MoveOn Urges States to Investigate No Labels for Misleading, Disenfranchising Voters

The grassroots progressive group MoveOn on Wednesday called on secretaries of state across the U.S. to open investigations into No Labels, the political organization that has reportedly managed to gather the support it needs to be included on 2024 election ballots in four states so far.

The group has done that, said MoveOn, by having canvassers mislead voters into signing party enrollment forms and making it look like it has more affiliated members in the states than it really does—all while disenfranchising those voters.

MoveOn Executive Director Rahna Epting wrote to secretaries of state to warn them that No Labels, which aims to run a so-called "unity ticket" in 2024 with a Democratic and a Republican candidate, is sending organizers into communities with what they claim are petitions to support the group's inclusion on ballots.

As Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D) warned residents of her state last month, the voters are actually signing an enrollment document and changing their party affiliation to No Labels.

"Voters were not informed that they were changing their political party to No Labels and, therefore, would be barred from participating in Democratic or Republican primaries, which are open only to registered members of those parties or to Independents," wrote Epting on Wednesday in a letter to Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias (D).

In May, Bellows wrote to the director of ballot access for No Labels, Nicholas Connors, telling him that municipal clerks throughout Maine have alerted her office to dozens of voters who signed the group's "petition" and later realized they had been enrolled in the No Labels Party.

Dr. Ben Chavis, the Democratic co-chair of No Labels, told the Associated Press after Bellows wrote to the group that "suggesting that a majority of Maine voters who signed up with No Labels did not know what they were doing is not true."

According to Bellows, "these voters have further stated that No Labels organizers did not disclose—and the voters did not understand—that No Labels was asking them to change their party enrollment."

"To the extent representatives of No Labels are telling Maine voters that, by filling out voter registration cards, they are signing or supporting a 'petition,' No Labels should immediately cease and desist from doing so," she told Connors.

Epting asked secretaries of state across the country to "ensure these same practices cited in the Maine secretary of state's letter are not happening" in other states and that No Labels' operations in their jurisdictions are "legal and above board."

"Reports that No Labels is misleading voters and potentially violating election laws, are deeply concerning and call into question the group's entire operation," Epting told The Messenger on Wednesday. "We urge election officials in every state to ensure voters are protected from No Labels' deception."

No Labels has garnered criticism in recent weeks for its secrecy surrounding its donors, which a co-founder of the group admitted in a local news interview in Denver this week would "[open] people up to incredible scrutiny."

While the group has refused to publicly identify its funders, as Common Dreams reported in May, contributors in recent years have included Republican billionaire donor Louis Bacon and former President Donald Trump supporter Nelson Peltz.

A firm with ties to right-wing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has also helped No Labels with its signature-gathering operation in Colorado, one of four states—along with Oregon, Arizona, and Alaska—where the group has managed to secure a spot on 2024 ballots.

"No Labels," Epting told The Messenger, "should practice what they preach about uniting the country, stop misleading voters, and end their ill-advised and dangerous dark-money-funded third-party ticket."