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Biden Campaign Pushes Hoax That Trump Used ‘N-Word,’ When Biden Said It at Least 15 Times

The Biden campaign is pushing a decade-old allegation that former President Donald Trump used the “N-word” on tape during filming for The Apprentice, while ignoring that President Joe Biden actually used the word during Senate hearings 15 times.

The post Biden Campaign Pushes Hoax That Trump Used ‘N-Word,’ When Biden Said It at Least 15 Times appeared first on Breitbart.

Joe Biden's Pitch to Black Voters Is Failing, Allies Warn 

"Time is running out to get his message across," Democrats warned President Joe Biden on Thursday about the important demographic of the black vote.

The post Joe Biden’s Pitch to Black Voters Is Failing, Allies Warn  appeared first on Breitbart.

Joe Biden to Reset Campaign Pitch to Black Voters

The plan comes after polling found that former President Donald Trump has nearly doubled his support among black men and women since 2020.

The post Joe Biden to Reset Campaign Pitch to Black Voters appeared first on Breitbart.

69% of Elites Want to Restrict Voting to College Graduates Only

New polling from Scott Rasmussen reveals that America’s elite 1%—those with high incomes, urban residences, and postgraduate degrees—are significantly out of step with the rest of the country on a range of issues.

It’s a troubling trend for America, and it doesn’t bode well for our future considering the elite 1% occupy many of the leadership roles in our cultural, educational, and government institutions.

There’s perhaps no statistic more shocking than the 69% of politically obsessed elites who think it would be better if only people with college degrees could vote. By comparison, just 15% of all voters hold that view. (Rasmussen defines “politically obsessed” as elites who talk about politics every day.)

Rasmussen’s latest survey, conducted by RMG Research, asked other questions ranging from government censorship to gun ownership. On nearly every issue, there’s a wide gulf between the ruling class and everyday Americans.

You can learn more about work on the elite 1% by tuning into “The Scott Rasmussen Show,” which airs Sunday at 10 a.m. ET on Merit Street Media.

In the meantime, listen to our full interview on “The Daily Signal Podcast” or read an edited transcript below.

Rob Bluey: What are the headlines coming out of your latest research?

Scott Rasmussen: As a reminder, the last time we talked about how the politically obsessed elites think the American people have too much individual freedom and people in this elite world really trust the federal government.

What we did this time is began to ask some of these same groups, the elite 1 % and the politically obsessed, what do they think America looks like?

Perhaps the funniest finding of all is we ask the question, “Do most Americans agree with you on most important issues?” Now, if we ask voters, about half say, “Yeah, I think most people agree with me.” Among the politically obsessed elites, 82% of that group thinks that most Americans agree with them on most issues. It’s not even close to true, but they’re looking in a mirror. They see what they want to see.

Source: RMG Research

What’s scary about that, if you think about it in context of the administrative state, if these people believe that their views are representative of America, it justifies them cheating a little bit or bending the rules because they can say, “We’re fighting for the American people.” In fact, they’re fighting against the American people.

Bluey: Are there particular policy issues where you see that playing out more so than others? For instance, one that comes to mind is climate change.

Rasmussen: It’s actually harder to find places where the American people are with the elite. You mentioned climate change. About 2 out of 3 of this politically obsessed elite think that most voters are willing to pay $250 a year or more to fight climate change.

When we do polling to ask people how much they’re willing to pay—in terms of taxes or higher prices—about half say they’re not willing to pay anything, and 72% say nothing more than $100.

If you think about that in a policy sense, these influencers believe the American people are willing to pay something they’re not, and that’s why they can support some different policy ideas.

Source: RMG Research

But look, it’s starts with a very basic thing: 71% of the politically obsessed elites think most Americans trust the federal government most of the time. That has not been true for 50 years. It’s been a half century since people tended to trust the government that much. Today, only 22% of voters voiced that much trust in government.

That is one of the core distinctions. If you trust the federal government, you trust the regulatory apparatus a lot more. You trust other rules and regulations, and voters just aren’t there.

Bluey: Another area that you polled had to do with social media. What did you find when you surveyed the elite 1% on that particular topic?

Rasmussen: Everybody, whether you’re in the elite or not, has some concern about disinformation and fake news. Where the difference comes is what to do about it.

Among most voters, they say that having the government decide what is misinformation and fake news is a bigger threat than the fake news itself. Among the elites, they say just the opposite.

Should the federal government be allowed to censor social media posts? Among all voters, 16% say yes. Among the politically obsessed elites, just over 50 % say, “Of course, we should have the right to censor social media.” Fundamentally different views.

Source: RMG Research

The views of the elite 1% amount to a rejection of America’s founding ideals. Even on something as simple as, “Does the federal government listen too much or not enough to the American people?” Overwhelmingly, voters say the government is not listening to us and the elites are saying it’s listening too much.

Bluey: There seems to be a wide discrepancy of views when it comes to who should vote and who should have a say in our country’s future. That number to me was one that stood out and was quite alarming.

Rasmussen: Absolutely alarming.

We asked a question that seemed to me to be absurd, Would it be better if only people with a college degree were allowed to vote?”

Appropriately, most Americans just soundly reject that idea. But among the elites, they heavily believe this country would be better off if all those deplorables who didn’t go to college weren’t allowed to vote.

Bluey: And one issue where there’s also quite a big disparity is gun ownership. How do the elite view guns?

Rasmussen: Consistently for decades, voters say they want to live in a community where guns are allowed. Sometimes it’s in the low 60s, sometimes after a horrific shooting event, it moves down to the low 50s, but consistently a majority of Americans can support that.

Among the elite 1 % that politically obsessed portion of it, about 70% of them say, “No, we want to live where guns are outlawed.” And 76% of them want to ban the private ownership of guns.

If you are in that politically obsessed elite and you believe strongly that we should ban guns, and if you believe that most American people want to live in a community where guns are outlawed, then you take an almost religious fervor to the fight to ban guns because you can convince yourself that you’re fighting on behalf of the public. And once again, you’re actually fighting against what the American people are looking for.

Bluey: Do you feel that the elite 1 % are more out of touch in 2024 than maybe they were in past generations?

Rasmussen: First, I don’t have data from past generations, so I can’t make a clear assessment on that. But I think it’s probably a little bit different.

There have always been elites. Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were clearly elites of their era, but they also had a commitment to something larger than themselves. Thomas Jefferson, in writing the Declaration of Independence, said he was just articulating what the American people were feeling. At the same time, Alexander Hamilton said, “We need to establish a monarchy.” If you actually read his plan, it’s horrific.

So there have always been some people and elites who kind of rejected the founding ideals, who rejected the concepts of the Declaration of Independence.

>>> ‘Most Terrifying Poll Result I’ve Ever Seen’: Scott Rasmussen Surveys America’s Elite 1%

What’s changed in the last couple of generations are two things.

No. 1, we’re a little bit more sorted geographically. Members of the elite aren’t encountering non-elites on a regular basis. It’s not just that we live in gated communities or separate areas. Public transportation has been replaced by Uber. There’s not a lot of contact with people who aren’t like you.

