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FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—North Carolina election officials were perplexed about how to follow President Joe Biden’s directive to expand voting among convicted felons, according to emails obtained by The Daily Signal.
Biden’s Executive Order 14019, which put the power of federal agencies behind mobilizing voters, calls for the Justice Department to ensure that convicted felons know how to restore their voting rights. Those rules vary by state.
State election officials were set to have a Zoom conference June 25, 2021, with White House officials on implementing the president’s order, including questions and suggestions.
A day before the conference, Karen Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, emailed staff about what points they wanted to address.
“The main one I can think of ideas for is about felons and voting,” Katelyn Love, general counsel for the Board of Elections replied via email, before citing the U.S. Department of Justice. “We don’t get notice from DOJ when a felon completes their sentence. This would be helpful information for us to have, so we know that the person is eligible to register again.”
Love continued: “If they don’t already, DOJ could provide information to NC felons when they start probation or when they are placed on supervised release (it’s not called parole anymore) that they are not eligible to register and vote until they complete their sentence.”
Kelly Tornow, associate counsel for North Carolina’s election board, responded: “Those are great felon ideas.”
Tornow said she was primarily concerned with enlisted U.S. service members and the Defense Department, and wrote that “the military should provide information to the service member about registering to vote.”
The Daily Signal obtained 159 pages of documents from the North Carolina State Board of Elections regarding Biden’s order on voter mobilization through a public records request.
Critics use the term “Bidenbucks” to refer to the president’s controversial executive order, which they say is meant to use the force of government to tip the scales in elections.
Federal agencies have coordinated with transparently left-leaning advocacy groups to implement Biden’s order.
Further, several Republicans in Congress contend that Biden’s order on turning out the vote could violate the Antideficiency Act, a law that prohibits federal employees from obligating tax dollars not authorized by Congress.
The lawmakers also express concern about federal agencies’ engaging in partisan political activity in violation of laws such as the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from using work time or resources for partisan political activities.
Last year, on March 13, Sarah Bolton, former policy director for North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, forwarded an email to Bell, the executive director of the state election board, who at the time was secretary-treasurer of the National Association of State Election Directors.
The email forwarded by Bolton was about paying college students to register voters. Students are viewed as a key constituency for Democrats.
Bolton told Bell to “let me know if this might be of interest. If it is, I can connect you directly.”
She forwarded a message from Michael Dannenberg, senior fellow for the College Promise and a consultant with the Foundation for Civic Leadership, in which he wrote:
We’re hoping Karen in her new role with the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) might consider joining, maybe even leading, a non-partisan effort to get state and local officials to urge [U.S. Education Secretary Miguel] Cardona to make clear that government entities, notably offices that NASED members lead, and non party-affiliated, non-profit 501(c)(3) organizations like the League of Women Voters can pay work study students with Federal Work Study funds for non-partisan voter registration work just as colleges now can for identical work.
Mitchell D. Brown, equal justice work fellow for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, sent an email Aug. 17, 2021, to Damon Circosta, then chairman of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, about the need to “target federal agencies and programs that we think would be good opportunities for voter registration.”
Copied on the email was Laura Williamson, then associate director of democracy at Demos, a liberal think tank that drafted Biden’s executive order. Demos also is working with several federal agencies to implement the order.
Brown’s email included an attachment with recommendations for using federal agencies to get out the vote. They included using U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services through its naturalization ceremonies; signing up voters on Healthcare.gov; and registering voters through the interagency Transition Assistance Program and the Labor Department’s Pathways Home program.
The documents released to The Daily Signal include a May 24, 2023, email from Doug R. Hess, a political scientist and consultant with the Institute for Responsive Governing. That organization is fiscally sponsored by the liberal Arabella Advisors’ New Venture Fund, which financially backs multiple left-leaning organizations.
Hess’ email, with a memo attached, isn’t addressed directly to North Carolina, but notes that targeting Medicaid recipients for voter registration could advance the goals of Biden’s executive order. Hess wrote:
Consider this concrete example: Six states and D.C. recently adopted automatic voter registration for Medicaid. Based on my exploratory analysis, I believe these reforms may result in an impressive number of voter registration applications, perhaps far more than social service agencies have produced in the past. Federal health and program participation surveys could advance our understanding of this reform in ways that state administrative data alone cannot. Data from these surveys would also substantially benefit the growing political science literature on policy feedback and health policy. Regarding the feasibility of this proposal, this expansion would further the goals of President Biden’s Executive Order 14019—Promoting Access to Voting.
