Dear Friend,

My name is James O'Keefe. For fifteen years I have carried a hidden camera into places powerful people would rather I stayed out of, and I want to tell you about the last place it took me.

A United States Senator stood on the Senate floor and made a specific claim about a very small island in Alaska.

She said that if the SAVE Act passes, a fisherman or a teacher living in Unalaska would have to fly 800 miles into Anchorage just to prove American citizenship. She even attached a price to it: eleven hundred dollars a seat, plus a hotel, cabs and food, which adds up to thousands of dollars to cast a single vote.

That is a powerful argument. It is exactly the kind of argument that quietly kills legislation.

Nobody had checked it. So I bought the plane ticket. Watch what I found, then help me buy the next one.

Unalaska sits out in the Aleutian chain, roughly 800 miles off the Alaskan coast. A fishing town, a few thousand people, the middle of absolutely nowhere.

Then I started knocking on doors.

The librarian told me you can register to vote right there at the library, and present your documentary proof of citizenship right there as well. They process passport applications, too.

The DMV, which we did not even know existed on that island, operates inside the public safety building. Bring two documents and you walk out with a state ID, and the very same application asks whether you would like to register to vote.

The post office was blunter than anybody: "Everybody that lives on this island has voter registration cards that we show when we go vote."

Then the city clerk, who seemed to be a genuine admirer of the Senator, confirmed that City Hall remains a polling location even if the SAVE Act becomes federal law.

Four government offices, four identical answers, and nobody has to fly anywhere.

Then I found the detail I cannot stop thinking about.

Remember the fishermen, the people the Senator said she was standing up for? I asked a man down at the harbor how many fishermen actually live in Unalaska. He explained that thousands arrive for the season, and when the season ends, every one of them goes home.

So I walked over and asked the fishermen myself. One was from Houston. Three were from California. One lived in Seattle.

Not a single one of them lived on that island. This is what it looks like when somebody actually goes and checks.

Before anybody tries to turn this into a party fight, let me say it plainly. Senator Murkowski is a Republican, and it makes no difference to me whatsoever. I have done this to Democrats, to Republicans, and to people with no party at all, because the truth does not check your voter registration first.

Her office responded to our video by saying she stands by her concerns, and that it "remains unclear" how these processes would operate under an entirely new federal requirement.

Unclear. I flew 800 miles and asked four government offices, and the whole verification took a single afternoon.

Here is what happened next, and it is the reason I am writing to you.

Days earlier, in that same state, I gave the name of the Senator's own brother at a polling place and said out loud that I had no identification on me. I was told it was "absolutely possible" for me to vote. I did not vote. I did not sign anyone's name. I never touched a ballot. I asked a question and I recorded the answer.

Her office did not announce an investigation or a correction. Her office announced that voter impersonation should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and her state director is now submitting a report against one of my journalists to the Division of Elections and the Department of Law.

Nobody ever rushes to close the hole. They come after the man holding the flashlight.

So let me be honest with you about what this kind of reporting costs.

The Senator said an Unalaska fisherman would have to spend eleven hundred dollars on a plane ticket to prove he is an American citizen. Here is how that turned out: the only person who ever bought that ticket was me.

That is the price of verifying one sentence. The flights, the days on the ground, the equipment, and the attorney who reviewed every frame of that footage before it aired.

We take no money from the government. We answer to no corporate owner. There is no billionaire behind me. Ordinary Americans pay for this work, one gift at a time, and that is the only reason it exists.

America starts voting September 19, when the first federal ballots go out. Every claim we have not checked by then gets voted on anyway.

You cannot fly to Unalaska. I can. That is the arrangement I am offering you. You fund the mission, my team carries the risk, and you see the result with your own eyes.

One more thing, and it genuinely matters.

A federal appeals court in Washington just threw out the jury verdict against me and ruled that undercover reporting like ours is protected by the First Amendment. For fifteen years I have been told that what we do is not really journalism. A court has now said otherwise.

We won the right to keep going. What we need now are the means to go.

Thank you for all that you do, and please . . . stay tuned.

P.S. A United States Senator told the Senate that island voters would have to fly 800 miles and spend thousands of dollars to prove their citizenship. The librarian said no. The DMV said no. The post office said no. The city clerk said no. That entire fact-check took one plane ticket and one honest question, and tickets like that are bought by people like you.