Who’s Behind the Only Citizens Vote Coalition?

Introduction

In America, only citizens can vote and have their votes counted in elections.

People who are not U.S. citizens are ineligible to vote in federal elections. The federal government has strict laws, which have been in place for more than 25 years, to ensure that only eligible Americans vote.

Under a 1996 law passed by Congress, noncitizens who attempt to vote face tough penalties — including steep fines, prison time, and deportation. These stiff penalties generally serve as a strong deterrent against illegal voting.

Moreover, there are processes in place in every state to ensure only eligible votes are counted. State election officials have systems to verify an individual’s voter eligibility and to ensure voter rolls are accurate. These include voter registration requirements, state-mandated IDs, and verification checks.

After the 2016 election, the Brennan Center for Justice surveyed local election officials in 42 jurisdictions with high immigrant populations and found just 30 cases of suspected noncitizens voting out of 23.5 million votes cast, a rate of just 0.0001%.

And a 2022 investigation in Georgia — a state with a population of nearly 11 million — found there were 1,319 incidents of noncitizens attempting to register to vote between 2016 and 2022, with none of the noncitizens being allowed to register to vote because of the checks used by election officials there.

Nevertheless, polls show that nearly half of Americans — including more than 80% of Republicans — are concerned that large numbers of noncitizens will attempt to vote in this year’s presidential election. And according to a survey conducted last month by Issue One, 67% of Americans reported encountering content on social media about noncitizens illegally voting in elections.

As The New Yorker recently put it: “If the lasting narrative of unproven interference in 2020 is that illegitimate ballots were ferried in and dumped in drop boxes, the analogous plot in 2024 appears to be that vast numbers of noncitizens will try to vote.”

One reason this false narrative has metastasized is because of the work of a network of groups that calls itself the “Only Citizens Vote Coalition,” which has been amplifying the threat of noncitizens casting ballots in our elections.

The following report maps out the ecosystem of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition, highlighting some of the major groups and their known funders in recent years, based on an Issue One analysis of tax filings and campaign finance reports. These contributions and connections can also be explored in further detail in this new interactive data visualization and this downloadable spreadsheet created by Issue One that details the nearly 600 financial transactions.

What is the Only Citizens Vote Coalition?

The Only Citizens Vote Coalition — which counts more than 80 organizations as members — is invested in using scare tactics to sow doubt in the election process, which could help lay the groundwork for partisan actors to challenge the results of the election if they do not like the outcome.

While some of the organizations that are members of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition work on issues other than election law, in signing on as members of this coalition, they are helping lend credibility to the biggest myth circulating around this year’s election: That large numbers of noncitizens are going to illegally vote, despite the fact that election experts agree that noncitizens voting in federal elections is virtually nonexistent and has never been common enough to determine the outcome of elections.

The coalition involves several notable people who supported President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Some of these people are already working to bolster Trump’s chances in the 2024 presidential election and aid legal challenges that may arise after.

These people include the likes of former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, former Trump transition team power player Ed Corrigan, former Trump Cabinet official and co-chair of Trump’s 2025 transition team Linda McMahon, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and controversial lawyer Cleta Mitchell — who launched the Only Citizens Vote Coalition earlier this year.

Notably, more than 20 organizations involved in this coalition — roughly 25% of its entire membership — have also been involved in Project 2025, the plan created by high-profile Trump supporters and spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation to steer the policy agenda of a second Trump administration.

On the election administration front, Project 2025, in the words of the Brennan Center for Justice, “proposes to withhold critical federal support” for election officials’ work and “threatens to weaponize the Justice Department and other federal agencies to further politicize election administration.” It even explicitly calls for the prosecution of Pennsylvania’s chief election official for issuing guidance to protect access to mail-in voting during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On its website, the Only Citizens Vote Coalition asserts that “no country can survive that allows guests and illegals to determine the future of its citizens.”

It has endorsed federal legislation, supported by many congressional Republicans, known as the SAVE Act, which would require voters to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote — a measure many congressional Democrats and voting rights groups say is redundant and unnecessary.

Several coalition members — including the 85 Fund’s Honest Elections Project, Heritage Action for America, the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Election Protection Project — were among the voices that urged Congress last month to pair the SAVE Act with a short-term government funding measure. This pairing was supported by Trump but was ultimately rejected by the House of Representatives.

Officials from several coalition members appeared at the press conference with House Republicans when they introduced the SAVE Act earlier this year — including former Trump administration official and Election Transparency Initiative Chairman Ken Cuccinelli, former Trump White House advisor and America First Legal Foundation President Stephen Miller, and Mitchell, a lawyer known for her participation in Trump’s January 2021 call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which Trump urged Raffensperger to “find” the necessary votes to overturn now-President Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election in the state.

