Secure Elections Project provides counterevidence to a single-command theory: shared funders supported branches taking opposite RCV positions

A useful counterexample has emerged that constrains any claim that Sixteen Thirty Fund or Western Futures Fund imposes one uniform election-policy line on downstream organizations. Secure Elections Project received $2.205M from Sixteen Thirty across 2022–2024 and $50,000 from Western Futures in FY2024. In February 2025, Secure Elections Project submitted proponent testimony in Kansas for SB 6, legislation prohibiting ranked-choice voting. By contrast, in Idaho's 2024 Proposition 1 campaign, Idahoans for Open Primaries supported an open-primary plus ranked-choice general-election system, and Way Back PAC contributed $250,000 directly to that campaign; Way Back later formally listed Western Futures Fund as its connected organization, and WFF had a documented financial relationship with Way Back. Article IV and Unite America were also major Prop 1 funders and separately connected to the broader Way Back/Defend-and-Protect network. The important methodological conclusion is limited but significant: common upstream funders and operational networks can support organizations taking divergent or even opposing positions on a specific election mechanism. Therefore shared funding alone is insufficient evidence that Sixteen Thirty or WFF centrally dictates downstream policy positions. This does not rule out donor restrictions, grant conditions, strategic coordination or project-specific direction in individual cases; those require the actual grant agreements, reports, communications or transaction evidence.