New Election Integrity Hearing!



[INSIDE JW]

Records Reveal 583 Foreign Nationals Registered to Vote in Washington,
DC

[[link removed]]
According to federal law
[[link removed]],
only U.S. citizens
can vote in federal elections, but a growing number of state and local
elections allow
[[link removed]]
non-citizens to vote. Among them are San Francisco and Oakland,
California, along with some cities in Maryland and Vermont. In
February, a state appeals court ruled a similar New York City law
violates the state constitution.

In May 2024, we received records
[[link removed]]
from the District of Columbia, explaining to illegal aliens and other
noncitizens how they can register to vote in local elections.
Now we have a better picture of voters in your nation’s capital.

We received records showing that as of June 583 foreign nationals are
registered to vote in Washington, DC. The records from the Board of
Elections
[[link removed]]
also confirm that noncitizens can
be election workers.

We received the documents in response to a May 14, 2024, Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) request for records regarding the number of
noncitizens registered to vote in Washington, DC, under the Local
Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act.

In 2022 the DC Council amended
[[link removed].]
the District of Columbia Election Code of 1955 “to expand the
definition of the term qualified elector for the purpose of local
elections to include otherwise eligible non-citizen residents.” The
act went into effect in 2023 and allows noncitizens to vote in local
elections for positions including mayor, attorney general, city
council member, State Board of Education member or Advisory
Neighborhood Commission member. Non-citizens can also vote on local
referendums, ballot initiatives and recalls.

An analysis of DC voter registration records made available to us
shows that on June 13, 2024, the makeup of registered voters in DC
was:

* Total Voters: 457,302
* US Citizens: 456,719
* Foreign Nationals: 583
* Democrats: 353,048
* Republican: 23,482
* No Party Affiliation: 73,760
* Other: 7,012

DC records also show that noncitizens can work at the polls
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if they are:

* A DC resident
* At least 16 years of age
* Attend or has graduated from a public or private secondary school
or institution of higher education
* Are able to speak English

The records describe a virtual town hall meeting on April 30, 2024,
that explains voting
[[link removed]]
to noncitizens (previously disclosed by Judicial Watch). Among the
topics:

* What offices can non-citizens vote for? Which ones can they not
vote for?
* Voter Registration and Voter Rights/Responsibilities
* How does voter registration work? Steps and options on how to
register to vote.
* What kind of language access resources does DCBOE provide for
voter registration?
* Ballots: show a sample
* Language Access
* General language access overview
* Election Day resources for Language Access: what does the DCBOE
[Board of Elections] provide?
* Election must knows
* Important dates and deadlines including ballots mailed, voter
registration, party affiliation, Early Voting hours, and Primary
Election Day

The records we obtained include a Board of Elections meeting
transcript
[[link removed]]
that explains that noncitizens are not required to have an ID to vote.
If they do not have proof of residence when they go to register to
vote or vote for the first time they can still vote by “Special
Ballot.” Also, prisoners are also welcome to vote, according to a
“Voting Guide for Incarcerated Residents
[[link removed]


> As a District of Columbia resident, you have the right to vote, even
> if you are incarcerated.
>
> Even if you are in a correctional facility outside of the District
> of Columbia, if you are registered, you do not lose your residency
> status and you have the right to vote.
> Once you are properly registered, you will be mailed a ballot prior
> to any District of Columbia election for which you are eligible.
>
> If your ballot was mailed to your place of incarceration and you
> were released prior to receiving it, you can still vote at any Vote
> Center during Early Voting or on Election Day.
The fact that over 500 foreign nationals can vote in local elections
in Washington, DC, is a national scandal and an insult to every
American citizen. Congress can and must stop this attack on the voting
rights of citizens.


HEARING HELD IN SUIT OVER MISSISSIPPI POST-ELECTION DAY ABSENTEE
BALLOT COUNTING

Federal law requires an Election Day, not an “Election Week.” This
week we continued our challenge of a Mississippi election law
permitting absentee ballots to be received as late as five business
days after Election Day. That’s illegal, violates the civil rights
of voters, and encourages fraud.

A federal court hearing
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was held before Judge Louis Guirola, Jr., in the U.S. District Court
for the Southern District of Mississippi, Southern Division.

In February of this year, we filed a civil rights lawsuit
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on
behalf of the Libertarian Party of Mississippi (_Libertarian Party of
Mississippi v Wetzel et al_
[[link removed]].
[[link removed]]
(No. 1:24-cv-00037)). The court consolidated the case we filed with
one filed by the Republican National Committee, the Mississippi
Republican Party, and other complainants.

