When Elon Musk asked Democrat Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson about the state’s swollen voter rolls, she tried to debunk his claim — using false data.

“Michigan has more registered voters than eligible citizens!? Is that true @CommunityNotes?” Musk asked on Oct. 19.

“Let’s be clear: @elonmusk is spreading dangerous disinformation,” Benson replied. “Musk is pushing a misleading number that includes 1.2 million inactive records slated for removal in accordance with the law.”

She took an apparent victory lap, stopping by CNN to discuss “our work to empower every American to see through the noise and know the truth about our elections.” 

The exchange between Musk and Benson went on for several days.

“Are you removing the ineligible voters before the election? YES or NO,” Musk replied to Benson on Oct. 21. The secretary responded with information from her office’s website, claiming the state maintains voter rolls as necessary.

While initially responding to Musk, Benson claimed Michigan has 7.9 million “citizens of voting age.”  But Tom Fitton, president of conservative watchdog Judicial Watch, pointed out this is false.

FACT CHECK: @JudicialWatch analyzed the numbers: Democratic Michigan Secretary of State @JocelynBenson published false information below about her state’s voting rolls, which Michigan has failed to properly maintain under law for years. The State’s own data shows that it has… https://t.co/qT8VG8iL0s

— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) October 21, 2024

Benson apparently posted the voting age population — which includes all adults, not just citizens — as citizens of voting age. According

Oregon’s voting portal lets anyone log into an Oregon resident’s voter account using only his name and birthday — and once logged into a voter’s account, it appears that a bad actor could use the online tool to cast the ballots of overseas voters by email. For that matter, the system doesn’t appear to protect against someone fraudulently casting ballots in the names of domestic voters by claiming to be overseas.

Oregon’s online elections portal, “MyVote,” lets anyone access residents’ registration information by entering a resident’s first and last name and birthday — which are often available online. From there, a fraudster could hypothetically mark a resident’s ballot, claim he is an overseas voter, and then submit the resident’s marked ballot by fax or email, according to whistleblower Cara Tapken, an Oregon resident, who showed The Federalist how the portal works.

The Loophole

After logging into the service, operated by Democrat Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade, one can access a voter’s address and party affiliation, along with an online ballot-marking tool that can be used to fill out a ballot for the resident, Tapken showed The Federalist. In at least some cases, the site asks for the resident’s zip code (which is visible on the voter information page) before allowing access to the ballot-marking system.

Screenshot of the screen leading to Oregon’s online ballot-marking tool. Courtesy of Cara Tapken

This tool is supposed to be limited to overseas or disabled voters,

The Pennsylvania Department of State refused to provide The Federalist with important communications, plans, and other material related to its work with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

The Federalist filed a Right To Know Request (RTKR) with the Pennsylvania Department of State on July 25 seeking “communications between PA DOS and CISA beginning from March 1, 2024 – present day.”

The request was made in light of The Federalist’s previous reporting that uncovered the state’s partnership with CISA to “mitigate threats” to elections, including speech it deems “misinformation.” CISA has been described as the “nerve center” of government censorship operations. The state would provide no additional details to The Federalist about what the collaboration would look like aside from indicating that it would include sharing “intelligence among the included government agencies.” The state never clarified what “intelligence” was being referred to nor what would be done with that information.

Notably, one email obtained by The Federalist in its RTRK response shows Secretary of State Al Schmidt (in an email to a slew of individuals, including those associated with CISA) talking about a meeting that occurred in which there were discussions on how to improve “information sharing.”

(What the “information” is remains unknown because the state stonewalled and then refused to turn over any substantive material about its ongoing work with a censorship agency that has targeted free speech over the years.)

The department first told The Federalist on Aug. 1 that it required 30 days to complete the