Publications & Events

Count Every Hero & Secure Families Initiative | February 27, 2025

 

Amicus brief filed in North Carolina to protect the rights of military and overseas voters

 

Count Every Hero filed an amicus brief with the Secure Families Initiative in Griffin v. North Carolina State Board of Elections v. Riggs to urge the North Carolina Court of Appeals to affirm the Superior Court’s decision to reject efforts to retroactively change voting rules months after the November election that would unconstitutionally disqualify the legally cast ballots of many military and overseas voters.

 

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Count Every Hero | February 21, 2025

 

Letter to Senate Armed Services Committee re: removal of general and flag officers

 

Count Every Hero sent a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) regarding the removal of six general and flag officers on February 21, 2025. The letter stresses the need to ensure that any changes in military leadership are based solely on the needs of the Armed Forces and national security priorities.

 

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Count Every Hero & Secure Families Initiative | February 3, 2025

 

Amicus brief filed in North Carolina to protect the rights of military and overseas voters

 

Count Every Hero filed an amicus brief with the Secure Families Initiative in Griffin v. North Carolina State Board of Elections to urge the Superior Court of North Carolina to reject efforts to retroactively change voting rules months after the November election that would disqualify the legally cast ballots of many military and overseas voters.

 

Read the brief

Count Every Hero & National Guard Working Group | January 23, 2025

 

Statement on the peaceful transfer of power

 

Count Every Hero and the National Guard Working Group commend the peaceful transfer of power that minimized risks to national security following the 2024 general election.

 

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National Guard Working Group | January 13, 2025

 

Letter to Senate Homeland Security Committee re: Governor Kristi Noem nomination for Secretary of Homeland Security

 

The National Guard Working Group sent a letter to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs (HSGAC) regarding Governor Kristi Noem’s nomination as Secretary of Homeland Security. The letter emphasizes the importance of safeguarding the National Guard’s nonpartisan integrity and core mission of homeland defense and disaster response. It also urges the Committee to examine Governor Noem’s approach to guard deployments.

 

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Count Every Hero | January 13, 2025

 

Letter to Senate Armed Services Committee re: Pete Hegseth nomination for Secretary of Defense

 

Count Every Hero sent a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) regarding Pete Hegseth’s nomination for the Secretary of Defense. The letter stresses the need to protect the apolitical nature of the U.S. military and urges the Committee to scrutinize a proposed draft executive order to establish an external review board, which could politicize military leadership and undermine established review systems.

 

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Count Every Hero & Secure Families Initiative | December 6, 2024

 

State Board of Elections submission filed in North Carolina to protect the rights of military and overseas voters

 

Count Every Hero partnered with the Secure Families Initiative to ask the North Carolina State Board of Elections to uphold the eligibility of North Carolinians voting from abroad under the state’s Uniform Military Voters Act and reject the protests filed before the state board.

 

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Count Every Hero & Secure Families Initiative | November 4, 2024

 

Amicus brief filed in North Carolina to protect the rights of military and overseas voters

 

Count Every Hero filed an amicus brief with the Secure Families Initiative in Kivett v. North Carolina State Board of Elections  to urge the Supreme Court of North Carolina to deny Petitioners’ effort to overturn longstanding North Carolina military and overseas voting laws and procedures mere days before the general election, after ballots have already been cast.

 

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Count Every Hero & Secure Families Initiative | October 27, 2024

 

Amicus brief filed in North Carolina to protect the rights of military and overseas voters

 

Count Every Hero filed an amicus brief with the Secure Families Initiative in Kivett v. North Carolina State Board of Elections to urge the North Carolina Court of Appeals to block Petitioners’ effort to overturn longstanding North Carolina military and overseas voting laws and procedures mere days before the general election, after ballots had already been cast.

 

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Count Every Hero | July 12, 2024

 

Statement of Principles on domestic deployment of the National Guard

 

Deploying the Guard on U.S. soil is a decision that should always be made judiciously. Count Every Hero published principles to help decisionmakers ensure that domestic missions are appropriate, non-politicized, and in keeping with what’s best for our nation, our states, and the Guard.

 

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Count Every Hero | April 29, 2024

 

Brookings Institution convening

 

Count Every Hero convened retired high-ranking military and former senior defense officials at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, to discuss the recent surge in state directed National Guard deployments and what that means for the United States military and the 2024 election.

 

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National Security Leaders | April 8, 2024

 

Amicus brief filed in Supreme Court on presidential criminal immunity

 

Count Every Hero co-chairs, along with ten other retired four-star generals and admirals and former service secretaries, urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reject former President Donald Trump’s theory of absolute presidential immunity from criminal prosecution in Trump v. United States.

 

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Count Every Hero | September 22, 2023

 

Letter to Senate leadership: Move backlog of military appointments

 

Count Every Hero urged the U.S. Senate to work together to expeditiously move the hundreds of pending military promotions, writing, “The hold on military promotions inflicts cascading harms to our national security and will gradually weaken our military’s capacity to defend our nation and to meet its global commitments.”

 

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Partnership for Public Service | August 28, 2023

 

3 takeaways from our event on national security during presidential transitions

 

The Center for Presidential Transition® recently hosted an event with Count Every Hero to celebrate the release of our new report, “Presidential Transitions are a Perilous Moment for National Security,” which uses four historical examples to examine how new administrations can address national security challenges during presidential transitions.

