In March 2021, Joe Biden signed an executive order focused on “access to voting,” directing federal government agencies to bolster voter registration efforts, facilitate mail-in voting applications for Americans, and tackle misinformation, among other provisions. This order encapsulates the Democratic Party agenda, embedding numerous practices implemented temporarily during the pandemic-impacted 2020 election.
Three years later, the House GOP is now investigating the Biden administration after documents revealed that the White House has been coordinating with left-wing activists on voter registration.
“GOP lawmakers are growing increasingly worried that an executive order issued by President Joe Biden in 2021, which mandated that federal agencies develop voter registration plans with ‘approved’ outside groups, will be unlawfully weaponized this November to boost Democratic turnout,” reports the Washington Examiner. “The Biden administration has framed the unprecedented operation as nonpartisan, though internal documents show the government hosted a July 2021 order planning call that appeared to serve overwhelmingly as a platform for left-wing organizations to suggest sweeping election policy changes.”
“President Biden’s EO is an overreach of the executive branch’s constitutional authority and disregards the Constitution’s federalist election system,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “The states set the time, manner, and place of their own elections, and this EO must be looked at seriously.”
House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) said the internal meeting notes reveal “illegal coordination” between the Biden administration and progressive activists to plot “election interference,” adding that lawmakers are investigating the 2021 executive order “to ensure our elections are free and fair.” Stefanik is widely considered as in the running to be former President Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick in 2024.
According to a RealClearPolitics polling average, Trump leads Biden by roughly 1 percentage point. To Republicans, who have launched investigations into Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s funding of a progressive-left group that lawmakers say helped tilt the 2020 election for Democrats, the 2021 “Bidenbucks” order is legally questionable. The order directs agencies to solicit and facilitate the approval of “nonpartisan third-party organizations and state officials to provide voter registration services on agency premises.”
Republican lawmakers and conservative legal scholars argue that the executive order is unconstitutional and disregards several federal regulations. Among these are the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits federal agencies from exceeding approved funds allocated by Congress, and the Hatch Act, which restricts government employees from participating in specific political endeavors.
According to meeting notes obtained by the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project and Foundation for Government Accountability, participants from activist organizations deliberated on various topics, such as registering illegal immigrants and incorporating voter registration as a prerequisite in federal law for public housing.
The Oversight Project underscored in a recent memo its belief that the 2021 executive order is a partisan endeavor aimed at shaping future election outcomes by leveraging federal resources, infrastructure, and influence.
Stewart Whitson, an attorney who works for the Foundation for Government Accountability, said the touted proposal related to public housing is evidence of a coordinated effort between the White House and left-wing activists to target vulnerable populations determined to be likely Biden voters through the unlawful order. The housing proposal was mentioned at the 2021 meeting by Laura Williamson, a then-employee at the left-wing Demos think tank who now works for the Southern Poverty Law Center. GOP lawmakers have said Demos crafted a document in 2020 that ended up appearing “nearly identical” to the Biden order.
Like other lawmakers, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) said the meeting notes reveal a coordinated and since-secretive effort by Biden to work with progressives “to figure out a way to leverage federal resources and enhance Democrat political power.”
Earlier this week, the House GOP introduced the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act to prevent illegal immigrants and noncitizens from voting in federal elections. As you can imagine, Democrats have indicated they have no intention of supporting the bill. This really puts the border crisis into perspective, doesn’t it?