Michigan Check My Vote Election Integrity Group Publishes Blistering Response to NY Times Hack Reporter’s Attack on Their Work Before Times Piece Goes to Print

Alexandra Berzon is a self-proclaimed “election denier movement” reporter for the New York Times.

Unfortunately, Ms. Berzon appears to be singularly focused on infiltrating and demonizing election integrity groups who find Democrat-funded groups committing voter fraud or Democrat election officials making it easy to cheat in Michigan.

MI Democrat SOS Jocelyn Benson pictured next to a voter application sent to a foreign exchange student who was never a resident of Michigan or citizen of the US.

 

On November 7, 2022, Ms. Berzon published her first hit piece on election integrity volunteers in Michigan.

From the NYTs article:

Republican activists, lawyers and elected officials in Michigan who call the results of the 2020 election fraudulent would unite with a single focus: “to provide ongoing citizen oversight, transparency, and accountability” in elections. They adopted the name Michigan Fair Elections and the simple slogan, “Choose Freedom.”

Over the next months, the participants got to work trying to remake democracy in the nation’s 10th largest state under the banner of integrity.

They recruited and trained challengers to spot and document minute ballot irregularities; filed lawsuits to undermine protections for the vote-counting process; and debated the merits of calling 911 on poll workers deemed to be violating rules. In weekly Zoom meetings, they discussed friendly insiders positioned on Michigan canvassing boards, which certify results; repeated debunked conspiracy theories about election machines, ballot “mules” and widespread voter fraud; and obsessed over the idea that Democrats “cheat” to win elections.

What Ms. Berzon calls an obsession, most Americans would call one of the most precious rights we have in America, the right to free and fair elections. If evidence pointed to Republicans cheating to win elections, Michigan-based MFE, a non-partisan election integrity group, would be first to investigate it, but unfortunately, to date, voter fraud in Michigan has almost solely been funded by Democrats and implemented by dishonest Democrat leadership like SOS Jocelyn Benson. For instance, in 2020, without permission, SOS Benson mailed 7.7 million unsolicited absentee ballot applications; she told clerks across Michigan to ignore signature matching on absentee ballots.

We spoke with Pure Integrity Michigan Elections (PIME) and Michigan Fair Elections (MFE) founder Patrice Johnson, who explained that it is her understanding that Alexandra Berzon somehow gained access to their Zoom calls.  According to Patrice Johnson, despite a clear disclaimer that MFE reads before every meeting that states they do not allow the press to attend their meetings or that attendees are prohibited from recording the meetings, Ms Berzon claims she was able to gain access to “20 hours of recordings of Michigan Fair Elections” meetings.

In her article on MFE, Ms. Berzon wrote: Someone with access to video and audio recordings of the calls shared them with The Times. Several participants confirmed the material’s authenticity.

Is this the same New York Times that regularly mocks James O’Keefe for his style of reporting, which includes undercover recording of individuals in states where it’s legal or where there isn’t a disclaimer telling him that taping is prohibited?

In her attempted smear of MFE, the most respected election integrity group in Michigan, the self-proclaimed “election denier movement” reporter Alexandra Berzon blames President Trump for the majority of Americans who, after 2020, no longer trust elections. “Election officials and governance experts say that if there is an erosion of trust in elections, Mr. Trump and his supporters are causing it,” she wrote.

Last week, Ms. Berzon reached out to Jane Iyer, Livingston County Republican Party Secretary, and Genesee County lead for CMV (Check My Vote), where she oversees the voter roll cleanup.

Here is a series of email exchanges between the New York Times reporter and Jane Iyer:

Subject: New York Times reporter trying to urgently reach Janine

Hi Janine, I’m working on a story about voter challenges in Michigan and other states and was hoping to talk to you about your work with Michigan Fair Elections and doing training on Check My Vote/ Soles to the Rolls and submitting challenge requests to Genoa County.

I’m hoping to talk for a story I’m working on that may mention this work. Can you please give me a call back as we may mention in the story some of your comments from training sessions as well as some details around the Genoa challenges. I would love to fact check/run this by you and also seek any and all comment or clarification before the story runs. My number is ———. Thanks so much. Best,
Alexandra

Alexandra Berzon
Reporter – New York Times

Hello Alexandra,

Thank you for your interest in our work (Check My Vote & Soles to the Rolls) and for reaching out. It was great chatting with you.

Reflecting on your questions about Check My Vote & Soles to the Rolls, I want to be clear that

1) Our goal is an accurate, qualified voter file, not at all to “disenfranchise” voters. Please make that clear in your article. Michigan law is written such that it is virtually impossible to disenfranchise voters, for instance, same-day registration & voting.

2) Our efforts are bipartisan. We don’t “target” any specific areas – volunteers work within their own jurisdictions, wherever that is.

