Last year, her Election Integrity Network corralled thousands of activists to act as poll watchers and monitors in midterm elections. Now, Ms. Mitchell is working to turn those people into an enduring base of activists lobbying state lawmakers.
Ms. Mitchell’s network convenes regular meetings of lawyers, policy advocates, political operatives and state-level activists, some of whom promote the most far-fetched theories about hacked voting machines.
The coalition draws from a list of well-funded advocacy groups: the Honest Elections Project, which is backed by the 85 Fund, a nonprofit affiliated with the conservative activist Leonard Leo; the Election Transparency Initiative, a project tied to Richard Uihlein, a shipping supply magnate and Republican megadonor; and the Foundation for Government Accountability, which has received funding from both the 85 Fund and Mr. Uihlein’s foundation.
“The conservative side of the spectrum is largely playing catch up to the left, which has had an extremely well-organized, well-funded effort to push their progressive voting policies,” said Jason Snead, the executive director of the Honest Elections Project.
Ms. Mitchell’s priorities for the group include a mix of longtime proposals, such as ending same-day voter registration, and more recent fixations, like shortening early voting and prohibiting election offices from accepting private donations, known in some circles as Zuckerbucks, after the grants a nonprofit backed by Mark Zuckerberg gave to local election offices in 2020.
Some proposals buy into election conspiracy theories, such as pressing state election officials to withdraw from a once-obscure multistate database of voter roll information.
The database, known as ERIC, was long considered an important security tool and enjoyed widespread bipartisan support. But after theories spread claiming the system was part of a liberal plot to steal elections, activists in Ms. Mitchell’s network and others lobbied Republicans to turn against it.
