President Biden and Kansas Gov. Kelly promote “access to voting” by using government agencies to register voters
Loud Light, Demos, and ACLU-KS twisted the Governor's arm to register 277,000 before 2020 election
A progressive group named Demos developed schemes to register selected voters using federal and state government agencies. President Biden and Kansas Gov. Kelly have embraced those schemes.
Biden’s push for voter registration by federal agencies is for elections this year, but Gov. Kelly used Kansas state agencies to register 277,000 voters in time for the 2020 elections.
Federal Government
In March 2021 President Joe Biden issued an Executive Order, “Promoting Access to Voting,” to use federal government agencies for voter registration in time for the 2022 elections.
Many of the ideas in this executive order followed the groundwork from the progressive group Demos, which was published in Dec. 2020 before the Electoral College had certified the presidential election.
Recent developments about this Executive Order include:
A federal court ordered the Department of Justice to turn over documents related to Biden’s executive order before the 2022 midterm elections, July 20.
15 Republican Secretaries of State Demand Biden Halt Election-Takeover Plans, Aug 4. [Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab’s name is not on this list.]
Demos received $3.3 million in support from George Soros’ Foundation to Promote Open Society in the years 2018-2020, some of which was “to remove barriers to voting and expand the electorate.”
Demos received $925K in 2017 and $125K in 2020 from Pierre Omidyar’s Democracy Fund for “cutting-edge policy research” and “to continue its work enforcing the requirements of the National Voter Registration Act".
Here’s my related substack article with additional details about this Executive Order: President Biden is pushing to federalize election.
State of Kansas
Gov. Kelly was ahead of President Biden by implementing a similar “Promoting Access to Voting” program using Kansas government agencies a year or more before the Executive Order.
Gov. Kelly signed an unusual “Memorandum of Understanding” with Loud Light so its attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas (ACLU-KS) and Demos would not sue the governor and the State of Kansas for lack of compliance to a nearly 20-year old federal National Voter Registration Act of 1993.
Gov. Kelly was the seventh Kansas Governor since NVRA 1993 (Finney, Graves, Sebelius, Parkinson, Brownback, Colyer, Kelly). What did Gov. Kelly see that her friend Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and other governors missed about NVRA?
Gov. Kelly expanded voter registration using the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) and the Department for Children and Families (DCF) without transparency or “checks and balances” from the legislature, the Secretary of State, or the Attorney General’s office.
Gov. Kelly implemented the agreement in time for use in the 2020 elections even though the agreement did not exist in 2020!
Kelly only took credit in the MOU signed on Sept. 2021 months after Biden‘s Executive Order from March 2021. The MOU gave Kelly a legal document that attempts to preserve her changes until June 2025, well after the 2024 presidential election.
Gov. Kelly’s Plan
Stewart Whitson, the legal director for the Foundation for Government Accountability, recently published details in an online article and in a video interview about Kelly’s actions to register 277,000 new voters in Kansas: An Election Scandal in Kansas May Be Underway in Other States.
Link to Stewart Whitson video interview on Rumble
Quotes from the Whitson video interview:
“This scheme is using the resources and power of the executive branch to engage in election law making.”
“This is a get-out-the-vote effort designed by the left, to benefit the left, paid for on the backs of all taxpayers.”
They are “targeting those efforts to only a subgroup of voters, those voters that are more likely to vote Democrat.”
“They’re claiming they’re doing this in accordance with federal law, but that’s simply untrue.”
“The federal law they cite actually only requires the voter registration applications be made available at state welfare agency offices, and be distributed only by certain agencies and at certain specific times.”
“The Governor ordered her welfare agencies to mail voter registration forms to all welfare recipients outside the scope of what is required under the law. … She strategically timed the mailings so they were sent, not when the law requires, but rather strategically in the final months leading up to the 2020 election.”
“The only thing that’s been disclosed by the Governor has been disclosed in the wake of a press release given by Demos … Then the Governor rushed and released a press release to let the voters know.”
“Fast forward ... Demos lets the world know that there’s an agreement … a day later she releases a press release … that is a copy and paste essentially of the Demos press release.”
