issues we have abandoned the heritage and legacy of the party. the thing that brought the republican party into being in the first place. [applause] >> you touched on this and this is the practical application of our few minutes left in this panel, how do we be faithful witnesses in an increasingly hostile culture because it begins to build on itself, you've got corporate america you've got laws and policies now that are speaking the opposite of what we are talking about, how do we go forward with a clarion call of truth, of righteousness, of biblical justice and not be intimidated and not be angry because i do not think we can operate out of anger. >> i think some anger is okay.

angry at the right things is okay but that's not the engine that can drive the machine at all. how do you move forward? we've been doing it in seattle, raised our four kids in seattle and we are massive minority going on there but people are waking up. where we are here is not where we were ten years ago even though we've experienced in exodus not through the red sea but to the red states. people that are still in seattle are ready to fight because they understand the cost of the lies being crammed down their throat in terms of the governance in seattle but also down their kids throats. we don't have a lot of voting power in seattle but i will tell you what we've got, we know how to raise our kids now, we are very serious about discipleing our children, we know what we will do for the next generation. number 2, we started to form these little underground pods

where nobody can find us. we got these little communication groups where we strength and reinforce one another, bring more people into the fold and those people are strengthened as well. we coach each other how to deal with difficult challenges like how to stand up in your workplace, what to say to your kid when they come home with an impossible assignment or whatever it is and i will tell you we are making converts because the other side has so overplayed their hand, so wildly out of touch. the connection between their bad ideas and the victimization of everybody but especially the most vulnerable is obvious. this is a target rich environment. what is my advice to you? number one, don't bend. they will come back to us. there's going to be influence. either the world is going to influence us or we are going to influence of them. for a long time they've been influencing us and that needs to end. you have to be an expert. be an expert on what god says in his word but also an expert on all these different subjects

as it relates to voting. you should know more about this than everybody else. when you get into a conversation with one of your friends you should be able to say immigration is not compassionate. the immigration services of loss from 30,000 to 300,000 unaccompanied migrant children in the underbelly's of the trafficking world of this country, we need to shut the border for the sake of children. you need to know more about this than everyone else. and finality if all else fails we need to breed them out. have more babies and raise them up. >> we just lost our g rating for this panel. okay. we only have a minute left but i've got to ask you this question because it prompted -- i flew through seattle last month. >> very nice from 30,000 feet. >> i was in the airport in

seattle and all these huge lines in the walkway of the airport and i thought it was outside of bathrooms and i realized they are all unisex bathrooms. everybody uses the same one. every line was long because everybody is waiting in line. this is crazy. does history show us that far policies and ideas of the left eventually implode if people come to their senses? >> we need to be careful not to indulge in wishful thinking. it's not true that history will always self-correct. it's not true that we can just wait around doing nothing and the craziness of the left will result in something that corrects the craziness of the left. we have no guarantee of that. the way things actually change is when people make decisions,

when they make choices, when they act, when they make sacrifices, when they take risks, when they lead. we will be a different world today if it were not for winston churchill, particular individual making particular choices which were very unpopular at the time, standing up against the prospect of nazi tyranny. individual human beings, leaders can make a difference, individual human beings, ordinary citizens can make a difference, that difference won't necessarily be made if we just stand back and expect history to self-correct. the idea that history has a determined course is an idea on the left, they get it from mark to got it from hegel if you want to know the intellectual lineage of it, we don't have it because we don't believe in it, we don't believe history has an inevitable direction or that it will self-correct or reach the right result in the end except at the very end when jesus returns in glory so it is up to

us exercising those great virtues, theological virtues of faith, hope, and love, to make a better world. >> we have to make history. >> you get the last word because we are out of time but there is resources available to help do exactly what katie was talking about, the voter toolkit, talking about that so people can get a copy of that. >> this is being released, the 2024 voter toolkit, you can find it in the new frc stand firm act, download the stand firm apps and look for the voter toolkit. included and it will be voter guide information, resources to get others involved, voter registration information, prayer points as we pray over the next 30 days, between now and the election, kind of a 1-stop shop for folks, it's free, hope you download that and ensure that with us. >> you can get that by texting toolkit 67742. will you think our wonderful panel once again. [applause]

