ExtremismLedger
ExtremismLedger is a living public-interest database. Records are continuously reviewed, updated, and expanded as new verified information becomes available.

Scott Presler

Included on the basis of: Explicit ideological alignment (§0 criterion 1), demonstrated by the subject's own statements

Scott Presler is a conservative activist and, since January 2023, the founder of Early Vote Action, a Republican voter-registration group. ExtremismLedger documents him for conduct predating that current work: his own public statements and rally organizing establish that he was a founding organizer and vocal public advocate of the "Stop the Steal" movement, which promoted the false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and sought to prevent certification of its result, including his own January 2021 post urging congressional Republicans to "object" to the certified Electoral College count and his own characterization, in a video posted from the crowd near the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, of that day's events as "the largest civil rights protest in American history." No evidence reviewed establishes that Presler entered the Capitol building itself. His current Early Vote Action work -- registering and mobilizing Republican voters -- is ordinary partisan political activity and is not the basis for this entry.

Documented claims

Documented fact 01/01/2023

Since January 2023, Presler has led Early Vote Action, which describes itself as organizing to register and mobilize Republican voters and encourage early voting. This current work is ordinary partisan electoral organizing and is documented here only as background, not as a basis for this entry.

Documented fact 12/09/2021

In sworn testimony to the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack, Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander stated that the "influencers" who "made up" the Stop the Steal Coalition included Scott Presler, S. Brandon Straka, himself, Michael Coudrey, C.J. Pearson, Alexander Bruesewitz, and Rose Tennent, describing them as accounts with large social-media followings that amplified one another. Alexander separately testified that on November 4, 2020, he spoke by phone with Presler and Bruesewitz about setting up fundraising infrastructure for the emerging effort.

Documented fact 01/06/2021

In his own post on X (then Twitter) in early January 2021, Presler announced he would travel to Georgia and then "join you on January 6th in DC at the Capitol," writing to congressional Republicans, "Republicans, object or we will reject you" -- a direct call for Congress to reject the certified Electoral College count. On January 6, 2021, after the Capitol had been breached, Presler posted video from the crowd near the Capitol and, in his own words on X, characterized the day as "the largest civil rights protest in American history."

Documented fact 11/21/2020

Presler participated in a pro-Trump demonstration in Washington, D.C. on November 14, 2020, and spoke at a "Stop the Steal" rally at the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta on November 21, 2020, one day after Georgia had certified Joe Biden's win in the state.

Documented fact 11/06/2020

On November 5-7, 2020, Presler organized and led a multi-day "Stop the Steal" demonstration on the steps of the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg, calling for an "audit" of the state's results; attendees, including Presler, repeated a false claim of vote-count fraud in Michigan traced to a data-entry error in a small county.

Documented fact 01/01/2018

According to a 2021 analysis by Media Matters for America, independently reported by the Post-Star of Glens Falls, N.Y., Presler used the hashtags "QAnon" and "WWG1WGA" in dozens of his own Instagram posts in 2018 and 2019.

Documented fact 06/10/2017

In 2017, Presler served as an organizer for the anti-Muslim advocacy group ACT for America and was identified by ABC News and the Southern Poverty Law Center as the lead organizer of the nationwide "March Against Sharia" rallies held in dozens of U.S. cities on June 10, 2017. Presler told ABC News the rallies were intended to highlight specific acts he said were committed in the name of Sharia law, not to target Muslims generally.

Documented fact 06/10/2017

The Southern Poverty Law Center reported that a planned Batesville, Arkansas "March Against Sharia" event was being organized by self-described neo-Nazi Billy Roper, and that ACT for America canceled that specific event and issued a public disclaimer once it learned of Roper's involvement. This record documents Presler's own organizing role in the broader 2017 marches; it does not attribute Roper's ideology, or that of other opportunistic participants at other cities' events, to Presler.

Relationships

Confirmed Associated with incident — January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol Attack (Stop the Steal organizer; present at the rally near the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 (no evidence he entered the Capitol building))