President Donald Trump quickly rescinded an executive order by Joe Biden that Republicans said amounted to using government funding to register Democrat voters, and Republicans are now demanding documentation of actions taken under the order.
The outrage concerns executive order 14019, known as "Promoting Access to Voting," which ordered all federal agencies to submit plans to Biden's domestic policy advisor for how they planned to increase voter registration and participation. It was rescinded by Trump on day one of his administration.
The order also increased coordination with "approved, nonpartisan third-party organizations" in voter registration drives.
But Republicans argued that the approved groups were anything but nonpartisan.
Republican lawmakers want to know more about actions taken under 14019, and they are insisting that records be turned over.
"I’m glad to see President Trump is already taking steps to enhance our election integrity," Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI) told the Washington Examiner. "As chairman of the Committee on House Administration, I sent letters to the executive branch agencies that were suspected of violating the law demanding the preservation of documents related to Executive Order 14019. We look forward to receiving those documents from the previous administration and are eager to begin working with President Trump on this critical issue."
If a president can get away with ordering federal agencies to register voters using third party organizations that align with their own party's policies, election integrity in America might as well be dead.
That's why lawmakers can't just let it go and move on. They have to make sure nothing like this is allowed to happen again--in either party.
Subpoenas have been issued, and if Steil and his committee can prove the administration violated the Hatch Act and other such laws, they can send a clear warning against any further orders like this.
The efforts to uncover wrongdoing have been going on since May 2024, and are just now starting to get somewhere.
President of the conservative Capital Research Center think tank in Washington, D.C. Scott Walter alleged that Democrats would be up in arms if the same kind of executive order were signed by Trump.
"Imagine if, say, the Heritage Foundation drafted an executive order for President Trump to boost voter turnout, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives worked with the National Rifle Association to carry it out while ignoring subpoenas from Democratic-run committees," Walter said. "The mainstream media and Democratic leaders would be properly outraged. Americans deserve accountability now from bureaucrats who ignored the law to boost partisan turnout."
"Joe Biden spent his entire term turning the federal government into a get-out-the-vote machine for the Left and hiding the evidence," said FGA Federal Affairs Director Stewart Whitson, formerly FBI, said.
"Our lawsuit is ongoing, and we're pursuing those records so the American people can see the full scope of the Biden administration's attempts to use the federal government to change the outcome of an election," Whitson said.