Our lawsuit details:

> Under federal law, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in
> November of every even-numbered year is election day (“Election
> Day”) for federal elections.
>
> Congress recently reaffirmed a single national Election Day when it
> enacted the Electoral Count Reform Act (“ECRA”).
>
> Under the recent Congressional amendments, no extension of Election
> Day shall be allowed unless there are “_force majeure_ events that
> are extraordinary and catastrophic” that justify extension.
>
> Despite Congress’ unambiguous and longstanding statement regarding
> a single and uniform national Election Day, Mississippi extended
> Election Day by allowing five additional business days after
> Election Day for receipt of absentee ballots.
>
> No “_force majeure_ events that are extraordinary and
> catastrophic” currently exist in Mississippi to justify extending
> the ballot receipt deadline for the November 5, 2024 federal
> election for Presidential and Vice-Presential Electors.
We argue that holding voting open for five days past Election Day
violates the constitutional rights of voters and candidates:

> Counting untimely, illegal, and invalid votes, such as those
> received in violation of federal law, substantially increases the
> pool of total votes cast and dilutes the weight of votes cast by
> Plaintiff’s members and others in support of Plaintiff’s federal
> nominees.
Our complaint points out that, based on the reported numbers
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as many as 1.7% of votes cast in Mississippi in 2020 were received
after Election Day.

In 2022, on behalf of Congressman Mike Bost and two other registered
voters, we sued
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Illinois to prevent vote-by-mail ballots (even those without
postmarks) to be counted if received up to 14 calendar days after
Election Day, if the ballots are dated on or before Election Day. The
case is now on appeal
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We are a national leader in voting integrity and voting rights. As
part of our work, we assembled a team of highly experienced voting
rights attorneys who stopped discriminatory elections in Hawaii, and
cleaned up voter rolls in California, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky,
among other achievements
[[link removed]].

Robert Popper, a Judicial Watch senior attorney, leads its election
law program. Popper was previously in the Voting Section of the Civil
Rights Division of the Justice Department, where he managed voting
rights investigations, litigations, consent decrees, and settlements
in dozens of states.

In December 2023, notice letters
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were sent to election officials in the District of Columbia,
California, and Illinois, notifying them of evident violations of the
National Voter Registration Act
[[link removed]]
(NVRA) of 1993, based on their failure to remove inactive voters from
their registration rolls. The letters point out that these
jurisdictions publicly reported removing few or no ineligible voter
registrations under a key provision of the NVRA. The letters
threatened federal lawsuits unless the violations were corrected in a
timely fashion. In response to Judicial Watch’s inquiries,
Washington, DC, officials admitted that they had not complied with the
NVRA, promptly removed 65,544 outdated names from the voting rolls,
promised to remove 37,962 more, and designated another 73,522
registrations as “inactive.” NVRA lawsuits subsequently were
commenced against California
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and
Illinois
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In July 2023 we filed
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an
_amicus curiae_ (friend of the court) brief
[[link removed]],
supporting the decision
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of
the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine, which struck down
Maine’s policy restricting the use and distribution of the state’s
voter registration list (_Public Interest Legal Foundation v. Shenna
Bellows_
[[link removed]]
(No.
23-1361). According to a national study
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conducted by Judicial Watch in 2020, Maine’s statewide registration
rate was 101% of eligible voters.

In July 2023 we settled
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a
federal election integrity lawsuit on behalf of the Illinois
Conservative Union against the state of Illinois, the Illinois State
Board of Elections, and its director, which now grants access to the
current centralized statewide list of registered voters for the state
for the past 15 elections.

In April 2023, Pennsylvania settled
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with us and admitted in court filings that it removed 178,258
ineligible registrations in response to communications from us. The
settlement commits Pennsylvania and five of its counties to extensive
public reporting of statistics regarding their ongoing voter roll
clean-up efforts for the next five years.

In March 2023, Colorado agreed
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to settle our NVRA lawsuit alleging that Colorado failed to remove
ineligible voters from its rolls. The settlement agreement requires
Colorado to provide us with the most recent voter roll data for each
Colorado county each year for six years.

In February 2023, Los Angeles County confirmed
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the removal of 1,207,613 ineligible voters from its rolls since last
year, under the terms of a settlement agreement
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in a federal lawsuit
[[link removed]]
we filed in 2017.

