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What’s the real motivation behind the California Republican Party pushing for in-person church services during a pandemic?Did you know that before the shutdown California Republicans had developed a plan to use church ballot harvesting to help win elections in 2020?
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What’s ballot harvesting?
In California, a voter can fill out an absentee ballot, seal it, hand it to anyone, and have them drop it off at the polling place. The person transporting the ballot can not be paid for doing so by a campaign, party, or political action committee.
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In California, a voter can fill out an absentee ballot, seal it, hand it to anyone, and have them drop it off at the polling place. The person transporting the ballot can not be paid for doing so by a campaign, party, or political action committee.
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Many Republicans have blamed ballot harvesting for 2018 wins in CA, including turning all Orange County congressional seats blue.
In 2019, the GOP came up with their own plan to harvest but their key difference was instead of knocking on doors they wanted to use churches.
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In 2019, the GOP came up with their own plan to harvest but their key difference was instead of knocking on doors they wanted to use churches.
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In June 2019, Shawn Steel (National & California Republican Committee and husband to OC Supervisor Chairwoman Michelle Steel) sat down to discuss plans to use churches and large community in-person events to collect ballots for harvesting in the 2020 elections. Here’s a clip:
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One person involved with educating California churches on ballet harvesting is a guy named Craig Huey. Craig has written a book on his ideas, given interviews, and even spoke at the California GOP convention in the Fall of 2019 focusing on using churches to win elections.
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One person working w/ Craig is Chino Hills Calvary Pastor Jack Hibbs, who has been very involved in pushing the State of California to reopen in-person services (he opened his church doors in May against orders). CH Calvary held ballot harvasting events for 2020 primaries.
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In addition to ballot collecting events, Craig also has a voter’s guide for churches to give out to their congregation to inform them on who to vote for.
So getting people into churches helps pastors spread their political message & gets their ballots. But that’s not all-
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So getting people into churches helps pastors spread their political message & gets their ballots. But that’s not all-
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Another tactic being used by Craig Huey that he explained at the 2019 CA GOP convention is tracking people’s mobile devices. He says that they can get anyone’s mobile ID who physically attended any particular church in the past 6mths and target them with voting ads/videos/etc
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To be clear, what Craig is dicussing (geofencing) isn’t a new technology or something only Republicans are using. But I want to point out that their major intent is to use it on churches, which would not be possible if you’re not physically attending.
9/ https://archive.thinkprogress.org/exclusive-steve-bannon-geofencing-data-collection-catholic-church-4aaeacd5c182/
9/ https://archive.thinkprogress.org/exclusive-steve-bannon-geofencing-data-collection-catholic-church-4aaeacd5c182/
Are you creeped out yet? I am. And I’m not a conspiracy theorist type of girl. I usually scroll through all the facebook alerts from my great-aunt warning me to turn off the tracking on my phone. But maybe my great-aunt wasn’t completely wrong... so, who’s using it?-
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Republicans throughout California. But what will prevent this technology from working is not physically going inside the area being tracked.
So could Michelle Steel and other local officials have ulterior motives for fighting for in-person services? Sure seems that way to me./
So could Michelle Steel and other local officials have ulterior motives for fighting for in-person services? Sure seems that way to me./
