What is the U.S. Election Assistance Commission hiding?
That’s what a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) seeks to find out.
Here’s the background
The Help America Vote College Program was created through the Help America Vote Act to encourage postsecondary students to help their state and local governments with non-partisan election work. Money is appropriated to the program for several different activities, but nearly all of the funding goes toward awarding grants. To date, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission has distributed more than $4 million in grants to 110 recipients through the program.
Here’s the problem
More than 80 percent of the grant awardees in 2023 were in jurisdictions that voted for President Biden in 2020. Grant recipients include government and election offices as well as left-leaning groups and jurisdictions.
The Help America Vote College Program is intended to be for non-partisan activity, and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission is directed to ensure funds are spent in a way that doesn’t show bias toward any particular political party or issue. That didn’t stop them from awarding a grant to a chapter of the League of Women Voters, an organization known for supporting left-of-center candidates and policies and lawsuits against election integrity efforts in conservative states. In 2006, the Commission provided two grants to Project Vote, an advocacy organization that engages in voter drives, which contracted with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)—a radical leftist group. This questionable grant-making was previously omitted from the Commission’s website.
To learn more about why these groups received funding and the criteria used by the Commission, FGA submitted a FOIA request in February 2024 seeking information on the program applicants. Thanks to FGA’s work, the Commission now publishes the awardees and award amounts for all years. As for information on who applied as well as who was rejected? The Commission said it’ll provide FGA with the information—after the 2024 election and appropriations process, of course. The Commission is hiding behind a “high volume of requests” excuse to deny the American public transparency.
Here’s why it matters
The Commission is using appropriated taxpayer money for its grant-making activities, and it wants to build out even more comprehensive plans than encouraging college-level civic engagement. By aligning with and funding known partisan groups and postponing full transparency, it joins Bidenbucks in the ranks of shady government get-out-the-vote efforts. Worse yet, Americans don’t know if higher education institutions—the entities the program was intended to focus on—were passed over in favor of left-leaning voter outreach and government offices.
The Commission has asked Congress for $96 million for the upcoming fiscal year to set up its new Election Innovation Grants program, which is a fancy new name for an ongoing problem. No new money should be allocated to the U.S. Commission for Election Assistance until it fully cooperates with transparency requests and reveals to the taxpayers what it is hiding.