The second part is there has been the rise of what a lot of people view as the global elite, where people begin to see others from other countries as more like them than they do their own countrymen.

Bluey: The use of pronouns has become quite pronounced in a lot of corporate settings, even in our federal government. There are some departments and agencies that now include them in email signatures and things of that nature. Is there a difference of how elites view pronouns vs. the rest of America?

Rasmussen: Let’s start with the fact that most Americans don’t even know what you’re talking about when you’re expressing your preferred pronouns. Only about 1 out of 10 voters has ever introduced themselves in that manner.

When they hear talk of it, it seems very foreign. But among the politically obsessed elite, about 60%, have introduced themselves expressing their preferred pronouns. And it’s hard to overstate the cultural difference at that point.

If you’re in this elite world—if you’re in the elite schools or many agencies of the federal government—it is absolutely normal and an everyday occurrence that you meet somebody and they tell you not only their name and their position, but their preferred pronouns. In the rest of America, that just doesn’t happen.

Source: RMG Research

When you get into discussions about misgendering somebody, there are regulations being pushed right now that would require employers to punish somebody for misgendering—for not using somebody’s preferred pronouns. Only 9% of voters think that’s a fireable offense, but even more than that, they don’t even know what the discussion is about.

This is where that glaring gap between the elites and most Americans is quite visible. It is the cultural world they’re in, whether we’re talking about guns, or climate change policies, or preferred pronouns, or even the topic of should biological males be allowed to play in women’s sports.

Among the politically obsessed elite, 41% say they should. Now, that’s not a majority, but essentially, the politically obsessed elite is evenly divided on this question, whereas to most Americans, it’s ridiculous. Of course, biological males have a physical advantage. Of course, it is dangerous to let biological males into the women’s locker room. But the elite is having a discussion about it. That is out of step with the country. It is dangerous.

It’s fine to have different views. We all live on our own bubbles. Your bubble is a little different than mine, but probably has some overlap. But you have to be able to look outside your bubble and see what the rest of the country is doing.

If you’re in this elite world, you have enormous influence and you think your views are reflecting the public at large, that’s a really dangerous combination.

Bluey: One of the most notable examples of the last decade is when Donald Trump was elected president. It seemed that the elites were in shock. What might happen if Trump is victorious in November and how might they react?

Rasmussen: On Election Day 2016, most of the conversation was Hillary Clinton is up by three in the polls, but there’s a margin of error, she’ll probably win by six. There was a shock. They couldn’t believe it. They couldn’t imagine what was happening. And because in their mind, Hillary Clinton was the ideally prepared person.

Looking ahead to this year, first thing I will tell you is if the election is at all close, the way the last nine elections have been in, whichever team loses, they’ll believe the election was stolen. If Donald Trump wins, we will hear an awful lot about how he stole the election from these elites.

But something else is happening that’s playing a part in the election. It’s a distorted view of the public.

When we see the campus protests about the Palestinian situation, 62% of the elites have a favorable opinion. They think it’s great what these protesters are doing. Most voters don’t. Only 24% of voters support the protesters.

That leaves the pundits to misread the way a situation has played out. In fact, since the campus protest started, support for Israel has gone up—not what some of the protesters might have hoped for.

A lot of the elites are misreading the dynamics going on right now. About 80 % of the elite 1% approve of the way Joe Biden is doing his job.

Source: RMG Research

The post 69% of Elites Want to Restrict Voting to College Graduates Only appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Up to 2.7 Million Noncitizens Could Vote Illegally in November, Study Warns

A new study has revealed that roughly 10% to 27% of noncitizens living in the U.S. are illicitly registered to vote, which could result in up to 2.7 million illegal votes being cast in the November elections.

Experts say the significant amount of potential illegal votes could be enough to alter election results.

The study, released last week by the research institute Just Facts, notes that the 2022 U.S. census recorded approximately 19 million adult noncitizens living in the country. “Given their voter registration rates, this means that about 2 million to 5 million of them are illegally registered to vote,” the report observes. “These figures are potentially high enough to overturn the will of the American people in major elections, including congressional seats and the presidency.”

On Tuesday, James Agresti, president of Just Facts, joined “Washington Watch” to discuss the scope of noncitizens casting ballots and the implications of the study’s findings.

“[T]here are very broad openings for noncitizens to vote,” he explained, adding:

In no state in the nation are they required to provide proof of U.S. citizenship in order to register to vote. Now, a couple of states like Arizona tried to enact that requirement, but they were blocked by a court ruling supported by the Obama administration.

And if you look at the federal voter-registration form, it says you can submit all different forms of ID to register. That could be a Social Security number; it could be a driver’s license number; or it could just be a utility bill.

I mean, these are things that anyone can get by living here. They do not prove you’re a U.S. citizen.

And more than that, a lot of noncitizens have faked Social Security numbers, especially illegal immigrants. That’s what they do to work. A recent estimate by the Social Security Administration tallied 2.5 million noncitizens who had Social Security numbers gained by using fake birth certificates or stealing those numbers from somebody else.

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation and board member of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, concurred. (Heritage founded The Daily Signal in 2014.)

“[T]he problem is, states aren’t doing very much to verify citizenship, so it’s extremely easy for someone who’s not a citizen to register to vote and to vote in elections,” he remarked during Monday’s edition of “Washington Watch.”

“And when that is discovered, oftentimes nothing is done about it.”

Agresti went on to point out the effect that lax enforcement of citizen verification could have in November. “[B]ased on the latest available data, approximately 1 million to 2.7 million noncitizens are going to vote in the upcoming presidential election unless something changes. And that is more than enough to tip the results of congressional races, Senate races, and yes, the U.S. presidency.”

Von Spakovsky echoed Agresti’s concerns. “[I]t doesn’t matter whether they’re black or white, Asian or Hispanic. It doesn’t matter which political party they support. Every time an alien illegally votes, that alien is voiding, negating the vote of a citizen, no matter which political party they support,” he contended. “And the Democrats just don’t seem to want to understand that or to basically ignore it.”

Agresti further reflected on the motivations behind the Democrats’ opposition to efforts to improve election integrity.

“[I]t’s always hard to read people’s minds, but I can tell you this: The vast bulk of these noncitizens are voting for Democrats. According to the best data we have, about 80% of them will vote for Democrats when they vote illegally. And Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to prevent any kind of checking of people’s citizenship. It does benefit them. Is that their reasoning? It’s an obvious incentive, but I can’t read their minds.”

Earlier this month, House Republicans attempted to address the issue by introducing a bill that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and would remove noncitizens from existing voter rolls. But Agresti expressed doubt about the bill’s chances of passage. “My guess is it will move in the House and die in the Senate, but that’s just an educated guess. And again, even if somehow it got through the Senate, there’s no way [President] Joe Biden’s signing that bill.”

“However,” he added, “I do think in the aftermath of the election, and we hate to have a repeat of 2020, that there should be some accountability, some lawsuits that demand proof that people are who they say they are in tight races. None of that was secured in the last round of election lawsuits, and it needs to be there.”