We settled
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a federal election integrity lawsuit against New York City after the
city removed 441,083 ineligible names from the voter rolls and
promised to take reasonable steps going forward to clean its voter
registration lists.

Kentucky
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also removed hundreds of thousands of old registrations after it
entered into a consent decree to end another Judicial Watch lawsuit.

In February 2022, we settled
[[link removed]]
a
voter roll clean-up lawsuit against North Carolina and two of its
counties after North Carolina removed over 430,000 inactive
registrations from its voter rolls.

In March 2022, a Maryland court ruled in favor
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of our challenge to the Democratic state legislature’s “extreme”
congressional-districts gerrymander.


JUDICIAL WATCH SUES FOR JANUARY 6 DC POLICE BODYCAM VIDEOS

Our investigation of January 6 continues.

We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit
[[link removed]]
against the District of Columbia for all bodycam footage captured by
Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Officer Michael Fanone and all
audio/video captured by MPD officers who responded to the protest at
the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 (
[[link removed]
Watch v. District of Columbia_
[[link removed]
_(No. 2024-CAB-003453)).

We filed suit after the Metropolitan Police Department denied our
August 2021 request for:

> All audio/video recordings captured on body-worn cameras from MPD
> officers during their response to protest activities in and around
> the Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021.
>
> All body worn camera video captured by Washington, DC, Metropolitan
> Police Officer Michael Fanone when responding to protests at the
> Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021.
The DC Metro Police rejected our request because the videos are
“part of an ongoing investigation and criminal proceeding” and
their release would result in an “invasion of privacy.”

We appealed the denial, stating, “[T]he records in question are of
great public interest, which outweighs any asserted privacy interests.
Furthermore, the assertion of an ongoing criminal investigation does
not preclude the release of the requested video, as police body-worn
camera video is routinely released pending the conclusion of law
enforcement proceedings.”

The Metropolitan Police acknowledged receipt of the appeal but did not
respond further.

In May 2021, CNN claimed to have received “exclusive footage
[[link removed]
of DC Metropolitan Police Officer Fanone being “assaulted while
defending the U.S. Capitol” during the protest on January 6, 2021,
which it subsequently aired.

In July 2021, Fanone gave testimony
[[link removed]]
to a House Select Committee in which he stated, “My body camera
captured the violence of the crowd directed toward me during those
very frightening moments. It’s an important part of the record for
this Committee’s investigation and for the country’s understanding
of how I was assaulted and nearly killed as the mob attacked the
Capitol that day, and I hope that everyone will be able to watch
it.”

Fanone, then 41, retired
[[link removed]]
from the police at the end of 2021 and went on to write a book
[[link removed]]
and become a contributor
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for CNN.

The American people deserve the full picture from the incident at the
Capitol on January 6, 2021. What are they hiding? The DC Metropolitan
Police Department should be transparent and release these secret
January 6 videos.

We are extensively investigating the events of January 6.

In February 2021, we filed a lawsuit
[[link removed]]
under the
common law right of access to public records against the U.S. Capitol
Police for emails and videos concerning the January 6, 2021, protest
at the Capitol.

In April 2024, we received records
[[link removed]]
from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in a Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA) lawsuit, showing that the FBI opened a criminal
investigation of Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt after her killing and
listed four “potential violations of federal law,” including
felony rioting and civil disorder.

In January 2024, we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit
[[link removed]]
on
behalf of Aaron Babbitt and the Ashli Babbitt Estate against the U.S.
Department of Justice for all FBI files on Ashli Babbitt.

In September 2023, we received records
[[link removed]]
from
the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, a component of the
Department of Justice, in a FOIA lawsuit that detailed the extensive
apparatus the Biden Justice Department set up to investigate and
prosecute January 6 protestors.

A previous review of records
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from that lawsuit highlighted the prosecution declination memorandum
[[link removed]]
documenting the decision not to prosecute U.S. Capitol Police Lt.
Michael Byrd for the shooting death of Babbitt.

In January 2023, documents
[[link removed]]
from the Department of the Air Force, Joint Base Andrews, MD, showed
U.S. Capitol Police Lieutenant Michael Byrd was housed at taxpayer
expense at Joint Base Andrews after he shot and killed U.S. Air Force
veteran Ashli Babbitt inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

In November 2021, we released
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multiple audio
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visual
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and photo records
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from the DC Metropolitan Police Department about the shooting death of
Babbitt on January 6, 2021, in the U.S. Capitol Building. The records
included a cell phone video
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of the shooting and an audio of a brief police interview of the
shooter, Byrd.

