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By Sean O'Driscoll
Senior Crime and Courts Reporter
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Nine states have launched a lawsuit against the Biden administration's voter registration order, complaining it was drafted by a "progressive activist group," and allows imprisoned felons to illegally register to vote.
Biden's Executive Order 14019 is designed to increase voter registration among poorer Black adults and other marginalized groups.
But the lawsuit states: "Agencies implementing that order seem to be doing so without following any of the procedures laid out by Congress. For example, the U.S. Attorney General is registering imprisoned felons to vote—but there was never notice nor comment on that policy to allow the public to weigh in on whether that is right. And in many States, felons voting is illegal."
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It cites a letter "from Richard J. Durbin, U.S. Senator, et al., to Merrick Garland, U.S. Attorney General and Ms. Collette Peters, Director, U.S. Bureau of Prisons (Mar. 28, 2024) (noting that under EO 14019 'hundreds of individuals inside federal prisons have successfully registered and voted in recent elections.'"
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The 2021 order mandates federal agencies to come up with a plan to promote voter registration, especially in marginalized communities. Each agency's plan should include details of how it will incentivize new voters to cast their ballots and the order aims to "eliminate discrimination and other barriers to voting."
Another part of the order tells federal agencies to link up with states to push for ways to make voting easier.
But the lawsuit complains: "EO 14019 emerges from left-wing advocacy groups and thus the policy concerns flagged in the text of the order do not provide the whole motivation for the order."
It alleges that the racial justice group, Dēmos, is behind the order.
"Dēmos, for example, claimed credit for EO 14019. And Dēmos prides itself on 'mov[ing] progressive issues from the movement to the mainstream.' The left-wing push behind EO 14019 has continued through the order's implementation. Dēmos, for example, monitors implementation and advocates that federal agencies do more to implement EO 14019," the lawsuit alleges.
On its website, Demos is promoting its "power agenda" which it describes as "a framework rooted in racial equity designed to amplify new narratives around power."
"President Biden has sought to convert the federal bureaucracy into a voter registration organization and to turn every interaction between a federal bureaucrat and a member of the public into a voter registration pitch," the lawsuit alleges.
"That exceeds any authority executive entities have under federal law, violates the Constitution, threatens States' attempt to regulate voter registration, and thus ultimately undermines the voter registration systems set up by the States."
The complaint was filed August 13 in federal court in Wichita, Kansas by Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and South Dakota. All nine states lean toward the Republican Party, according to FiveThirtyEight's assessment of How Red Or Blue Is Your State.
The lawsuit lists President Joe Biden as a defendant as well as every government department mandated with implementing the voter registration order, including agriculture and education.
It also alleges that the executive order violates election funding laws.
"President Biden issued an executive order—an order allegedly drafted by a progressive activist group—tasking the whole of government to use those funds in ways that Congress never contemplated—at the risk of violating federal and State laws."
Newsweek sought email comment from the White House and Dēmos on Tuesday.
"The Biden-Harris Administration must follow the law," the lawsuit states.
"Agencies cannot take money Congress allocated and reuse it for improper purposes. And they certainly cannot do so without following the laws that establish procedures laid out by Congress," it adds.
472676-voter-registration-lawsuit.pdf.PDF
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