The Biden administration considered using school children to boost voter registration among Native Americans, according to emails obtained by Protect the Public’s Trust.
In 2022, officials at the Department of the Interior (DOI) developed a plan to use Native American students attending Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) schools to get voter registration materials home to their parents.
A poll conducted by the African American Research Collaborative shortly before the midterm elections showed that Native Americans strongly preferred Democrat House candidates that year, with 56% saying they would vote for a Democrat compared to 40% who said they would vote for a Republican.
“Department leadership is proposing having BIE send home voter registration cards with students to give to their parents,” BIE team lead Jennifer Wiginton wrote in a February 2022 email.
Under Executive Order 14019, which President Joe Biden issued in March 2021, the heads of federal agencies were compelled to “evaluate ways in which the agency can, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, promote voter registration and voter participation.”
BIE’s proposed Native American voter registration plan was developed to comply with Biden’s order, according to DOI attorney-adviser Joshua Berg.
In March 2022, Berg wrote that he and his colleagues had “developed a plan to distribute voter registration applications at BIE schools so that school children bring home voter registration applications to their parents and/or guardians.”
The federal government would have provided “return envelopes with pre-paid postage” under Berg’s plan, “so that parents and/or guardians mail in their completed voter registration applications directly to the corresponding elections office in their state.”
As a division of the DOI, the BIE funds 183 elementary and secondary schools across 64 Native American reservations in 23 states, according to the agency’s website. Approximately 46,000 Native American students are educated at these schools, 53 of which are directly administered by the BIE and 130 of which are tribally operated.
The emails also show that Berg reached out to DOI Deputy Assistant Secretary Eric Werwa on March 2 to schedule a call to discuss funding for the BIE school voter registration initiative. Wiginton and DOI attorney-adviser Brian Quint were sent a link on March 22 to a meeting with the Office of Personnel Management where taxpayer funding for the BIE initiatives was set to be discussed.
A DOI spokesperson told the Daily Caller that “there was no program to distribute voter registration materials to children attending BIE schools.”
Alexander Castillo-Nunez, the civic engagement coordinator at the Inter-Tribal Council of Arizona, told the Caller that “American Indian voters have arguably been the deciding factor in recent elections.”
The Associated Press reported that strong voter turnout among Native Americans in Arizona helped propel Biden to victory in the state during the 2020 presidential election.
In May, Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wis., who chairs the House Administration Committee, said that Biden’s voter registration executive order has “weaponized[d] all federal agencies on behalf of President Biden’s reelection campaign.”
“As we see the actions taken by this administration to leverage taxpayer dollars for political purposes, that should be concerning to all citizens,” he said.
Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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