Agresti concluded by urging candidates involved in tight elections to demand verification that only citizens voted. “A candidate has to make a plea and say, ‘Hey, I want this data to prove that these people who are registered and voted actually are citizens.’”

Originally published at WashingtonStand.com

The post Up to 2.7 Million Noncitizens Could Vote Illegally in November, Study Warns appeared first on The Daily Signal.

‘PRIVILEGE’: What the White House Doesn’t Think You Should Know About Biden’s Order on Mobilizing Voters

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—After President Joe Biden signed an executive order requiring federal agencies to work with private organizations to mobilize voters, senior White House officials asked agencies for “bold ideas” and explained plans to coordinate with “stakeholders.” 

One message from the White House, obtained by The Daily Signal, said: “We look forward to working with you to”—but the rest of the content is blacked out by a redaction. 

The specifics of those “bold ideas” and “stakeholders” isn’t knowable right now because “upon the advice of the White House Counsel’s Office, the information is being withheld under the presidential communications privilege,” according to a cover letter to The Daily Signal from the U.S. Department of Agriculture

The letter accompanied 99 pages that The Daily Signal obtained from USDA through a request under the Freedom of Information Act.

Since Biden signed his executive order on elections in March 2021, members of Congress, the press, and watchdog groups have struggled to get basic information on how the administration is implementing the order. Some details have trickled out through FOIA law, which requires that basic information from the government be available to the public. 

Earlier this month, two House committees intensified their investigations of Biden’s order on turning out voters. 

Although records obtained previously by The Daily Signal under FOIA requests contained redactions and cited exemptions, the responses didn’t refer to “presidential communication privilege.”

“The presidential communications privilege protects communications among the president and his advisors,” the cover letter to the released but redacted documents says. 

“The records being withheld here consist of email communications concerning President Biden’s Executive Order 14019 and attached records that were solicited and received by the president or his immediate White House advisers who have broad and significant responsibility for investigating and formulating the advice to be given to the president,” says the letter signed by Alexis R. Graves, director of the USDA’s Office of Information Affairs. 

Other exemptions to disclosure cited in Graves’ cover letter include the deliberative process privilege and attorney-client privilege.

Critics of Biden’s executive order, some of whom refer to it as “Bidenbucks,” argue that its implementation could cause bureaucrats to violate the Hatch Act, a law that prohibits political activity using resources of the federal government. Critics also say the order may violate the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits agencies from spending taxpayers’ money for reasons not approved by Congress. 

Separately, the Justice Department has invoked presidential privilege to shield documents about Biden’s order in a public records lawsuit brought by the Foundation for Government Accountability, a watchdog group.

“In recent years, the presidential communications privilege has become an increasingly common excuse used by federal agencies to sidestep their disclosure obligations under federal law,” Stewart Whitson, senior director of federal affairs at the Foundation for Government Accountability, told The Daily Signal. 

“During the current administration, federal agencies have shown an increasing willingness to stretch the presidential communications privilege well beyond what is allowed under current law—documents or other materials that reflect presidential decision making and deliberations that the president believes should remain confidential—to any and all documents received by White House advisers and their staff,” Whitson said.

“If allowed to persist, federal agencies and the politically appointed bureaucrats leading these agencies will gradually render the FOIA law meaningless. Government transparency and our very democracy are under threat,” he said.

Stephonn O. Alcorn, then the associate director of racial justice and equity at the White House, sent an April 1, 2021, email to all federal agencies that is heavily redacted in the released version. 

Alcorn’s email was about an interagency meeting to be convened eight days later, on April 9, by the White House Counsel’s Office and the Domestic Policy Counsel. The agenda is completely redacted.  

Alcorn notified agencies that taking the White House lead on Biden’s election executive order would be Justin Vail, special assistant to the president for democracy and civic participation with the Domestic Policy Council, and Larry Schwartztol, an associate White House counsel.

In September 2021, Kumar Chandran, senior adviser for nutrition to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, notified Vail of a change of plans for how the USDA wanted to implement Biden’s order. In the released record, however, the change is blacked out from public view. 

“After input from Sec. Vilsack this week, we are considering a change to one of our proposed actions, which would result in [redacted],” Chandran wrote. 

“We need to do some further diligence to determine if it is viable, but if it is, we think it might be more meaningful,” he added.

A White House press release that month gave a broad overview of how the USDA would implement Biden’s order on mobilizing voters. 

“The Department of Agriculture’s Rural Housing Service will encourage the provision of nonpartisan voter information through its borrowers and guaranteed lenders, who interface with thousands of residents in the process of changing their voting address every year,” the White House press release said. “In addition, Rural Development agencies—which are spread throughout field offices across the country where rural Americans can apply for housing, facilities, or business assistance—will take steps to promote access to voter registration forms and other pertinent nonpartisan election information among their patrons.”

Getting to the point of how the USDA would push Americans to vote appears to be a tedious process, based on what’s discernible from the released records. 

Some messages were more heavily redacted than others. For example, a September 2021 message from USDA Deputy Undersecretary for Rural Development Farah Ahmad says only “This is” before the text is blacked out. 

A June 2021 email from Vail to Chandran was about the “interim report template.” 

“At this point,” Vail’s message began, followed by several lines of redacted information. He continued: “We just want to ensure that all agencies are taking steps to generate bold ideas and begin to flesh out those ideas; it will also allow the opportunity for us to provide feedback.”

This statement is followed by more heavy redactions. 

White House official Devontae Freeland, special assistant to the racial justice and equity team, notified agencies on July 2, 2021, about an upcoming conference with “stakeholders” on Biden’s executive order. 

Separate document releases show that a Zoom conference the following July 12 involved Biden administration officials and numerous far-left political organizations, among them unions. The groups included the Southern Poverty Law Center, Demos, the American Civil Liberties Union, the George Soros-funded Open Society Foundations, the Stacey Abrams-founded Fair Fight Action, and the Al Sharpton-founded National Action Network. 

“As you know, we’re coordinating some input from stakeholders, including what we hope you found to be an informative session yesterday afternoon with state and local election officials,” Freeland wrote. 

“We’ve also planned a session for nonpartisan nonprofit organizations engaged in voting rights advocacy to provide their recommendations and thoughts on best practices; we will follow up shortly with an additional session from nonprofit organizations with substantial expertise in reaching out to and engaging particular populations of voters who may be more difficult to reach. We hope that each of these sessions will provide helpful feedback,” he wrote, before more redactions blacked out the text. 

In another heavily redacted message, Vail wrote USDA officials in late September 2021 with the subject line “Voting EO/Follow up items.”

On Oct. 6, 2021, Vail wrote to agencies about meeting on Biden’s executive order in coming days. 

“We look forward to working with you to [redacted],” he wrote. 

The next interagency meeting would be Oct. 20, Vail wrote. 

Spokespersons for the White House and the Agriculture Department didn’t respond to The Daily Signal’s inquiries about this report before publication.

