Watchdog Group Warns Of Foreign Money Being Used To Influence Elections Ahead Of 2024 Cycle

A conservative watchdog group unveiled a report listing 14 recommendations for securing voting ahead of a critical 2024 election cycle, including cracking down on foreign funding of elections.

Honest Elections Project Executive Director Jason Snead told The Daily Wire that several red states had made strides since 2020 in improving election integrity, but there were still problems to address, including how foreign nationals can pour money into state-wide ballot races.

“If you are a voter in a red state, the odds are your laws are significantly better than they were in 2020,” Snead said. “There’s a lot of momentum on the Right for improving elections, for taking the slack out of voting laws.”

One of the key recommendations highlighted in the report is that foreign money can go toward state ballot measures that have far-reaching policy ramifications.

“Federal and state laws bar candidates and campaigns from receiving foreign donations, but these laws generally do not apply to ballot measures. Left-wing groups like the 1630 Fund routinely pour tens of millions into ballot measure campaigns while simultaneously accepting substantial donations from foreign nationals such as Hansjörg Wyss,” the report said.

As previously reported, Wyss nonprofits, including the Wyss Foundation and the Berger Fund, have spent $475 million influencing U.S. politics.

“The Left has railed against foreign influence and yet at the same time they got themselves addicted to foreign money, and now they are using it to rewrite election laws in very fundamental and highly partisan ways,” Snead told The Daily Wire.

Snead praised an effort by Republicans in Ohio to ban foreign money from being used in state ballot initiatives. The lawmakers pointed to dark money funding for an initiative to put abortion into the state constitution, some of which may have come from Wyss.

Snead also warned about the push for ranked-choice voting to replace partisan primary elections and for it to be used in general elections. The report said that ranked-choice voting “makes it harder to vote, harder to understand the results of elections, and harder to trust the voting process.”

“There is a concerted national campaign being pushed right by some liberal megadonors to essentially reinvent the electoral system,” Snead said, adding that ranked-choice voting was “designed to harm conservatives” and push “politics to the Left.”

Several conservative states, like Missouri, Idaho, and Montana are all set to vote on or consider votes on adopting a ranked-choice voting system in November.