In October 2021, United States Park Police records
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related to the January 6, 2021, demonstrations at the U.S. Capitol
showed that on the day before the January 6 rally featuring President
Trump, U.S. Park Police expected a “large portion” of the
attendees to march to the U.S. Capitol and that the FBI was monitoring
the January 6 demonstrations, including travel to the events by
“subjects of interest.”

JUDICIAL WATCH SUES TREASURY DEPT. FOR FOREIGN PURCHASES OF U.S.
FARMLAND RECORDS

Chinese and other foreign purchases of U.S. farmland could pose a
significant threat to U.S. national security. That the Biden
administration is hiding records about this concerning issue is not
reassuring.

We’re acting. We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit
[[link removed]]
against the U.S. Department of Treasury for records of communication
between the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States
(CFIUS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regarding the
purchase of U.S. farmland by foreign entities (_Judicial Watch v. U.S.
Department of the Treasury_
[[link removed]
_(No. 1:24-cv-01811)).

We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after
the Treasury Department failed to respond to an April 10, 2024, FOIA
request for:

> Any and all records of communications between the Committee on
> Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and the U.S.
> Department of Agriculture concerning, regarding, or relating to the
> purchase of U.S. agricultural real estate by foreign entities.
On January 19, 2024, the Government Accountability Office (GAO)
released a report
[[link removed]]
which
found significant gaps in information collection and timely
information sharing between the Committee on Foreign Investment and
other government agencies, including the USDA, concerning foreign
investment in U.S. agricultural land.

The GAO report concludes:

> Recent national security risks related to foreign investments in
> U.S. agricultural land have highlighted the importance of CFIUS’s
> reviews. CFIUS is the main authority to address the national
> security ramifications of foreign investment in the United States,
> according to Treasury and DOD officials. However, we found that
> CFIUS does not currently have regular and timely access to detailed
> AFIDA [Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act] information,
> the nation’s most comprehensive data on foreign investments in
> U.S. agricultural land, according to USDA officials.
For example, according to a Fox News report
[[link removed]],
in February 2023, the city council in Grand Forks, North Dakota, voted
unanimously to strike down Chinese-owned food manufacturer Fufeng
Group’s proposed corn mill on 300 acres of farmland it purchased
which is 12 miles from the U.S. Air Force’s Grand Forks base.

In a January 2023 letter
[[link removed]]
to North Dakota’s U.S. senators, Air Force Assistant Secretary
Andrew Hunter pointed to the proposed corn mill's proximity to Grand
Forks Air Force Base as a major risk:
Thank you for meeting with Department of the Air Force representatives
last month regarding the Fufeng Group's proposal to build a large com
milling processing plant approximately 12 miles from Grand Forks Air
Force Base. Based on the briefings provided, you asked for the
Department's view of the national security implications of the Fufeng
Group Limited's proposed activity.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)
considered an October 2022 filing by the Fufeng Group to acquire
certain assets in the vicinity of Grand Forks, North Dakota. Grand
Forks Air Force Base is the center of military activities related to
both air and space operations.

While CFIUS concluded that it did not have jurisdiction, the
Department's view is unambiguous: the proposed project presents a
significant threat to national security with both near- and long-term
risks of significant impacts to our operations in the area.

PACKS OF ‘FIGHTING AGE MALES’ IN MILITARY UNIFORMS ENTERING U.S.

Arizona is beleaguered by illegal aliens pouring across the border,
and we should all be worried about the unvetted people who are being
distributed throughout our country. Our _Corruption Chronicles _blog
has some new troubling details
[[link removed]].


