Mystery Group Announces $5 Million Fund to Pay for Reports of Election Fraud. What Could Go Wrong?

David Goldman/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.On Saturday, Fox News reported the launch of the Fair Election Fund, an apparently right-wing nonprofit that says it has a $5 million budget aimed at exposing election fraud.
The project promises to pay election workers, organizers, and concerned citizens who have witnessed election fraud firsthand to share their stories. “Your voice could be what helps preserve our democracy,” its site reads. “And those willing to speak out will be rewarded with payment from our $5 million dollar fund.”
An ad for the organization released Wednesday suggests that, under the Biden administration, such fraud has flourished. “Across the country, there are real cases of fraud and abuses of the system that have eroded or trust, from executive orders opening the door to noncitizens voting, while some cities look to make it commonplace,” says a voiceover, as suspenseful music plays over black and white images of Biden and election-related headlines.
The ad is referring to Biden’s executive order aimed at expanding access to voter registration, and to legislation in some cities to allow legal permanent residents to vote in municipal elections. Unfounded claims of voter fraud and a rigged election system, which Donald Trump famously used in 2020 to falsely claim the election was stolen from him, have fueled legislation in dozens of states to restrict voting access.
According to a press release reported by Fox, cases of voter fraud will be vetted by the group’s election law attorneys and highlighted “through aggressive paid and earned media campaigns, the first of which will begin immediately.”
For now, the group remains something of a mystery: the Fox story didn’t contain details about the leadership of the group or the source of its funding. The fund didn’t immediately respond to questions from Mother Jones, and doesn’t appear on searches of the federal Internal Revenue Service or Federal Election Commission websites. The group doesn’t yet have followers on Facebook, Instagram, or X, on which it is following just one account: Fox News.