EXCLUSIVE: How Biden Abused The Federal Workforce To Snatch Votes

President Joe Biden allied his Department of Agriculture with liberal activist groups to register Americans to vote and staff polling locations, potentially in violation of federal law, according to a memo shared with the Daily Caller.

The practice has since been undone by President Donald Trump, who directed his administration to conduct a review of the Biden administration’s federal get-out-the-vote programs.

Biden signed an executive order in March 2021, rescinded by Trump in March 2025, which required federal agencies to register and mobilize voters. Under Biden’s order, the USDA partnered with the American Civil Liberties Union and Dēmos, a left-wing public policy advocacy group, to implement the president’s plan, the memo revealed.

The Biden Administration’s Rural Housing Service and National School Lunch Program were also used in service of the get-out-the-vote plan, the memo said. (RELATED: Biden-Harris Admin Handed Billions To Coalition Partnering With Stacey Abrams’ Org Dedicated To Turning Out Voters)

“Under the Biden administration, instead of prioritizing the accurate delivery of food nutrition to Americans in need,” the Biden administration and his USDA partnered with groups like the ACLU and Dēmos, a senior White House official told the Caller. The official noted that the ACLU has “no nexus with American agriculture or serving Americans in need of food support” and that Dēmos “has never been a part of serving the agricultural community or those who need food assistance.”

The official added that under the USDA’s work, anyone who applied for a federally-funded food benefit program was likely encouraged to vote and given a voter registration form through the Biden plan.

The memo states that the USDA collaborated with organizations such as Demos and the ACLU to “support voter registration efforts.” The interactions with the organizations focused “on guidance, updates and support for implementation efforts,” but they never entered any formal contracts with the groups, according to the memo.  

A senior White House official told the Caller that a lot of the USDA’s interactions with these organizations occurred in meetings that were not well documented.

“I think it is an interesting signal that the Biden administration knew they were pushing the bounds of what is statutorily allowed by law if they’re holding meetings … but they’re not actually producing documents that would either be subject to FOIA or Presidential Records Act releases,” the official told the Caller.

Heritage Foundation Senior Legal Fellow Hans Von Spakovsky previously described Biden’s executive order as an “unlawful, potentially partisan interference in the election process.” Von Spakovsky claimed the order was unlawful in several ways, including by spending congressionally appropriated funds on activities not approved by Congress, having federal agencies act as voting registration agencies without state approval and by allowing federal employees to use their “official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election,” which would potentially violate the Hatch Act.

While specifics in the meetings with the ACLU and Demos weren’t documented, the official told the Caller that they do know the organizations had easy access to government officials.

“We do know that ACLU was brought into the USDA, given access to meetings with decision makers, key political appointees, consulted on how best to mobilize different constituencies for the purpose of voter registration, voter mobilization,” the official told the Caller.

The ACLU and Dēmos have long been considered left-leaning organizations. The ACLU has argued that biological men do not have a physical advantage over women when competing against them in sports; opposed President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda, arguing that he will “terrorize entire communities”; and have fought to keep sexually explicit books in schools.

Dēmos has signed onto a petition backing the Green New Deal, a massive proposal that is aimed at transitioning the U.S. economy away from reliance on fossil fuels, according to InfluenceWatch. The organization has also opposed Trump’s firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, calling it “another step closer to authoritarianism.” According to the organization’s website, they work at the “intersection of democracy reform, economic justice and racial justice.”

The memo reviewing how the USDA implemented Biden’s executive order states that the federal agency’s Rural Housing Service, which is meant to help rural Americans purchase, build or improve their homes, “encourage[d] the provision of non-partisan voter information through its borrowers and guaranteed lenders who interface with thousands of residents in the process of changing their voting address every year.”

Across the country, Rural Development agencies were instructed to promote voter registration at field offices where Americans would be applying for housing or business assistance.

Under USDA’s National School Lunch Program, which provides low-cost or free meals to children, operators in high schools were “encouraged to promote voter registration and have congregate feeding areas such as cafeterias serve as a distribution point for information,” according to the memo.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins (C), accompanied by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (L) and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks while signing one of three new SNAP food choice waivers for the states of Idaho, Utah, and Arkansas in her office at the United States Department of Agriculture Whitten Building on June 10, 2025 in Washington, DC.  (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

As a part of the Child and Adult Care Food Program, emergency shelters “could be encouraged to promote voter registration and have congregate feeding areas such as cafeterias serve as a distribution point for information,” the memo states.

The Food and Nutrition Service was also communicating with state agencies administering the National School Lunch Program to have them contact local school food authorities to “encourage them to support voter registration and distribute voting information in conjunction with their meal service,” according to the memo.

The USDA also adjusted its personnel policy to give federal workers up to four hours of administrative leave to vote, or serve as nonpartisan poll workers, the memo states. The senior White House official told the Caller that they aren’t just concerned about federal workers taking time off work.

“The real concern, though, is that … this time off was being tied directly to serving in an electoral capacity, something that had never been done before, and that is certainly an opportunity that’s not afforded in every American workplace,” the official told the Caller.

“While Americans have the right to take time off to go vote … the fact that it was being tied for this specific workforce to the participation of the political process was of concern, and that’s why that guidance has been rescinded,” the official added.