GOP takes aim at Biden’s executive order on voter registration

ATLANTA (AP) — Republicans and conservative activists are increasingly attacking an executive order issued three years ago by the Biden administration that goals to expand voter registration, saying it’s unconstitutional and an try and interfere within the November election.

A recent fundraising email from the GOP political motion committee is an example of the way it frames the regulation, claiming it forces federal agencies to “act as Biden’s personal Get Out the Vote machine.” A Republican-led House committee recently issued subpoenas for agency directors, and a bunch of GOP secretaries of state asked the Supreme Court to take up a case difficult the order.

Despite opposition from the appropriate, there is no such thing as a indication that the ordinance would favor voters of 1 party over the opposite.

White House spokeswoman Robyn Patterson said the administration will proceed to guard the voting rights of eligible residents no matter political affiliation. Biden issued such an order in 2021 as Republican legislatures across the country debated a wave of state voting restrictions based on false claims that widespread fraud cost former President Donald Trump his re-election.

“These are baseless claims made by the same people who spread debunked lies about the 2020 election and used those same debunked lies to enact laws across the country that make it harder to vote and more easily subvert the will of the people,” Patterson said in a press release .

Here’s what the order does, what federal agencies have done up to now to comply with it, and what Republicans are saying about it.

This is to make voting easier

Biden issued an executive order on March 7, 2021, noting the federal government’s “obligation to ensure that registering to vote and the act of voting is simple and easy for all who are eligible to do so” and that it might be implemented “in accordance with applicable law.” Agency leaders were asked to submit a strategic plan inside 200 days.

The order ordered updates to the federal website Vote.gov, including ensuring voting information is out there in greater than a dozen languages. The site does indirectly address voter registration, but connects visitors with state and native election offices to start the registration process.

The order specifically mentions the Department of Defense and asks it to determine procedures to be sure that active-duty military personnel have the chance to register annually, update their voter registration information, or request an absentee ballot.

It also directs the Department of Justice to supply educational materials about registering and voting to people in federal custody as they prepare for release, together with details about rules that will prohibit them from voting.

Republicans query this approach

A 12 months after the order was issued, congressional Republicans sent a letter to the White House expressing concerns that the administration had overstepped its authority and ordered federal agencies to interact in activities beyond their missions.

Republicans say the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service has informed state agencies that the prices of providing voter registration services are allowable administrative expenses under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and will be “reimbursed at 50 percent.”

“The use of the multibillion-dollar National Nutrition Program to implement the Biden administration’s voter registration program is not only a cause for concern, but requires further analysis,” the Republicans wrote.

According to a former White House official who helped implement the order, the letter didn’t indicate that states administer the food assistance program and that states were specifically directed to supply voter registration information under a federal law passed years ago.

Justin Levitt, who was a senior policy adviser at the White House, also said the agency was merely reiterating earlier guidance that these expenses were reimbursable.

Months later, Republicans sent letters to federal agencies requesting information on plans to implement the order. They also included repealing an executive order in a sweeping election bill introduced last 12 months.

Last month, the chairman of the House Administration Committee sent letters requesting documents related to the order and set a two-week deadline for its implementation. Then the chairman, Wisconsin Republican Bryan Steil, issued a subpoena. He called the federal regulation “another attempt by the Biden administration to tip the scales before 2024.”

A White House official said the Office of Management and Budget sent an initial response and other agencies were working to answer the committee because it issued the subpoenas.

Order requires state entry

While federal agencies didn’t publicize their proposals, they did announce steps they were taking to implement the order.

Levitt, a lawyer and constitutional law expert, called the order groundbreaking but limited in scope. While federal law allows agencies to help with voter registration, he said military recruitment offices were the one ones doing so before Biden issued the executive order. He also said the federal agency can only do it if a state requests it.

“Most of what the agencies did was either directly do what the states asked them to do or clarify the rules so people know what the rules are,” Levitt said.

In Kansas and New Mexico, two Native American colleges run by the U.S. Department of the Interior served as voter registration agencies. Kentucky and Michigan said they’d designate Veterans Administration offices of their states. Michigan also plans so as to add offices for the federal Small Business Administration.

I’m asking for the intervention of the Supreme Court

A bunch of Republicans who function their state’s top election officials were also critical of the order, calling it undue federal influence over the administration of state elections.

West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner sent a letter in May 2022 asking Biden to repeal it and spoke against it during congressional testimony last 12 months. A couple of months ago, he issued a press release saying his state would refuse to just accept any voter registration forms collected by federal agencies.

“Adding federal agencies to an already complex administrative process will make it even more difficult for election officials to provide timely and accurate election registration services,” he said in an April statement.

In May, Warner and eight other GOP secretaries of state filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court asking the justices to take up a case difficult that ruling. The others were from Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, Tennessee and Wyoming.

Featured Stories

The court rejected the request to take up and choose the case by the tip of June and can take care of it for the primary time only in early autumn, at the primary private conference of judges. In the unlikely event that the court agrees to listen to the case, hearings is not going to be held until early next 12 months.

“Innocent as ordered”

Republicans opposing the executive order called it “Bidenbucks,” an obvious reference to the controversy that erupted after the 2020 election when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg donated over $350 million to the inspiration. non-profit organization which was later distributed to election offices. Republicans say the “Zuckerbucks” campaign was an try and profit Democrats.

David Becker, a former Justice Department lawyer who heads the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said the timing of heightened criticism – years after Biden’s executive order and just months before the presidential election – is noteworthy.

“It’s portrayed as a deep-state power grab, when in fact it’s about ensuring that eligible citizens working with the federal government can easily register or update their registration,” Becker said. “It’s as harmless as an order.”

He said a vital advantage of the federal regulation is that voters already registered have the chance to update their information. It provides more accurate voter rolls, which Republicans say is required.

“It’s good for election integrity. It encourages participation,” Becker said. “It used to be uncontroversial.”