Old Dominion News

The negative publicity surrounding leftist activist groups masquerading as nonpartisan, good government groups in the 2020 general election hasn’t dissuaded them from stopping, or even slowing down, their direct involvement in political campaigns — at least not in Virginia, according to one analyst.

Hayden Ludwig, senior investigative researcher for Capital Research Center (CRC), reports that two such groups, the Voter Participation Center (VPC) and the Center for Voter Information (CVI), plan to flood Virginia with absentee-ballot mailers ahead of the Nov. 2 election where races for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general and control of the House of Delegates are all in the offing. CRC reports that both groups are little more than left-of-center get-out-the-vote operations.

CRC obtained a memo that reveals correspondence from groups with members of the Voter Registrars Association of Virginia, which services county elections officials. The exchange, Ludwig reported, was facilitated by the Philadelphia-based law firm Blank Rome, which represents the nonprofits.

“These groups use IRS rules permitting 501(c) nonprofits to engage in nonpartisan voter registration as a cloak for their blatantly partisan operations,” Ludwig wrote. “VPC’s website proudly states that it wants to turn out more ‘young people, people of color and unmarried women’ — a voting bloc that gave more than 60% of its votes for Biden in 2020 and contains 73% of all unregistered voters nationwide. CVI — which is funded by the Sierra Club, Tides Foundation and League of Conservation Voters — even spent $583,000 directly aiding Biden in the 2020 election.”

The strategy, Ludwig says, is similar to one used by the Democracy Alliance (DA), a collective of liberal donors and influencers who meet to coordinate partisan spending ahead of elections.

“DA defines the new American majority as including ‘Black, Latino and Millennial’ voters as well as ‘women, LGBT, Asian/Pacific Islanders and the white working class,’ labeling this bloc ‘central to progressive long-term success,’” he writes. “In 2020, the Washington Post, which couldn’t help but call VPC and CVI ‘nonpartisan,’ nevertheless pointed out last August that ‘both organizations appear to be more aligned with efforts to defeat [Donald Trump] than with his allies."