The Huntington Beach City Council passed a resolution last week that stokes fears about illegitimate elections based on flawed data from an election conspiracy group. The episode underscores how election deniers looking to restrict voting have made inroads at the state and local level. Also in this week’s Eye On The Right: Cleta Mitchell to be subpoenaed by email in a North Carolina trial, an ex-GOP official buys Dominion Voting, and more. 

As always, thanks for reading.

California city passes anti-voting measure based on election conspiracy group’s false data

• The Huntington Beach City Council passed a resolution last week using false data from the election conspiracy group Unite4Freedom to stoke baseless fears about the integrity of elections.
  
  
• The measure aims to “ensure a legally valid and transparent 2026 General Election” by empowering election officials to withhold the ballots of voters whose U.S. citizenship is in question, enforce strict chain-of-custody protocols and “investigate and resolve, or if necessary, re-administer any election that cannot be proven accurate and compliant,” among other provisions.

• It underscores how conspiracy-driven anti-voting groups have made inroads at the state and local level, where they are working to infiltrate election administration in order to take steps that tighten voting rules and legitimize their false claims.
  
  
• In an email to Democracy Docket, Bob Page, the Orange County Registrar of Elections, refuted Unite4Freedom’s false claims of mass voter fraud. “Their claim that about 20% of voters are non-existent or not eligible does not align with Orange County Registrar of Voters data that shows 99.9% of the 1.9 million active registered voters in Orange County have provided proof of identity in order to vote in federal elections,” Page wrote.
  
  
• Unite4Freedom also refused to let Page see the data or methodology they used to determine there was voter fraud when he pressed them, according to emails I’ve reviewed. Joe Hoft, the co-founder of Gateway Pundit and an election conspiracy theorist who works with Unite4Freedom, said in an email to Page that he wouldn’t share the group’s data “due to our disbelief that your intention to get to the truth is legitimate.”

Judge allows Cleta Mitchell to be subpoenaed by email in North Carolina trial

• A federal judge has allowed the prominent election-denying lawyer Cleta Mitchell to be subpoenaed by email in a challenge to a North Carolina voter suppression law.
  
  
• Last month, voting rights groups in North Carolina asked a federal court to compel Mitchell to testify in their challenge to a 2023 law that changed the rules for same-day voter registration, allowing election officials to throw out a ballot if just one piece of mail sent to verify the voter’s address is returned as undeliverable. The plaintiffs claim the law discriminates against young voters.
  
  
• At a 2023 Republican event, Mitchell suggested Democrats make it too easy for students to cast ballots. “They basically put the polling place next to the student dorm, so they just have to roll out of bed, vote, and go back to bed,” she said.
  
  
• Mitchell urged the judge to allow her to avoid testifying in the lawsuit, arguing she had no role in the law’s development, according to The Carolina Journal.

Anti-voting activists’ last-ditch effort for proof of citizenship rule 

• Tea Party Patriots (TPP) and other top anti-voting activists are mounting a last-ditch effort to pressure the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to adopt a documentary proof of citizenship requirement on the federal voter registration form.
  
  
• After federal courts told President Donald Trump he couldn’t directly order the EAC to require proof of citizenship on its voter registration forms, America First Legal, which was founded by Stephen Miller, petitioned the independent agency to do it anyway. The EAC is currently accepting public comments on the proposal. 

• And right-wing groups have seized the opportunity. “Tea Party Patriots Action leaders and supporters have submitted over 1,000 comments to date to the [EAC] letting them know that documentary proof of U.S. citizenship should be required for the National Mail Voter Registration Form,” TPP founder Jenny Beth Martin wrote in a recent email to supporters. “We need to keep the momentum going and flood the zone with comments in support of this common-sense requirement.”
  
  
• So far a number of comments have come from people affiliated with notable anti-voting groups like the Michigan Fair Elections Institute, North Carolina Election Integrity Team and Tennessee Fair Elections — the latter two of which are affiliated with Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network. Pro-voting groups also are mobilizing to generate comments. The comment period closes Oct. 20, after which the EAC will vote on the proposal.

Ex-GOP official buys Dominion Voting, vows to steer the company to “paper-based transparency”

• Dominion Voting Systems, the voting machine manufacturer that was at the center of MAGA conspiracy theories in the aftermath of the 2020 election, has been sold to a company run by Scott Leiendecker, a former Missouri GOP official.
  
  
• Leiendecker was appointed by former Missouri Governor Matt Blunt (R) as St. Louis’ Republican election director. At that time, he worked closely with Trump loyalist and DOJ pardon attorney Ed Martin, who was St. Louis Board of Elections chair.
  
  
• Leiendecker said he plans to rebrand Dominion Voting as Liberty Vote, and transition the company away from the electronic voting machines to “delivering election technology that prioritizes paper-based transparency, security and simplicity so that voters can be assured that every ballot is filled-in accurately and fairly counted,” according to Axios.
  
  
• It’s unclear what role Liberty — née Dominion — Voting will play in the 2026 midterms. In the 2024 election, 27 states used Dominion Voting machines.