DELAWARE — The Fair Elections Fund, incorporated in Delaware in 2023, has directed over $7.7 million to various organizations ahead of the 2024 election. Cleta Mitchell and Heather Honey are listed as directors of the fund.
The organization, also known as the Foundation For Accountability Integrity & Research In Elections Fund, provided funding for advertisements in U.S. swing states suggesting that local officials could choose not to certify elections. Election law requires officials to certify vote totals once official challenge processes are complete. The American Principles Project Foundation received $300,000 from the fund between July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025, and funded these advertisements. The ads displayed the Follow the Law logo with a disclaimer indicating payment by the American Principles Project Foundation. The fund also paid social media influencers to promote voting legislation in 2024.
The fund gave $1,875,000 to the Article III Foundation, which ran Spanish-language advertisements before the 2024 election stating that non-citizen voting is illegal and a deportable offense. Additionally, the fund sent $285,000 to Urban Legend Media, which connects funders with social media influencers. The fund also contributed to a campaign promoting the Save Act, a voting bill that did not pass Congress. Mitchell launched the Only Citizens Vote coalition in 2024, which includes conservative organizations advocating for proof of citizenship voting requirements.
The fund sent $200,000 to the Election Research Institute and paid Verity Vote nearly $200,000 for consulting services between 2023 and 2025. Tax documents show the Conservative Partnership Institute gave the fund more than $6 million in 2024. Mitchell holds the title of senior legal fellow at the institute, and the fund lists the Conservative Partnership Institute headquarters as its address on tax filings.
Brendan Fischer, director of strategic investigations at Campaign Legal Center, commented on the fund's activities. He said that Mitchell and Honey are "not only leading figures in the election denial movement, they are also helping channel millions of dollars to an ecosystem of groups that seek to undermine the freedom to vote and mainstream fringe election claims." Fischer added, "These grants are important not only for what they fund individually, but for the broader election denial infrastructure they help build."
Michael McNulty, policy director at Issue One, stated, "We still see a massive ecosystem built around producing and spreading and pushing false, baseless, tired, debunked conspiracy theories about election fraud." McNulty said, "It fits perfectly into what we've kind of called the 'election takeover playbook' that Trump has. The first step is just like being able to massively spread these false conspiracy theories about election fraud." He also noted, "What seems to be a large ecosystem, then when you start connecting the dots, a lot of the same people and same groups are involved. And the same funders are involved." Mitchell previously assisted Donald Trump's efforts to contest the 2020 presidential election results. Trump has publicly cited research produced by Honey to question the 2020 election outcome and Honey claimed that more votes were cast in Pennsylvania in 2020 than there were registered voters. Honey currently works at the Department of Homeland Security and served as president of the Election Research Institute until 2025. She also led Verity Vote.