US Muslim Brotherhood Groups Partner in Voter Registration Drive

US media is report­ing that a coali­tion of Mus­lim and Arab groups have launched a vot­er reg­is­tra­tion dri­ve aimed at get­ting vot­ers reg­is­tered for the US pres­i­den­tial elec­tions in Novem­ber. Accord­ing to the arti­cle:

August 28, 2020 MPow­er Change, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with grass­roots orga­ni­za­tions, launched the #MyMus­limVote cam­paign to pro­mote a nation­wide vir­tu­al reg­is­tra­tion dri­ve. The group bills itself as the largest Mus­lim dig­i­tal advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tion in the US, with more than 250,000 mem­bers. “The stakes in 2020 elec­tions could­n’t be high­er for our com­mu­ni­ty,” MPow­er says on its web­site. “Join the #MyMus­limVote move­ment to engage, moti­vate, and mobi­lize tens of thou­sands of Mus­lim vot­ers.” The group aims to reg­is­ter Amer­i­can Mus­lim vot­ers through its web­site, which also pro­vides resources for local activists to orga­nize with­in their com­mu­ni­ties. Par­tic­i­pat­ing orga­ni­za­tions have already reached out to near­ly half a mil­lion reg­is­tered Mus­lim vot­ers, and are send­ing email and text mes­sage reminders to encour­age Amer­i­can Mus­lims to vote in per­son or by mail, they said.

Read the rest here.

The MyMus­limVote (MMV) web­site indi­cates that a num­ber of US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood groups have part­nered with the cam­paign, includ­ing sev­er­al chap­ters of the Coun­cil on Amer­i­can-Islam­ic Rela­tions (CAIR), the Mus­lim Stu­dent Asso­ci­a­tion, and the Mus­lim Amer­i­can Soci­ety. Also part of the coali­tion is Emgage, a rel­a­tive­ly new group with ties to the USMB and which recent­ly host­ed a vir­tu­al con­fer­ence fea­tur­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Joe Biden along with two promi­nent USMB lead­ers. The MMV web­site describes the orga­ni­za­tion as follows:

# mymus­limvote is a non-par­ti­san vot­er edu­ca­tion and civic engage­ment led by Mpow­er change with a coali­tion of Mus­lim orga­ni­za­tions to reg­is­ter, moti­vate, and mobi­lize tens of thou­sands of U.S Mus­lim vot­ers in the gen­er­al elec­tions and beyond.

While the MMV claims to be non-par­ti­san, its lead­ers have indi­cat­ed that that they are strong­ly opposed to Don­ald Trump. The CAIR’s direc­tor of gov­ern­ment affairs recent­ly stat­ed that the full par­tic­i­pa­tion of Mus­lim vot­ers in the elec­tion had the abil­i­ty to tip the vote in a num­ber of key states, includ­ing Flori­da, Vir­gin­ian, Ohio, and Michi­gan. Pales­tin­ian-Amer­i­can activist Lin­da Sar­sour, exec­u­tive direc­tor of MPow­er Change, the MMV spon­sor,  was quot­ed by CNN saying:

I hope Mus­lims join me in vot­ing this elec­tion because we can’t allow this admin­is­tra­tion to appoint more Supreme Court Jus­tices or fed­er­al judges who can neg­a­tive­ly impact our lives for gen­er­a­tions to come.

The Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Dai­ly Watch (GMBDW) report­ed sev­er­al weeks ago that Sar­sour, who is known as a harsh crit­ic of Israel and has fam­i­ly ties to Hamas, was a par­tic­i­pant in the July Demo­c­ra­t­ic vir­tu­al con­fer­ence ref­er­enced above  fea­tur­ing pres­i­den­tial hope­ful Joe Biden as well as Biden‘s Mus­lim Engage­ment Advi­sor. Sarsour’s views on Israel were dis­avowed by the Biden cam­paign after she made anoth­er appear­ance with sev­er­al US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood lead­ers at a vir­tu­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee (DNC) Mus­lim del­e­gate meet­ing in August. That post also detailed the USMB ties of mul­ti­ple del­e­gates who attend­ed that meeting.

GMBDW report­ing on the rela­tion­ship of for­mer Demo­c­rat admin­is­tra­tions to indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions linked to the US and Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood has included:

• In 2013, the GMBDW report­ed that a top Mus­lim Broth­er­hood advi­sor had worked for the Bill Clin­ton Foun­da­tion in Egypt.

• In 2010, the GMBDW report­ed on the fam­i­ly ties of Hillary Clin­ton Chief of Staff Huma Abe­din to the Glob­al Mus­lim Brotherhood.

• In 2010 the GMBDW report­ed on the rela­tion­ship with the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood of Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s new­ly appoint­ed Spe­cial Envoy to the Orga­ni­za­tion of Islam­ic Conference.

• In 2009, the GMBDW report­ed on the fam­i­ly ties of an Oba­ma Faith Advi­sor to the Egypt­ian Mus­lim Brotherhood.

• In 2009, the GMBDW report­ed that sev­er­al Egypt­ian Mus­lim Broth­er­hood mem­bers had been invit­ed to attend Pres­i­dent Obama’s speech to the Mus­lim world in Cairo.

• In August 2008, the GMBDW report­ed that the Oba­ma cam­paign Mus­lim-out­reach coor­di­na­tor was part of mul­ti­ple orga­ni­za­tions tied to the US Mus­lim Brotherhood.

• In August 2008, the GMBDW report­ed that the Oba­ma cam­paign Mus­lim-out­reach coor­di­na­tor was part of mul­ti­ple orga­ni­za­tions tied to the US Mus­lim Brotherhood.

The GMBDW has also doc­u­ment­ed numer­ous White House meet­ings involv­ing the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood dur­ing the Oba­ma Admin­is­tra­tion. The rela­tion­ship of Demo­c­ra­t­ic Admin­is­tra­tions with the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood appears to have begun in 1996 when Hillary Clin­ton first invit­ed USMB lead­ers to a White House Iftar dinner.

For an analy­sis of the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood as a transna­tion­al influ­ence net­work, go here.