How a Spreader of Voter Fraud Conspiracy Theories Became a Star

In 2011, Catherine Engelbrecht appeared at a Tea Occasion Patriots conference in Phoenix to ship a dire warning.

Whereas volunteering at her native polls within the Houston space two years earlier, she claimed, she witnessed voter fraud so rampant that it made her coronary heart cease. Folks solid ballots with out proof of registration or eligibility, she mentioned. Corrupt election judges marked votes for his or her most popular candidates on the ballots of unwitting residents, she added.

Native authorities discovered no proof of the election tampering she described, however Ms. Engelbrecht was undeterred. “When you see one thing like that, you may’t neglect it,” the suburban Texas mother turned election-fraud warrior informed the viewers of two,000. “You actually can’t abide by it.”

Ms. Engelbrecht was forward of her time. Many individuals level to the 2020 presidential election as the start of a deceptive perception that widespread voter fraud exists. However greater than a decade earlier than Donald J. Trump popularized these claims, Ms. Engelbrecht had began planting seeds of doubt over the electoral course of, changing into one of many earliest and most enthusiastic spreaders of poll conspiracy theories.

From these roots, she created a nonprofit advocacy group, True the Vote, to advance her contentions, for which she offered little proof. She went on to construct a big community of supporters, cast alliances with outstanding conservatives and positioned herself because the main campaigner of cleansing up the voting system.

Now Ms. Engelbrecht, 52, who’s driving a wave of electoral skepticism fueled by Mr. Trump, has seized the second. She has turn out to be a sought-after speaker at Republican organizations, recurrently seems on right-wing media and was the star of the current movie “2,000 Mules,” which claimed mass voter fraud within the 2020 election and has been debunked.

She has additionally been lively within the far-right’s battle for November’s midterm elections, rallying election officers, legislation enforcement and lawmakers to tighten voter restrictions and examine the 2020 outcomes.

“We’ve obtained to be prepared,” Ms. Engelbrecht mentioned in an interview final month with a conservative present, GraceTimeTV, which was posted on the video-sharing web site Rumble. “There have been no substantive enhancements to vary something that occurred in 2020 to stop it from taking place in 2022.”

Her journey into the limelight illustrates how deeply embedded the concept of voter fraud has turn out to be, aided by a extremely partisan local weather and social media. Although such fraud is uncommon, Mr. Trump and his allies have repeatedly amplified Ms. Engelbrecht’s hashtag-friendly claims of “poll trafficking” and “poll mules” on platforms corresponding to Fact Social, Gab and Rumble.

Deceptive memes about poll bins have soared. The time period “poll mules,” which refers to people paid to move absentee ballots to poll bins, has surfaced 326,000 occasions on Twitter since January, up from 329 occasions between November 2020 and this January, in accordance with Zignal Labs, a media insights firm.

In some locations, suspicions of vote tampering have led individuals to arrange stakeouts to stop unlawful stuffing of poll bins. Officers overseeing elections are ramping up safety at polling locations.

Voting rights teams mentioned they have been more and more involved by Ms. Engelbrecht.

She has “taken the ability of rhetoric to a brand new place,” mentioned Sean Morales-Doyle, the performing director of voting rights on the Brennan Heart, a nonpartisan assume tank. “It’s having an actual influence on the way in which lawmakers and states are governing elections and on the issues we’ve got on what might occur within the upcoming elections.”

A few of Ms. Engelbrecht’s former allies have minimize ties together with her. Rick Wilson, a Republican operative and Trump critic, ran public relations for Ms. Engelbrecht in 2014 however give up after a number of months. He mentioned she had declined to show over information to again her voting fraud claims.

“She by no means had the juice by way of proof,” Mr. Wilson mentioned. “However now that doesn’t matter. She’s having her uplift second.”

Cleta Mitchell, Ms. Engelbrecht’s former lawyer and now a lawyer for Mr. Trump, and John Fund, a conservative journalist, informed Republican donors in August 2020 that they may now not help Ms. Engelbrecht. They mentioned that her early questions on voting have been essential however that they have been confounded by her current actions, in accordance with a video of the donor assembly obtained by The New York Occasions. They didn’t elaborate on why.

“Catherine began out and was terrific,” mentioned Ms. Mitchell, who herself claims the 2020 election was stolen from Mr. Trump. “However she obtained off on different issues. I don’t actually know what she’s doing now.”

Mr. Fund added, “I’d not give her a penny.”

Others mentioned the questions that Ms. Engelbrecht raised in “2,000 Mules” in regards to the abuse of poll drop bins had moved them. In July, Richard Mack, the founding father of a nationwide sheriff’s group, appeared together with her in Las Vegas to announce a partnership to scrutinize voting in the course of the midterms.

“Crucial proper the American individuals have is to decide on our personal public officers,” mentioned Mr. Mack, a former sheriff of Graham County, Ariz. “Anyone attempting to steal that proper must be prosecuted and arrested.”

Ms. Engelbrecht, who has mentioned she carries a Bible and a pocket Structure as reminders of her trigger, has scoffed at critics and mentioned the one misinformation was coming from the political left. She mentioned she had proof of voting fraud in 2020 and had shared a few of it with legislation enforcement.