The post ‘PRIVILEGE’: What the White House Doesn’t Think You Should Know About Biden’s Order on Mobilizing Voters appeared first on The Daily Signal.

EXCLUSIVE: HHS Chief Routinely Checked Progress of Biden Election-Meddling Directive, Records Show

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Aides to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra routinely inquired about how at least one agency under his control was putting President Joe Biden’s executive order on elections into action. 

At least one message suggested that Becerra’s office and the agency within HHS wanted to know whether private organizations that received government grants were working to get out the vote through public service announcements or other means. 

On Nov. 30, 2021, two months after the White House announced a vague description of how federal agencies would implement Biden’s executive order on turning out the vote, Anna Perng, a special assistant in HHS’ Administration for Community Living, emailed colleagues to say that the department’s Immediate Office of the Secretary wanted monthly updates.

“IOS [Immediate Office of the Secretary] gently reminded me to update EO 14019 Promoting Voting Access milestones this Friday, 12/3. I had thought tha[t] [REDACTED].”

The Administration for Community Living focuses on issues important to senior citizens and disabled Americans. The White House previously announced that the agency would be a “voting access hub.”

On Dec. 15, 2021, Perng sent another email to ACL staff.

“It is our favorite time of the month: IOS is looking for updates on these milestones by this Friday. Are there any changes to the following?” Perng wrote in part. 

Perng emailed ACL colleagues on March 3, 2022, with another reminder. 

“IOS is requesting a status update on the EO Promoting Voting Access milestones by tomorrow COB,” Perng wrote. She continued: “For example, I know that there are primaries underway. ACL had said we would share/retweet/repost promote grantees’ voting resources. Have grantees created any voting materials, PSAs, etc.?”

The Daily Signal obtained 159 pages of heavily redacted documents from the Administration for Community Living through a request submitted under the Freedom of Information Act, shedding some light on how the HHS agency is implementing Biden’s election order. 

About three dozen pages of the records are from ACL’s “Administrative Priority Overview” and are almost entirely blacked out. 

Because of the excessive redactions to the released documents, it’s not clear how “milestones” may be defined or whether any were accomplished. 

Biden issued Executive Order 14019 in March 2021, requiring federal agencies to work on voter turnout. 

Since that time, public records trickling out through requests under the Freedom of Information Act show that federal agencies partnered or met with numerous left-leaning nonprofit advocacy groups on the subject of getting out the vote. The groups include Demos, the Brennan Center for Justice, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union, the AFL-CIO, the Al Sharpton-founded National Action Network, and the George Soros-backed Open Society Policy Center.

In September 2021, the White House issued a press release explaining how federal agencies would boost voting. 

“The Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Community Living will launch a new voting access hub to connect older adults and people with disabilities to information, tools and resources to help them understand and exercise their right to vote,” the press release says. 

The only other HHS agency specified by the White House as implementing Biden’s order is the Indian Health Service, which The Daily Signal first reported is partnering with Demos and the ACLU. 

It’s not clear from the unredacted information whether the Administration for Community Living is teaming with any overtly political groups.

The newly obtained records include correspondence dated March 11, 2022, from Michelle Bishop, voter access and engagement manager for the National Disability Rights Network, which advocates on behalf of the disabled. 

Bishop’s email was to Ophelia McLain, program manager with ACL’s Administration on Disabilities, who was active in implementing the president’s order. 

“As requested, I am sending an updated summary of trainings and resources planned for 2022,” Bishop told McClain. 

Bishop wrote that the National Disability Rights Network was partnering with other groups—including Self Advocates Becoming Empowered, the National Association of the Deaf, and the National Federation for the Blind—on activities such as making videos and “providing plain language explanations of complicated election topics” such as primaries, the differences between open and closed primaries, and how ranked choice voting works.

Spokespersons for neither the HHS nor the ACL responded to The Daily Signal by publication.

Editor’s note: This piece has been updated to reflect that the Department of Health and Human Services was contacted for comment before publication.

The post EXCLUSIVE: HHS Chief Routinely Checked Progress of Biden Election-Meddling Directive, Records Show appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Biden Education Department Shared Activists’ Memo on Mobilizing Dem-Leaning Voters

Biden administration officials circulated and discussed a memo authored by a coalition of liberal groups aimed at getting more college students to participate in elections as part of the Education Department’s presidentially ordered voter-registration efforts, newly surfaced emails show.

Groups that donated millions to elect Democrats and are funded by major liberal donors submitted a list of recommendations to the Education Department in 2021 outlining ways the department could get college students, a historically liberal demographic, to vote more, according to emails obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project. [Heritage founded The Daily Signal in 2014.]

dailycallerlogo

The memo recommended that the Education Department include a voter registration option on its college financial aid application, use resources to make students aware of vote-by-mail opportunities, and allow universities to use federal work-study to pay students for nonpartisan election work.

The coalition of groups sent its memo in response to President Joe Biden’s 2021 executive order directing federal agencies to promote voter registration, education, and participation, offering recommendations on how to implement it.

Nick Lee, deputy assistant secretary for higher education, shared the memo with Annmarie Weisman, another deputy assistant secretary, and Gregory Martin, another department official, emails show. Lee explained to Weisman and Martin that he had been discussing ways to implement Biden’s executive order with an Education Department policy director and that he was willing to speak further on the topic.

Lee also shared the memo with members of the Education Department’s Office of the General Counsel, again explaining that the department was in the process of finalizing responses to Biden’s voting executive order, emails show.

The Biden administration may have been receptive to at least one of the recommendations the coalition of left-of-center groups offered.

In April 2022, the Education Department clarified that universities could pay students with federal work-study funds to engage in election-related work. Although students may be compensated for voter registration work, they cannot be paid using federal funds “for work involving partisan or nonpartisan political activity, including party-affiliated voter registration activities, as this is expressly prohibited,” the department said.

In February, the Education Department expanded on the specific work that federal funds could cover, stating that “supporting broad-based get-out-the-vote activities, voter registration, providing voter assistance at a polling place or through a voter hotline or serving as a poll worker” were all acceptable.

Although Biden’s executive order stresses that agencies should tap “nonpartisan third-party organizations” to aid with voter registration efforts, the effects of registering more college students to vote could be a boon for the Democratic Party.

A September 2020 poll found that 70% of college students said they would vote for Biden in that year’s election, compared to just 18% who said they would vote for then-President Donald Trump. Strong turnout among college students in 2022 helped Democrats pull off a better-than-expected midterm election performance, NPR reported.

Heading into the November presidential election, Biden’s reelection campaign is seeking to mobilize college students.

The president held a 23-point lead over Trump among college students heading into the election, according to a Harvard Institute of Politics poll conducted in March.

The groups that sought to push the Education Department to mobilize more college voters themselves have ties to the Democratic Party.

The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, for instance, are both signatories of the memo and have spent millions of dollars to help elect Democrats through their political action committees, Federal Election Commission records show. Both groups endorsed Biden in the 2024 Democratic primary season and historically have supported the Democratic Party.