3) We are following Michigan law, providing affidavits signed by residents of the registration address attesting to the fact that a registrant at the address with active voter status does not live there. The vast majority of residents (~90%) are willing to attest to the facts. The people also want accuracy of the voter rolls.

Michigan residents saw loads of ballots show up without chain of custody behind the TCF Center more than 7 hours after close of the polls. Ask why would loads of ballots show up 7 hours after close of polls when the furthest precinct from TCF is under an hour’s drive.

Ask why Republican poll challengers were not allowed back into the TCF Center after they went to lunch or to the bathroom and why cardboard was put up against the glass windows to prevent these poll challengers from seeing what was going on inside TCF Center AVCB processing center.

The scene at Detroit’s absentee ballot counting center is growing more heated. The windows now being covered up. Allegations of violations. Sec. of State says she welcomes challenges. pic.twitter.com/oUL4A0h3Ku

— Matt Finn (@MattFinnFNC) November 4, 2020

Michigan residents have asked and did not receive any answers. That’s why some residents have undertaken these efforts. And when we talk to neighbors, most thank us for what we are doing.

You mentioned that the Genoa Twp clerk stated that it costs $8 per certified mail, and that makes following the law cost-prohibitive. I think you should fact-check that with USPS. When we have challenged registrations in other jurisdictions, they readily sent out a notice of challenge post card without objecting about the cost.

Compare the cost of sending 120 certified challenge postcards to sending 5000-7000 absentee ballots through the mail and compare that to preparing, staffing and providing election materials for 9 days of early voting. All three actions are currently required of clerks by Michigan election law. Certainly, sending the 120 certified postcards is the least costly, so why object to that and not the other requirements? In fact, the new MI law of holding a minimum of nine (9) days of early voting costs is the costliest by orders of magnitude (staffing 4-5 election inspectors for 10-hour days for nine days, materials for each early voting day, etc.).

You also said that the Genoa clerk stated that the meeting to present the challenged registration was contentious. I think she is mixing that meeting with another meeting, an election commission meeting, when individuals NOT involved in our Soles to the Rolls effort were in attendance and were the contentious ones. Please review our clerk’s reply to the ACLU FOIA, and you’ll read that our clerk stated that she appreciated our help in identifying registrations of residents who have permanently moved out of our township.

4) We do respectfully ask the clerks to follow the law by following through on the information we present to them. However, it is also up to them as to what they do with it and how they follow up. They are answerable to state and federal law, as well as to their constituents when they’re up for re-election. Clerks in my county generally follow through on a registration challenge by changing the registration status from an Active to a Challenge or Verify status until he/she hears back from the registrant within 30 days per MI law. However, this may come as a shocker to you, but not all clerks are conscientious and follow through. We, as canvassers, do not hold the authority to make changes to the Qualified Voter File. Only the local clerks and the SOS Bureau of Elections have that authority. The volunteer citizens do the field investigation and bring the resulting information to the local clerk. What is done with it is in the clerk’s hands.

Another point I would like to make: Putting a registration on Challenge or Verify doesn’t “disenfranchise” the voter; the voter need only show the full address on their current driver’s license or other residential proof or sign an affidavit to proceed to vote, per Michigan law.

I did reach out to Tim and Phani about calling you. (Janine is referring to CMV co-founders Tim Vetter and Phani Matravadi.) They are not interested due to the bias often reflected in the NYT. I do like to give people the benefit of the doubt until they prove me wrong, and that’s why I answered your questions. I do not wish our efforts to be misrepresented by you, so I have clearly stated here the reasons and intentions behind our efforts.

Thanks again,

Janine

CMV Developer and Designer Phani Mantravadi agreed to answer the questions given to Janine Iyer by Alexandra Berzon. In addition to questions asked by the New York Times reporter, she also clarifies that she “may” include certain statements in her article. We’re unsure if she’s seeking approval or clarification or if she’s warning she is about to publish information that may or may not be accurate.

Here is how Phani responded to the questions for the article that Ms. Berzon has not yet published:

NYT: We may report that Michigan Fair Elections has been working with Check My Vote and the Michigan GOP

Phani: CMV works with MIGOP and MFE Soles to Rolls project. MFE does not work with MIGOP. I’m not sure on the details of the first connection with MIGOP.

TGP commentary: MFE is a non-partisan group. Ms. Berzon surely knows this, but appears to be setting a trap for the Check My Vote co-founders, hoping they will say that the MFE group works in violation of their non-partisan status with the Michigan GOP.

NYT: Our understanding is that you are a manufacturing equipment engineer for auto plants from Grand Rapids- is that correct or is there any clarification – would it be correct to just say you are an engineer?

TGP commentary: No response was given to this question, which has nothing to do with Phani’s volunteer work with CMV. The only purpose for asking this question is to doxx him.