>> all right. what an honor to be here with you. thank you so much for being a part of this conference. i'm excited about our panel discussion we now have no doubt this is something of great importance to every one of us and that is elections and we are going to be approaching it in this panel from various directions, various angles from election integrity to what does this upcoming election look like in terms of the landscape, winning, losing races and how do we engage effectively, we are going to be looking at multiple fronts which i want to

let you know this is a major issue of mine when i was in congress and there's a book out there just a couple months old now, sacred trust, election integrity and will of the people the deals with my experiences on this issue, let me introduce our panel today. i'm excited for the experts that we have here, first is mike barry who served as director of the center for litigation and america first policy institute and represents us in fighting for so many opportunities to defend our rights and he has been on the front lines. before joining a fdi he was vice president of external affairs at first liberty.

he also served as attorney with the us marine corps and in fact he continues to serve our country and us as a member of the us marine corps reserve. let's give a hand to mike barry. bunny pounds is founder and president of christians engaged which is a nonprofit ministry that's all about getting the christian community fully engaged in our culture, in our country on every aspect and she's doing an incredible job in that role. she serves as vice president of civic and church engagement for a family policy alliance as well as the family policy alliance foundation. she's an author, former political consultant and former candidate for u.s. congress. let's welcome bunny pounds.

and then we have matt carpenter. i'm thrilled to work directly with mashed on a weekly and almost daily basis, matt serves as the director of frc action and in that capacity he wears a lot of different hats, but he's like a right hand man when it comes to keeping a pulse as to what is happening in the election, pulse if you will across the country from individual races as well as resources that are available, mobilizing voters as well as keeping us up to speed on the candidates and races we need to fully engage on the cell matters are right hand man with frc action and frc as a whole so if you would welcome matt to the panel as well. i want to thank each of you for being a part of this.

as i mentioned we've got a lot of different angles that i want to approach the issue of election, election integrity, election involvement. mike, let me begin with you. one of the top questions that comes my way, i want to get to this little later with you, specifically on the issue of election integrity but right now you are very much involved in some litigation in different states from texas, georgia, arizona, different states. give us the overall landscape, what you are involved with. >> thanks for allowing me to be here. great to be back at what i used to know as pvs and now pbs is so it's a real privilege to be here but to answer your question, afp i has put a lot of our energy and resources into the fight for election integrity. we think it's important not just that our elections have integrity but the american

people have confidence that when the results are announced, they call a race, people believe, okay, i believe that's a legitimate result. that requires i will use the analogy from sports, from football i think what you see happening a lot is the left will point to the scoreboard and say we got more points than you did so we won the game and anybody who says, questions that is a denier. the problem is the rules, they have set up the rules so they always get the ball on the 50 yard line and we always get the ball on the 10 yard line so our election litigation efforts have been trying to level that playing field. we want to make it easy to vote hard to cheat. and so in georgia for example, we represents one of the election board commissioners

for fulton county. if you're not familiar with georgia, that's where atlanta is and she became an elected election board member. when she swore her up she noticed the oath says an election board member she will ensure that the electoral process is free from fraud or abuse. she said that's what i'm here to do, right, that's my sworn duty but in order to do that i need to see the data, the precinct level data to ensure that the process is free from fraud or abuse and low and behold fulton county said no, your job, i can't certify the results until i see the results. fancy legal term, your job is ministerial in nature. that's a fancy word for rubberstamp. we will tell you you what the results are, you rubberstamp and that is your job. she said i can't do that. i swore an oath.