New America Foundation, which signed on to the memo through its education program, has received extensive support from the Soros family’s philanthropic network, pulling in millions since 2016, according to a grant database. George Soros himself has donated massive sums to Democrats and is one of the largest figures in the left-of-center philanthropic world.

The Voter Participation Center, another group that signed on to the memo, has received over $1 million from nonprofits managed by Arabella Advisors, tax filings show

Arabella Advisors is a consultancy firm that manages a network of nonprofits that spend millions every year on efforts to help liberal groups and Democrats.

The Voter Participation Center on its website claims to work diligently to mobilize members of the “New American Majority,” which includes people of color and unmarried women, to register to vote and cast ballots.

Republicans have taken issue with the Biden administration’s approach to using federal resources to juice voter participation.

“We have concerns about the lack of constitutional and statutory authority for federal agencies to engage in any activity outside the agency’s authorized mission, including federal voting access and registration activities,” a May 13 letter from the House Oversight Committee sent to Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young reads.

The Education Department, New America, the Voter Participation Center, the National Education Association, and the American Federation of Teachers didn’t immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.

Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation

The post Biden Education Department Shared Activists’ Memo on Mobilizing Dem-Leaning Voters appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Judicial Watch Sues California to Remove Ineligible Registrants from Voter Rolls

Judicial Watch, the watchdog organization, is suing California election officials to force them to remove ineligible and inactive registrants from the state's voter rolls.

The post Judicial Watch Sues California to Remove Ineligible Registrants from Voter Rolls appeared first on Breitbart.

DC Holds Training Sessions for Noncitizens to Vote

An agency of the District of Columbia held a training session last month to teach illegal immigrants and other noncitizens how to vote, according to documents obtained by the watchdog group Judicial Watch. 

News of the training session held by the local government in the nation’s capital comes as House Republicans push a bill—with the backing of Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.—to require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote.

The D.C. Board of Elections conducted the April 10 event, called “Non-Citizen Voting Education Virtual Training.” 

Judicial Watch obtained 13 pages of the training session’s PowerPoint presentation through a request under the Freedom of Information Act. On one slide, the presentation says:

Non-U.S. citizen residents can vote in District elections for the offices of Mayor, Attorney General, Chairman or member(s) of the D.C. Council, member(s) of the State Board of Education, or Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner(s) Non-U.S. citizen residents cannot vote for Federal Offices.

The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project previously raised concerns about noncitizen voting in the District of Columbia. (Heritage established The Daily Signal in 2014.)

Washington, DC’s Voter Guide for Illegal Aliens is up! pic.twitter.com/COeIpOba5w

— Oversight Project (@OversightPR) May 1, 2024

The District of Columbia is joined by local governments in California, Maryland, and Vermont in allowing foreign citizens to vote in local elections. Federal law allows only U.S. citizens to vote in federal elections. 

State courts blocked New York City from allowing noncitizen voting there. 

“Illegal aliens and noncitizens should not vote in any elections,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “That Congress allows the votes of citizens to be legally stolen by illegal aliens in our nation’s capital is inexcusable.”

The District of Columbia amended its election code last year to allow noncitizens, including illegal immigrants, to vote for local D.C. offices. 

As noted in my book “The Myth of Voter Suppression,” Democrats long have sought to change election laws to gain a political advantage. These noncitizen voting laws mimic a tactic used by New York City’s legendary Tammany Hall and other political machines that controlled big city politics. 

The District’s presentation explains the qualifications for registering to vote when someone isn’t a U.S. citizen. 

“To register to vote in the District of Columbia as a non-citizen, you must: Be at least 17 years old and 18 years old by the next General Election; Maintain residency in the District of Columbia for at least 30 days prior to the election in which you intend to vote; Not claim voting residence or the right to vote in any state, territory, or country; Not been found by a court to be legally incompetent to vote,” the presentation says.

Neither the D.C. Board of Elections nor the office of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, responded to The Daily Signal’s request for comment on this report. 

The post DC Holds Training Sessions for Noncitizens to Vote appeared first on The Daily Signal.

House Oversight Committee Probing Biden Voter Mobilization Order

The House Oversight and Accountability Committee is probing a controversial Biden administration executive order tasking the federal government with mobilizing voting groups it says are underrepresented.

In a letter obtained by RealClearPolitics, Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., has requested that Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young produce a slew of documents and information concerning the development and implementation of President Joe Biden’s sweeping “Executive Order on Promoting Accessing to Voting” no later than May 28 and a staff-level briefing by May 20.

The demand by the chairman of the House Oversight Committee signals an escalation in Republican lawmakers’ efforts to combat an effort they say may be unlawful, if not unconstitutional.

The administration characterizes its efforts as a remedy to “discriminatory policies and other obstacles … disproportionally affect[ing]” black, non-English-speaking, handicapped, and other minority voters. Executive Order 14019 calls on all federal agencies to develop and execute corrective plans to “promote voter registration and voter participation.”

It instructs officials government-wide to consider “soliciting and facilitating approved, nonpartisan third-party organizations … to provide voter registration services on agency premises.”

Seeing the order as potentially enabling “the executive branch to circumvent the legislative process,” Comer is asking Young to clarify the “constitutional or statutory authority the President relied on,” as well as all “White House and OMB documents and communications” pertaining to the drafting of it.

In past oversight letters, including ones delivered in June 2022 by then-ranking Republicans on various committees, including Comer, members have also raised concerns that officials could violate the Hatch Act prohibiting their engagement in political activities in carrying out the order.

Senate Republicans have also questioned whether the act violates the Antideficiency Act, which precludes federal agencies from using funds “for a purpose that Congress did not explicitly authorize,” namely “voter mobilization.”

“Overreach by the federal government often leads to confusion and inconsistencies,” Comer also stated. He cites a recent letter from Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson to Attorney General Merrick Garland to illustrate this issue.

The order mandates that relevant agencies seek to ensure “access to voter registration for eligible individuals in federal custody.”

To satisfy that charge, the Magnolia State official notes that the U.S. Marshals Service is modifying contracts and/or intergovernmental agreements with jails “to provide voter registration materials and facilitate voting by mail,” and likewise that the Justice Department is working to “facilitate voter registration and mail voting for individuals in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons.”

He says these efforts create “numerous opportunities for ineligible prisoners to be registered to vote in Mississippi.” Illegal aliens, Watson warns, may be among those receiving information on how to register to vote.

The Biden administration issued Executive Order 14019 in March 2021. Despite a raft of oversight requests from House Republicans of agencies within their respective committee jurisdictions, those agencies have largely withheld the strategic plans they were tasked with crafting and implementing, and information regarding the putatively nonpartisan groups with which they have coordinated.

The White House has rebuffed RealClearInvestigations in its efforts to solicit details about an order that Republicans characterize as little more than a taxpayer-funded Democrat get-out-the-vote effort.

As RealClearInvestigations has previously reported, the Biden administration has sought to drive voter registration through agencies as diverse as the departments of Labor and Housing and Urban Development via job training centers, public housing authorities, and child nutrition programs. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has issued guidance calling for the agency to register voters at naturalization ceremonies.

