UPDATE 26SEP24: a great reader provided this link to a government site targeting overseas military and families.
UPDATE 27SEP24: join us at Rense Radio Friday 28 Sept, at 7p PDT/9a WIB as Jeff and I discuss the CUSVA findings.
I moved to Indonesia at the very start of the 2008 presidential election cycle, so that makes 5 cycles in a row that I have lived abroad. I also missed the 1980 election while living in Europe. In all that time, I’ve never seen anything like this.
In 2012, I signed up for Ron Paul’s email blasts to keep up with the campaign. After his campaign email stopped, I never thought much about it, until this year. Since roughly March, I’ve been getting waterfalls of campaign begging and cheerleading notices, first from the Trump campaign, and then from scores of folks like RFK and Tulsi Gabbard, and various Republican glitterati. Every time I unsubscribe, two more entities pop up. At the moment, it’s quiet. I think I sprayed them all, but there’s still a month or so to go, and the nits are notoriously hard to get.
Then, in the last week, YouBoob has been flooded with ads for some NGO called Center for U.S. Voters Abroad (CUSVA). I mean literally every 5 minutes. And it’s not just me, my Canadian buddy is seeing them, as are Mrs. FarSide and two Indonesian friends, so this is not a targeted nor cheap campaign, which causes my FarSidey Sense to twitch.
I’ve never heard of this organization before, nor have I ever seen such a wall-to-wall bombing campaign specifically targeting US voters overseas. All expats know you can go to the nearest embassy or consulate to register and vote, but only for president. State elections are unavailable overseas. Anyway, I did a little scratching around on this CUSVA group.
Turns out, there is almost nothing about them outside of their website, though I did find a curious blurb on the Guadalajara Post site, of all places. There are no lists of donors or grants of PAC money that I can find. They are registered as a 501(c)(4), under the Center for U.S. Voters Abroad Foundation, which is a 501(c)(3). It sounds as if it was formed after the 2020 election, but that’s just an inference.
The CUSVA website states that the CUSVA was formed as part of a larger initiative under the Act Now Project, another nonprofit organization. It aims to “assist” U.S. citizens living abroad in navigating the often-complicated process of registering to vote and casting absentee ballots in U.S. elections. The CUSVA is also part of a broader effort that includes the Act Now Coalition, yet another nonprofit initiative.
Regular readers will know what I think about QGOs/NGOs, especially when they team up in a web of money laundering efforts.
Two things, no make it three, bother me about this: 1) NGOs are dangerous; 2) Act Now sounds all Bumbledickery; and 3) the process of registering and voting at the embassy is not an overly complex process and there are plenty of excited staff on hand to help.
Registering involves filling out a standardized post card application. Once approved, you get an email telling you where and when to pick up your absentee ballot, which can be mailed to your registered Secretary of State, or sent through the embassy mail system.
Naturally, I looked up the Act Now Project…
The Act Now Project, according to its propaganda, is a nonprofit organization under the UN that operates in both 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) forms. Its mission is to “create innovative, data-driven solutions to urgent social and political problems, leveraging technology and user-friendly data products to inform decision-making.” One of its key initiatives includes The Center for U.S. Voters Abroad.
The Act Now Project was notorious during the COVID-19 pandemic through its platform “Covid Act Now,” which provided real-time data to help governments corral and detain…er, communities make informed safety decisions.
The Act Now Project's broader focus includes environmental advocacy, climate change solutions, and public health data modelling, demonstrating its aim to weaponize issues that require accurate, accessible, and impactful information to subdue humanity.
Yup, I thought I smelled Bumbledick all over this thing.
Back to CUSVA, all you have to do is tell them what state you last resided in, and they’ll apparently “help” you figure out what address you were living at (!). Overseas absentee ballots do count towards a state’s popular vote, and thus the Electoral College results, with most states having a winner-take-all system except for Nebraska and Maine.
In other words, this whole effort has the fragrant odor of voter fraud about it, based on what it offers and who’s involved. If all I have to do is give them a random address in one of the states, then it sounds like this operation could be enabling fraud, and given the UN connection and lack of transparency, that’s a pretty good bet. Some information I’ve found says I don’t even have to have lived in the states at any point in my life (whiff, whiff).
What’s to stop anyone living in, say, Indonesia from getting all their friends and family registered at the last known address and cancelling as many Bumbledick ballots as possible? I’m sure that’s not what the UN, Act Now or CUSVA intend to happen, but it seems to me both sides can take advantage of this kind of operation.
Perhaps they expect most expats who want to vote are college students abroad who’ve been stewed in Bumbledickery all their lives, and would vote a “certain way”. Or maybe they just want to encourage as much of the global population to vote in US elections as possible. The more the merrier!
When I see efforts like this spring up out of nowhere, throw ad buys all over creation, play footsie with the UN (and WEF?), and get cagey about their funding sources, even though it’s supposed to be a matter of public record, I get just a tad bit wary. This just feels like a high-tech cooping campaign.
Let us know in the comments if you’ve found any addition information about CUSVA or the foundation. You might also give us a head-count of how many folks you’ve gotten absentee ballots for. Our motto around here is, “Vote Early, Vote Often!”
Seems to me this scheme works both ways: if the right person wins, they can credit their “overseas” recruitment efforts, and if the wrong person loses, well darn and shucks, look at all this voter fraud overseas.
One thing is certain — I don’t like having the UN anywhere near the US electoral process.
=====
While there’s some outstanding movies out there about politics and campaigning, I’m going to go with The Ides of March (2011), as the choice on topic. Despite being written, directed and starring George Clooney, the performances by Paul Giamatti and Philip Seymour Hoffman are worth the watch.
Saving Our Democracy© on the Far Side:
E-book: Paper Golem: Corporate Personhood & the Legal Fiction
Contact Bernard Grover at luap.jkt @ gmail . com
Radio Far Side, published (mostly) every Sun/Wed at 7a CST/7p WIB, is a labour of love. We don’t use a paywall, and we don’t sell stuff. We just create things to inform and entertain. But like any good busker on the digital mean streets, we put our hat down and if you feel inspired, drop a coin in to show your appreciation:
BTC wallet - bc1qth6drgzcyt7vlxxpvqh6erjm0lmaemwsvf0272
At least now we know why they want to preserve “democracy” which of course is a rigged voting system. Is there a legitimate “leader” in the entire western world? Everything appears to be fake.
Some of us can no longer be fooled. I'm glad you are one of them!