The post ‘Great Felon Ideas’: Battleground State Struggles to Apply Biden’s Election Order appeared first on The Daily Signal.
Registered voters across the battleground state of Nevada registered in prison and at commercial addresses such as casinos, strip clubs, and fast-food restaurants—and an election watchdog group is pushing for action before mass mailing of ballots begins.
Logan Churchwell, research director for Public Interest Legal Foundation, wrote Monday to Clark County Registrar of Voters Lorena S. Portillo, who oversees voter registration in Nevada’s largest jurisdiction, including Las Vegas.
“In our analysis of Nevada’s statewide voter list dated April 9, 2024, we identified numerous addresses listed as residential that appeared to be commercial buildings where no one resides. Attached to this letter is a list of addresses from Clark County,” Churchwell wrote.
“We are including pictures that we have taken at each location along with additional information we collected,” he added in the letter to Portillo. “We request that you conduct your investigation and make any appropriate corrections to the voter roll by June 17, 2024.”
Public Interest Legal Foundation also posted a video on social media showing visits to numerous commercial locations where voters are listed as residing, only to find people unaware of the registered voter’s name.
YouTube oddly posted a disclaimer under the video that says: “Mail ballots submitted by voters who meet eligibility and validity requirements are counted in every election. Before they are counted, election officials vigorously verify the validity of every mail ballot submission.”
However, the point of the foundation’s video was to request that election officials verify the location of registered voters, then update voter lists accordingly.
“Ensuring the accuracy of the voter roll is especially critical given that Nevada has recently expanded voting by mail,” Churchwell’s letter to Portillo says.
As noted in my book “The Myth of Voter Suppression,” jurisdictions across the United States have done a poor job of updating voter registration rolls in compliance with the federal National Voter Registration Act. This leads to the inclusion of dead voters or those who moved out of state remaining on voter lists in certain locations.
The Clark County Registrar of Voters office didn’t respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment on this report by publication time.
Public Interest Legal Foundation has sued Washoe County, Nevada—which includes Reno—to force election officials to investigate commercial addresses on the voter lists. Democrat election lawyer Marc Elias filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit.
The document below includes evidence and a list of suspect addresses in Nevada compiled by Public Interest Legal Foundation.
The post Casinos, Strip Clubs, Fast Food: Addresses Listed for Battleground State Voters Prompt Concerns appeared first on The Daily Signal.
Dr. Anthony Fauci testified Monday before the House panel investigating the origins of COVID-19, defending pandemic-era restrictions and again sharply denying financial support for gain-of-function research with coronaviruses.
Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, took questions under oath before the House Oversight and Accountability Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Here are seven highlights of the panel’s hearing.
Fauci fielded questions from several lawmakers on National Institutes of Health grants to the EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based organization that in turn funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China. NIH includes the agency directed by Fauci for nearly 40 years, until his retirement at the end of 2022.
Last month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced a suspension of funding to the EcoHealth Alliance.
COVID-19 first emerged in Wuhan. The FBI and other U.S. intelligence agencies reached a consensus that the virus that causes COVID-19 emerged from a lab leak there.
Before taking questions from the House panel, Fauci affirmed in his opening remarks that “according to the regulatory and operative definition, … the NIH did not fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
However, NIH Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak had told the House panel that under the generic definition of gain-of-function research, NIH indeed funded such research at the Wuhan lab.
Critics of Fauci have said the NIH used EcoHealth to fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is suspected to have led to the initial spread of COVID-19.
The term “gain of function” describes a risky process of making a pathogen more dangerous or contagious for the purpose of studying a response.
During the hearing, Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., asked: “Dr. Fauci, did the National Institutes of Health fund the potentially dangerous enhanced potential pandemic pathogens gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology?”
Fauci replied: “I would not categorize it the way you did.”
“The National Institutes of Health gave a sub-award to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, funded research on the surveillance on the possibility of emerging infections. I would not characterize it as dangerous gain-of-function research,” he explained.
Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, pressed Fauci about accountability for COVID-19.
“Your name is on every single grant,” Cloud told Fauci. “Yet, you absolve yourself of every single responsibility by saying it goes to this committee that has a number of people on it and it’s approved in block. So, there is no accountability for anything, any of the taxpayer dollars that are going forth.”
Fauci objected.
