The Daily Signal - Biden Executive Order Enables Illegal Aliens to Vote, Election Expert Says

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

A 2021 Biden administration executive order constitutes unlawful and potentially partisan interference in the election process, according to a new report from Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation. President Joe Biden’s 2021 Executive Order 14019 directs executive branch departments and federal employees to use federal resources to get out the vote, Von Spakovsky says. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, August 29th. I'm Elizabeth Mitchell and I'm sitting down with senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, Hans von Zbikovsky, who released a new report on a 2021 Biden administration executive order, which he says constitutes unlawful and potentially partisan interference in the election process. Stay tuned for our conversation after this. Conservative women are problematic women. Why? because we don't adhere to the agenda of the radical left.

Every Thursday morning on the Problematic Women podcast, Kristen I, Cammer, Lauren Evans, and me, Virginia Allen, are joined by other conservative women to break down the big issues and news you care about. Whether you're interested in hot takes and conversations on pop culture or what Congress is up to, Problematic Women has you covered. We sort through the news to keep you up to date on the issues that are of particular interest to conservative leaning, that is problematic women.

Find problematic women wherever you like to listen to podcasts and follow the show on Instagram. Thanks so much for joining us. Elizabeth, thanks for having me. Could you tell us about this executive order from the Biden administration? Yeah, unfortunately, it was issued back in 2021, and it was President Joe Biden ordering all federal agencies and all federal employees to start. getting involved in voter registration and in soliciting absentee balance for customers of federal agencies. Now, the problem with all of this is that he's got no constitutional authority to do this. And federal agencies, you know, they can't act unless Congress has passed a statute

authorizing them to act and has appropriated the money for it. So all these federal agencies that he's directing to basically get involved in what the states do. Because as you know, it's the states. They're the ones that register voters. They're the ones that administer elections. Directing federal agencies get involved in this, you know, it violates the Constitution. It violates federal law. I mean, just to give you one quick example of that, there's actually a federal law called the Anti-Deficiency Act. And it makes it a criminal violation for a federal employee to spend time and money on some activity that Congress has not authorized. So every federal employee at every federal agency that's involved in this is engaging in criminal violations of the law.

I mean, it really is interference in the election process. So we have here an overreach of the executive branch. What is the appropriate constitutional role of the executive branch in the election process. Well, the president does have the authority to enforce the federal laws that bar discrimination in voting, you know, the voting rights act. But getting involved in voter registration, that's not it. I mean, to give you an example of this, that it's just bizarre, is that the U.S. Marshal Service, you know, they handle federal prisoners. People have been convicted of felonies and are going to federal prisons, they have been told that they have to make sure

that prisoners in federal prisons are registered to vote. Even despite the fact that in most states, if you are a felon in jail, you can't register to vote. So you can see what kind of problems that could cause. So the president is going far outside his ability to simply enforce federal laws like, the voter rights side.

Could you walk us through some of the other legal issues with the executive order? Yeah, the other thing that this executive order said was, oh, federal agencies, you can get third-party organizations involved. You can bring them into federal facilities and have them do this work. So, in other words, if you're going into a social security administration office, let's say you're someone who's applying for disability benefits. The ACLU may be there. All these other organizations saying, oh, guess what?

You need to register to vote. Now, what is the impression going to be of customers of these federal agencies? People, vulnerable people, someone who's gone in, they're disabled. They want to get Social Security benefits. they are dependent on whether those federal bureaucrats and officials will grant it. And here they have this liberal organization saying, oh, listen, here, you need to register. Oh, and we're going to help you get an absentee ballot. What is that person going to think?

I better register. I better vote for the party in power because otherwise my benefits might not get granted. Oh, interesting. And the Brennan Center for Justice has claimed that this executive order is legal under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. Is that true? No. No, it's not true at all. And I don't expect anything different from the Brennan Center, which, for example, they say that there's no voter fraud ever occurs in the country.

Of course, anybody who thinks that should just look at the Heritage Foundation's election fraud database. That gives you an idea of how much you can trust what the Brennan Center tells you. How much did this executive order affect the 2022 midterm elections? And what do you expect its effect to be in the 2024 presidential election? Well, a lot of secretaries of state in places like West Virginia, Mississippi, Florida, have complained that this executive order has caused confusion and problems for them. for example, duplicate and multiple registrations. Because these federal officials, they have no idea whether somebody may already be registered in a state, and yet they're urging them and helping them fill out forms to get registered again.