The Department of Education has blessed the use of “federal work-study funds to pay students for “supporting broad-based get-out-the-vote activities, voter registration,” and other activities.

In January, over two dozen Pennsylvania legislators filed a federal lawsuit challenging the executive order. The Foundation for Government Accountability—which has litigated with the Biden administration to pry loose documents concerning the order—submitted an amicus brief supportive of the suit, asserting that the agencies’ efforts have one thing in common: “They provide government welfare benefits and other services to groups of voters the vast majority of which have historically voted Democrat.”

Republicans’ concerns over the order extend to the involvement of the third-party groups with which agencies were to consider coordinating. The order itself was built on a blueprint from progressive think-tank Democrats. In a since-deleted but still archived analysis, the outfit estimates that if fully implemented, the order could generate 3.5 million new or updated voter registrations annually—a significant figure given that recent presidential elections have been determined by thousands of votes across a few states.

Democrats as well as the American Civil Liberties Union have reportedly worked to implement the directive. Documents obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project and released earlier this month show that at a July 2021 listening session convened by the Biden administration, left-leaning activist groups encouraged some of the practices federal agencies would ultimately implement to carry out the directive, for example, in targeting prospective voters in prisons and at naturalization ceremonies. (The Daily Signal was foundation by The Heritage Foundation in 2014.)

“Every participant whose party affiliation or political donation history could be identified by the Oversight Project was identified as a Democrat except for one Green Party member,” the report noted.

While the participants suggested efforts to target constituencies—including criminals, immigrants, low-income families, including those in public housing, and Native Americansthe Oversight Project observed that “There is no corresponding evidence of efforts [to] increase voter access and education in likely Republican constituencies.”

As RealClearInvestigations has also recently reported, Democrats have made purportedly nonpartisan voter registration targeting groups that vote disproportionately Democrat a linchpin of their plans to prevail in recent election cycles.

“If the Biden Administration wants to use taxpayer-funded buildings to allow ‘nonpartisan third-party organizations’ to engage in voter registration,” Comer writes, “then the American people deserve to know who these organizations are.”

The Oversight Committee’s pursuit of information regarding the order comes in the wake of the House Small Business Committee’s recent escalation of its own probe of the order.

It recently subpoenaed two members of the Small Business Administration who refused to sit for transcribed interviews regarding an unprecedented partnership the agency inked with the Michigan Department of State. Under the relevant memorandum of understanding, among other things, state officials may conduct in-person voter registration at administration small business outreach events.

Fox News reported that the Small Business Committee found that nearly all, “22 out of 25 such outreach events, have taken place in counties with the highest population of Democratic National Committee target demographics.”

In March, a federal judge dismissed the Pennsylvania legislators’ case challenging the executive order on grounds of standing.

In late April, the legislators took their case to the Supreme Court, filing a petition for writ of certiorari and motioning for expedited consideration of their request in hopes the nation’s highest court will rule favorably on the matter of standing prior to the 2024 election.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

The post House Oversight Committee Probing Biden Voter Mobilization Order appeared first on The Daily Signal.

EXCLUSIVE: Here’s Where This Blue State Could Be a National Model for Election Integrity

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—A foreign national named Paul registered to vote at a local office of the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles and records show that he voted, although he says his American wife voted after being accidentally checked in under his name. 

Another noncitizen, Najib, also was registered to vote at a motor vehicles office, and his name was discovered on the voter rolls after a year, but he hadn’t voted in that time. 

In these and other cases, the city of Boston flagged the noncitizens and removed them from voter registration lists. 

In fact, the largest city in New England—although commonly viewed as a liberal bastion—could serve as a national model on this aspect of election integrity, according to new findings by Public Interest Legal Foundation, a conservative watchdog group.

“In Boston, voter registration records disclosed to PILF demonstrate that Boston and other Massachusetts municipal systems—although not perfect—are a good example for how other states could tackle the noncitizen voting question,” says the report, first provided to The Daily Signal.

Public Interest Legal Foundation’s findings come as Congress considers requiring proof of citizenship for voting in federal elections and another bill to restore a citizenship question to the U.S. census form. 

“We are not looking at this through an ideological lens so much as a data lens,” J. Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, told The Daily Signal. “This illustrates how this population data can be used by states to help in election administration.”

Adams noted that Massachusetts is among a few states that conduct their own census, or population tally, outside the census conducted by the U.S. government every 10 years. 

The proof-of-citizenship legislation is not likely to pass the Democrat-led Senate, but at least in this narrow area, Massachusetts provides an example for other states on the issue of foreign citizens listed on U.S. voter registration rolls, Adams said. 

“Rather than reimagining the future, states should take this data tool that Massachusetts uses and apply it,” he said. 

Although every Democrat in the House recently voted against restoring a citizenship question to the census, Massachusetts law requires an annual census, or “annual resident listing,” that includes questions about citizenship status and voter registration and is used by local governments.

“Any registered voter who fails to complete the annual survey is warned that their voting status will be changed to INACTIVE until they comply,” says the report by Public Interest Legal Foundation, which is narrowly focused on tracking citizenship.

Overall, The Heritage Foundation’s Election Integrity Scorecard ranks Massachusetts as 45th out of 50 states. (The Heritage Foundation launched The Daily Signal in 2014.)

The study by Public Interest Legal Foundation concludes that Boston’s voter registration system manages to “catch and cancel foreign nationals listed throughout the roll on a roughly two-year churn.”

“Unfortunately, a significant percentage of these disclosed records show that votes are still cast and counted within those years before discovery,” the report says. 

The Boston city government this year provided information to Public Interest Legal Foundation that showed the city canceled voter registrations of 70 noncitizens. Most canceled registrations occurred in 2016 and 2017, with 13 in each year. 

On average, foreign citizens were registered to vote for two years before being discovered and dropped from the rolls. But the longest known period was 24 years, and the earliest known year it occurred was 1995. 

“Roughly 18% of Boston registrants were mailed confirmation notices prior to a reclassification to inactive status during the period,” the foundation’s report says. “Also, during this time, about 13% of Boston registrants were shed from the voter roll for reasons such as relocation, inactivity, and death.” 

The report also points to other specific examples, such as a noncitizen named Hai who was registered to vote for a year and a half before Boston removed him, and Fred, who was registered for two years before being removed. Neither voted and both were registered at a local motor vehicles office. 

A pattern of ineligible voters being registered at motor vehicle offices is a national problem that can be traced back to the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, popularly known as the “motor voter law,” which allows someone to register to vote while getting a driver’s license.

“Foreign nationals are reflexively offered applications to vote and they unwittingly accept,” Public Interest Legal Foundation’s report says, adding: 

The 24 states plus D.C. that have automatic motor voter [registration], meaning they are not giving the immigrant a chance to decline registration, exacerbate the problem. States giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants increase traffic to DMVs. States with higher amounts of legal immigration mean even more driver’s licenses or state IDs are needed for daily life (and increases the risk of screening immigrants for voter registration). 

