In March 2021, an executive order signed by President Joe Biden sparked outrage over voter registration strategies in the United States.
Breitbart reported that The Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project has raised concerns that the order is a blatant attempt to turn America's felon population into a new voting block for the Democrat Party.
Titled “Promoting Access to Voting,” Biden's executive order was introduced as a nonpartisan effort to expand voter registration and increase electoral participation across the nation.
Following the signing, the Biden administration promptly engaged with various NGOs in a “Listening Session,” with the participation skewing towards organizations identified with left-wing policies and the Democratic party.
Details from these sessions, obtained through unredacted notes by the Oversight Project, revealed a significant focus on enabling convicts to register to vote.
An official from the Sentencing Project advocated during the session that the Bureau of Prisons should inform newly eligible voters about their rights, categorizing the inability to vote due to felony records as a form of voter suppression.
"Felony disenfranchisement is voter suppression," remarked the official, highlighting the need for systematic change within the prison system to support voter registration.
Further, the Campaign Legal Center pushed for the establishment of a structured voter registration process by the Bureau of Prisons to educate convicts about their voting rights after their release.
Another pivotal point of discussion was the need to facilitate voting among immigrants, especially those newly naturalized. Representatives from various advocacy groups expressed a need for voter registration to be a mandatory part of naturalization ceremonies.
An official from MALDEF emphasized careful voter registration processes for immigrants and noncitizens. “Immigrants and noncitizens — we support voter registration efforts. We want to make sure that they are done in a careful way. All [federal] employees must be trained in this. Need to trust people are acting in bounds of the law. Especially when there are language issues,” they stated.
Asian Americans Advancing Justice suggested that the government’s official voter registration site be available in multiple languages, ensuring access to non-English speakers.
The Oversight Project has critiqued the executive order as a partisan attempt to mobilize voters, particularly focusing on demographics that may favor the Democratic party, utilizing federal resources and infrastructure for this purpose.
This criticism points to a potentially strategic deployment of the executive order’s provisions to sway future electoral outcomes by tapping into specific voter groups.
The discussions and plans revealed in the Listening Session, as obtained by the Oversight Project, have led to debates over the true nonpartisan nature of the order and its implementation.
Stakeholders from various civil rights and legal organizations presented a unified front on the need for inclusivity in the voter registration process during the Listening Sessions.
The focus was clearly set on dismantling barriers for marginalized groups, with convicts and immigrants being at the forefront of the agenda, aiming to ensure every eligible citizen has a voice in the democratic process.
However, the intentions and implementations as perceived by different groups suggest a complex interplay of politics and policy in the efforts to widen voter accessibility in the U.S.
President Biden's 2021 executive order, aimed at broadening voter access, has stirred a significant political debate, characterized by differing interpretations of its goals and focus. The Oversight Project's findings, particularly the emphasis on registering convicts and immigrants, highlight a contentious aspect of the administration's approach to voter mobilization. These efforts, while praised by some as a step towards rectifying long-standing injustices in voter access, are seen by others as a politically motivated strategy to reshape the electorate.
