Donald Trump’s top envoy to Canada says he was unaware a voter identification app that he previously endorsed and promoted was used by an Alberta separatist group at the centre of a major Canadian political scandal.
US Ambassador Pete Hoekstra, who is also personally acquainted with both the app’s founder and the founder’s wealthy step-father, denies any knowledge of the app’s use by Alberta separatists to identify the names and addresses of supporters of a potential referendum on the province separating from Canada.
“I was not aware of the relationship,” Ambassador Hoekstra told PressProgress about the apparent collaboration between an Alberta separatist group called the Centurion Project and a Michigan-based right-wing political group called 10xVotes.
David Parker, a far-right separatist organizer, cites 10xVotes as his inspiration for launching the Centurion Project and claims the American group has been quietly working with him behind-the-scenes for over a year.
Pete Hoekstra promoting 10xVotes, Centurion Project leader David Parker (Source: Lance Griffin, Facebook; Freedom Calendar, YouTube)
The issue of foreign support of Alberta separatist groups has been an open question since the US State Department confirmed earlier this year that Trump administration officials have held multiple meetings with Alberta separatist leaders.
The Centurion Project is currently under investigation by Elections Alberta, Alberta’s Information and Privacy Commissioner and the RCMP into how the group obtained private data about nearly three million Albertans allegedly sourced from the province’s official list of electors. The massive data breach is being described as potentially one of the “most significant privacy incidents” in Canadian history.
That information, which includes the names and residential addresses of millions of Alberta voters, was accessible to separatist activists through the app’s database. One video leaked from a Centurion Project training call shows the group shared the home address of former premier Jason Kenney.
Elections Alberta alleges the Centurion Project obtained the list of electors from the Republican Party of Alberta, a registered provincial political party that advocates for Alberta independence.
Unauthorized use of the list of electors can result in a $100,000 fine and one year in jail. Elections Alberta has indicated the separatist group is currently “not cooperating” with their investigation.
Centurion Project app training session (Zoom)
Neither Parker nor his lawyer, Chad Williamson, answered questions from PressProgress about the nature of the Centurion Project’s collaboration with 10xVotes. Parker, however, discussed the subject at length on a recent podcast.
“In my travels in the United States, I’ve met a lot of political organizers and I’ve talked to a lot of people, and I stumbled across this group out of Michigan called 10xVotes,” Parker told a podcast last month.
“I was massively impressed with what they’d done, and I wanted to bring that idea and that methodology to Alberta,” Parker explained. “For almost two years — it’ll be two years this fall — I’ve been working with them, talking with them, trying to build this out.”
“And the result is the Centurion Project.”
The app, which Parker described as the “10x slash the Centurion Project app,” targets low-engagement voters who may lean one way or another politically, but don’t reliably show up to vote. The app attempts to solve this problem by asking supporters to use their database to identify 10 politically-aligned friends, family or neighbours who can be pressured into showing up to vote.
First rolled out during the 2024 US presidential election, its backers tout 10xVotes as the secret weapon that helped deliver Michigan’s 15 electoral college votes to Donald Trump. Michigan Republicans are currently holding state-wide information sessions about 10xVotes in hopes that the technology will help send right-wing candidates to congress after this fall’s midterm elections.
A version of 10xVotes’ Michigan app reviewed by PressProgress has a substantially similar interface and functionalities as the Centurion Project’s app in Alberta.
Michigan Republican 10xVotes information session (Source: Lance Griffin, Facebook)
Prior to being appointed ambassador to Canada, Hoekstra served as the chair of the Michigan Republican Party and was one of 10xVotes’ most vocal public backers.
During multiple 2024 rallies alongside Trump and his running mate JD Vance, Hoekstra explicitly called on crowds of Trump supporters to download the 10xVotes app in order to identify friends and family members to assist Trump’s ‘get out the vote’ efforts.
“Remember this — 10xVotes,” Hoekstra told a November 2, 2024 rally in Warren, Michigan. “It is an app that you can download, and in real-time, up-to-date data, it will tell you whether your friends and family have voted or not.”
“It’s called 10xVotes,” Hoekstra repeated. “We need you to go out and get a few more folks to the polls so that we swamp the vote.”
In addition to publicly endorsing and repeatedly promoting the app, 10xVotes also credited Hoekstra with leveraging his political connections to help the group organize in-person presentations to further promote their app.
In his statement to PressProgress, the US ambassador acknowledged having promoted the 10xVotes app in his earlier role but flatly denied any personal involvement or financial stake in the voter identification tool.
“I have zero involvement with 10xVotes,” Ambassador Hoekstra told PressProgress. “I have never had any financial relationship with 10xVotes.”
“They were a potential tool, offered for free to get out Republicans voters for President Trump in 2024. I was chairman of the Michigan Republican Party and it was my job to develop a winning campaign.”
US State Department conflict-of-interest disclosure filings show Hoekstra resigned as Michigan GOP chair in February 2025 and did not report any business interests relating to the app.
10xVotes, which offers its services and access to its voter database for free in support of GOP candidates, has also been boosted by an unusual number of other influential but controversial MAGA figures.
The app has been publicly endorsed by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones of the website Infowars. The app was also showcased on an episode of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s podcast.
10xVotes, the assumed name of a company called Voteatron LLC, is the brainchild of two west Michigan political operatives involved in social conservative activism who boast high-profile family connections.
Drew Born, a Grand Rapids commercial real estate broker and the director of Voteatron, is a well-connected Republican activist who runs a group called Michigan Family Action and previously ran for chair of the Michigan GOP.