NYT: We may report on presentations you have given where you’ve explained that your program looks for addresses that have an unusually high number of registered voters and for small discrepancies like missing apartment or trailer park numbers.

Phani: The CMV website provides the data on all MI registrations. It can report how many registrations at each registration address and these can be sorted high to low and low to high. It doesn’t “look for” high numbers, per se. As far as missing apartment numbers and trailer park lot numbers, MCL 168.495 (b) identifies such registrations as incomplete, not a “small discrepancy.”

Consider the case in which a registrant requests an absentee ballot. How will the mail carrier know which mailbox to deliver the ballot if the apartment number is not included in the registration? This is a chain of custody issue and an important detail. CVM identifies these incomplete registrations–I think it’s a great service.

An example of a non-existent address found by CMV that has multiple fake apartment numbers, fake suite numbers, and fake unit numbers mixed in with numbers with the # prefix. This single non-existent address had 19 registered voters, of which eight individuals voted in the 2020 and 2022 elections.

NYT: We also may report on training sessions where you’ve noted that the software often flags dense areas like Detroit and that a key area of focus should be Washtenaw County. Is there any comment or clarification?

Phani: Yes, this is a complete misunderstanding on your part. Let me explain:

The software (website) DOES NOT flag anything. Only users with personal knowledge of the situation flags registrations. Tim’s reports are merely OBSERVATIONS that, for example, Detroit and other cities have the most registration addresses with 5 or more registrants per address (compare this to census information that the average number of occupants per address is 2.4 persons).

NYT: We have spoken to some elections officials who say that this way of identifying false registrations is not useful and could lead to targeting lower income people, immigrants and students. What is your response to this critique?

Phani: We are not “targeting” anyone. Tim has merely MADE OBSERVATIONS. No one volunteering for the Soles to the Rolls project, to my knowledge, has done any work in Detroit or Washtenaw County.

TGP commentary: Why would the New York Times reporter equate cleaning up the voter rolls by removing illegitimate, dead, or moved voters to “targeting” lower-income people, [illegal]immigrants and students?” Is she suggesting that volunteers using criteria like multiple votes cast by one individual voter with a unique voter ID, or 36 people living at one residential address or 19 individuals registered to vote at a non-existent address, or people over the age of 100 who haven’t voted in 20 years, but suddenly voted in 2020 and 2022, are being unfairly flagged? Is she suggesting that the status of the “voters” is only being investigated by CMV because of their socioeconomic status, citizenship status, or age?

NYT: The Times has identified four cities or towns that have received challenges from activists tied to Check My Vote: Genoa, Waterford, Portage and Dewitt – can you please let me know if there is any comment or clarification? In the spirit of transparency can you list the other jurisdictions where Check My Vote/Soles to the Rolls has challenged voters and/or how many? Do you know how many voters have been challenged and how many removed or marked verify/challenged?

TGP commentary: Is the New York Times reporter asking questions about specific areas where CMV is currently investigating illegitimate voters to help Dem SOS Jocelyn Benson remove names of “registered” voters before discrepancies like the 19 voters registered at one address in Holland, MI, are discovered and reported? Shortly after the Holland Police Department turned over their investigation into the fake address in Holland, where eight voters voted in the 2020 and 2022 elections, the fake address, along with all 19 names, were removed from the voter rolls with no public comment from the MI SOS or BOE (Board of Elections)offices.

NYT: What level of verification do you/Check My Vote believe is needed in order to make valid challenges – we found that in at least one jurisdiction a resident was relying primarily on the National Change of Address form, which elections officials say on its own is not enough to remove someone from the rolls since they could be away temporarily. How do you account for that risk of disenfranchising or making it harder for legitimate voters to vote?

My recommendation to all Soles to the Rolls volunteers is (and my training reflects this) to personally verify with a physical visit any registration one is bringing to the clerk for a challenge. The level of verification should be PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE by visiting the registration address. I’m not completely familiar with how the Waterford volunteer decided on his list of challenges. I have alerted volunteers in my presentations as well as during internal online meetings that if you are going to use NCOA data to make sure by looking at the raw data that the NCOA moves are all categorized as permanent moves.

Our understanding based on internal Michigan Fair Election meetings is that Tim has said the Check My Vote system will flag the voters and then track and send alerts if they wind up voting. Do you have any comment or clarification on how this will work and what its purpose is?

Again, the CMV website DOES NOT flag ANYTHING. Users with personal knowledge of the registration do the flagging. It’s only on these registrations that any tracking is done.

TGP commentary: Did Ms. Berzon really ask the purpose of flagging and then sending alerts when voters who’ve been identified as living out of state, living in prison, living at fake or non-existent addresses, already voted absentee and then voted again on Election Day, voters over the age of 100, or voters who are not American citizens?)

