Phoenix — When Denisha Mitchell was asked why she filled out paperwork to serve as an Arizona elector for independent presidential candidate Cornel West, her first reaction was, “What?!” Her second was, “What is an elector?”
“I was shocked and astonished by the whole thing. I didn’t even know what an electorate was,” Mitchell told The Associated Press on Friday. “The crazy thing is that they were all forged. None of it was in my handwriting. It was definitely not my signature. My email was wrong. My address was wrong.”
Mitchell’s case is the latest example of a murky tactic used in states across the country to get a left-wing academic named West on the ballot. It’s also one of the most egregious. It’s an effort West himself is completely unaware of. His campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday evening.
“If you file a false report with an Arizona state agency, you’re committing a felony. It’s not that complicated,” said Dennis K. Burke, a former U.S. attorney in Arizona and a senior deputy attorney general in the state attorney general’s office.
But as we enter a crucial three-month period leading up to the presidential election, efforts to undermine voting integrity are underway across the country, many of them coming from conservative activists and Republicans who support West’s candidacy.
Republicans and their allies worked to get the West on the ballot in Arizona, Wisconsin, Virginia, North Carolina, Nebraska, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Maine.
They hope West can act as a disruptor candidate to draw progressive support away from Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in November, giving former President Donald Trump a chance of victory in a key state that could be decided by just a few thousand votes.
It’s unclear who’s behind these efforts, and there’s no indication that Trump’s campaign is directly involved, but one thing’s for sure: It’s not West. He didn’t actively campaign, and records show his campaign was about $17,000 in debt as of late June.
After learning she was registered as a voter, Mitchell signed an affidavit to be filed with state officials next week, proving she never consented to serve as a voter and never signed her name on the paperwork. In Arizona, all independent presidential campaigns are required to file paperwork showing they have a list of electors who will vote for their presidential candidate.
But her story is not unique among Western electors.
One of them, Elizabeth Rosgeb, pleaded guilty to murdering her then-husband with an axe in 1998. She was incarcerated for 10 years and was released on Christmas Eve 2010, according to online records from the state prison system.
Rosgeb, who could not be reached for comment, is a registered Republican, and two other West voters are registered, according to voting records. Two other voters listed on state registers are not registered to vote at the addresses provided, according to records.
Mitchell said he didn’t know who filed the paperwork in his name.
She and her husband were both staunch Bernie Sanders supporters and were drawn to West’s progressive message earlier this year. They later took on the task of collecting signatures for a petition to get a tipped wage increase initiative on the ballot. They grew antipathetic to West’s candidacy after reading that Republicans were trying to get him on the ballot as a distraction.
“We stopped pushing him because we didn’t like the gloomy atmosphere in the Republican Party,” she said.
Her former employer, Wells Marketing, a signature-gathering contractor in Missouri, is a mystery limited company that is leading the effort to get West on the ballot in Arizona. The company did not respond to a phone call seeking comment.
“I don’t know who did it, but they have my information because I worked at Wells (marketing),” Mitchell said.
According to social media posts, the company is closely affiliated with Mark Jacoby, the brother-in-law of a Wells Marketing executive, who is listed in state documents as the employer of one of the signature gatherers working to get West on the state ballot.
Jacoby, a Republican from California, has a long history of using deceptive tactics. He was convicted in 2009 of voter registration fraud, according to court records.
In 2020, Jacoby worked to gather signatures to get rapper Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) on the ballot. Ye’s quirky presidential campaign was widely seen as an effort by the Democratic Party to undermine Joe Biden’s popularity with black voters.
Jacoby’s company, Let the Voters Decide, has been investigated for allegedly using questionable signature-gathering tactics in a 2020 petition drive in Michigan that sought to roll back some of Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s emergency powers during the coronavirus pandemic. The investigation did not result in charges.
According to the Los Angeles Times, he was accused of tricking voters into registering for the California Republican Party in 2008 by telling them he would sign an initiative to strengthen penalties for child molesters.
Jacoby stopped answering calls to his registered phone number and his voicemail was full.
Similarly unusual efforts have been undertaken in other states.
In April, The Washington Post reported that Trump activist Scott Pressler was collecting signatures for West outside a Trump rally in North Carolina. In a video posted online, Pressler described the academic West as a “far-left Marxist” who said, “If we put him on the ballot, he could take 1 percentage point away from Biden.”
But the Republican intervention to get West and his Party for Justice on the ballot in North Carolina went much deeper.
According to disclosures made public in early June, West spent just $2,400 to gather the signatures needed to qualify for the ballot in states across the U.S. this year.
But Justice For All has far surpassed the 13,800 signatures it needs. State government emails obtained by the Associated Press show that current and former employees of Blitz Canvassing, a Republican firm that made millions working for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, helped West achieve this feat. Emails previously reported by NBC News show that employees affiliated with Blitz Canvassing were designated representatives to pick up and deliver petitions for West’s campaign.
Ballot access quirks are nothing new in Arizona, where elections are often decided by a few percentage points.
This year, a leader of the conservative group Turning Point Action resigned from the group and dropped out of a reelection bid for Arizona’s House of Representatives after allegations that he forged a signature on its nominating petition.
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Slowdisco reported from Washington.
