Election denial organization True the Vote says it is “working with sheriffs” and plans to funnel them reports of supposed “problems at the polls” from users of its new app

During recent media interviews, True the Vote's founder claimed the group is trying to work with sheriffs to monitor ballot drop boxes during the 2024 election

Written by Media Matters Staff

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Election denial organization True the Vote has launched a new app ahead of the 2024 election for users “to quickly report problems at the polls" and “document and report instances of suspected election fraud.” Wired's David Gilbert described the app as a “one-stop shop for all your election conspiracy needs, featuring a scrollable feed of the latest voting-related alerts, the ability to report your own claims, and even, apparently, a 24/7 hotline.”

During a September 12 stream on social media, True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht claimed that users can “put in a problem” into the app, and “if it is something that's going down at the polls” then True the Vote might “contact the county and let them know,” or “engage law enforcement,” including sheriffs they are apparently “working with.”

Engelbrecht has also said during recent media appearances that True the Vote is aiming to work with sheriffs during the 2024 election to monitor ballot drop boxes, with the group apparently reaching out to sheriffs to try to give them “camera equipment” — which sheriffs can use for such monitoring and True the Vote can also use for “24/7 streaming video … for anyone who wants to see it.” 

As Media Matters previously explained:

True the Vote was founded in 2009 — following the election of former President Barack Obama — by then-tea party activist Catherine Engelbrecht with the goal of pushing for voter ID laws and purging voter rolls. Engelbrecht, whom “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander has called “the godmother of the election integrity movement,” and her business partner, Gregg Phillips, a Republican operative and former Mississippi official, have repeatedly pushed false election-related claims since at least 2016. Phillips claimed without evidence that millions of illegal votes had been cast in the 2016 presidential election, and both Engelbrecht and Phillips were listed as executive producers for and starred in 2000 Mules, a widely debunked 2022 film that claims to show evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

You can read more about how True the Vote has cultivated relationships with supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory here.

From a September 12, 2024, stream on Locals

CATHERINE ENGELBRECHT (TRUE THE VOTE FOUNDER): VoteAlert is specifically for election-related matters. So once we start, you know, gaining momentum, which is going to be here in just the next few weeks, things are gonna just tick up, up, up, up, up, we will start doing daily reports. And with those daily reports, we will tell you the lay of the land inside of VoteAlert, what we're seeing, what we're hearing, how many things have come in, from where, the types of issues. This is — again, just an added layer of intentional, being very intentional about creating transparency around the process so that if there are problems, we can deal with them decisively and quickly. 

Let's talk about that for a second. What does it mean when you put in a problem? What do we do on the other side other than just read it and say, you know, “Yes or no?” If it's a question that we can answer, we're going to answer it. If it's a question that needs resolution and we can't answer it, we will tell you where to go, or we will reach out on your behalf and try to get that answer for you. If it is something that's going down at the polls, where there are problems at the polls at that moment, we will, depending upon the circumstance, contact the county and let them know of reports that we are receiving. If it has, if it's a few steps further out than that and we need to engage law enforcement, we are working with sheriffs who will be able — and not nationwide, but regionally, to take a look and help with the dispatch on those. 

It is not a perfect process, but it is a very intentional circuitry behind the scenes of making sure that things that don't — that are reported just don't get reported into the wind, but that they are going towards resolution and the follow-up. So that, again, it's just — it's the goal here is to have a community of, you know, problem, solution, confidence building.