> As the nation’s largest southern border crossings finally receive
> mainstream media coverage years into an unprecedented illegal
> immigration crisis, untold numbers of “fighting age males”
> dressed in military uniforms are entering the United States through
> remote areas with no Border Patrol presence. It is a palpable
> security lapse unlikely to be reported by most news outlets and
> local, federal, and state law enforcement sources have provided
> Judicial Watch with detailed accounts, reports, diagrams, and photos
> of the situation which is terrorizing residents in a once harmonious
> Arizona town just a few miles from Mexico. They blame the Biden
> administration’s catastrophic open border policies for the serious
> problems that have gripped the area in the last few years.
>
> The Santa Cruz and Pima County regions in southwestern Arizona have
> been slammed with extraordinary violence and crime fueled by Mexican
> cartels—smuggling drugs and humans—that are victimizing fourth
> and fifth-generation cattle farmers who have captured thousands of
> illegal immigrants on security cameras passing through their
> property since Joe Biden became president. Sometimes they find dead
> bodies and drug paraphernalia. “Violent activity has drastically
> increased over the past three years since the border is now
> perceived to be wide open,” a veteran law enforcement official
> told Judicial Watch this week, adding that in the communities of
> Amado and Arivaca American citizens feel much less safe than they
> did when Donald Trump was president. Both are cattle ranching towns
> with small populations that are diminishing because of the increased
> violence. Amado is nestled in the Santa Cruz River Valley about 29
> miles from the Mexican border. Arivaca is situated southwest of
> Amado about 11 miles from Nogales, Mexico.
>
> An unmanned Border Patrol checkpoint east of Arivaca worries
> residents deeply, but the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has
> no intention of deploying agents, according to multiple sources. In
> the meantime, law enforcement officials and residents confirm that
> young men are pouring in through the region in what appears to be an
> organized movement operated by Mexican cartels. “They are
> unemployed, the majority are fighting age males and there is a
> strong possibility some have undergone some level of insurgency
> training,” according to a law enforcement source familiar with the
> situation. The groups of men are usually dressed in “camouflage
> military uniforms, indicating a robust and well-funded supply
> network to ensure everyone is outfitted the same,” said an
> intelligence officer with extensive U.S. military training who
> provided Judicial Watch with pictures and graphs of recent
> crossings. The uniformed men also carry camouflaged backpacks and
> wear carpet booties to hide footprint tracks. Large piles of the
> disposed carpet booties litter ranches on the U.S. side, creating a
> hazard for cattle that consume the trash.
>
> One longtime area rancher said that since Biden became president, he
> has recorded over 3,560 illegal immigrants on security cameras on
> his property, a tenfold increase from the previous administration.
> Another said he has not seen a Border Patrol agent for quite a
> while, likely because the frontline Homeland Security agency is
> overwhelmed with the onslaught of migrants in the last few years.
> “They have recommended we not travel to certain areas of our
> ranch, and we never go out there at night,” said the rancher, who
> does not want his name used out of fear for the safety of his
> family. Locals say the violence is causing the already small
> population of Arivaca to dwindle quickly. A few years ago, the town
> had 1,200 residents and now there are approximately 600. Authorities
> say those who leave are mostly relocating north to Green Valley,
> about 35 miles away, or Tucson which is around 60 miles away. The
> area has become so dangerous that the U.S. Forest Service told a
> rancher it would no longer travel there to monitor enclosure areas
> established to oversee endangered species.
>
> The continuous stream of trash and human waste left behind by the
> staggering flow of migrants and smugglers has also devastated the
> local environment and livestock. Besides large piles of discarded
> carpet booties, mounds of plastic waste are having a detrimental
> effect on cattle because they eat it and become ill, ranchers said.
> Many also die after ingesting traces of drugs found in wrappings
> left behind by smugglers. To help illustrate how porous the border
> is in this region, one rancher said Mexican cattle regularly cruise
> into the U.S. side, creating a major risk of introducing illnesses
> to American cattle that, although inoculated, may be vulnerable to
> new strains and diseases that may prevail south of the border. “We
> removed 120 Mexican cattle over the past six months,” said a
> veteran rancher, who explained that it is a lot of extra work to
> keep the foreign livestock from mingling with local cattle to
> prevent unsafe beef being distributed throughout the U.S. food
> industry.
>
> If Biden gets reelected the situation will likely worsen, say law
> enforcement officials and residents in the remote Arizona region.
> Other small towns are also suffering from the impact of this
> administration’s flagrant open border policies. Just a few months
> ago Judicial Watch wrote
>
[[link removed]]
>
[[link removed]
> another once tranquil border region that has been devastated by
> illegal immigration and drug smuggling. It is situated in Cochise
> County to the east of Amado and Arivaca in the picturesque Sonoran
> Desert surrounded by the scenic Huachuca Mountains. Human and drug
> traffickers regularly evade a meager force of Border Patrol agents
> in the mountainous region and local law enforcement officials say
> the addition of the new “American smuggler,” U.S. citizens,
> predominantly young adults from Phoenix and Tucson recruited by
> Mexican cartels through social media, has created deadly
> consequences in the communities where the American recruits often
> travel at dangerously high speeds through local roads and highways.

Until next week,





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