A conservative think tank is raising worries about how a Biden executive order widens the gateway to Democrat voting.
The Heritage Foundation, in a memo this week, said it found the “Executive Order on Promoting Access to Voting” that President Biden signed soon after taking office to be “a partisan voter mobilization effort by the Biden administration to use the federal government and its resources in order to support targeted, partisan voter mobilization efforts and get-out-the-vote operations. … [It’s] “an attempt to influence the outcome of future elections through the use of federal resources, infrastructure and reach.”
Signed in March 2021, Mr. Biden’s order focused on “remedying disenfranchisement and unequal access to the polls” — in particular for voters of color and people with disabilities as well as active duty military and others living overseas.
“It is the responsibility of the federal government to expand access to, and education about, voter registration and election information, and to combat misinformation in order to enable all eligible Americans to participate in our democracy,” the order said.
Under the order, federal agencies have been tasked with considering ways to expand voter registration opportunities through handing out voter registration and vote-by-mail ballot application forms and “soliciting and facilitating approved, nonpartisan third-party organizations and state officials to provide voter registration services on agency premises.”
But Heritage said it found the nongovernmental organizations that the federal government leaned on to implement the order “included zero Republicans, Independents or politically conservative individuals.”
It added that conversations from an NGO-led “listening session … focused upon efforts to target historically Democratic voter blocks and expressed alarming extremist views.”
Heritage said the red flags included discussions promoting felony voting rights. The conservative think tank noted that an NGO representative “appeared to suggest that the American people must trust that noncitizens are legally entitled to vote in the elections they attempt to vote in.
“Other speakers trumpeted the merit of dropboxes — proved to be historically insecure — and lamented the ‘pushback against them.’”
Heritage also took issue with speakers who promoted registration drives through the Head Start program and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“These services are highly correlated to core historic Democratic voting constituencies,” the think tank said.
Republicans and conservative groups have been aggressive in questioning the sanctity of the vote following the 2020 election, which former President Donald Trump insists Mr. Biden won because of fraudulent voters and bad actors.