All the while, one coalition member’s so-called “election integrity” efforts are led by former Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA), who supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and unsuccessfully challenged Raffensperger in the 2022 GOP primary for secretary of state, after Raffensperger certified now-Biden’s victory over Trump in Georgia.

Some coalition members have supported the controversial new election administration measures adopted by the Trump-backed Georgia State Election Board, which a judge recently called “illegal, unconstitutional, and void.”

A handful of coalition members are involved in multiple legal challenges to longstanding election administration practices in swing states, including one lawsuit on behalf of an election-denying election official in Georgia who wants the discretion to refuse to certify election results.

And around National Voter Registration Day last month, the coalition coordinated its own effort on social media that it called “National Only Citizens Vote Week,” as Wired and Documented previously reported.

Key people involved in the Only Citizens Vote Coalition

Tax filings show lawyer Cleta Mitchell herself is an officer of four of the 80-plus organizations active in the coalition. She is the chairman of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, the president of the Election Integrity Network, the president of the FAIR Elections Fund, and a senior legal fellow and secretary at the Conservative Partnership Institute.

Issue One’s review of tax records show that more than 450 individuals served as officers of groups that are members of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition during the most recent fiscal year, though less than 10% were officers of multiple coalition members.

Other key players in the coalition, in alphabetical order, include:

• Ken Blackwell, who has held a variety of political positions at the local, state, and national level, including serving as the secretary of state of Ohio and ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Blackwell is a board member of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, vice president of the Council for National Policy, a board member of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, chair of the Conservative Action Project, and chair of the Center for Election Integrity at the America First Policy Institute.
• Ed Corrigan, who has more than 25 years of leadership experience on Capitol Hill and with a variety of conservative advocacy groups, including the Heritage Foundation. After Trump won the election in 2016, Corrigan was part of Trump’s transition team, leading the personnel selection process for all domestic policy departments. Corrigan is the president and CEO of the Conservative Partnership Institute, a director of the America First Legal Foundation, a director of the State Freedom Caucus Network, a director of the Immigration Accountability Project, and a board member of Citizens for Renewing America.

• Wesley Denton, who served as the acting chief of staff of the Office of Management and Budget during the Trump administration and previously spent more than a decade working in Congress, including working as the communications director for Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). Denton is the COO of the Conservative Partnership Institute, treasurer of Citizens for Renewing America, and a director of the Immigration Accountability Project.
• Tim Dunn, a billionaire and chief executive officer of the oil and gas operation CrownQuest Operating. He is among the most influential conservative political donors in Texas. Dunn is the chairman of America First Works, a board member of the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Election Protection Project, and a director of the Center for Election Integrity at the America First Policy Institute.

• Trent England, who is a director of People for Opportunity, founder and executive director of Save Our States, and counsel for the Honest Elections Project. He is also a fellow at the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, where he earlier served as executive vice president. He previously worked as a legal policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation and was a fellow at the Claremont Institute, a California-based think tank at which lawyer John Eastman, who attempted to aid Trump in his failed attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, works as a senior fellow.
• Sean Fieler, a hedge fund manager and advocate for faith-based conservatism. Fieler is the president and chief investment office at Equinox Partners, a prominent hedge fund based out of Stamford, Connecticut. He is a board member of Heritage Action for America as well as a board member of the Susan B. Anthony List and the chairman of the board of the American Principles Project, which both co-sponsor the Election Transparency Initiative.
• Gene Hamilton, a lawyer who worked in the Justice Department during the Trump administration. Hamilton is the vice president and general counsel of the America First Legal Foundation and the secretary and a director of the Election Integrity Network.

• Linda McMahon, the co-founder and former chief executive office of World Wrestling Entertainment who served in Trump’s Cabinet as administrator of the Small Business Association and is now a co-chair of Trump’s 2025 transition team. She is a board member of America First Works and the chair of the America First Policy Institute, which houses the Center for Election Integrity.
• Mark Meadows, a former congressman from North Carolina and chairman of the House Freedom Caucus who served as the White House Chief of Staff during the Trump administration. Meadows is a senior partner at the Conservative Partnership Institute and a director of the State Freedom Caucus Network.

Secretive money networks bankroll coalition members

Some of the groups involved with the Only Citizens Vote Coalition are relatively new players, incorporated in the past year or two. Others have been around for years, if not decades.

Tracking the money flowing to the newest members of this coalition is all but impossible, as mandatory government filings that illuminate this money flow will not be required to be filed with the IRS for months.

Following the money to groups that have existed for years even has challenges, as annual IRS Form 990 tax filings must only be submitted by nonprofits 11 months after the end of any given fiscal year, meaning documents detailing many groups’ financial activities in 2023 will not be publicly available until after Election Day 2024 — and tax filings covering 2024 for many groups will not be publicly available until November 2025.