The post EXCLUSIVE: Here’s Where This Blue State Could Be a National Model for Election Integrity appeared first on The Daily Signal.

NYT Poll: Trump Continues to Dominate Swing States; Soars with Hispanic, Black, Young Voters

Former President Donald Trump maintains a strong position among key swing state voters and has made historic inroads with Hispanic, black, and young voters, New York Times/Siena/Philadelphia Inquirer polling found Monday.

The post NYT Poll: Trump Continues to Dominate Swing States; Soars with Hispanic, Black, Young Voters appeared first on Breitbart.

The Ways the Left Exploits Illegal Immigration for Electoral Gain: The BorderLine

Why does the Biden administration want open borders so badly? For three very big reasons. One is ideology, which I covered in last week’s BorderLine column. Another is extortion, which I will cover in next week’s column. But this week, I look at how the Left uses illegal immigration to give itself an unfair electoral advantage.  

First, illegal immigration affects congressional representation because the apportionment of members of Congress by state is based on U.S. census data.

As Heritage Foundation Border Security and Immigration Center Director Lora Ries writes, the census currently counts all noncitizens—from green card holders to illegal aliens—in addition to U.S. citizens for the purposes of apportioning congressional districts among the states.

The more citizens in a state, the more congressional districts—i.e., seats in Congress—a state gets. In turn, the number of congressional districts in a state determines how many Electoral College votes that state receives. (Heritage founded The Daily Signal in 2014.)

While president, Donald Trump tried to restore the U.S. citizenship question on the 2020 census and exclude all noncitizens from apportionment calculations. Yet court challenges prevented him from doing so prior to the deadline for getting a new census form printed and distributed. Joe Biden then immediately terminated the effort when he took office. That should tell you which states and party benefit most from the population overcount.

The second way mass illegal immigration undermines U.S. elections is through negligence and fraud. Only American citizens can legally vote; it is a crime for a noncitizen to vote. Yet, in many states, noncitizens can easily register and vote with little chance of detection.

The 1993 National Voter Registration Act, known as “Motor Voter,” was intended to make it easier for U.S. citizens to register to vote when they applied for or renewed a driver’s license. However, Motor Voter also made it easier for noncitizens to accidentally or purposefully get on voter rolls.

In December 2022, the Reno Gazette Journal reported that if applicants applying for a Nevada driver’s license check the online box saying they are eligible to vote, their information is sent to Nevada’s secretary of state for registration. The Washoe County Registrar’s Office told the Gazette Journal that it is possible for a noncitizen to register by falsely claiming citizenship (though this is a felony).

Moreover, Nevada accepts alien work authorization cards as proof of identity. Millions of aliens the Biden administration has released into the country are eligible for such cards and could register to vote in Nevada and other states with similar registration processes with little risk of detection.

It would seem to be common sense for all states to want to close loopholes and maintain confidence in their electoral systems. Yet, one of the biggest canards in American politics today is to equate election integrity efforts—like ensuring proper identification or limiting mail-in and early voting—with voter suppression.

There was real and shameful voter suppression in our nation’s past. Efforts in the post-Civil War South to deter blacks from registering included discriminatory literacy tests and poll taxes; police intimidation at polling places; and at the extreme, cross-burnings, bombings, and even killings. But the civil rights movement, strong new laws, and voter-registration drives ended the “Jim Crow” era by the 1960s. Poll taxes and literacy tests were banned.

In 2022, 98.9% of voters in Georgia “felt safe in their polling location” and “98.9% reported no issues casting a ballot,” according to a University of Georgia postelection poll. Nonetheless, legitimate efforts to ensure that voters are legally entitled to vote, that they do so in accordance with the law, and that their votes are properly counted are falsely labeled as voter suppression.

“Americans need and deserve a system in which it is easy to vote and hard to cheat,” says The Heritage Foundation, which publishes a state-by-state Election Integrity Scorecard to encourage best practices from electoral officials and vigilance by voters.

As Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal, “Ensuring that only American citizens vote in American elections is a straightforward requirement for maintaining election security and public trust.”

And yet, progressive groups seem intent on fighting efforts to ensure that voter rolls contain only eligible voters. The logical inference is that they believe ineligible noncitizens would be more likely to vote for their candidates. As Raffensperger writes, these activists want states “to rely on a person’s word” when registering to vote and oppose all efforts to verify citizenship. Unfortunately, in the real world, people sometimes lie—especially when there are no consequences.

A Heritage database currently records 1,500 cases of proven election fraud nationwide—and that is merely a sampling. When it comes to abusing absentee ballots, most of the perpetrators in the database are Americans. But on just the first page (of five) for one state (North Carolina) are cases of noncitizens from the Congo, Guatemala, Mexico, and Nigeria convicted of falsely claiming American citizenship to register to vote. They committed a fundamental offense against our democracy, and yet most of them got a one-year pretrial “diversion program,” after completion of which, charges were dropped.

Some states are better than others regarding voter integrity. Virginia cross-references Motor Voter data with the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system, and “since 2014, has removed 11,000 ‘declared non-citizen[s]’” from the voter rolls, according to the Public Interest Legal Foundation. Meanwhile, the foundation is suing Wisconsin and Minnesota for lack of transparency with their voter rolls.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, recently introduced the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act to require states to obtain proof of citizenship—in person—when registering an individual to vote. Further, the bill requires states to remove noncitizens from existing voter rolls.  

Meanwhile, this week, the House passed the Equal Representation Act, a bill that would restore the U.S. citizenship question to the census and exclude noncitizens from congressional apportionment. The bill passed 206-202 by a completely party-line vote. Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., forced a vote on a similar bill in the Senate in March, but it failed 51-45. All of the Democrats and one Republican voted against it.

Election integrity shouldn’t be a liberal versus conservative issue, and maintaining accurate voter rolls is a national, not a political, goal. Impartial legislation to ensure both integrity and accuracy ahead of our next election and census should receive bipartisan support.  

The BorderLine is a weekly Daily Signal feature examining everything from the unprecedented illegal immigration crisis at the border to immigration’s impact on cities and states throughout the land. We will also shed light on other critical border-related issues like human trafficking, drug smuggling, terrorism, and more.

Read Other BorderLine Columns:

The Ideological Roots of the Open Borders Push

US Should Adopt UK’s ‘Rwanda Plan’ to Address Illegal Immigration

Biden’s Precarious Parole Programs for Illegal Immigrants

My Look Inside Biden’s Illegal Immigrant Catch-and-Release Craziness

What I Saw on My Latest Visit to the Border

The post The Ways the Left Exploits Illegal Immigration for Electoral Gain: The BorderLine appeared first on The Daily Signal.

This Liberal Donor Pushes Left-Leaning Groups to Fund Efforts to Turn Out Voters

An influential left-of-center donor’s charity has launched an initiative compelling other philanthropies to pour money into voter-mobilization efforts for this fall’s elections.

Democracy Fund, founded and funded by liberal philanthropist Pierre Omidyar, has rallied 174 organizations and individuals pledging to expedite disbursement of grants related to get-out-the-vote operations and other efforts.

dailycallerlogo

The pledge called on signatories either to make the bulk of their election-related donations by the end of April, to “move up” disbursements scheduled for later in the year, or to streamline grant approval processes.

