New Voter Identification Task Force Announced

Voter ID Project Created in Response to Leftists’ Claim that Ten Corporations Joined Them in Successful Effort to Pressure ALEC to Stop Supporting Voter Integrity

Washington, D.C. – The National Center for Public Policy Research today announced the formation of a “Voter Identification Task Force,” intended to continue the excellent work of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in promoting measures to enhance integrity in voting.

The Think Progress “War Room,” a project of the far-left Center for American Progress Action Fund, claimed yesterday that ALEC was discontinuing its work promoting ballot integrity due to pressure from ten corporations that were themselves pressured by the Center for American Progress and another left-wing organization, Van Jones’ Color of Change.

“According to the Think Progress ‘War Room,’ the nine corporations and one foundation that pressured ALEC to stop supporting voter identification measures are: Coca-Cola, Pepsi, McDonalds, Wendys, Kraft, Mars Inc., Reed Elsevier, Intuit, ATS/American Traffic Solutions and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,” said Amy Ridenour, chairman of the National Center for Public Policy Research. “The Think Progress ‘War Room’ adds that Blue Cross/Blue Shield piled on after ALEC capitulated, so that’s eleven, most of which sell directly to the public. And there are a lot more conservative consumers in the United States than left-wing ones.”

“Corporate CEOs who cower in the face of liberal boycott threats need to understand that the left never gives up,” added Ridenour. “By falling in surrender to the ‘War Room’ and its ilk, all that these corporation chiefs have done is tell the left they are afraid, which means they will be targeted again and again on issue after issue. If these corporations do not reverse course and immediately grow enough of a backbone to say no when the left tells them what to do, conservatives may as well consider them part of the organized left. It doesn’t matter if corporate executives have free-market sentiments hidden deep inside them if they continually surrender to the left’s Trotskyite strategy of making relentless demand after demand in public.”

“Meantime,” added Ridenour, “conservatives will kick up our support for voter integrity programs. We’re putting the left on notice: you take out a conservative program operating in one area, we’ll kick it up a notch somewhere else. You will not win. We outnumber you and we outthink you, and when you kick up a fuss you inspire us to victory.”*

Ridenour allows for the possibility that not all of the organizations the ‘War Room’ claims pressured ALEC to drop work on voter identification really did so.

“To be fair, left-wing groups lie a lot, so if any of the corporations named in this release want to contact us to disavow the claims of the Think Progress ‘War Room’ that they helped pressure a conservative/free-market group to stop working for ballot integrity, we will be glad to issue a statement correcting the record,” added Ridenour. “We will be glad to reproduce and distribute widely any statement of disavowal any of them care to make. We’ve set up a special email address just for this purpose — [email protected] — to facilitate communications. We’ll even be glad to spread the word if they did so and now regret it, and want to pledge to never do it again.”

Announcements of the activities of the new Voter Identification Task Force are forthcoming. Expect activities to begin at shareholder meetings.

The National Center For Public Policy Research is a conservative, free-market, non-profit think-tank established in 1982. It is supported by the voluntary gifts of over 100,000 individual recent supporters, receiving approximately one percent of its revenue from corporate sources. Contributions to it are tax-deductible.

*Note: Unlike the Center for American Progress, the National Center for Public Policy Research eschews the use of violent references such as ‘War Room.’ We are, however, inspired by a particular passage in the 1987 movie “The Untouchables”: “They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way.” Indeed.

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The National Center for Public Policy Research is a communications and research foundation supportive of a strong national defense and dedicated to providing free market solutions to today’s public policy problems. We believe that the principles of a free market, individual liberty and personal responsibility provide the greatest hope for meeting the challenges facing America in the 21st century.