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As the 2024 election approached, advertisements began popping up in key swing states suggesting local officials had discretion not to certify elections.

The advertisements, reported at the time by ProPublica and Wisconsin Watch, were misleading. Certification is not optional, and officials are required to certify the vote once the proper process for any election challenges are complete and an official challenge is complete. The warnings, nonetheless, arrived at a moment when Donald Trump and allies seemed to be gearing up to contest the election results if he lost.

New documents reviewed by the Guardian show that the group behind the advertisements received financial support from a non-profit linked to prominent election deniers with ties to Trump. The same non-profit, the Foundation For Accountability Integrity & Research In Elections Fund (Fair Elections Fund), also paid influencers to promote an anti-voting bill in 2024.

Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer and longtime ally of Trump who assisted his efforts to overturn the 2020 race, and Heather Honey, a researcher known for misleading election analyses who now works in the Department of Homeland Security, are both listed as directors of the fund, which was incorporated in Delaware in 2023.

Honey’s appointment to an elections role at the DHS last year has caused considerable alarm among voting rights groups, who say it places an election denier in a powerful government role. Before she was in government, Honey produced misleading research that Trump has cited to undermine confidence in the 2020 election. She has falsely claimed, for example, that there were more votes in Pennsylvania in 2020 than there were voters.

Her appointment comes as Trump and his administration continue to sow doubt about the integrity of American elections, making baseless accusations of fraud without offering substantial evidence. There is still concern that Trump could deploy the powerful machinery of his justice department and other government resources to contest the result of the midterm elections this year.

Mitchell and Honey did not respond to a request for comment.

The Fair fund sent $300,000 to a group called the American Principles Project Foundation between 1 July 2024 and 30 June 2025, according to a tax form reviewed by the Guardian. In 2024, the American Principles Project Foundation paid for the advertisements suggesting election certification was optional.

The advertisements featured the logo of a group called Follow the Law, but a disclaimer said they were paid for by the American Principles Project Foundation. Follow the Law also sent a letter to at least one clerk in Nevada, according to Wisconsin Watch and ProPublica, urging him not just to be a “rubber-stamp” and directing him to a website that again hints election officials have discretion not to certify elections.

The American Principles Project did not respond to a request for comment.

“Cleta Mitchell and Heather 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,” said Brendan Fischer, director of strategic investigations at Campaign Legal Center, a watchdog group.

“These grants are important not only for what they fund individually, but for the broader election denial infrastructure they help build.”

During the same time period, the group also gave $1.875m to the Article III Foundation, a group linked to a non-profit run by pugilistic Trump ally Mike Davis, that ran Spanish-language ads ahead of the 2024 election warning that non-citizen voting was illegal and a deportable offense.

The group also sent $285,000 to Urban Legend Media, a company that connects funders with influencers to promote their preferred causes. The Fair Elections Fund spent money as part of a campaign to promote the Save Act, the voting restriction bill that did not pass Congress. In 2024, Mitchell launched the Only Citizens Vote coalition, a group of more than 80 conservative organizations focused on stopping non-citizens from voting in elections and championed federal efforts to impose a proof of citizenship requirement.

John Thune, the senate majority leader, has faced immense pressure from Trump and other conservatives to pass a bill similar to the Save Act, even if it requires getting rid of the filibuster. In an interview earlier this year, Thune chalked up some of the pressure on him as to a “paid influencer ecosystem”.

The group also sent $200,000 to the Election Research Institute, a group where Honey served as president until 2025. Between 2023 and 2025, the group also paid Verity Vote, another group Honey led, nearly $200,000 for consulting.

Since being incorporated in Delaware in 2023, the fund has raised more than $7.7m. The Fair Elections Fund appears to itself have been largely funded by the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI), a group that serves as a kind of hub for Trump loyalists in Washington and supports various groups advancing the president’s agenda.

The CPI, where Mitchell is a senior legal fellow, gave the Fair Elections Fund more than $6m in 2024, tax documents show. Fair Elections Fund also lists the CPI’s headquarters as its address on tax documents.

“We still see a massive ecosystem built around producing and spreading and pushing false, baseless, tired, debunked conspiracy theories about election fraud,” said Michael McNulty, the policy director at Issue One, a watchdog group that has analyzed the donors behind the Only Citizens Vote coalition.

“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 said: “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.”