators, county commissioners, county clerks and registrars, district attorneys and county sheriffs.
Project leaders will do media interviews, write op-eds and blog posts, and coordinate the submission of letters-to-the-editor from supporters. Subject to funding, the project will consider paid media, including mail, digital ads, TV, radio, newspaper and billboards.
Lastly, the project will set up a dedicated webpage on its website where members of the public will be able to report suspicious registrations and activities for the project to research and investigate. This will put “eyes” on potential invalid registrations that may not be caught in database searches.
Using Tax-Deductible Non-Profits
Writing in The Federalist in December 2022, Victoria Marshall pointed out that the left has been funding 501(c)(3) organizations to do voter registration because “they are 2 to 5 times more cost-effective at netting additional Democratic votes” than advertising.
A 2019 memo from a left-wing super-PAC, Mind the Gap, notes that by targeting “communities of color” in swing states around the country, these left-wing groups expect to add hundreds of thousands of Democrat voters who are likely to vote without much get-out-the-vote encouragement.
And because donations to these non-profits are tax-deductible, funding them is “4 to 10 times more cost-effective than the next best alternative.”
While the left appears to be abusing the use of non-profits for what can arguably be classified as “partisan” activities, cleaning the voting rolls – regardless of party affiliation – is a legitimate activity for 501(c)(3) organizations such as Citizen Outreach Foundation.
Donations to the Pigpen Project can be made to:
Citizen Outreach Foundation
5841 E. Charleston Blvd. #230-253
Mt. Reagan, NV 89142
Or online at: https://citizenoutreach.org
For questions of more information, contact Chuck Muth at (702) 942-3291.
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FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“Fewer than 530,000 voters returned a mail ballot (in Nevada’s 2022 general election). But ballots were sent to almost all of the state’s more than 1.8 million registered voters. You don’t have to claim there’s widespread fraud to point out that 1 million ballots floating around isn’t a best case for election security.” – Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial, 2/3/23