“We fund thousands of grants,” Fauci said. “It would be physically impossible for me to go through every single grant in a detailed way to understand it.”
Cloud followed up by asking, “Why does your signature go on it?”
Fauci replied: “Because someone has to sign off on it and you trust the expertise and the competence of the staff that go over it.”
Fauci said some of his top staff, mainly Dr. David Morens, for years a senior adviser at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, violated NIH policy on public records.
Morens last month admitted to Congress that he used private email to dodge disclosure of public information about NIH grants to the EcoHealth Alliance, the organization that worked and helped fund the Wuhan lab.
House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., pressed Fauci on the issue of his longtime senior adviser.
“Did you ever delete an official record?
Fauci replied, “No.”
Comer asked, “Dr. Fauci, did you ever conduct official business via [personal] email?”
Fauci replied: “To the best of my recollection and knowledge, I have never conducted official business via my private email.”
Comer later said there was a “troubling pattern” among Fauci’s inner circle.
Fauci said, “Using a personal email for official business violates NIH policy.”
Comer asked: “On April 28, 2020, Dr. Morens edited an EcoHealth press release regarding the grant termination. Does that violate policy?”
Fauci replied: “That was inappropriate for him to be doing that for a grantee, as a conflict of interest among other things.”
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., pressed Fauci on whether he tried to suppress the lab leak theory, quoting him.
“You have said, ‘I’ve heard these conspiracy theories and like all conspiracy theories, they’re just conspiracy theories.’ That’s what you told the American people,” Malliotakis said. “So would you like to clarify what science were you following then versus now?”
Fauci said he didn’t mean everyone was a conspiracy theorist, before launching into a scenario comparing himself to a fictional movie character played by actor Matt Damon.
“I don’t think the concept of there being a lab leak is inherently a conspiracy theory,” Fauci said. “What is conspiracy is a kind of distortion of that particular subject, like it was a lab leak and I was parachuted into the CIA like Jason Bourne and told the CIA that they should really not be talking about a lab leak.”
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, read aloud communications from Meta executives, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, noting that the Biden administration suppressed posts about a leak from a Chinese lab.
“Why was it so important that the virus not have started in a lab?” Jordan said.
Fauci replied: “It wasn’t so important that the virus not [have started in a lab]. We don’t know.”
Jordan followed up.
“Well, it was important to someone in the Biden administration. So much so that the top people at Meta, the top people at Facebook, are asking, ‘Why are we getting all this pressure to downplay the lab leak theory?’” the Ohio Republican said.
Fauci protested, “What does that got to do with me?”
“I’m asking you because you’re the expert on the coronavirus. Why was the administration so pushing not to have the lab leak theory?” Jordan asked.
Fauci replied, “I can’t answer that. I’ve kept an open mind.”
“Kept an open mind,” Jordan said, using a skeptical tone.
Speaking about COVID-19 vaccines, Fauci seemed to admit to Cloud, a Texas Republican, that they had limited capacity to stop the spread of the disease.
“It is very, very clear that [COVID-19] vaccines have saved hundreds of thousands of Americans,” Fauci said.
“Did the vaccines stop anyone from getting COVID?” Cloud asked.
“Early on, it became clear that—,” Fauci began.
Cloud interrupted: “They didn’t.”
“Actually no,” Fauci said. “In the beginning, it clearly prevented infection in a certain percentage of people but the durability of its ability to prevent infection was not long. It was measured in months.”
Cloud asked: “And it didn’t stop you from spreading [COVID-19], either?”
Faudi answered: “Early on, it prevented infection, but it became clear that it did not prevent transmission when the ability to prevent infection waned.”
Cloud listed COVID-19 mitigation efforts and asked whether Fauci would do anything differently if given another chance.
Fauci doubled down on his recommendations at the time.
“Business closures?” Cloud asked.
Fauci: “Early on, when 5,000 people were dying a day, yes.”
Cloud: “Church closures?”
Fauci: “Same thing.”
Through several questions, Cloud also asked about school closures, stay-at-home orders, and mask mandates for children and adults.
“These were important when we were trying to stop the tsunami of deaths that were occurring early on,” Fauci responded. “How long you kept them going is debatable.”
However, early in the hearing, subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, listed the negative effects of many pandemic measures.
“Any dissent from your chosen position was immediately labeled as anti-science,” Wenstrup said. “Anything less than complete submission to the mandates could cost you your livelihood, your ability to go into public, your child’s ability to attend school.”