long story short we have the county super county over the question of does an election board member actually, are they entitled to a meaningful opportunity to review the results, and if there are discrepancies, they have a meaningful opportunity to resolve those and once again goes back to the point i made at the beginning, it ensures when people when they see the results have confidence. people ask us, i remember a reporter, won't named the outlet but one of the ones that we probably are not big fans of here, reporter tried to challenge me on this and said is this just an excuse to refuse to certify? i said what do you mean? they said all kinds of discrepancies are we talking about? i will give you real-life example, fulton county has hundreds of precincts, big urban areas, let's just say 100 precincts hypothetically. they gave her one business day, 8 hours to review the data from

the precinct. that's not a meaningful opportunity to review, first of all. second, in 8 hours she was only able to get through approximately 10% of the precincts because there is so much to get through but of that 10%, 30% had problems. what kind of problems are we talking about? i said i'm glad you asked. for example, in some of the precincts, the number of ballots that were returned were greater than the number of ballots that went out. gave me to look my dog give me and i make a weird noise, yeah, do the math. if i send out one hundred ballots i better not get 150 back. so all this is is saying that the discrepancy. maybe it is just a clerical error and we can fix it but let's fix it. why shouldn't we have the opportunity to fix it and then we can say with confidence yes, certify the result. that's fulton county.

i won't go into all the details which i will mention arizona, for the sake of time, arizona very important state just like georgia, arizona every year state law requires the secretary of state to review and if necessary revise what's called the election procedure manual, the state manual for how you do elections in arizona. this previous iteration the secretary of state was a democrat revised, did a complete overhaul of the election procedure manual, including a provision that makes it now for the first time a crime, makes it a crime in arizona for anybody to engage in any behavior that somebody would consider intimidating or harassing or insulting behavior but here's the thing, if there's any lawyers out there, the way the law was written it said with the intent or effect,

the second clause, or the effect, that is legalese for it doesn't matter what the speaker intended. all it takes is somebody to say i am triggered by that and we provided examples to the court when we challenged this in state and federal court and we won in both cases, if somebody wears a red baseball hat, what color are the arizona cardinals? they are red. eyewear and arizona cardinals baseball cap, they say that the red hat. that is offensive, that's a crime in arizona jeff i wear a shirt that says it should be easy to vote but hard to cheat, that's a slogan we use and somebody says i think that, there's a hidden meaning there, that's a crime. all it requires is a person perceiving the message to think they are offended by that. the best when i said what if you have an upside down american flag on your hat?

or for that matter our right side up american flag and somebody says i know what message you are trying to send. that's offensive, that makes it a crime in arizona. we challenged it in state and federal court and in both courts got it not struck down, and injunction, the judge said it's not enforceable and we've been able to preserve those whens so in arizona come november 5th people will be able to go to the polling place and fully exercise their first amendment right as guaranteed by the constitution. [applause] >> this is why these legal battles are so critical. at the end of the day elections are not about who wins or loses, they are about the voice of the people being accurately heard and accurately counted and when you have shenanigans going on, that certainly interferes. benny, let me come with you,

you are among the great leaders right now engaging the christian community to step up to the plate and engage our culture to be involved in the election process. we have a lot of questions, how effective that's going to be. why is this issue of believers being such a critical issue biblically and for everyone in this room? >> thank you congressman, great to be with you and appreciate being here. we have to wake up the church. we have a responsibility to bring a revival to this nation and revival starts with us. but it really comes down to two things. i think we have a stewardship issue and we have a love issue. when we talk about christians actively participating, number one we are not realizing, that

we are stewards of this earth, we are stewards of this great republic and how many of us are thankful we do not live in north korea or venezuela or cuba right now, thank god for the founders that gave us the responsibility to elect our representatives. so often i was reading matthew 25 about the man who had one talent and hid it and said, lord, thought you were a hardened person, i thought you did this or that, like we have this weird concept of the sovereignty of god. my friend rafael cruz says god is in control is the biggest copout in the american church because the reality is, folks, he limits his sovereignty to this lose we are the hands and feet of jesus, we are the salt and light, we are the leaders he called, how will they hear unless as a preacher, how will they be sent unless we send them? that's the reality. but our brothers and sisters in