“This is about more than just election integrity. It’s about separation of powers, checks and balances, and each branch of government staying in its lane.”
Links and information related to Whitson’s article:
Demos Sept. 23, 2020 press release, New Voter Registration Opportunity Fills Gap in the Pandemic
By the end of September, DCF will have mailed 150,512 voter registration applications and DHE 127,255 – for a total of 277,767. Eligible Kansans can also register to vote online at KSVotes.org or when renewing a driver’s license …
Note: In this press release, Demos plugged the new BluePrint Kansas doing business as KSVotes.org web site, which allows progressive groups to monitor the progress of voter registration and advance ballot requests. KSVotes.org was built in a partnership with Loud Light and GPS Impact. It’s unclear whether KDHE/DCF ever channeled new voters to that site.
The Kansas Reflector and the Kansas Republican Party have criticized KSVote.org over its privacy policy:
Kansas Reflector, Privacy concerns shadow popular voter registration website, Aug 2, 2020.
Language in the site’s privacy policy gives permission to Blueprint Kansas, the organization that operates ksvotes.org, to collect contact information, website usage, details about your phone or laptop, and all the elements of a voter registration form — and use this personal data to send direct texts, or give the data to other entities, such as Facebook
Kansas Republican Party, Kelly promotes partisan voter registration website from official government Twitter account, Sept. 23, 2020.
KSVotes.org brags about providing voter registration and advance ballot requests in Spanish, yet the terms of use and privacy policy on the Spanish-language version ¡Bienvenido a KSVotes.org! are still in English:
A same day echo of the Demos press release appeared in the Kansas Reflector, Sept. 23, 2020: Kansas agencies mailing 277,000 voter registration applications.
Over a year later …
Gov. Laura Kelly’s press release, Oct. 1, 2021: Expanded Voter Registration Opportunities for Kansans.
Memorandum of Understanding
Two weeks before Whitson’s article and interview were published, I sent a Kansas Open Records Act request to KDHE to obtain the “agreement” mentioned in the Governor’s Oct 1, 2021 press release.
About a week later KDHE sent me a PDF of the MOU document that has never been published. Download the PDF through this link:
A few excerpts follow:
. . .
Observations about the Memorandum
The 277,767 voter registrations mailed by KDHE/DCF before the Nov. 2020 election were in “remedial mailings” to show “good faith” to Loud Light, Demos, ALCU-KS. The number of voter registration ballots since then is unknown. This number was mentioned in the Demos Sept. 23, 2020 press release before the agreement was signed over a year later on Sept. 29, 2021. What KDHE programs were impacted — without legislative approval — to pay the postage for these mailings?
KDHE and DCF changed participation in voter registration to “opt in” on various forms. If a client did not check the box to request a voter registration form, KDHE and DCF “cured” the form and assumed the answer should be “yes”.
KDHE sends voter registration applications to anyone seeking public assistance, or anyone with a change of address.
KDHE grant agreements and contracts must include provisions to offer voter registration services.
The agreement allows Demos and ACLU-KS attorneys to request quarterly reports on progress of voter registration efforts to verify whether progress is satisfactory. In response to a KORA request to KDHE about these reports, KDHE Associate Chief Counsel Michael G. Smith on Monday indicted these reports have never been requested or created, so my request to see them was denied.
The MOU is effective until June 30, 2025, well after the 2024 elections.
The only third-party to sign the agreement was Davis Hammet of Loud Light. It’s unclear why Hammet’s 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) Loud Light non-profits are only registered corporations in the State of Florida.
Concerns in other states?
Stewart Whitson in his American Spectator article:
Should other states care? Absolutely. Demos has bragged that it was also responsible for nearly three million voter registration mailings in Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan, and Virginia — all key states in the 2020 election. Settlement agreements may have been involved. Voters in every state should ask if their governors have reached similar secret deals. And state lawmakers should make sure they can’t.
Related
Updated Oct. 9, 2023.
Flipping Kansas Blue? Governor Struck Deal With Left-Wing Groups Likely to Drive Up Democrat Vote, The Daily Signal, Fred Lucas, Oct. 9, 2023.