Wenstrup continued:
Families were thrown off planes and shamed when their 2-year-olds struggled to wear a mask. Children with disabilities lost access to therapies that they and their families depended on. Students were out of the classroom and told to attend school remotely even when the science clearly demonstrated it was safe for them to go back in the classroom.
This harmed low-income students the most. How were single-parent households supposed to teach their own children and work at the same time? Dr. Fauci, you oversaw one of the most invasive regimes of domestic policy the U.S. has ever seen, including mask mandates, school closures, coerced vaccinations, social distancing of 6 feet, and more.
Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., gave Fauci an opening to defend his COVID-19 policies.
“Do you think the American public should listen to America’s brightest and best doctors and scientists, or instead listen to podcasters, conspiracy theorists, and unhinged Facebook memes?” Garcia asked the immunologist.
Fauci replied: “Listening to the people who you just described is going to do nothing but harm people because they will deprive themselves of lifesaving interventions, which has happened.”
Fauci said research has shown this to be the case.
“People that refuse to get vaccinated for any variety of reasons [were] probably responsible for an additional 200,000 to 300,000 deaths in this country,” Fauci said.
The post 7 Highlights as Fauci Testifies Under Oath on COVID-19 appeared first on The Daily Signal.
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.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, the Georgia prosecutor who brought racketeering charges against former President Donald Trump and his political allies, won her Democratic primary Tuesday in the face of scandal.
Meanwhile, Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, presiding over the Fulton County case against Trump, also won his race—just two months after his ruling allowed Willis to continue with the case, despite the fact that she was in an undisclosed relationship with the lawyer she had hired to prosecute Trump.
These local races gained national attention not only because of the Trump case, but because of personal and professional scandal surrounding Willis over the revelations of her affair with Nathan Wade, the man she hired as special prosecutor to go after Trump for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
The judge made what was considered a mixed ruling in March that the Trump case could go forward only if Willis or Wade recused themselves. So, Wade left the case.
On Tuesday, Willis defeated Christian Wise Smith, a former county prosecutor who previously unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for Georgia attorney general in 2022. He also previously lost to Willis in the Fulton County Democrat primary for district attorney in 2020.
The Associated Press called the race at 7:31 p.m.
BREAKING: Fani Willis wins the Democratic Party primary in Georgia for District Attorney, Atlanta Judicial Circuit. #APRaceCall at 7:31 p.m. EDT.
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) May 21, 2024
In the upcoming November general election, Willis now faces Courtney Kramer, a lawyer who didn’t have a challenger in the Republican primary for district attorney in the heavily Democratic jurisdiction made up primarily of Atlanta.
Willis was first elected in 2020. She has faced controversies beyond the Trump case that include the prosecution of rapper Young Thug and complaints by the liberal American Civil Liberties Union about living conditions in the Fulton County Jail.
The Associated Press called the race for McAfee shortly before 8 p.m.
McAfee faced Robert Patillo II, a Georgia civil rights lawyer and radio host. One candidate for the judgeship, defense attorney Tiffani Johnson, was disqualified but was fighting the disqualification, according to The New York Times.
Judicial races in Georgia are nonpartisan. McAfee is a former state inspector general appointed to the bench by Gov. Brian Kemp in December 2022 to fill a vacancy.
The Willis-Wade controversy came up after one of the defendants—former Trump White House and campaign aide Michael Roman—filed a legal motion asking for both to be disqualified from the case.
Willis hired Wade in November 2021 for $250 per hour. Wade has billed Willis’ office for more than $650,000 in legal work. Wade and Willis went on several vacations, cruises, and flights to destinations that included Belize, Aruba, and the Bahamas, which raised accusations that Willis personally benefited from the financial arrangement.
Trump and Roman were among 19 people charged under the state’s Racketeering Influencing and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, in August 2023 by a Fulton County grand jury for challenging the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.
McAfee determined in March that the Trump allies hadn’t shown an actual conflict of interest with Willis employing Wade but said, “the established record “highlights a significant appearance of impropriety that infect the current structure of the prosecution team.”
The post Georgia’s Democratic Voters Render Their Verdict on Fani Willis appeared first on The Daily Signal.
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.
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.
In response to new federal rules on pronouns and bathrooms based on gender identity, 18 state attorneys general are suing the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The lawsuit, led by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, a Republican, was filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee.