the sum of our churches are sitting with their hands behind their back going i'm not going to participate because god is in control. you have to be the voice to break them out of that complacency. i will say this. matthew 22 jesus says the great commandment, love the lord your god with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, not - love your neighbor as yourself, we all grew up in sunday school learning but frankly, it starts with us, how much are we loving god and how much are we really loving our neighbor? the greatest, one of the greatest ways we can love our neighbor is electing righteous leaders that are going to help our families and communities to write good policy, affect and bring good families. bad policies hurt people. we saw that in 2020. we are calling the church to make a commitment to

discipleship, really. prayer, vote, stand, engage, don't care what we say but at the end debut leaders, be the hands of jesus and let's elect people that will actually help our communities. >> that is awesome, thank you. okay. matt. obviously the big gorilla in the room as the presidential race that's coming down the pipe. a lot of attention there but that's by no means the only race. it is what's going to happen in the house, the senate affects what's going to happen in our country. give us the rundown how this race is looking good, maybe a little bit from the presidential election but more importantly beyond that. what's the critical nature of the upcoming election? >> we are 30 days late from election day.

all lies are on elections. if you live in a state like pennsylvania you are tired of the ads, we get it. at the presidential level, the candidate who wins has a 96% chance of winning the electoral college. the resources being poured into that state right now. as you pointed out that they have a senate race in pennsylvania too, 2 or 3 house races in that state we are paying attention to. there are 34 senate seats up this election cycle, 5 or 6 will be very competitive. in order of competitiveness we can start with montana. a state where democrat incumbent john chester is running for reelection, currently down in the polls by 6 or 7 points to a republican businessman named tim sheehy. we think that will go in the republican direction, donald trump is likely to carry the state by 620 points. next, look at a place like ohio

where democrat incumbent shared brown is running, branded himself as a left-wing populist type. that brand seems to have worked for him. he is running a competitive race. this is another state you expect donald trump to do well but we are seeing polls were bernie marino, the republican challenger is doing quite well in the state. and one more race in the senate would be considered a tossup, that would be michigan where you have an open race, there's no incumbent there, debbie stabbed her now to retire from office, proud of that development, she's -- big smiles out there. democrat congresswoman alyssa slotkin is the nominee there and republican mike rogers was in the house so that will be a competitive one. that will come down to the wire. michigan another important state for the presidential election.

also home to two competitive races on the house side as well. if you look at the house races, we had redistricting in 2020, went from this tea party era with swings of 40 and 60 in either direction, now we are looking at map with maybe 24 tossup competitive races at all. the margins in the house are very slim. a lot of people think the 2 into 20 presidential election was decided in three states with 80,000 votes. they want a four seat majority with 4500 vote margin to show you how close it is at the congressional level. and this is a close election. polling comes down to the wire,

in california, we are not competitive at the statewide level, and in new jersey, oregon and washington. and help out if you can. >> i will add to that frc action, we are heavily involved. in the swing states, and all across the country we need to win. can you imagine kamala harris administration, it is imperative we do everything we can when the house and senate met, the focus we had with action.

