Wealthy donors pour millions into fight over mail-in voting

They reveal vast infrastructure that funnels money from wealthy donors, through philanthropic organizations and political groups, which eventually trickles down to smaller nonprofits, many of which operate under murky circumstances. On the conservative side, organisations including Judicial Watch, the Honest Elections Project, True the Vote and the Public Interest Legal Foundation are litigating cases related to voting procedures across the US.

Deep-pocketed and often anonymous donors are pouring over USD 100 million into an intensifying dispute about whether it should be easier to vote by mail, a fight that could determine President Donald Trump's fate in the November election. In the battleground of Wisconsin, cash-strapped cities have received USD 6.3 million from an organisation with ties to left-wing philanthropy to help expand vote by mail. Meanwhile, a well-funded conservative group best known for its focus on judicial appointments is spending heavily to fight cases related to mail-in balloting procedures in court.

And that's just a small slice of the overall spending, which is likely to swell far higher as the election nears. The massive effort by political parties, super PACs and other organizations to fight over whether Americans can vote by mail is remarkable considering the practice has long been noncontroversial. But the coronavirus is forcing changes to the way states conduct elections and prompting activists across the political spectrum to seek an advantage, recognizing the contest between Trump and Democrat Joe Biden could hinge on whether voters have an alternative to standing in lines at polling places during a public health crisis.

Some groups are even raising money to prepare for election-related violence. "The pandemic has created a state of emergency," said Laleh Ispahani, the US managing director for Open Society, a network of nonprofits founded by billionaire progressive donor George Soros. "Donors who haven't typically taken on these issues now have an interest." How much will be spent is unclear because many of the organizations are nonprofits that won't disclose those details to the IRS until well after the election. Even then, many sources of money will remain unknown because such groups don't have to disclose their donors, commonly referred to as "dark money." Tax filings, business records and campaign finance disclosures offer some clues. They reveal vast infrastructure that funnels money from wealthy donors, through philanthropic organizations and political groups, which eventually trickles down to smaller nonprofits, many of which operate under murky circumstances.

On the conservative side, organisations including Judicial Watch, the Honest Elections Project, True the Vote and the Public Interest Legal Foundation are litigating cases related to voting procedures across the US. A substantial portion of the financing comes from Donors Trust, a nonprofit often referred to as the "dark money ATM" of the conservative movement. The organization helps wealthy patrons invest in causes they care about while sheltering their identities from the public.

In other instances, funding comes from charitable foundations built by the fortunes of Gilded Age industrialists. Litigation is a primary focus. Democrats and good government organisations are pushing to eliminate hurdles to absentee voting, like requiring a witnesses' signature, or allowing third parties to collect ballots.

Conservatives say that amounts to an invitation to commit voter fraud. As these issues wind their way through courts, they say judges could decide complex policy matters that often were already debated by state legislatures. "The wrong way to go about this is to run to court, particularly a week or two before an election, trying to get judges to intervene and second-guess decisions legislatures have made," said Jason Snead, the executive director of the Honest Elections Project.

His organisation is a newly formed offshoot of the Judicial Education Project, a group that previously focused on judicial appointments and received more than USD 25.3 million between 2016 and 2018 from the Donors Trust, records show. They are deeply intertwined with the conservative Catholic legal movement and share an attorney, William Consovoy, with the Republican National Committee, which has pledged USD 20 million for voting litigation. Leonard Leo, a Trump confidant who was instrumental in the confirmations of the president's Supreme Court nominees, plays a leading role. He's now chairman of a public relations firm called CRC Advisors, which aims to become a new clearinghouse for anonymous donors to fund conservative causes, including the fight over vote by mail.