“I can’t let you know what number of occasions I’ve been by this train and the way my phrases get twisted and turned,” she mentioned in a cellphone interview.

Ms. Engelbrecht has mentioned she was only a P.T.A. volunteer and small-business proprietor with little interest in politics till the 2008 election of President Barack Obama. Involved in regards to the nation’s path, she volunteered on the polls. Her critique of the voting system caught the eye of the Tea Occasion, which disdains authorities paperwork.

In 2009, Ms. Engelbrecht created the nonprofit King Avenue Patriots, named after the location of the 1770 Boston Bloodbath, which fueled colonial tensions that will erupt once more with the Tea Occasion rebellion three years later. She additionally fashioned True the Vote. The thought behind the nonprofits was to advertise “freedom, capitalism, American exceptionalism,” in accordance with a tax submitting, and to coach ballot watchers.

Conservatives embraced Ms. Engelbrecht. Mr. Fund, who wrote for The Wall Avenue Journal, helped her acquire grants. Steve Bannon, then chief government of the right-wing media outlet Breitbart Information, and Andrew Breitbart, the publication’s founder, spoke at her conferences.

True the Vote’s volunteers scrutinized registration rolls, watched polling stations and wrote extremely speculative reviews. In 2010, a volunteer in San Diego reported seeing a bus offloading individuals at a polling station “who didn’t seem like from this nation.”

Civil rights teams described the actions as voter suppression. In 2010, Ms. Engelbrecht informed supporters that Houston Votes, a nonprofit that registered voters in numerous communities of Harris County, Texas, was linked to the “New Black Panthers.” She confirmed a video of an unrelated New Black Panther member in Philadelphia who known as for the extermination of white individuals. Houston Votes was subsequently investigated by state officers, and legislation enforcement raided its workplace.

“It was a lie and racist to the core,” mentioned Fred Lewis, head of Houston Votes, who sued True the Vote for defamation. He mentioned he had dropped the go well with after reaching “an understanding” that True the Vote would cease making accusations. Ms. Engelbrecht mentioned she didn’t recall such an settlement.

Her profile rose. In 2012, Politico named her one of many 50 political figures to observe. In 2014, she turned a right-wing hero after revelations that the Inner Income Service had focused conservative nonprofits, together with True the Vote.

Round that point, Ms. Engelbrecht started working with Gregg Phillips, a former Texas public official additionally targeted on voting fraud. They remained largely outdoors the mainstream, identified largely in far-right circles, till the 2020 election.

After Mr. Trump’s defeat, they mobilized. Ms. Engelbrecht campaigned to boost $7 million to research the election’s leads to dozens of counties in Wisconsin, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Arizona, in accordance with a lawsuit by a donor.

The donor was Fred Eshelman, a North Carolina-based drug firm founder, who gave True the Vote $2.5 million in late 2020. Inside 12 days, he requested for a refund and sued in federal court docket. His lawyer mentioned that True the Vote hadn’t offered proof for its election fraud claims and that a lot of Mr. Eshelman’s cash had gone to companies linked with Ms. Engelbrecht.

Mr. Eshelman, who withdrew the go well with after which filed one other that was dismissed in April 2021, didn’t reply to requests for remark. Ms. Engelbrecht has denied his claims.

In mid-2021, “2,000 Mules” was hatched after Ms. Engelbrecht and Mr. Phillips met with Dinesh D’Souza, the conservative provocateur and filmmaker. They informed him that they may detect instances of poll field stuffing based mostly on two terabytes of cellphone geolocation information that they’d purchased and matched with video surveillance footage of poll drop bins.

Salem Media Group, the conservative media conglomerate, and Mr. D’Souza agreed to create and fund a movie. The “2,000 Mules” title was meant to evoke the picture of cartels that pay individuals to hold unlawful medicine into the US.

In Could, Mr. Trump hosted the movie’s premiere at Mar-a-Lago, bringing consideration to Ms. Engelbrecht. Senator Mike Lee, a Republican of Utah, mentioned after seeing the movie that it raised “vital questions” in regards to the 2020 election outcomes; 17 state legislators in Michigan additionally known as for an investigation into election outcomes there based mostly on the movie’s accusations.

In Arizona, the lawyer basic’s workplace requested True the Vote between April and June for information about among the claims in “2,000 Mules.” The contentions associated to Maricopa and Yuma Counties, the place Ms. Engelbrecht mentioned individuals had illegally submitted ballots and had used “stash homes” to retailer fraudulent ballots.

In response to emails obtained by a Freedom of Info Act request, a True the Vote official mentioned Mr. Phillips had turned over a tough drive with the information. The lawyer basic’s workplace mentioned early this month that it hadn’t obtained it.

Final month, Ms. Engelbrecht and Mr. Phillips hosted an invitation-only gathering of about 150 supporters in Queen Creek, Ariz., which was streamed on-line. For weeks beforehand, they promised to disclose the addresses of poll “stash homes” and pictures of voter fraud.

Ms. Engelbrecht didn’t disclose the information on the occasion. As an alternative, she implored the viewers to look to the midterm elections, which she warned have been the subsequent nice risk to voter integrity.

“The previous is prologue,” she mentioned.

Alexandra Berzon contributed reporting.