ELECTION MEDDLING: Activists Lobbied Biden Education Dept. to Mass Auto-Register College Democrats

Radical leftists are demanding an unprecedented takeover of government agencies to turn out Democratic voters and save Biden’s bacon in November, new emails show

Targeted voter registration is one of the most effective tactics for winning elections—which is why the Biden administration is weaponizing federal agencies to turn out the youth vote in 2024. And you’re paying for it.

FOIA emails obtained by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project reveal lobbying by far-left, partisan groups to “spur heightened voter registration and participation levels of young people”—a key Democrat voting bloc—using the U.S. Education Department to “automatically register [them] to vote” when students apply for federal college loans.

The emails, though dated June 2021, reveal a proven get-out-the-vote strategy that remains in effect for the 2024 election—after helping Democrats fend off a Republican “red wave” in the 2022 midterms. This is an unprecedented abuse of government power for partisan gain never experienced before Joe Biden seized office in 2021.

We know that the Biden administration followed at least some of the recommendations made by these activist groups, and continues to do so right now.

And that could be the difference-maker in razor-thin battleground states like Arizona and Wisconsin.

(RELATED: Adrian Fontes Brings Biden’s Government GOTV Machine to Arizona Universities)

Register to Win

Some background: One of Biden’s first executive orders (EO 14019) in March 2021 ordered federal agencies to develop plans for getting-out-the-vote by registering voters, promoting mail-in ballots and non-English language ballots, and coordinating with “third party organizations . . . to provide voter registration services on agency premises.”

Recall that states, not the federal government, are responsible for managing elections and registered voter lists. Providing Americans with voter registration forms is one thing; turning the federal government into the world’s biggest get-out-the-vote machine is entirely new—and a serious threat to our republic.

This writer first reported on the scheme to use federal Work-Study funds normally reserved for part-time campus jobs to pay college students to register their peers ahead of the 2022 midterms. Pundits widely credit young voters for blunting a Republican wave that year.

What wasn’t widely known, only suspected, was the role of over 40 lobbying groups in shaping how the Biden Education Department should implement the executive order for maximum impact in the coming elections.

Many of these are far-left advocacy groups like UnidosUS, a hard-line Latino nationalist group; Demos, a socialist think tank aligned with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–MA) that aims to abolish the Electoral College and grant D.C. statehood; and the Voter Participation Center, a top registration group juicing Democrat turnout in the states—possibly including non-citizens.

The Biden administration heeded at least one of this coalition’s recommendations: Funneling part of the $1 billion Work-Study program into paying students to register their peers, something the program was never designed to do. The activists estimate that there are at least 800,000 students participating in the Work-Study program each year.

Restoration News was the first to report on that scheme spreading to Arizona thanks to the hyper-partisan Secretary of State, Adrian Fontes (D), targeting some 85 colleges enrolling 600,000 students. The idea was hatched by Civic Nation, a far-left group run almost exclusively by Obama veterans like Valerie Jarrett and Tina Tchen with funding from top “dark money” groups.

Now we know that was just the start.

(RELATED: Never Mind the Peace Corps—Biden and Harris Have Created the Vote Corps for College Kids)

Build Back Bluer

None of the “suggestions” in this confidential letter were aimed at improving turnout among all Americans—just the Left’s preferred bloc: “Voters of color.”

To that end, they urged the creation of a “’check-the-box’ automatic voter registration option for those applying for federal financial aid” through the government’s federal loan (“FAFSA”) program:

. . . all necessary voter registration information is already included in completed FAFSA submissions. All that would be required is a check-the-box option following FAFSA completion enabling prospective students to register to vote at their home domicile.

In cases where a state designed ED [Education Department] a voter registration agency, as per President Biden’s executive order . . . prospective students would automatically be registered to vote. . . . Either way, voter registration could be counted on to expand [emphasis added].

The coalition also endorsed Democrats’ 2021 “For the People Act” (H.R. 1), which would’ve mandated voter registration on college campuses in addition to forcing automatic voter registration policies on all 50 states.

These activists next pushed the department to send vote-by-mail applications via email to the 20 million-plus “Americans enrolled in institutions of higher education” on file with the FAFSA agency:

Concurrent with this outreach, we urge ED [Education Department] to conduct a social media campaign on vote-by-mail opportunities via Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and the like geared toward current voting age students.

Just as “Rock-the-Vote” was groundbreaking 30 years ago, an affirmative “Vote-by-Mail” campaign directed at college students can be groundbreaking today.

“Rock the Vote” was a campaign by MTV to boost young voter turnout in the 1992 presidential election “around racial, economic, and health justice,” boosting Democrat Bill Clinton’s victory that year. It continues as a youth get-out-the-vote group today—and is a signatory to this Biden letter.

If that isn’t bold enough, the coalition argued for universities to aggressively “distribute voter registration information” to all students when they apply for university IDs, register for classes, or apply for graduation.

To maximize the likelihood that students will receive and pay attention to the voter registration information, the Secretary [of Education] should require such information be conveyed in conjunction with other steps . . . that require student attention, such as the course registration or student identification card application processes. . . .

In fact, we urge you to go even further and clarify that institutions of higher education be considered to have demonstrated [this effort only] . . . if they make check-the-box automatic voter registration an option for students upon course registration . . . .

Institutions of higher education that receive over $150 billion a year in public student aid support . . . should be encouraged if not required to make the option to register to vote part of an experience in which all eligible enrolled students participate.

What’s the Big Idea?

For over a decade, Democrat operatives’ victory strategy relies on pumping out as many people who already think like they do as possible, rather than relying on voter persuasion and good ideas to win on Election Day.

Every policy activists support is geared towards one goal: Helping this powerful machine identify, register, and turn out new Democratic voters.

Since 2020, operatives have expanded that turnout machine to maximize early voting by weeks to squeeze out every last Democratic vote in swing states. This is the Left’s secret weapon for winning elections, and conservatives have only recently awoken to this cynical reality.

Conservatives have no choice but to get serious about turning out Republican voters with their own well-funded, efficient machine to overcome this secret weapon. Election Day simply isn’t enough anymore.

(READ MORE: Automatic Voter Registration Exists To Keep Democrats In Power, So Why Aren’t Republicans Fighting It?)