Vote centers have made it easier to vote. Cleta Mitchell is coming for them

[RandySF]

Last month, Cleta Mitchell joined conservative podcaster Steve Stern to talk about strategies that her influential anti-voting group, the Election Integrity Network (EIN), is working on for the 2026 midterms.

“We have to change the dynamic of how we conduct elections and return to a time when accuracy and accountability and transparency were the rule of the day,” Mitchell said. “My main mission… is that all voting takes place locally.”

Mitchell and EIN are hoping to change the dynamic of the 2026 midterms by pressuring state and local election officials to only allow voting to take place in small neighborhood precincts, rather than the vote centers — usually large locations where anyone in a county can cast a ballot — that, in recent years, have greatly expanded access to the ballot box.

An EIN paper released January 9 made the case that vote centers have “distinct vulnerabilities” — like the “co‑mingling of ballots from across an entire county” — that could allow for election fraud to flourish.




https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/vote-centers-have-made-it-easier-to-vote-cleta-mitchell-is-coming-for-them/

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

1. Lying cheater

[Old Crank]

2. They have no data

To back up any claims.

In the meantime, voting centers allow more people to vote. They also need few volunteers to staff locations. Locations became much harder to find once schools stopped allowing use as voting locations because of security concerns.

[Celerity]

3. At the forefront of today's anti-democracy movement as it seeks to cast doubt on election security is Cleta Mitchell's

Election Integrity Network, an influential election denial activist group focused on conspiracy theories about voter fraud — including baseless claims that voter registration lists are rife with errors and fraud.

https://americanoversight.org/inside-election-integrity-network-meetings/

As activists look to find ways to “clean” the voter rolls, they have frequently pushed the use of fringe technology like EagleAI NETwork. Over the last year, EagleAI has emerged as a profoundly flawed alternative to the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), which states use to securely maintain up-to-date voter rolls. Voter fraud vigilantes determined to uncover supposed fraudulent registrations have used EagleAI — which has long been promoted by Cleta Mitchell — to launch mass voter challenges.

American Oversight recently obtained recordings of Election Integrity Network (EIN) meetings, featured in reporting by the Baltimore Banner, that not only demonstrate the close ties between EagleAI founder Dr. John “Rick” Richards and the Election Integrity Network, but also the severe deficiencies of EagleAI.

Most notably, in a meeting of EIN’s voter rolls working group on March 20, 2024, a recording of which had been shared with the West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office, Richards said that the EagleAI algorithms only “pick up 90% of [voter] moves,” with people having to manually review the rest of the data.

snip

[LetMyPeopleVote]

4. I have worked on elections with both county wide voting/vote centers and precinct voting

I have been working on voter protection since 2004 when I went to Florida for the Kerry Edwards voter protection team. Prior to 2016, my county had precinct voting where on election day you had to vote in your local precinct. This meant that on election day you could only vote at one location. As a favor to the county election administrator, I was the election judge for the GOP primary and run off in my precinct. I was nice but I was irked to see so many republicans vote using handgun license that we could not electronically check in.

I was on the committee that approved county wide voting in my county and later testified before the Harris County Commissioners Court on the adoption of Countywide voting for Harris County.

My youngest child was the election judge for our precinct for the last election where there was only precinct voting on election day. I left the voter protection boiler room to check on her. In Texas if you are in line at the close of voting, you get to vote. I ended up standing at the end of the line to keep other people from getting in line. Voting finished up at after 9 PM and my youngest did not drop off the voting machine and until after 11 PM. Voting at voting centers is usually more efficient and they are done earlier.

I usually vote during early voting which has always had voting centers. I am disappointed in the concept of making voting harder.