Thanks very much. Best,
Alexandra

In a follow-up email, Alexandra appears to have realized her question, which appears to be designed to trap the CMV volunteers into falsely claiming the non-partisan MFE is working with the MI GOP, was not very cleverly disguised and re-asked the question:

NYT: apologies – allow me to correct one thing and then I have a few additional things. For the first point, I meant to write:

We may report that Check My Vote has been working with the Michigan GOP and Michigan Fair Elections on its Soles to the Rolls project. Any comment or clarification on how you are working with these groups?

Additional:

NYT: We understand that Check My Vote has shared data with the Trump team and was cited in the recent election integrity report that President Trump promoted. Can you tell us who you shared this information with and was it the legal team or the campaign team? Any other comment or clarification.

TGP commentary: Why in the world should anyone at CMV have to disclose to the Trump-hating NYTs who, if anyone, at the Trump legal team or campaign they’ve shared their work with? 

NYT: We understand that Check My Vote was developed with help and mentorship from Patrick Colbeck, one of Mike Lindell’s top officials on election work and gets some of its underlying data (the National Change of Address lists) from Mr. Lindell’s elections operation. Is there any comment or clarification on this?

TGP commentary: It’s a cute little attempt to tie Mike Lindell, who the NYTs loves to discredit, to the incredible work CCMV is doing to clean up the voter rolls in MI—work that taxpayers in the State of MI are paying the ridiculous leftist ERIC group to do.

NYT: Our understanding is that Check My Vote has been recently expanding its data analysis to New York, New Mexico and Ohio. Are you working with local groups in those places? Are there other states you plan to expand to?

TGP commentary: Does Ms. Berzon ask George Soros in which states he plans to invest millions to ensure advocates of mail-in-ballots for all, like Democrat Secretaries of State Jocelyn Benson (whose candidacy he supported), are in place when the largest election heist in American history is pulled off during lockdowns over a man-made Chinese virus?  

Speaking of Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson—Ms. Berzon has one last (she hopes) question before she publishes her story:

NYT: and one last one (I hope)

The Secretary of State’s office has sent a letter to clerks telling them that removing voters from the rolls in response to these challenges could be a violation of federal law that requires that voters who are suspected of having moved be placed on a count-down list for two federal election cycles before they are removed from the rolls in order to make sure people aren’t wrongly removed by mistake. Do you have any comment on this guidance?

TGP commentary: This final statement, of course, sounds like more of a warning to CMV and local clerks that they better not remove any voters identified by the NOCA (National Change of Address) before the next election because if they do, they will likely be facing federal charges.

From Alexandra Berzon’s New York Times profile:

Since joining The Times in 2022, I’ve largely covered the election denial movement and its influence on American politics.

What, exactly, is an “election denial movement”?

My reporting also revealed sexual misconduct allegations against the casino mogul Steve Wynn, which led to him resigning from the company he founded. I contributed to The Journal’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of secret payments by Donald Trump to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.

Steve Wynn is a billionaire and a major political donor to Donald J. Trump’s campaign.

I don’t participate in political activism or make political donations. I am always guided by the facts and strive for absolute accuracy and thoroughness in my reporting.

We looked at Ms. Berzon’s Twitter account, hoping to discover how non-partisan she is. While she is passionate about exposing child labor, for which we applaud her efforts, it’s fairly clear the disdain she has for Republicans, based on her obsession with re-tweeting bad news about them, especially when it comes to President Trump.

Alexandra retweeted a post mocking President Trump for urging Republicans to vote early after he was against the practice of early voting in 2020.

With a world on fire and the media begging for “President” Biden to make a statement while he fights with his brain to put together a coherent sentence, this seems like a pretty important retweet.

Alexandra also retweeted an article by fellow NYTs hack reporter Maggie Haberman, who claims President Trump and his allies are planning to maximize presidential power in his second term.

Maybe Alexandra missed the news about Joe Biden’s college loan forgiveness program, which he had no authority to implement.

Alexandra also retweeted an article about the lawfare being used against 16 alternate GOP electors in Michigan, who are mostly senior citizens. These elderly men and women, who are victims of partisan hack Democrat AG Dana Nessel, could spend the rest of their lives in prison if convicted of all eight felonies they have been charged with.

The self-proclaimed “election denier movement” reporter also tweeted a post about how the WSJ is calling the bombshell movie “2000 Mules” “total horseshit.”

Funny, Ms. Berzon never asked The Gateway Pundit about the videos we released of multiple individuals in Detroit, including USPS workers dropping off stacks of ballots into drop boxes, that according to MI election law, can only be dropped off by the voter or members of their immediate family.

The post Michigan Check My Vote Election Integrity Group Publishes Blistering Response to NY Times Hack Reporter’s Attack on Their Work Before Times Piece Goes to Print appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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