Follow the Money – canvassing

In their latest campaign expense filings, both David Illingworth and Mick Bates list a $250 expense to Crimson Central Services in Colorado Springs, for “Canvassing Services” (you can find all this info on TRACER). Let’s dig deeper. Here’s a list of all election campaigns that had similar expenses with that company for last month:

Six expenses of the same amount for various school board campaigns in different cities…it seems likely these are for the same purpose. We at first thought this was for door knocking, as that’s the traditional definition. However, those two Canon City BOE candidates list a different purpose for their $250 expenses…one lists ‘software expense’, the other lists ‘voter data’. If you look at the past history of this particular company, they have a very large number of expenses of $1,250 for consulting and data. It seems most likely that Bates and Illingworth are paying Crimson Central Services for voter data, which is a normal thing for a candidate to seek out anyway.

Who is Crimson Central Services?

Crimson Central Services is an LLC filed in Wyoming – a state which allows LLC owners to mask the identity of their owners. But the records on Tracer list business addresses, and 6140 South Gun Club Road, Unit K6-354 in Aurora, a UPS store where I presume the 354 is a mailbox number. So, bit of a dead end there. These days though, their address is listed as 100 East Saint Vrain Stree, unit #105, in Colorado Springs. Who else is at that address? Victor’s Canvassing.

Now, Victor’s Canvassing is not a company I’d expect you to have heard of. However, they identified themselves when handing out this flyer to teachers’ homes:

The return address on that flyer (some were mailed, some delivered in person by Victor’s Canvassing) lists the Freedom Foundation in Washington…a right-wing group known for attacking unions and public education (link1, link2, link3, link4, link5…you get the idea). So, no surprise to see them involved here, and not surprising to see Bates and Illingworth using a similar canvassing company as the Freedom Foundation.

But we’re not quite done digging! Who is behind Victor’s Canvassing? The Chief Operating Officer is Daniel Fenlason:

Who is Daniel? The Truth and Liberty Coalition (the 501c(4) group established by Andrew Wommack) proudly lists him as one of their ‘Influencers‘:

So, in summary – Bates and Illingworth appear to be using the services of a canvassing company that’s closely linked to the Truth and Liberty Coalition and Andrew Wommack, as well as the Freedom Foundation.