Cleta Mitchell, an attorney who assisted with former President Donald Trump's legal work around the 2020 election, spoke exclusively with Townhall about her efforts to increase election security and confidence in elections with a brand new podcast titled "Who's Counting."
Mitchell explained that her podcast will be "about all things related to elections, election integrity, and it's not about campaigns, it's about elections and how they're supposed to work, and how maybe they don't always work the way that they're supposed to work." She added that she'll cover "the issues and the problems and how we make sure that they are fair and honest and that people trust the outcome."
Mitchell added that her main goal with the podcast is to make sure Americans "have information about how people can get personally involved."
She also pointed to a piece she wrote for the 4th of July, "Celebrate ‘Consent Of The Governed’ This Weekend, Then Reject Democrats’ Attempt To Sabotage It" about two pieces of legislation she also addressed in a subsequent piece.
Those pieces, along with her conversation with Townhall, touched on HR 1 and HR 4, "breathtaking" legislation Mitchell has strong warnings against. Democrats "keep coming up with new bills," Mitchell explained, adding that the bills are "not that different" from each other but both are "federal takeovers" of election responsibilities normally reserved for state or local officials.
Mitchell explained that Democrats are "trying to codify into federal law all the things that they did in 2020," which includes "flooding the system with mail ballots, eliminating all kinds of safeguards like requiring postmarks" or mandating that "absentee ballots be received by the time the polls close on election day."
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Democrat attempts to take over elections even include taxpayer funding for House races, a notion Mitchell called "beyond crazy" as she encouraged people to "keep the pressure on" against these bills.
Mitchell explained to Townhall that she "absolutely believe[s] the future of the republic is at stake" and that "we must save the election process so that we can fulfill that notion... of the government deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed." She added that "otherwise, it's the people in power giving themselves more power," which "is not the principle in which this country was founded."
Mitchell also raised concerns about people not believing in the legitimacy of election outcomes. A May poll from CBS/YouGov revealed that 67 percent said they did "not consider Biden the legitimate winner."
Mitchell pointed out that a lack of confidence in election outcomes is not unique to 2020 and that Democrats did not accept the 2000 election and Mitchell recalled the "Redefeat Bush" bumper stickers that popped up in 2003 and 2004.
Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-VA) who is running again for the office he held from 2014-2018, had repeated such claims about the 2000 election when he was the chair of the Democratic National Committee. McAuliffe has also accused his Republican opponent Glenn Youngkin of promoting falsehoods about the 2020 election but, as Youngkin told Guy, he affirms President Joe Biden won the election.
Mitchell emphasized it's one thing for partisans to say they don't like the winner of an election, but it's "a different stage of seriousness when you have vast numbers of the American people who don't trust the election process or the election system."
"Who's Counting" will also cover "the conversation about how we can know what's going on, what went on, what are we doing, what can we do to... essentially protect our election system, protect the future of the country," Mitchell explained.
For her new podcast, Mitchell will talk to experts in the field and people in certain states who have been engaged there. She will also talk about how people can get involved themselves.
When it comes to 2020, she said "elections have to have certainty and whether you like it or not these [2020] elections were certified." And, she's "not somebody who says there's something we can do to go back and reverse 2020" as "there's not a mechanism" to do so.
Mitchell also explained that analyzing 2020 will not be a focus of this podcast, though she will have someone on to address the Arizona audits. "People want to know about what's going on in Arizona, and what happened in Arizona," with her view being "what are the lessons that we learned so that if there were problems," they can be prevented from happening in the future. To this point, Mitchell's podcast will also address how other legislators can strengthen election integrity in their states.
"We have elections nationwide in 2022" Mitchell reminded, which means "we need to learn the lessons of 2020 so that we can make sure we have citizens engaged and putting eyes on the ballots and eyes on the elections office and shine some sunshine into the process."
She added that "every election code in the country allows for observers and for witnesses and for the process of observing the voting and observing the processing of the ballots," which "has not been implemented in meaningful ways in a lot of places." She emphasized this is "something we really need to make sure of," offering that "if there is transparency, and if we can ask the questions about vulnerabilities of the voting systems and technologies," then "people will have more confidence."
Mitchell made clear "I'm not somebody who thinks that China hacked the election, the machines" but that she "think[s] we need to take steps to make sure that we have people reviewed and say no [China] didn't" hack the election. As she put it "there were other problems, but that wasn't one of them."
On putting this all together Mitchell explained "we're exploring and trying to understand facts and share those with the American people and have a conversation with the American people and get them engaged in the process."
Mitchell said she doesn't understand how the press didn't ask any questions about the 2020 election, but her podcast is "going to... ask a lot of questions and maybe provide some answers."
"Who's counting" will run until at least the end of 2022, but Mitchell hopes longer. She "wants to build a permanent election integrity infrastructure" adding "we have to have people who on an ongoing basis understand that they have to be engaged," emphasizing "it's time for conservatives to show up."
The podcast is below and on Spotify.
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