DONOR LETTER 11-14-22 2

Message from Catherine Engelbrecht

Hi ,It’s been quite a week for us all.As many of you likely know, I was released from prison last Monday afternoon, after having spent the previous seven days behind bars.  I, along with longtime True the Vote contractor Gregg Phillips, was both held in contempt of court in a civil defamation case, ending in an unprecedented sentence of imprisonment without bond. Thankfully, an emergency ruling from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered our release. With no time to waste we immediately jumped into Election Day operations, which continue unto today, with key races still undecided. Many of you are, no doubt, disappointed in Tuesday’s results. I want you to consider, however, that perhaps we did have a tsunami of sorts after all, though it did not look like we expected it to.The wave of passion-filled Americans, voting, serving, seeing firsthand the process failures that increasingly define our elections - it’s a wave of truth that’s washing over millions of Americans willing to stand in defense of their freedoms, regardless of what the “establishment” tries to spin. I believe the call of our generation is to claw back the deep institutional structures, built up over decades, that are responsible for the erosion of our freedom. It is not unexpected that we would face fierce headwinds and obstacles in that process.Think about what today might have looked like if we hadn’t challenged the “body politic” over the past two years — if we just assumed that the political establishment was doing what it was supposed to be doing, if we just assumed that we had shared interests, assumed that it had our best interests at heart. Today we would be facing much darker days. But that’s not what happened. And America is better for it. Consider these factors regarding the political establishment:

  • The Republican Party had been under a consent decree for forty years in which it was not allowed to engage in ballot security activities. The Party was released from the consent decree only in 2018.

  • The RNC barely lifted a finger to help some of its candidates get over the finish line.

  • The Democrat Party invests heavily in lawfare and attorneys who file election-related lawsuits all year round.

  • The Democrat Party still holds raw political machine power in many cities. They have huge patronage armies activist armies, and anarchist armies at their disposal that extend into the courts, the media, social media and corporate America.

  • Over the past two years, we were continuously disappointed in the cowardice of state legislatures to exercise their power on a variety of election integrity matters. 

We could have anticipated that machines would break down, polling places would run out of ballots, last minute lawsuits would be filed to change election processes. We could have anticipated that lawlessness would again be on full display. True the Vote was overwhelmed with voters contacting us for help or to report wrongdoing. We know what’s happening, now we must work without ceasing to correct the problems before they occur again in November 2024. I don’t tell you this to discourage you. I tell you this to inspire you to join us in the battles ahead. The political establishment is not on board with correcting what has become a perpetually broken election process. They prefer the status quo. While not everyone is part of the engine that drives election fraud, they are on board with it because politicos know how to exploit the vulnerabilities to get them to their desired destinations. It’s going to take continued Atlassian efforts on our part to keep elections free and fair.Look at where we are right now, especially compared to where we were two, four and six years ago. The efforts of all of us have been nothing short of spectacular.People who value freedom tend not to organize. This does not come naturally to us. We tend to mind our own business. We don’t try to force others to do what we think they should do. That is our nature.But we realized that our liberty was slipping away, taken by people who are happy to organize, happy to drown out other viewpoints, happy to bully others into doing what they want.So we organized, we got to know each other. We united into a movement.Getting organized is no small thing. That hard work is largely behind us. We know how to find each other now and have scaled the steep learning curve of getting our message out. Going forward, we will only grow our bond and increase our numbers, and our messages will reach farther over the next two years. We can now focus on using our power to take back our elections and take back our country.Let’s take our wins from this week and build on them. More importantly, let’s learn our lessons and steel our resolve to stay engaged. When people tell you who they are, we should believe them.Nobody ever said a tsunami was the endgame. It was always the beginning.  We have a long way to go, but we are moving forward.  Ever onward,Catherine

CATHERINE ENGELBRECHT

FOUNDER | TRUE THE VOTE