Nevertheless, Issue One reviewed all available nonprofit tax filings and succeeded in shining a light on groups that have financially supported coalition members in the recent past.

All of these transactions can be seen in this new interactive data visualization and in this downloadable spreadsheet, based on Issue One’s review of hundreds of annual tax filings, including those maintained on the IRS’ website and ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer database, as well as campaign finance filings submitted to the Federal Election Commission.

In all, Issue One tracked more than $590 million in contributions since January 2020 to nearly three dozen groups that are now part of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition from more than 140 donor organizations. 

While all of this funding preceded the creation of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition and the contributions identified by Issue One undoubtedly supported a range of programmatic work, many of these groups have been calling for election-related reforms for years. And while some of these organizations are large groups that pursue multiple goals beyond their voting-related agendas, our analysis is illustrative of the types of funding that flows to these organizations.

It is simply impossible, under the IRS’ current disclosure system for nonprofit advocacy groups, to know in real-time how much money any of the groups that are part of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition are spending on their activities this year, or which funders are supporting them now. An analysis of past donors in recent years, though, may hold clues.

Top 15 Donor Organizations Since January 2020 to Groups That are now Members of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition

Source: Issue One analysis of IRS Form 990 tax filings. Note: Figures are rounded to the nearest million or two significant figures.

Of the total sum identified by Issue One, the top 15 donor organizations accounted for 95% of all contributions. These donor organizations included numerous donor-advised funds as well as some big-name Republican-aligned groups. Yet because of the secretive nature of donor-advised funds — which allow individuals to receive an immediate tax deduction for making a charitable contribution and then recommend grants from the fund over time — the true sources of much of the money remain unknown.

The top donor, a donor-advised fund operated by the financial services institution Charles Schwab alone accounted for more than half of the total sum, giving $328 million since July 2020 across 17 unique groups that are now part of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition.

Issue One’s investigation shows that the Schwab Charitable Fund, as this donor-advised fund is known, is not the only donor-advised fund associated with a major financial institution to help wealthy Americans fund the organizations that are now pushing false narratives about the integrity of our elections.

The Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund ranked as the No. 4 top donor organization, giving $24 million since July 2020 to 19 unique groups that are now part of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition. And the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program ranked as the No. 9 top donor organization, giving $8.2 million since July 2020 to 16 unique groups.

(Donor-advised funds operated by other financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Raymond James, have also funneled money in recent years to groups that are now coalition members, though they did not rank in the top 15.)

Perhaps not surprisingly, among the top organizations that have funded members of this coalition in recent years are some of the biggest players known for helping conservative donors funnel money to their pet causes, including:

• DonorsTrust, a donor-advised fund that calls itself “the oldest and largest donor-advised fund committed to the principles of liberty,” ranked as the No. 2 donor, giving $80 million to 14 unique groups since January 2020,
• the Bradley Impact Fund, a donor-advised fund associated with the conservative Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, ranked as the No. 3 donor, giving $31 million to nine unique groups since January 2020, and
• the Concord Fund, an advocacy organization headed by Carrie Severino, a former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, ranked as the No. 5 donor, giving $24 million to eight unique groups since July 2020. (The Concord Fund was previously known as the Judicial Confirmation Network and later as the Judicial Crisis Network.)

Meanwhile, the National Philanthropic Trust, which touts itself as “a leader in donor-advised funds” and as one of the largest grantmaking institutions in the United States, ranked as the No. 8 top donor organization, giving $10 million since July 2020 to 10 unique groups.

Additionally, Issue One found that philanthropic groups that cater to devout Christians have also been major donors in recent years to organizations that are now members of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition, including:

• the National Christian Charitable Foundation, a donor-advised fund that touts itself as a “trusted Christian giving and granting partner,” ranked as the No. 6 donor, giving $15 million to 15 unique groups since January 2020,
• the Servant Foundation, also known as The Signatry, which describes itself as “a ministry and donor-advised fund sponsor that seeks to inspire and facilitate revolutionary biblical generosity across generations” and was behind the famous pro-Christianity “He Gets Us” ad campaign that aired during the 2023 Super Bowl, ranked as the No. 10 donor, giving $8.1 million to 10 unique groups since April 2020, and
• the Christian Community Foundation, also known as Waterstone, which seeks to help donors “honor God through the transformational power of giving,” ranked as the No. 12 donor, giving $6.2 million to eight unique groups since April 2020.