On social media, Born has promoted the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” plan, posted photos of himself at Turning Point USA galas at Mar-a-Lago and advocated the annexation of the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Born is also directly connected to Ambassador Hoekstra: Born and Hoekstra are both listed as directors of the Mecosta Environmental and Security Alliance, a group opposing the construction of an EV battery manufacturing plant in west Michigan.
Notably, Born is also the step-son of Michigan businessman JC Huizenga, the owner of a chain of religious charter schools and an influential figure in local GOP politics.
His mother, Tammy Born Huizenga, is a supporter of Trump Health Secretary RFK Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda who was recently appointed as a senior advisor to the US Department of Health and Human Services.
The family’s generational wealth is originally derived from garbage collection and is part of an extended family tree that includes the late billionaire H. Wayne Huizenga, founder of Waste Management Inc. and former owner of Blockbuster Video, as well as the NFL’s Miami Dolphins, MLB’s Florida Marlins and the NHL’s Florida Panthers.
Huizenga and Hoekstra have a personal history, as well: Huizenga is an old donor to Hoekstra’s past congressional campaigns, and the two served as campaign chairs for Mitt Romney’s 2012 West Michigan leadership team. They also served as board members for the Netherland-America Foundation (Hoekstra was later appointed US ambassador to the Netherlands, where he was accused of foreign interference after hosting an event for a Dutch far-right political party).
10xVotes founder Drew Born at Turning Point USA fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago, posing with Project Veritas’ James O’Keefe (Source: Drew Born, Facebook)
Drew Wierda, the other founder of the 10xVotes app, introduces himself as the nephew of Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, who is himself another former donor to Hoekstra’s past congressional campaigns and the brother of Trump’s first-term education secretary, Betsy DeVos.
Born and Wierda are both alumni of Hope College in Holland, Michigan, a private Christian liberal arts school affiliated with the Dutch Reformed Church.
Born and 10xVotes did not respond to numerous phone calls, emails and direct messages sent over the span of a week, requesting clarification on the group’s involvement with the Centurion Project, its connections with Ambassador Hoekstra or its sources of funding.
10xVotes’ Drew Born and Drew Wierda pose with Trump FBI director Kash Patel (Photo: Drew Born, Facebook)
10xVotes’ business model is somewhat murky. The app describes itself as a service provided for free in support of Michigan Republicans and does not charge its users subscription fees, yet it does not publicly solicit donations through its website or indicate who funds it.
“We raise our own money,” Lance Griffin, 10xVotes’ head of public affairs, explained in a presentation to one state GOP group last year. “We don’t ask for any donations, we’ve made this free and available to all of you, all the local county parties and the Michigan Republican party [to] access our website and our data.”
However it funds itself, the group appears to have significant funds at its disposal.
10xVotes was a corporate sponsor at the 2025 Michigan GOP convention (Hoekstra’s final event as party chair) and Parker claims the group spent another $50,000 sponsoring a VIP suite at a 2024 Tucker Carlson Live event in Grand Rapids.
According to Parker’s story, he was also personally responsible for persuading Tucker Carlson to endorse the 10xVotes app that night — and, in turn, perhaps also responsible for Trump’s election victory in Michigan.
“I used all of my political capital with Tucker to get them to endorse it on stage that night,” Parker told a podcast. “We tracked the results of that endorsement, that endorsement resulted in 86,000 people who were historically non-voters voting in that election … that’s almost the victory margin for Trump.”
While it’s unclear to what extent Trump’s victory can be attributable to Parker’s personal intervention (Carlson’s production company did not respond to a request for comment from PressProgress), Carlson did indeed endorse the app that evening.
“I did hear of something really cool today,” Carlson told his supporters at Grand Rapids’ Van Andel Arena. “I’ve never done anything like this before, but I’m going to do it now.”
“There’s actually a website in the state of Michigan where you can find people who would probably vote for the candidate you’re voting for but don’t vote,” Carlson said. “It’s called 10xVotes, and you can go on there and just contact people you know.”
Photos from the event that night show Pete Hoekstra was present in 10xVotes’ Tucker Carlson and Kid Rock VIP suite, where he sat next to 10xVotes’ head of public affairs and again promoted the app.
Source: Lance Griffin (Facebook)
In a statement to PressProgress, Elections Alberta said it is unable to confirm or deny if it is investigating any possible unauthorized use of electors’ data by 10xVotes, explaining the agency is “legislatively prohibited from commenting on complaints, allegations or investigations we may or may not be reviewing or conducting.”
Elections Alberta noted it secured an interim injunction to stop the unauthorized use of the list of electors and had made efforts to identify and contact anyone who had “access to or viewed the information in the list of electors.” It also said it is legislatively empowered to investigate acts of foreign interference.
Neither the Centurion Project nor 10xVotes answered questions seeking to clarify if any data about Alberta voters was stored on foreign servers or otherwise handled by the American company.
10xVotes likewise did not say if the US-based group had been contacted by Elections Alberta, Alberta’s Information and Privacy Commissioner or the RCMP.
Ambassador Hoekstra told PressProgress it is the position of the United States government that US companies must act in accordance with domestic laws, but said the US government takes no position on US companies or political actors independently assisting secessionist groups in Canada.
“The US government position is clear. US companies must operate in Canada in accordance with Canadian law,” Ambassador Hoekstra said. “Who they work with in Canada is not our responsibility.”
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