“This end-run around our constitutional institutions misuses federal power to eliminate women’s private spaces and punish the use of biologically accurate pronouns, all at the expense of Tennessee employers,” Skrmetti said in a public statement.
The Daily Signal first reported last month that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission published guidance determining that an employer would be guilty of harassment for requiring someone to use a restroom that comports with his or her biological sex, or for referring to someone by a personal pronoun that the person doesn’t want used.
The guidance, which the EEOC adopted on a party-line vote of 3-2, would determine how the commission would handle an employee complaint on the matter and also could affect other employee litigation as the formal federal policy.
EEOC has 2,331 employees, according to its 2023 annual report.
Joining Tennessee in the lawsuit are Republican attorneys general from the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia.
“In America, the Constitution gives the power to make laws to the people’s elected representatives, not to unaccountable commissioners, and this EEOC guidance is an attack on our constitutional separation of powers,” Skrmetti, Tennessee’s attorney general, said. “When, as here, a federal agency engages in government over the people instead of government by the people, it undermines the legitimacy of our laws and alienates Americans from our legal system.”
The EEOC issued new sexual harassment guidance that extends Title VII’s prohibition of sex-based discrimination to cover gender identity. Title VII forbids employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It applies to any employer, public or private, with more than 15 employees.
Under this guidance, an employer may be responsible under Title VII if the employer, or another employee, uses a name or personal pronoun other than the one an employee prefers for his or her gender identity, or limits access to a restroom or other sex-segregated facility that isn’t consistent with what the employee prefers to use.
This rule prevails regardless of the biological sex of the employee in question.
“Harassing conduct based on sexual orientation or gender identity includes … repeated and intentional use of a name or pronoun inconsistent with the individual’s known gender identity (misgendering) or the denial of access to a bathroom or other sex-segregated facility consistent with the individual’s gender identity,” EEOC’s new enforcement guidance says.
An EEOC spokesperson referred The Daily Signal to the Justice Department for comment on this report. A Justice Department spokesperson didn’t respond by publication time.
In a previous public statement, EEOC Chairwoman Charlotte Burrows, a Democrat, praised the enforcement guidance.
“Harassment, both in-person and online, remains a serious issue in America’s workplaces,” Burrows said shortly after the commission announced the guidelines. “The EEOC’s updated guidance on harassment is a comprehensive resource that brings together best practices for preventing and remedying harassment and clarifies recent developments in the law.”
Joining Burrows to vote in favor of the updated harassment guidance were two other Democrats, Vice Chair Jocelyn Samuels and Commissioner Kalpana Kotagal. The commission’s two Republican members, Keith Sonderling and Andrea Lucas, voted against the guidance.
In 2021, Burrows attempted to unilaterally include such actions under what constitutes harassment through a press release, without public comment or a vote by the full commission.
However, a federal court in Tennessee enjoined the guidance from going forward in 2022. Another federal court in Texas vacated Burrows’ guidance altogether. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission did not appeal the rulings.
The post 18 States Fight Federal Trans Agenda on Pronouns, Bathrooms appeared first on The Daily Signal.
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.
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The White House and its Office of Management and Budget instructed federal agencies to use a “template” for determining the cost of implementing President Joe Biden’s executive order to encourage voter participation, according to government emails obtained by The Daily Signal.
Critics use the term “Bidenbucks” to refer to the president’s controversial order from 2021, which directs federal agencies such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture to get involved in elections.
Several members of Congress contend that Biden’s order on turning out the vote for elections could violate the Antideficiency Act, a law that has three parts. It prohibits federal employees from obligating tax dollars not authorized by Congress, prohibits officials from not spending money as appropriated by Congress, and prohibits agencies from accepting voluntary service from individuals.
Biden’s controversial Executive Order 14019 requires federal agencies to participate in voter registration activities and help third-party organizations perform those activities on agency premises.
Potentially, this could involve spending government funds, contracting with third parties for the payment of those funds, or accepting voluntary services by these “approved” third-party organizations such as Demos.
Biden’s order appears to violate at least two provisions of the Antidefieicncy Act, said Stewart Whitson, senior director of federal affairs at the Foundation for Government Accountability, a conservative watchdog group, told The Daily Signal.
But, Whitson added, to determine whether the Biden administration is violating that law, it’s necessary to know where the money is coming from, where it’s going, and what it’s being used for.
Existing pots of money, for example, could be distributed by the Department of Agriculture to state agencies to help carry out voter registration activities, he suggested.