Alex Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the liberal dark money giant Arabella Advisors, Tides, and Democrat megadonor Susan Pritzker are among the major left-of-center philanthropic players to sign the pledge.

Omidyar, who founded eBay and has become a prolific investor, is worth over $10.9 billion, according to Bloomberg. Omidyar gave roughly $1.2 billion through various charitable arms to an array of primarily left-of-center causes between 2004 and 2020, according to a Capital Research Center report.

In 2020, Omidyar gave the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a sprawling Democrat-aligned political outfit, $45 million to support its Civic Action Fund project, a now-defunct voter-turnout initiative that focused on “empower[ing] those typically underrepresented in our democratic process” by ensuring they voted in 2020. The group collaborated with liberal politicians and activists to organize local get-out-the-vote efforts targeting low-propensity voters, according to Influence Watch.

In explaining his donation to Civic Action Fund, Omidyar cited the importance of “supporting local voter outreach and engagement of young people and people of color.” Young people and minority voters favor the Democratic Party by considerable margins, with voters 18 to 29 and all nonwhite constituencies favoring President Joe Biden by double digits in 2020, according to a CNN exit poll.

Civic Action Fund was active in 14 states, including the key states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, during the 2020 election season, according to its website. The group had staffers with ties to notable Democrats such as former President Barack Obama and former Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, according to Influence Watch.

Many of the signatories of Democracy Fund’s “All by April” pledge have clear ideological slants.

Alex Soros, son of influential liberal financier George Soros, has described himself as “more political” than his father.

Arabella manages a network of nonprofits that pours tens of millions into liberal causes every year. 

Tides comprises a variety of organizational arms, including one of the largest pass-through organizations for liberal philanthropists. And Pritzker has donated millions to Democratic and otherwise left-of-center political committees.

Arabella’s nonprofit network and the Soros family’s philanthropic ventures have dropped large sums on election spending.

Arabella’s nonprofits spent more than $62 million on voter registration and mobilization efforts during 2022, a midterm election year.

Much of the Arabella network’s spending also focused on getting Democrat-friendly demographics to the polls. New Venture Fund, one of Arabella’s arms, gave millions to the Voter Registration Project, a group “commissioned” by veteran Democratic operative John Podesta that, according to Influence Watch, “targets African-American, Latino, Native American, low-income, and other voter groups likely to lean left-of-center.”

The Soros philanthropic empire also gave millions to the Voter Registration Project between 2016 and 2022. The project’s efforts in 2020 netted Biden between 1 million and 2.7 million votes, according to a Capital Research Center report.

Open Society Policy Center, part of the broader Soros network, gave $1.4 million to the Voto Latino Action Fund in 2022. The organization focuses on registering Latino voters and loosening voting laws, according to its website.

High voter turnout among Latinos was among the reasons Democrats outperformed expectations during the 2022 midterm elections, according to Politico.

“Voter registration nonprofits are nothing more than a cost-effective way to achieve partisan electioneering results for Democrats while keeping the donors totally anonymous and giving them a tax write-off for their troubles,” Parker Thayer, an investigative researcher at Capital Research Center, previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Democracy Fund, Arabella, Tides, and Open Society Foundations did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation

The post This Liberal Donor Pushes Left-Leaning Groups to Fund Efforts to Turn Out Voters appeared first on The Daily Signal.

John Leguizamo Laments Trump Winning over Latino Voters: Democrats ‘Take Us for Granted’

Democrats take Latino voters “for granted” and that lackadaisical approach could haunt them in November’s contest between President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump, leftist actor and comedian John Leguizamo lamented Monday.

The post John Leguizamo Laments Trump Winning over Latino Voters: Democrats ‘Take Us for Granted’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Poll: Biden Suffers 28% Decline Among Black Voters

President Joe Biden is suffering a 28 percent decline in support among black voters, an I&I/TIPP Poll survey released Monday found.

The post Poll: Biden Suffers 28% Decline Among Black Voters appeared first on Breitbart.

AP: California Voters Growing Skeptical of Months-Long Ballot Counting Process

Most California residents vote by mail, and the nation's most populous state has gained a reputation for tallies that can drag on for weeks — and sometimes longer.

The post AP: California Voters Growing Skeptical of Months-Long Ballot Counting Process appeared first on Breitbart.

Arizona Cranks Up More Criminal Charges

(John Hinderaker)

Politico reports that Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (a Democrat, of course) is accelerating an investigation that may lead to prosecutions of people close to President Trump’s 2020 campaign. Which is odd on its face, since the events that are the basis for the investigation happened more than three years ago. Why the sudden hurry? Obviously, Democrats see that Joe Biden is losing, and are throwing the kitchen sink at Trump:

Arizona prosecutors in recent weeks issued grand jury subpoenas to multiple people linked to Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign, a sharp acceleration of their criminal investigation into efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state.

The new steps, first reported here, are a sign that Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, is nearing a decision on whether to charge Trump’s allies in the state, including GOP activists who falsely posed as presidential electors in December 2020.

“Falsely posed as electors.” What an absurd characterization! In a number of states, Trump’s campaign had people lined up to be electors on his behalf in the event that his various legal challenges might succeed before the Electoral College met. There is nothing wrong with this, let alone illegal. The same thing happened in Hawaii in 1960, and would have happened in Florida in 2000 if the Supreme Court hadn’t first put the matter to rest.

The “fake elector” theory is one of several ways in which the Democrats have tried to criminalize making claims of voter fraud. In the wake of the 2020 election, Donald Trump and many others believed that the election had been stolen by the Biden campaign. Were they right? I doubt it, but we will never know for sure. There wasn’t enough time between the election and Biden’s inauguration for claims of voter fraud to be litigated on the merits, and in no case did any court ever permit the necessary discovery, conduct a trial and make findings on the extent of voter fraud by the Democrats.

In multiple criminal proceedings, Trump is accused of “trying to overturn” — or “plotting to overturn” — the result of the 2020 election. Again, there is nothing wrong with this. Al Gore tried to overturn the result of the 2000 election, and Al Franken got into the U.S. Senate by overturning the result of an election. There is nothing wrong with pursuing legal election remedies. And where extensive voter fraud is suspected, an attempt to investigate, litigate and overturn a fraudulent result is commendable, not criminal. But the reality is that voter fraud can only be prevented; it can’t be litigated and corrected after the fact. The Democrats have blocked common-sense ballot security measures at every opportunity, and they have no one but themselves to blame if the public widely suspects that our elections are rigged.

Sadly, it appears that some Trump associates have been bullied into guilty pleas in shameful criminal proceedings alleging that they were “fake electors.” This reflects the reality that government at either the federal or the state level can destroy your life at will. At some point, nearly everyone will surrender rather than go through bankruptcy and see his or her life destroyed.

The misuse of criminal proceedings by the Democratic Party to punish its political opponents is the most vicious legacy of our current political crisis.

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