 

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Count Every Hero | May 15, 2023

 

Letter to MI House of Representatives: Extend military voting options to military families

 

Count Every Hero wrote to support Michigan House Bill 4210, which extends voting options that meet the unique needs of active-duty military overseas to their families. “We need to ensure our service members and their families are allowed to participate in our elections, no matter where in the world they are.”

 

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Project On Government Oversight | November 22, 2022

 

Coalition letter to Congress: Protect national security from politicized civil service

 

The undersigned organizations write to urgently request that, as you pass the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023, you protect national security by stopping attempts to politicize our federal civil service. America’s long-term success and continued security rely on a professional, merit-based civil service composed of public servants committed to furthering the best interests of the people, regardless of partisanship or political loyalty.

 

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Count Every Hero | October 26, 2022

 

Press Release: Supreme Court amicus brief filed in Moore v. Harper

 

Petitioners advocate adoption of a profoundly destabilizing and undemocratic approach to election administration. The independent state legislature theory would undermine election integrity and diminish public confidence in electoral outcomes. Centralizing authority over federal elections in the hands of state legislatures would result in election chaos by undermining professional nonpartisan election administrators and undoing hundreds of laws enshrined in state constitutions, adopted by voter referenda, or implemented through administrative rules. Moreover, the jettisoning of judicial review and state constitutional limitations greenlights extreme partisan gerrymandering and removes any constraint on voter suppression in federal elections. The predictable outcome is severe damage to election integrity and public faith in election legitimacy.

 

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Count Every Hero | August 2, 2022

 

Letter to Senators Klobuchar & Blunt

 

Dear Senators Klobuchar and Blunt: We strongly support enactment of election integrity legislation that will be the subject of the Rules Committee’s hearing on August 3. We commend the members of the Committee and the Bipartisan Senate Working Group for their in-depth assessments of the fundamental flaws in the antiquated Electoral Count Act of 1887 that became apparent in the aftermath of the most recent Presidential election. These analyses are reflected in the bills that have been developed to supplant the outdated 1887 provisions with a balanced framework and unambiguous terms.

 

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Count Every Hero | June 8th, 2022

 

Letter to Governor Chris Sununu

 

Dear Governor Sununu, We are writing to express our concerns over the provisions of New Hampshire Senate Bill 418 (SB-418) that will adversely affect our military service members’ ability to exercise their right to vote by absentee ballot. The provisions within SB-418 that extend the time for certification of vote totals will result in a three day overlap between the day military absentee ballots must be sent to military members per federal law under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) and the last day for New Hampshire local election officials to certify vote totals.

 

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Count Every Hero | April 29, 2021

 

Count Every Hero launches new campaign: Operation Protect Democracy

 

Count Every Hero, a cross-partisan initiative formed in the fall of 2020 to ensure military votes were counted in the general election, launched a new campaign today called Operation Protect Democracy focused on fighting corruption in politics by reforming the electoral system.

 

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Count Every Hero | November 5, 2020

 

Count Every Hero press call: Top brass say military votes will make the difference

 

On Thursday, November 5th, Count Every Hero held a press conference with top retired military brass discussing what recent attempts to stop the vote count means for military voters and the impact of military ballots in the still undecided 2020 Presidential race.

 

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Count Every Hero | October 27, 2020

 

Military brass demand TV anchors hold off Nov. 3

 

Count Every Hero, a cross-partisan group dedicated to ensuring all service members’ votes are counted before any election winners are declared, launched a new round of campaign ads just 7 days before the election. Their ads counter the President’s latest tweet demanding results by election night. If all military votes are to be counted, TV news hosts must wait until every single military vote is counted.

 

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Count Every Hero | October 23, 2020

 

Count Every Hero press call

 

On Wednesday, October 21st, the Count Every Hero initiative hosted their first press call. The call featured Co-Chair of Count Every Hero, Admiral Steve Abbot, and campaign endorsers Air Force and Air Force Reserves Veteran Charlynda Scales and Retired Navy Captain Gabriel Soltero all shared their stories about the complexities of voting overseas. The call also featured Jack Noland and Anh-Linh Kearney, researchers from RepresentUs who shared an overview of their new report: Military Voting in All 50 States.

 

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Count Every Hero | October 14, 2020

 

New study: Military votes could decide 2020 election

 

Most overseas service members vote by mail, their ballots will arrive after Election Day, and their votes could significantly impact the November 3 election results. That’s according to a study released today by Count Every Hero, a cross-partisan campaign to ensure all service members’ votes are counted before election winners are declared.

 

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Count Every Hero | September 22, 2020

 

Former military leaders: Count all ballots before winner declared

 

The unprecedented nature of the November election has led dozens of distinguished service members and veterans to support Count Every Hero, a cross-partisan public education. The aim of the group’s advertising and outreach efforts is to ensure all service members’ votes are counted before election winners are declared by candidates, election officials, and media outlets.

 

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Count Every Hero | September 15, 2020

 

Count Every Hero demands all military ballots counted before winner declared

 

Count Every Hero, a cross-partisan campaign to ensure all service members’ votes are counted before election winners are declared, launched today with support across partisan lines.

 

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