Rounding out the top 15 donor organizations identified by Issue One are five big-name Republican-aligned groups:

• Restoration of America, a nonprofit whose leadership includes Gina Swoboda, a Trump ally who currently serves as the head of the Arizona Republican Party, ranked as the No. 7 donor, giving $11 million to four unique groups since January 2020.
• America First Works, a nonprofit founded to support Trump’s policy agenda during his first term in the White House under the name America First Policies and whose leadership includes former Trump Cabinet official Linda McMahon, ranked as the No. 11 donor, giving $6.9 million to four unique groups since January 2020.¹
• the Republican Governors Public Policy Committee, a nonprofit associated with the country’s Republican governors, ranked as the No. 13 donor, giving $4.5 million to one group — the 85 Fund — since January 2020.
• the 85 Fund, which is led by allies of Leonard Leo (the co-chairman of the board of directors of the Federalist Society who has helped build the Supreme Court’s current majority of conservative justices) and which houses the Honest Elections Project (itself a member of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition), ranked as the No. 14 donor, giving $2.5 million to three unique groups since January 2020, and
• the American Action Network, the main dark money group associated with Republican leadership in the House of Representatives, ranked as the No. 15 donor, giving $2.2 million to one group — Heritage Action for America — since July 2020.

Following the money flowing to members of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition

Top 10 Only Citizens Vote Coalition Member Beneficiaries Identified by Issue One

Source: Issue One analysis of IRS Form 990 tax filings. Note: Figures are rounded to the nearest million or two significant figures.

Ten beneficiaries accounted for 94% of the $590 million Issue One was able to identify as flowing since January 2020 to groups that are now part of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition, and the top beneficiary — the 85 Fund, which houses the Honest Elections Project — alone accounted for 70% of the money, collecting $413 million from seven different donor organizations since January 2020.

By following the paper trail of public records, Issue One was able to identify the donors responsible for the bulk of the funding in 2022 for one other notable group active in the Only Citizens Vote Coalition:

• 99.99% of the $753,255 that Cleta Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network raised in 2022 — all but $55 — came from two other groups: the Conservative Partnership Institute (which gave $525,000) and Citizens for Renewing America (which gave $228,200).

Connecting the Dots: Project 2025

Notably, more than 20 organizations overall that are now involved in the Only Citizens Vote Coalition — roughly 25% of its entire membership — have been involved in Project 2025, the plan high-profile Trump supporters have created, spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, to steer the policy agenda of a second Trump administration.

These organizations include:

• the 85 Fund, which houses the Honest Elections Project;
• the America First Legal Foundation²;
• the America First Policy Institute, which houses the Center for Election Integrity;
• the American Family Association;
• the American Principles Project, which co-houses the Election Transparency Initiative along with the Susan B. Anthony List;
• the Association of Mature American Citizens Action;
• the Center for Military Readiness;
• Citizens for Renewing America;
• the Conservative Partnership Institute;
• the Council for National Policy;
• the Eagle Forum;
• the Election Integrity Network;
• the Family Research Council;
• the Federation for American Immigration Reform;
• the Foundation for Government Accountability;
• the Freedom’s Journal Institute;
• Heritage Action for America;
• the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs;
• the Public Interest Legal Foundation;
• the Susan B. Anthony List, which co-houses the Election Transparency Initiative along with the American Principles Project;
• Tea Party Patriots Action; and
• the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which houses the Election Protection Project.

Most of these organizations serve, or previously served, on Project 2025’s advisory board. Staffers at others contributed to Project 2025’s 900-plus-page “Mandate for Leadership” report, which outlines the project’s public policy plans.

On the election administration front, Project 2025, in the words of the Brennan Center for Justice, “proposes to withhold critical federal support” for election officials’ work and “threatens to weaponize the Justice Department and other federal agencies to further politicize election administration.” It even explicitly calls for the prosecution of Pennsylvania’s chief election official for issuing guidance to protect access to mail-in voting during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Conclusion

Americans must be mindful that lies about widespread noncitizen voting are designed to sow doubt and distrust in our elections — and may potentially serve as pretext to undermine the legitimate results of the November election.

The number of noncitizens who have attempted to vote in federal elections is tiny, but there is big money behind the organizations pushing this false claim. Cynical political operatives push these claims for their own gain.

As this report shows, the Only Citizens Vote Coalition includes a powerful network of people and groups who are invested in confusing and scaring people to gain political power. But simply not liking the outcome of an election is no grounds for rejecting the results of free and fair elections.

¹ America First Policies formed in Virginia in 2017 and rebranded as America First Works in 2021, creating a new legal entity with the same name in Washington, D.C. It proceeded to shut down its Virginia-based organization. As part of the Virginia-based group’s liquidation process, tax records show it transferred its remaining assets to the D.C.-based group. According to Issue One’s review of tax filings, the Virginia-based America First Works, previously known as America First Policies, accounted for 96% of the money the D.C.-based America First Works raised in 2021 and 2022.

² Despite its significant involvement in Project 2025, the America First Legal Foundation asked to be removed from Project 2025’s website earlier this year, amid backlash to the plan.

William Mead and Abigail Gaetz contributed to this report.