we mentioned election integrity as a whole. people want to make sure their votes count. from 1 to 10 into this election, are we more secure that we are going to have fair elections or is this still a huge question mark across the country? it varies from state to state across the board. >> important to look a little back at 2020. i recall in 2020, religious liberty litigation, in our elections, that affects, if you're passionate about

religiously become a life, and i remember in 2,020 across the landscape, wondering why are all the lawyers, why aren't we doing this thing to fight back and that's honestly what led me to the role that i am in now. to get to your question, look back at 2020 and we don't need to do the autopsy of 2020. most people would agree we aren't what we needed to be. now looking ahead at 2024, i don't think we are where we want to be in terms of aspirational role is. the leaders a purveyor of hope. hopefully you will walk away

with hope and encouragement, 8 years ago, light years. [applause] >> another example from military history. after the attack on pearl harbor, all we've done is awaken a sleeping giant, i believe 2020 may have been -- awoke a sleeping giant on the right in terms of people like me who before didn't dabble in election litigation, woke up and realized i have to get into the fight. at last count, if you look across the conservative or right-leaning organizations in the election space, i believe there are 150 lawsuits. we are nowhere near that, close to the 150 last cycle.

not where we want to be but we are catching up quickly but naked no mistake, the opponent is an organized, well-funded machine and we cannot afford, all gas, no break and can't stop in 2024. it has to roll into conservatives for liberals and i will wrap up quickly on this. for those who are progressive, and liberals, the desire to hold power through elections, that is their religion. they treat it the way conservative street actual religion, they do it every weekend, we passed the plate proverbially speaking, we show

up, whereas going to church on christmas and easter, for us, our faith is something we do on a regular basis election is something we do every so often. we need to put on the mindset the we -- former congressman, never out of cycle. we've got to -- you roll from one to the next. it has got to be rolling thunder. we will gear up for 25. elections happening 25. that's how we keep pace with the left. >> that gives energy to talk to people wondering whether or not there vote is going to count. within that context, i am sure

you've seen the polls that have come out at this point, some 40 million evangelicals are apathetic. for whatever reason going into this election cycle. what do you say to those who have objections, that are fearful, who feel their votes may not count, say someone mentions that to you right now, what's the message you want to? >> i don't believe people are not voting because they don't think they should be voting. it is almost like the atheist who says he doesn't believe in god. i believe every believer if they name the name of christ actually believes they should be good stewards but they are struggling with several things, my little vote doesn't matter.

in the big picture of things, the deep state is too deep, can't make a difference, all the different lies the enemy comes in and brings. in a red county, all these other people in my community will be voting, my vote doesn't need to be counted because it's going to be overwhelmingly in one direction or i'm in a blue county, my vote won't matter because i can't make a difference in that county. forgetting about statewide races, our county, city elections so we have to convince people your one vote matters. remember the guy last year in washington state vote lost by one vote in city council, he forgot to vote for himself. these kind of crazy stories. your colleague claudia tenney won a few years ago, state rep races that are won by 100

votes. your vote matters. the second point, a lot of people don't think they have enough education or discernment. with christians engaged, we built a get out the vote system for christians in all 50 states, track every election, sent a 5 step guide to research their ballot when early voting begins or ends three days before election day. every runoff, every special election etc. . this is important because christians do five things, pray over their ballot, and transparency usa but if you give them a little bit of information, mpower is him and say this should be part of your discipleship, what we see as

christians start responding. in 2022, christians in texas take our pledge to prayer, vote, engage, they voted in the midterm election. if you get them to admit and give them tools to do it. now we are up to half a million christians scaling to the presidential election. building a standing army that will never go away. >> that is awesome. while you were talking, in washington a couple weeks ago, jeff myers with me, i posed a similar question, someone asked me i don't know if i want to vote because it's the lesser of two evils. i posed to this to jeff this to jeff, what do you say to the person who says we have to deal

with the lesser of two evils, i thought his answer was brilliant, that's the wrong question. there's always a choice between two evils because nobody is perfect. the question that ought to be asked is not who is the lesser of two evils but which of these candidates will lessen evil. and so you can take that, what their views on life, what their views on crime, what their views on the military, the border, and policies matter and that lessons evil. >> jesus is not on the ballot. we have to pick between imperfect candidates. and z, give them the simple test, give them the simple practical instruction and they will rise up to the challenge and we are seeing that with our 1630 project to see young people pray, vote, engage and get going. >> that's a perfect segue into this.