The cancel culture is out in full force again. This time they are aiming their flamethrowers at West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner.
Put aside for the moment that Warner is one of the best secretaries of state in the nation. He’s done more to clean up West Virginia elections than all his predecessors combined.
An editorial in The Dominion Post launched a silly attack on Warner for attending a meeting with other secretaries of state and election experts.
Oh no! What’s next? Attacking Justice Department lawyers for taking continuing legal education classes? Or maybe the police for practicing at the gun range?
Warner was getting educated on election issues happening in other states. His attendance at a meeting of experts is something to be praised, not smeared. The offending association occurred at an educational event at the Heritage Foundation and was sponsored, in part, by my organization. It was dedicated to a free-rolling discussion about improving our elections.
Warner is no stranger to conniving attacks by the Left. In 2021, we learned that Maine Democrat Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’ communications director belonged to a private communications channel comprised of leftist organizations that attempted to smear Warner over his opposition to a bill in Congress that would have federalized elections.
Good move, Mac Warner.
Warner was just doing his job. He was learning what reforms and changes he could bring to West Virginia to help ensure the security of their elections.
As I said, Warner is one of the best secretaries of state in the country. He has removed more than 360,000 ineligible names from West Virginia’s voter rolls—deceased individuals and people who moved away. His effectiveness is one of the reasons he is being targeted.
The office Warner inherited was a mess. The prior secretary of state oversaw voter rolls in coal counties that were preposterous.
Mingo County had more people on the rolls than people alive by a margin so wide the Hatfields and McCoys were probably still voting. The Tug River Valley wasn’t the only county with preposterous voter rolls. Wyoming, Lincoln, and Boone counties also had substantially more registrants than eligible voters.
Mac Warner changed all that. That’s why The Dominion Post attacked.
One reason Warner has been a leader on clean elections is because he is engaged on a national level with election integrity issues. Maybe that’s a bad thing at The Dominion Post.
It certainly is a bad thing among leftist academics who prefer to cancel and shun lively debate.
The Dominion Post was upset that Warner attended an event that Dominion Post reporters weren’t invited to.
This illustrates the fact that far-left secretaries of state from other states have been attending secret events for years. One Midwestern secretary of state attended secret meetings in early 2020 with leftist activists and billionaires to devise ways to move dark money into government election offices.
Not a peep from The Dominion Post.
Nor have I seen any story from The Dominion Post about activist David Becker’s election conference with Colorado Secretary of State Griswold, New Jersey Secretary of State Way, Michigan Secretary of State Benson, and many more election officials who gathered in D.C. yesterday.
It’s an invite-only event that is not open to the public. I know. I tried and failed to invite myself.
Why is it okay for Democrat election officials to get together and discuss elections, but not okay for Republican officials to do the same?
It’s because double standards are all the rage now, especially on editorial boards of dying dailies.
The attacks on Warner are part of a larger movement in our county to stop the free exchange of ideas. Nowhere is this movement to stop free speech more focused than on ending debates and discussions about our elections.
If you post something about elections on social media, just wait for the disclaimer message saying this may be misinformation or for the platforms to outright remove the content.
One of my interviews on a podcast about my time working at the Department of Justice and working to clean up voter rolls was removed from YouTube. In an email following the removal of the video, YouTube said, “Content that advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches changed the outcome of the U.S. 2020 presidential election is not allowed on YouTube.”
The problem is, I never questioned the outcome of the election, there or anywhere.
It used to be that Americans believed in free speech and the exchange of ideas. Big tech and their allies in the media don’t seem to believe in it anymore. That’s too bad. Without it, we can’t have a functioning country.
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