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On Tuesday, Rep. Ralph Norman (SC-5) led a letter to Attorney General Garland regarding the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) plan to enact Executive Order (EO) 14019 to “promote voter registration and voter participation.”
As first reported by the Epoch Times on Tuesday, Rep. Norman’s letter demands the DOJ publicly disclose its plans and documents indicating how it intends to carry out EO 14019, as ordered by a federal judge. This letter was co-signed by Reps. Randy Weber, Mary Miller, Fred Keller, Bill Posey, Chip Roy, Louis Gohmert, Andy Biggs, and Ben Cline.
On March 7, 2021, President Joe Biden signed the executive order directing heads of federal agencies to provide comprehensive plans to promote voter participation.
Biden states in the executive order that the federal government will expand access to voter registration and will “combat misinformation” that impacts public voting participation.
Efforts by the Foundation for Government Accountability through Freedom of Information Act requests to get a copy of the plan were stonewalled for more than 200 days until a federal judge ordered the DOJ to disclose the information. However, the DOJ is yet to fully comply with the court order.
The Constitution does not provide any provision allowing the President to use federal agencies as voter registration organizations.
Federal employees who carry out the executive order could possibly be violating the Hatch Act and other laws intended to prohibit federal agencies from engaging in political activities to benefit one political party over the other.
Rep. Norman issued the following statement on Tuesday: “The DOJ’s reputation with public trust is already minimal at best. What could the DOJ have to gain from hiding their plan to promote voter participation from the public? American voters have a right to know what the DOJ’s planned role is in our election. The federal government should abide by the Hatch Act and keep their hands out of our election process.”
In response to the congressional letter, the Foundation for Government Accountability’s Senior Director of Federal Affairs, Robin Walker, said, “Rep. Norman and his colleagues are asking vital questions that every American deserves answers to—and before Election Day. We applaud their efforts to hold DOJ accountable and expose the lack of transparency surrounding the President’s plan to influence elections.”

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