Wednesday, July 30

The anti-voting group United Sovereign Americans is back, now known as Unite4Freedom, and they claim to be filing two bombshell lawsuits in New York and Colorado. Plus, an update on Tina Peters and a Colorado conspiracy theorist who lost his election and later allegedly set fire to voting machines. 

As always, thanks for reading. 

— Matt Cohen, Senior Reporter

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United Sovereign Americans Is Now Unite4Freedom And They’re Still Filing Conspiracy-Driven Lawsuits

In spring 2024, a radical new anti-voting group emerged seemingly out of nowhere to try to disrupt the election with a slew of lawsuits challenging the accuracy of states’ voter rolls across the country. 

None of their lawsuits were successful, but the group nonetheless continued to build a grassroots anti-voting movement through their online weekly seminars, which still draw thousands of participants across the country. Now, United Sovereign Americans is back — rebranded as Unite4Freedom — with a pair of federal lawsuits they claim to be filing in New York and Colorado to expose mass election conspiracies. 

In a press release, Unite4Freedom CEO Marly Hornik said her group is suing New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), the New York State Board of Elections and various New York media outlets “for a conspiracy to deprive citizens of the right to verify their votes and to intimidate voters.”

“Ten days after these officials were advised of massive election irregularities extracted from the state’s certified election returns, they went on the warpath against the messengers in an 18-month criminal investigation splashed on the front cover of every newspaper from Montauk to Buffalo and across the country,” Hornik said in a statement.

Unite4Freedom is also suing Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) and Attorney General Phil Weiser (D) “for depriving Colorado citizens of the right to vote by their failure to properly identify voters before counting their ballots, as proven by their own official records, diluting valid votes, ignoring Colorado state laws, and making a mockery of our founding principles,” Hornik said.

While the lawsuit is not directly tied to Tina Peters — the former GOP local election clerk in Colorado who was sentenced to prison for her role in a voting system data breach in a failed attempt to find voter fraud — Hornik nonetheless invoked her. 

“To avoid scrutiny, these same officials targeted a Gold Star mother and whistleblower, Tina Peters, former Mesa County Clerk and had her put in prison for her attempts to secure records of the 2020 election according to her duties under federal law,” Hornik said in a statement.

I wrote a lot on Hornik and her group last year — of the many anti-voting groups that worked overtime to push disinformation and purge voters, they were one of the most ambitious. Yet they were also one of the least successful in court. So I’m a little surprised to see them come back with a pair of high-profile lawsuits — it’s not cheap to sue! 

And I’m curious to see what new (or recycled) disinformation narratives they’re pushing in these New York and Colorado lawsuits. But as of press time, the lawsuits have yet to be filed on the docket.

Last week, Hornik and Unite4Freedom held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. to announce the lawsuits. While she didn’t offer more details, she did take the opportunity to rant about the lawsuits’ targets.

“We’re suing the officials who have shown us, through their own choices, that they don’t care about America,” Hornik said. “Letitia James, the New York State Board of Elections, the New York media, Jena Griswold and Phil Weiser — they have all shown us who they are. And it’s done. They’re not going to help. They’re not going to come in and be part of the solution. They are the problem, and that’s why we are calling them into federal court.”

Tina Peters’ Lawyer Is In Touch With the DOJ

Speaking of Peters, a quick update: A federal magistrate judge heard Peters’ request to be released on bond last week, but has not yet reached a recommendation on her petition. 

Peters was sentenced to nine years in prison in October for her role in a voting system data breach, in a failed attempt to find voter fraud. Since then, President Donald Trump has ordered the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to “secure her release.” She was convicted on state charges, so it’s unclear what, exactly, the DOJ can do.

Nonetheless, Peters has become something of a folk hero among the MAGA and election conspiracy crowd. Her legal team appealed her conviction, and while that was happening, her attorneys filed a federal habeas corpus petition for her to be released on bond — the subject of last week’s hearing.  

There’s not much news to come out of that hearing except a confirmation from Peters’ attorney Peter Ticktin that he’s in contact with the DOJ, according to Colorado Newsline. 

“I’ve basically been letting people at the DOJ understand what our situation is, or her situation is, and remember, the president of the United States basically called for her immediate release and has made it very clear that she’s a political prisoner,” Ticktin said.

Again, since this is a state charge, there’s not a whole lot the DOJ can do, but the fact the DOJ — and Trump — are watching Peters’ situation so closely is nonetheless interesting.

A Colorado conspiracy theorist lost his election. Then he allegedly set fire to voting machines

I don’t mean to focus so much on Colorado in this week’s newsletter, but there just seems to be a lot of alarming things happening in the far-right anti-voting space in the Centennial State lately. 

Last month, William Wayne Bryant was arrested for allegedly throwing a molotov cocktail in a county building in Pagosa Springs, damaging Dominion Voting Systems equipment in the county clerk’s office. 

Though authorities haven’t provided a motive for the attack, according to the Associated Press a lot has come out about Bryant that speaks for itself. He ran an unsuccessful campaign for county sheriff in 2022, and blamed Dominion voting machines for his election loss, citing debunked conspiracies from the film 2,000 Mules, whose director, conspiracy theorist Dinesh D’Souza, later apologized for presenting false information. Bryant’s social media pages are reportedly filled with election disinformation and conspiracies related to the 2020 election. 

“It is appalling that a Colorado elections office was firebombed, and even more so that the suspect has a history of spreading election conspiracies,” Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) said in a statement. “Attacks on democratic institutions must be strongly condemned.” 

It’s been five years since the 2020 election and the flood of conspiracy theories and disinformation that Trump and his acolytes unleashed in the aftermath. Even after winning the 2024 election, Trump and the MAGA world have yet to let go of the Big Lie — especially as the Epstein scandal worsens, and Trump reignites 2020 conspiracies as a distraction.

But it’s important to remember why these conspiracy theories are so dangerous: For one thing, because they can, and often do, lead to violence. The deadly riot on Jan. 6, 2021 is still fresh in everyone’s mind, but there’s been a steady uptick in threats and incidents like this one in Colorado in the past five years. And seeing news like this is a sobering reminder.