Insights from Biden White House Meeting on Voter Registration with Activists

EXCLUSIVE — In the summer of 2021, the White House convened a meeting over Zoom with outside groups to plan on implementing an executive order from the president granting them historic new tools to register voters. The Biden administration has insisted attendees and the operation at large are “nonpartisan,” though internal documents provide a glimpse into how the July 12, 2021, meeting appears to have overwhelmingly been a key platform for left-wing activist hubs to suggest sweeping election policy changes.

The documents, which have not been reported on until now, are a window into how nonprofit organizations have coordinated with the highest levels of the government on bringing President Joe Biden‘s executive order to fruition. Republican lawmakers and conservative groups have heavily scrutinized the legality and constitutionality of the March 2021 order, which calls for “soliciting and facilitating approved, nonpartisan third-party organizations and state officials to provide voter registration services on agency premises.”

And following the 2020 election, which drew GOP-led investigations in Congress over Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wiring hundreds of millions of dollars to a progressive-left group that boosted Democrats, Republicans are concerned the 2021 “Bidenbucks” order will unlawfully appropriate federal funds in 2024 to promote Democratic voter turnout. The order, lawmakers say, may violate the Antideficiency Act, a law barring federal agencies from spending funds beyond those approved through Congress, and the Hatch Act, which restricts government employees from engaging in certain political activities, among other laws.

“The Biden administration continues to spend taxpayer dollars on partisan voter registration initiatives,” said Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI), chairman of the House Administration Committee, which oversees elections. “Not only is this shady, but it does not instill trust in our elections.”

Biden’s March 2021 order mandates federal agencies develop plans to provide the public access to voter registration services with the help of “approved” outside groups, as well as assist the public in filling out these forms and mail-in-ballot applications. Concerned GOP lawmakers have since sent letters to the Biden administration asking it to turn over any potential criteria for approved entities.

At the same time, internal meeting notes reveal some of the topics left-wing organizations discussed during a July 12, 2021, “listening session” for the March order. Previously released records revealed a snippet of the agenda of the virtual meeting, which was attended by representatives from the Executive Office of the President, the Department of Justice, and other agencies.

One 2021 meeting attendee, for instance, was Jose Morales, a former Biden-Harris transition team staffer who is listed on the 2021 meeting notes as a representative for the left-wing Fair Fight Action. Morales, ex-chief of staff for the failed 2022 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams campaign, urged federal agencies in the meeting to make sure they’re “prioritizing opportunities for helping people to fill out voting forms” and to vote by mail. He also stressed that federal employees should receive a day off to vote and assist election workers, who Morales said are under “assault.”

Then there’s Laura Williamson, a then-employee at the left-wing Demos think tank who now works for the Southern Poverty Law Center. At the 2021 meeting, Williamson told agencies they shouldn’t “stop at registration.”

“It’s just the first hurdle,” said the then-employee at Demos, which GOP lawmakers say crafted a document in 2020 that ended up appearing “nearly identical” to the Biden order. Demos notably counted Barack Obama in 2001 as a founding board member, according to tax forms.

At the meeting, Williamson offered that the Department of Housing and Urban Development should “consider integrating voter registration into public housing” as a requirement under federal law, the notes say.

It’s a proposal that Stewart Whitson, an attorney who works for the conservative Foundation for Government Accountability, said is evidence of a coordinated effort between the White House and activists to target vulnerable populations seen as likely Biden voters through the unlawful order. FGI and the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project separately obtained the same meeting notes through records requests to the Department of Justice.

Another 2021 meeting participant was Nikolas Youngsmith, then an attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which appears to support illegal immigration and also awards scholarships to undocumented students. Youngsmith, now a Democratic congressional aide, said at the meeting that his group backed voter registration efforts for “immigrants and noncitizens,” meeting notes show.

“We also want to make sure that they are done in a careful way,” Youngsmith said, according to the unearthed documents. “All fed[eral] employees must be well-trained in this. Need to trust people are acting in bounds of the law. Especially when there are language issues. Federal employees need to know who should be properly registered and not. Don’t want someone to face charges based on bad info[rmation].”

Meanwhile, the “nonpartisan” 2021 meeting fielded presentations from staffers from the League of Women Voters, including registered lobbyist Jessica Jones Capparell. Meeting notes say Capparell, a former campaign aide to ex-Sen. Claire McCaskill, urged agencies to register people to vote at citizen and naturalization ceremonies run by federal courts.

Capparell lobbied in 2023 on behalf of the League of Women Voters against appropriations bills seeking to prohibit agencies from using funding in connection to Biden’s 2021 executive order, congressional filings show.

So did her lobbyist colleague, Celina Stewart, who attended the meeting that year, according to meeting notes.

“Agencies need more funding to make sure this happens,” Stewart, who discussed voter registration, said at the meeting.

Two presenters were also Keeda Haynes of the Sentencing Project, a left-wing group that supports defunding prisons, and Dana Paikowsky, then at the left-wing Campaign Legal Center watchdog. Both discussed reforms to the Bureau of Prisons, according to meeting notes.

“Felony disenfranchisement is voter suppression,” Haynes, a recent Democratic congressional candidate, said at the 2021 meeting. She called for the use of federal resources to register inmates to vote in prisons.

Paikowsky, who says on her LinkedIn profile that she now works at the Justice Department, said in the meeting that the Campaign Legal Center made recommendations to the Bureau of Prisons on certain issues.

The agency was “excited,” Paikowsky apparently said during the meeting.

The 2021 meeting was also attended by representatives from the George Soros-backed Open Society Policy Center, End Citizens United, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s Democracy Fund, Black Voters Matter, the Brennan Center for Justice, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and other major left-wing activist groups, documents show.

Ahead of the 2024 election, which will feature a rematch between Biden and Trump, various nonprofit organizations bankrolled by top Democratic dark money groups and linked to this 2021 meeting are launching “nonpartisan” campaigns to mobilize voters.

But to Hans von Spakovsky, a senior Heritage Foundation legal fellow, the reason the order is concerning isn’t solely because groups helping to shape it are partisan.

Fundamentally, the federal government shouldn’t be in the business of voter registration, von Spakovsky told the Washington Examiner.

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“There’s too much risk of the party that controls the executive branch using that to manipulate who gets registered,” he said.

The White House did not reply to a request for comment.