Liberals have made quick use of the coronavirus crisis to promote all manner of policy prescriptions that, under less dire circumstances, would be ignored or lamented by conservatives. The left’s latest gambit is the George Soros-backed vote-by-mail scheme, which promises an election cycle ripe for fraud.

But that’s merely one data point in a vast array of efforts being funded by the left-wing billionaire. His minions, with a great deal of help from rich Uncle George, are using the pandemic as an opportunity to prey on destabilization and panic to usher in their dream of expanding government control of our lives.

At Capital Research Center, we’ve just combed through the latest IRS filings from Soros’ top funding vehicles. They tell the tale, starting with vote-by-mail and absentee ballots in general.

The Brennan Center for Justice, heavily funded by Soros’ Open Society, is spearheading a plan that calls for a “universal vote-by-mail option for all voters,” or more precisely, absentee ballot initiatives. The newest portion of the plan involves “secure drop boxes in accessible locations for voters to drop off ballots directly.”

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Democrats already have managed to pass into law some absentee ballot provisions using the coronavirus relief package. Deep in the bowels of the $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill Congress passed in late March was a vote-by-mail timebomb that conservatives will come to regret in the 2020 election.

In a vote-by-mail system, voters get their ballots in the mail, fill them out, and drop them back in the mailbox to be counted by their county’s registrar of voters.

But the system is uncomfortably vulnerable to fraud. For example, who ensures that the person who fills out the ballot is the correct voter?

Moreover, voting by mail expands the chain of events involved in casting a ballot and radically expands the opportunities for fraudsters to tamper with the process. In 36 states, somebody else can legally deliver voters’ ballots with their permission, usually a family member or attorney. But 13 states generally allow anybody to collect absentee ballots—with serious consequences.

In 2019, in a case that has not gone to trial, a Republican political operative in North Carolina was indicted on multiple counts of absentee ballot fraud for actions he allegedly took on behalf of congressional candidate Mark Harris. The scandal so distorted the vote that the state board of elections scrapped it and held a new election.

The indictment in the case is a warning to vote-by-mail proponents: “Ballots were collected from voters and taken into possession unlawfully . . . and the ballots were mailed in such a manner to conceal the fact that the voter had not personally mailed it himself.”

Ballot fraud is hardly unusual. The Heritage Foundation maintains a database of criminals convicted of absentee ballot fraud—roughly 150 since 2000, even though the crime is hard to prove.

And this isn’t the only problematic activity Soros is funding, through “charitable” means, in an effort to reshape the American electoral system.

As the Capital Research Center discovered after our open records request procured the newest IRS filings from Soros’ biggest philanthropies, he is quietly funneling billions through a network of foundations, nonprofits, and advocacy groups–all funded by Soros and run by his personal army of employees.

In 2018 alone, Soros’ two wealthiest foundations—Open Society Foundations and Foundation to Promote Open Society—were the source of over $700 million. Of that, $500 million was in grants to other left-wing activist groups and think tanks, including well-known names such as Planned Parenthood, Center for American Progress, CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington), and Media Matters for America.

Most interestingly, the little-known but vastly wealthy New Venture Fund also makes Soros’ giving list. New Venture holds particular interest for Capital Research Center because it’s the flagship of Arabella Advisors’ $635 million-a-year “dark money” network, which we uncovered last year.

Another link exists between the Arabella Advisors network and Soros. As Aaron Klein of Breitbart has reported:

The Soros-funded Brennan Center’s mail-in ballot plan was weaponized by the Stand Up America activist group, which launched a nationwide program urging Americans to nudge Congress to fund the voting changes. … Stand Up America is funded by the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which is managed by the shadowy Arabella Advisors, a for-profit consultancy funded by far-left donors. The Soros-funded Democracy Alliance recommended that donors invest several million dollars into Sixteen Thirty Fund.

Far from competing to be kings of leftist funding, it would appear Arabella Advisors and Soros are happily collaborating to achieve the same goals.

In all, Capital Research Center has charted almost two decades of spending by Soros groups. Between 2000 and 2018, Soros’ biggest foundations paid out an incredible $5.8 billion in grants to leftist nonprofits.

That’s serious money for a serious plan to reshape American governance.

Campaigns for far more voting by mail may sound fairly innocent in the current pandemic. But rest assured: They are merely the tip of a very large and well-funded iceberg.

This article was corrected July 13 to say that a political operative for congressional candidate Mark Harris was indicted, not convicted.