“Even if the Biden administration were to claim that no public funds are spent to carry out EO 14019—a dubious and laughable claim—this effort would still violate the Antideficiency Act because it would mean federal agencies were accepting voluntary services from these third-party organizations to help carry out EO 14019, who also happen to be politically aligned with the current administration,” Whitson said.
Neither the Agriculture Department nor the Office of Management and Budget responded to The Daily Signal’s request for comment for this report.
OMB “created a template for budget requests for the Voting EO [executive order] within their equity template in case any funding is needed for implementation,” says a Sept. 23, 2021, email among Department of Agriculture officials.
Biden’s executive order also directed agencies to team with private organizations to boost voting. Chief among those groups is the liberal think tank Demos, which drafted the executive action before Biden took office on Jan. 20, 2021.
Akhil Rajan, then an assistant to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsak, sent the September 2021 email message about the OMB’s template to USDA senior adviser Kumar Chandran, now the department’s acting undersecretary. Rajan is now a senior policy adviser to the White House’s deputy chief of staff.
Rajan’s email to Chandran noted, “Contact K. Sabeel Rahman,” apparently meaning he was the one to contact with any questions.
By that fall, Rahman, who was president of Demos when the liberal think tank drafted the executive order on voting, had joined the Biden administration’s OMB as part of its Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. (Rahman is now a professor at Cornell Law School.)
The Daily Signal obtained 73 pages of emails from the Department of Agriculture through a request for public records under the Freedom of Information Act.
The documents were USDA’s second interim response to a request from The Daily Signal regarding Biden’s executive order on encouraging voter registration and voting. Some pages are heavily redacted.
The documents also prominently mention meetings and guidance from Demos, which is based in New York. The left-wing think tank drafted Biden’s executive order to agencies about voter registration in December 2020, the month after Biden defeated Donald Trump before he took office.
Although describing it as “minimal,” USDA acknowledges some budgetary impact from Biden’s order. Any amount, however, could mean obligating tax dollars without congressional authorization, in violation of the Antideficiency Act.
In an email dated Sept. 21, 2021, Anne DeCesaro, chief of staff for the USDA’s Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, wrote to Chandran about several issues, including “assessment of budgetary impact.”
“For all actions, we expect minimal budgetary impact as providing memos and letters and regular interactions with states are part of our normal business practices,” DeCesaro wrote.
In that same email, DeCesaro explained to Chandran how other agencies within USDA could participate: The National School Lunch Program could promote voter registration in high schools, for example, and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, better known as food stamps, could register its beneficiaries to vote.
Ten days earlier, on Sept. 10, 2021, Chandran emailed several senior USDA staff about Biden’s executive order on increasing voter participation.
“Thank you for your past work to complete our interim strategic plan for the voting rights executive order,” Chandran wrote in the email. “We are now being asked to submit a final strategic plan, based on what we provided in our interim plan.”
He later added: “The WH [White House] team leading this effort has put together a template for the final strategic plan. This template largely follows the same format as that for the interim [plan], except it also includes instructions for how to flesh out each proposed action.”
The second interim response from the USDA to The Daily Signal’s FOIA requests didn’t include the department’s strategic plan or the template provided by the White House or its Office of Management and Budget.
An email dated Aug. 3, 2021, refers to a meeting between USDA officials and Demos executives to discuss Biden’s order on voting.
The Agriculture Department and Demos communicated again about the president’s executive order in November 2021.
“We’d love to reconnect soon to learn about your plans and see how Demos and the ACLU [the American Civil Liberties Union] may be able to support you in their continued development and implementation,” Demos senior policy analyst Lauren Williamson wrote Nov. 5 to senior USDA officials.
“When we met last, we talked about wanting to explore additional programs in more detail to ensure maximal impact of the EO for the communities the USDA serves and we’re eager to continue that conversation,” Williamson said.
Four days later, Rajan, assistant to the secretary of agriculture, wrote to Chandan, saying: “[D]emos has been extremely helpful in thinking about ways to expand opportunities for voting, and the coalition they assembled for our last call was rich in the types of groups that have assembled rigorously-tested best practices. So from that perspective it may be helpful to hear from them but understand that REDACTED.”
Because USDA redacted Rajan’s next words, it is impossible to know what Vilsak’s assistant wanted Chandran to understand.
The post EXCLUSIVE: White House Issued ‘Template’ to Impose Biden’s Voter Mobilization Executive Order appeared first on The Daily Signal.
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