Last year, the Democrats did everything they could to take over the federal power to run elections. If you recall, they were lying about Republicans trying to stifle voters through laws similar to the one was passed in Georgia.
However, the Democrats’ attempts to do so were unsuccessful. Then, Joe Biden tried to circumvent Congress through signing Executive Order 14019.
The “Executive Order on Promoting Access to Voting” reads like a Democratic Party wish-list of “reforms” that enshrines many of the practices that were adopted on a temporary basis during the pandemic-affected 2020 election. Its provisions include:
using federal agencies to promote voter registration;
using federal agencies to inform Americans about voting;
linking federal agency websites to state voter registration websites;
providing voter registration and vote-by-mail applications;
using “approved, nonpartisan third-party organizations” to register voters at federal agencies;
using identification documents issued by the agency to help people register to vote;
providing more multilingual services to potential voters;
giving public employees “time off to vote in Federal, State, local, Tribal, and territorial elections”; and
promoting voter registration for federal prisoners.
One provision states: “It is the responsibility of the Federal Government to expand access to, and education about, voter registration and election information, and to combat misinformation, in order to enable all eligible Americans to participate in our democracy.”
When you read “combat misinformation,” alarms should be sounding the warning to you that there's an issue. Two of these parts are concerning: “using “approved, nonpartisan third-party organizations” to register voters at federal agencies” and “using identification documents issued by the agency to help people register to vote.” What is going on here?
The Order instructed the federal government to react to the issue, which included the increase in voter registration among groups who have historically been inclined to vote more heavily for Democrats.
“Black voters and other voters of color have faced discriminatory policies and other obstacles that disproportionately affect their communities,” the order said. “These voters remain more likely to face long lines at the polls and are disproportionately burdened by voter identification laws and limited opportunities to vote by mail.”
Biden's directive required that all federal agencies submit an email to the White House with “a strategic plan outlining the ways identified under this review that the agency can promote voter registration and voter participation.” The truth is, it's not much. Naturally, it can cause someone to wonder what this means, especially when it's an alternative to the highly objectionable attempt to control elections?
Therefore, the Foundation for Government Accountability sent an FOIA request on July 20, 2021 to the DOJ to inquire about what they were doing in order to comply with Biden's orders.
“Please provide your agency’s strategic plan developed pursuant to President Biden Executive Order 14019 … outlining ways you identified for your agency to promote voter registration and voter participation,” the request said.
However, the DOJ did not respond to the questions. Then, a judge required them to hand over the data that they were supposed to turn over by Sept. 8th 2022. But, when that date came around, what they handed over was nothing more than a couple of emails and a couple of documents regarding who would be at which meetings. The worst part was that they refused to hand over the plan.
This is what the chief of the Freedom of Information branch of the Civil Rights Division told the foundation:
After review of the Civil Rights Division documents responsive to your request, the Division has identified (15) pages of material representing the STRATEGIC PLAN for the Implementation of Executive Order 14019, Promoting Access to Voting. I have determined that these materials are to be withheld in full pursuant to Exemption 5 of the Freedom of Information Act, 551(b)(5), which pertains to certain inter- and intra-agency records protected by civil discovery privileges, in this instance the deliberative process and presidential communications privileges.
To withhold the plan, the Justice Department relied on what has long been called the most abused exemption — Exemption 5, also known as (b)(5) — of the Freedom of Information Act. “This incredibly large cutout is often called the ‘withhold it because you want to’ exemption,” wrote journalist and FOIA advocate Nate Jones in 2014. “According to stats compiled by the Associated Press, (b)(5) use is at an all-time high.” Even though later reform reduced its use a little, Exemption 5 is still an indispensable tool for administrations seeking to hide what they are doing.
The items they turned in even contained many different redactions.
What's going here when none of this should be a secret as this all relates to elections in the public domain? That they would like to cover it up is extremely alarming. The Constitution allows states to have the power and not a federal entity. If they don't wish to reveal the things they're doing, then you know there's an issue.
“The American people deserve to know if the Biden administration’s unprecedented action is fair and non-partisan, or if it is designed to help one political party over the other,” Tarren Bragdon, head of the foundation, said in a statement. “Why are they ignoring public record requests for strategic plans on federal voter registration efforts? Why are they treating these documents like they are classified information dealing with nuclear weapons? Midterms are approaching, and the DOJ’s failure to disclose information raises troubling issues. They need to reveal these public documents to keep our elections fair.”
One troubling clue did make it past Justice Department censors. On July 12, 2021, the Justice Department held a “listening session” with outside activists working on voting rights. The group included dozens of people, all of them from left-leaning groups. There were 10 from the American Civil Liberties Union, five from the Campaign Legal Center, three from Demos, three from the Southern Poverty Law Center, five from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, two from Black Lives Matter, and many others. The list would not reassure anyone hoping that the Justice Department is working in a scrupulously nonpartisan way. But of course, we don’t really know what the department is doing because the administration is keeping it a secret.
There was a TIME magazine article in the past concerning the cabal that “saved the 2020 election.” Could that be what's happening in this case, with all the money and power from the Federal government? If they're refusing to divulge the plans, we can only imagine how bad it is since the election is right around the corner and they're still not discussing it.
