South Carolina Agency: Federal Mandate Requires Voter Registration for Foreign Nationals

As South Carolina law enforcement investigates allegations a state agency is handing out voter registration forms to foreign nationals, an agency official tells The Federalist that federal law has tied the state’s hands.

Jeff Leieritz, a spokesman for the state’s Department of Health and Human Services, says the department, as the state’s Medicaid agency, is mandated to provide voter registration information under Section 7 of the National Voter Registration Act Of 1993. The information apparently goes out to everyone applying for the benefits, including foreign nationals.

Section 7 requires each state to designate voter registration agencies, including all state offices providing public assistance, unemployment compensation, or disability services; state or local government offices; federal and nongovernmental offices; and armed forces recruitment offices.

“SCDHHS does not believe the state Medicaid agency should have a role in voter registration. However, absent the legal authority to make this change, SCDHHS remains required by federal law to provide voter registration application forms with each Medicaid application,” Leieritz said in a statement Monday to The Federalist.

‘That’s Insane’

South Carolina state Rep. Adam Morgan has been pushing for answers after a refugee reported receiving a packet of information, including voter registration forms, at the Health and Human Services office. Morgan did not return The Federalist’s requests for comment, but he did speak about the issue last week on FrankSpeech.

“The refugee was actually confused. They were like, ‘Am I supposed to fill this out?’ They asked a relative, and the relative is a citizen who said, ‘No, you can’t fill this out. You’re not a citizen.’ [The refugee] said, ‘Why are they giving this out to noncitizens?’ And we were, like, “Exactly! That’s insane,” Morgan told The Absolute Truth with Emerald Robinson.

Morgan said the refugee mailed the forms back to the Medicaid office advising that the government agency shouldn’t be giving voter registration information to people who are not eligible to vote. The office sent the refugee even more information in response, Morgan claims.

“It’s just infuriating that the government is actually sending these forms out and literally confusing people who may not be trying to do wrong, or opening the door wide open for somebody to do wrong and get people who are not citizens to vote in the election,” said the president of the South Carolina Freedom Caucus and a Republican candidate for a U.S. House seat.

On, Wednesday, the Freedom Caucus sent Gov. Henry McMaster a letter expressing its “grave concern with this breach of election integrity.” They asked that the state inspector general’s office launch an immediate investigation and that the governor order state agencies to “cease and desist distributing voter registration and voter declination forms to non-citizens.”

McMaster, a Republican, quickly responded, saying he has asked the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division to immediately contact Morgan to “provide SLED with any and all evidence, documents and information that you possess in order to evaluate the authenticity of your allegation of illegalities.”

“SLED has received the Governor’s letter to Representative Adam Morgan and will review the allegations provided,” the Law Enforcement Division told The Federalist in an email Monday.

‘Overreaching Federal Requirements’

Leieritz, the spokesman for the state health department, said the agency is aware of reports circulating on social media about the refugee receiving voter registration forms. He said the department does not process or submit voter registration forms for Medicaid applicants or members. That is the domain of the South Carolina Election Commission.

“SCDHHS is investigating what has been reported on social media,” the spokesman said, adding that the agency believes the 30-year-old National Voter Registration Act needs to be amended “to repeal these overreaching federal requirements.”

“South Carolina’s citizens would be better served by a state Medicaid agency that is able to focus singularly on efficiently operating the state’s Healthy Connections Medicaid program,” Leieritz said.

Morgan and the Freedom Caucus are proposing adding a provision in the state budget prohibiting state money from funding the distribution of voter registration information to foreign nationals at South Carolina agencies.

“But isn’t it insane that we have to do that,” the lawmaker told Robinson.  “It’s crazy to me that we are at a place in America where we have government employees and government agencies who are willing to actively give out voter registration forms to noncitizens. And if it’s happening in South Carolina, you’d better believe it’s happening all over especially the swing states.”

It is, via federal executive fiat.

‘Bidenbucks’

Beyond the NVRA, President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14019 commands federal agencies to do what some legal experts say the executive branch does not have the legal authority to do: expand voter registration and turnout — using White House “approved” third-party organizations connected to Democrats.

The sweeping initiative has been billed “Bidenbucks,” since it uses federal dollars. Think of Executive Order 14019 as Zuckbucks on steroids, using your money.

“This is clearly weaponization of the government for a partisan purpose,” Dave Craig, a senior legal fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability, told me in February.

On the swing state front, the Michigan Department of State earlier this year signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the U.S. Small Business Administration “to promote civic engagement and voter registration in Michigan.” The agreement, according to Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and SBA Administrator Isabel Casillas Guzman, is a “first-of-its-kind collaboration” for the federal agency. It is expected to run through Jan. 1, 2036. Such constitutionally suspect “agreements” between the Biden administration and left-led state executive branches are part of Biden’s unprecedented executive order.

‘Non-issues’ Becoming ‘Major Issues’

The South Carolina State Election Commission (SEC) last week said it had received several questions and concerns about foreign nationals registering to vote in defiance of basic election integrity protections.

“The SEC is actively auditing voter data through the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) Program database to ensure that only U.S. citizens are included on the active list of registered voters. Regardless of the method of registration, no voter may be registered in South Carolina without signing an oath swearing that they are a citizen of the United States,” the agency states on its website. “The auditing process ensures that any bad actors are removed from voter rolls and held accountable through state and federal election law statutes.”

The elections regulator said it has not received any “specific information that non-U.S. citizens are fraudulently being registered to vote” in South Carolina.

“The SEC will not allow fraudulent voter registration to happen on our watch,” said Howie Knapp, executive director of the SEC. “Should we receive or discover information that non-U.S. citizens are being registered to vote in our state, we will immediately report to our law enforcement partners for investigation and prosecution to the fullest extent of the law.”

South Carolina is looking to join a growing list of states passing resolutions for constitutional amendments barring foreign nationals, including illegal immigrants, from voting in local elections.

“Many said this was a non-issue. Then we discovered state agencies sending voter registration forms to non-citizens. These ‘non-issues’ keep turning out to be major issues,” Morgan recently tweeted on his X account.