HOUSTON, TX - The 2012 election will be the first in
30 years where the country will see a large organized presence dedicated
to the integrity of votes cast, all thanks to voter integrity group
True the Vote.
During the 2008 election cycle, Catherine Engelbrecht volunteered at
the polls in Harris County, the second largest voting block in Texas.
She noticed that although she was there with a small group of people to
observe, Harris County had a poll watcher shortage of at least 50
percent. There weren’t enough people observing the election process to
prevent fraud. Shortly after her experiences at the polls, Harris County
authorities found 23,000 invalid voter registration forms that had been
submitted by an ACORN operative. It was then that Engelbrecht founded
True the Vote, where she now serves as president. The mission of True
the Vote is simple: prevent voter fraud and uphold the law.
“We recognized there was a problem,” Engelbrecht tells Townhall. “There
are raging debates about Cap and Trade and healthcare and you name it,
but if the election process isn’t trustworthy, if it’s not reliable,
then you know what does any of it really matter? It’s a scary thought to
think about how tenuous, how fragile the process really is but it was
so clear that something was not right and the quickest fix was to remind
citizens that voting was not enough.”
Engelbrecht and True the Vote volunteers quickly started to identify
how citizens could get further involved with the election process by
looking at the process as a whole. Poll watching was an easy way to get a
large amount of people involved in the election process.
“What got my attention is the simple fact that this where it all
starts. If we cannot freely and fairly elect our representatives,
nothing from there goes the way the citizens of the country want it to
go, that’s the beginning,” True the Vote volunteer Joni Carlisle, who
uses vacation time to help the organization 14 hours a day, tells
Townhall. “We’re making a huge difference.”
By Election Day 2010, True the Vote had trained 1,000 poll watchers who
could be used by election officials to observe polling stations in
Harris County. Training of everyday citizens was then expanded across
the country to further prevent voter fraud.
“We didn’t look for it to be a national thing, we just thought, ‘We see
a problem and we need to fix it,’” Engelbrecht says. “We really decided
we would become the boutique provider of in depth, real life training
opportunities and it seemed to resonate across the country in ways that
we could have never imagined.”
Bill Ouren started volunteering with True the Vote in January 2010 and
is now the National Elections Director. His job is to connect citizens
with their desire to ensure the freedom and fairness of elections.
“I was looking for something positive, something I thought would make a
difference. There is nothing more fundamental to our democracy than our
vote and the freedom and the integrity that surrounds that vote and it
just appealed to me individually,” Ouren tells Townhall.
But what is a poll watcher or election observer? And is it effective?
The fact is, poll watching is a time honored tradition dating back to
the women’s suffrage movement and served as an important part of the
Civil Rights movement. The NAACP used to support election observation
because it keeps the process honest and ensures all voters are treated
fairly. Poll watchers watch the election process to protect the rights
of the voters. They do not watch the voters, they watch the process.
“They [poll watchers] are they eyes and ears of the Republic. They are
not to talk to voters, they are to observe and report and they do that
on behalf of the stakeholders they represent which is typically a party
or a candidate or an issue on the ballot or in some cases like in
Wisconsin, poll watchers can be self appointed citizens,” Engelbrecht
says. “Observation changes things. Frankly, people want to do the right
thing but it’s human nature to cut corners and you cut and you cut and
you cut and before long you get to where we are and in many places
across this country where the process isn’t even recognizable.”
Today, the NAACP, ACLU, SEIU, AFL-CIO, major media outlets and other
far Left groups launch regular attacks on True the Vote and its
volunteers, despite the organization's efforts to prevent voter fraud
being non-partisan.
“They must be looking to protect some system of subversion that they’ve
protected under the dark of night and they don’t want it to be
exposed,” Engelbrecht says. “It’s stunning to hear these groups just
deny vote fraud even exists. There’s every evidence to the contrary.
It’s a known fact that it exists but yet they refuse to speak the
truth.”
The catalyst for expanding from being a local group in Texas to a
national organization according to Engelbrecht, was attacks by the Left
because they gave True the Vote a new platform.
“Because of that platform, people from across the country began to
contact us and say, ‘Hey that’s what you guys are seeing? That’s what
we’re seeing too. Can we work together?’” Engelbrecht says. “Although
there are many groups that want to continue to paint us into a corner,
the fact is our message is one for all Americans."
Heading into Election Day 2012, True the Vote has trained thousands of
people in 50 states to legally poll watch. Christian Adams, a former
Department of Justice Attorney, New Black Panther Party voter
intimidation case whistleblower and author says this is exactly why the
Left is going “berserk.”
“I know this, there will be less crime in the election this year than
there was in 2008,” Adams said. “There will be less crime nationwide
than there was in 2008 because True the Vote is on the ground and that
is something they deserve a great deal of thanks for.”
The True the Vote program is set up so that on Election Day in addition
to volunteers conducting observations at the polls, they submit
incident reports. This gives True the Vote evidence that can later be
looked at, studied and used to reform broken parts in the election
system to prevent fraud in future elections.
“This is not a press to go through the 2012 election,” Ouren says. “We
have come a long way in two years, we will go probably that much further
in another two years. We’re going to continue what we’ve been doing.”
There’s no doubt True the Vote has had an impact.
“I think we’ve changed the national debate. I think we’ve brought focus
to an issue that’s been a dirty little secret of both parties for an
awfully long time that everybody worries about after the election for
few days and then everybody gets on with their business and it never
fixes itself. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished,” Engelbrecht says.
“We are doing the right thing.”
Sunday night, hundreds of volunteers gathered one last time at True the
Vote headquarters before heading into Tuesday’s election. After four
years of attacks and smears, they’re ready to use their training to keep
our elections clean.
“We are responding as best as we know how as good stewards for our
country. It’s been an amazing privilege to be part of a movement born of
nothing, born of an inspiration that didn’t exist prior in this way and
be part of what I think is historic,” Engelbrecht says.