So the potential is there for all kinds of problems, including we don't know how many convicted felons. for example, got registered by federal prison authorities by the U.S. Marshal Service and may have illegally voted in those elections. Same as true with aliens. As you know, we have this huge problem with the Department of Homeland Security granting mass parole to illegal aliens in this country. And are they also giving them the ability to register to vote? That's a possibility because, as you know, the Biden administration just recently said, oh, we're going to extend health benefits to, for example, DACA recipients. DACA recipients are in the country illegally,

and everyone who is being given health benefits through federal programs is also being told to register to vote. So this is a program that may be and already has been probably registering aliens who are here illegally to vote. Wow. What can be done in light of this to reform the election system? Well, a whole large group of states have filed suits.

There's been a suit filed in Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Michigan, by everyone from the state of Texas, the state of Ohio, to Louisiana, Missouri. All of them is seeking, frankly, injunctions against the Biden administration to stop. this. By the way, there's been absolutely no transparency about this. If you can believe it,

when the states have tried to get information from the Biden administration about what these federal agencies are doing, the U.S. Justice Department has come in under Merrick Arlen and said, oh, this is privileged information. We're not giving it to you. Who are some of the groups behind those lawsuits that you mentioned and what is their argument? The biggest group behind it is Demos, but you can name almost any far-left radical advocacy organizations, and you'll find that they are involved. In fact, the Heritage Oversight Project was able to get information about a huge meeting that was held at the Biden White House after this order was issued with dozens and dozens and dozens of advocacy organizations.

there wasn't a single conservative. There wasn't a single even middle of the road organization there. This was clearly intended to use the federal government for one purpose to get out the vote for Democratic candidates. And some Republican groups, including the Trump campaign, have challenged the executive order. Where do you see that going? Well, I think if a federal judge looks at this with an unlawful, unbiased view. They actually examine the law, they examine the order. I think the Trump campaign and others, I think they'll get an injunction against it because what the president is doing is

clearly unlawful. And who are some of the other Republican groups that are challenging the order? The America First Policy Institute has gotten involved. They've actually filed a very good suit down in Texas along with the Ohio Secretary of State. As I said, also Jay Ashcroft, he's the Secretary of Missouri. He has filed as well as a number of other states. One of the leaders, frankly, against this, has been also Mack Warner, who is the Secretary of State of West Virginia. How big of a problem has illegal aliens voting in elections been so far? You know, part of the problem there is that states aren't doing anything to actually verify citizenship. But the Washington Times, if I could mention them, had a great article just this past week about all these aliens, dozens of them who were prosecuted and convicted in North Carolina for registering and voting in elections.

The oversight project, again, of Heritage actually did a survey down in Georgia recently, and I think they've released a video on that, in which I think, I think the number was about 14% of aliens who they interviewed said, oh, sure, I'm registered to vote. That's a significant problem. That's remarkable. It is. The left tends to accuse Republicans of voter suppression. What do they mean by this and do those accusations hold water? No, absolutely not.

That is a – that's something they came up with in focus groups about a decade ago. They wanted some way to oppose comments. sense election reforms like voter ID, which as you know, 80% of Americans say, well, yeah, of course you should have to show an ID when you vote. But they, they for a long time, have been against any kind of reform that increases the security and integrity of the election process. So what they say is, oh, well, if you put in an ID requirement, that will suppress the vote. We've got data, turnout data, now from almost two decades of work putting in an election

reforms like voter ID. And not only do they not suppress votes in states that have put voter ID in, you know what's happened? Turnouts gone up. If Republican groups do not succeed in getting an injunction against the executive order, what effect do you expect this to have on the outcome of the November election? Well, besides the confusion it may cause and the way it may help people who aren't eligible to vote vote, like people who are registered more than once or felons who are in federal prisons, I think it's going to be an illegal use of federal money to get out the vote and potentially increase turnout for Democratic candidates. Wow. Well, thank you so much for joining us to talk about your report today.

It's easily available on the heritage website, heritage.org, and it's the title very just very quickly is Biden executive order 14019 unlawful interference in state election administration. Wow, we'll definitely look forward to checking that out. And that was my interview with Heritage Legal Expert Hans von Spakovsky on election integrity and a report he recently wrote about that. Thank you so much for tuning in and be sure to listen to our evening show right here in this podcast feed at 5 o'clock where we'll break down the top news of the day. Make sure you subscribe to the Daily Signal wherever you get your podcast.

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