FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—To comply with an executive order from President Joe Biden, the Peace Corps pushed to make its headquarters a voter registration center, upped efforts to register U.S. citizens abroad, and moved to supply multilingual voter registration forms.
The Peace Corps, a federal agency, assigns volunteers to provide services and meet needs in over 60 countries.
The agency released its plan to implement Biden’s order late last week in response to a request by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project under the Freedom of Information Act. (The Daily Signal is the news and commentary outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
The Peace Corps completed a Sept. 23, 2021, draft of “the compliance plan that Peace Corps is prepared to execute” to implement Biden’s Executive Order 14019, which requires federal agencies to help boost voting.
“Overseas citizens are protected by federal law that does not require an ID to vote,” the Peace Corps plan says, a reference to voter ID requirements in many states. “Only requirement is SS# [Social Security number] and overseas address. For domestic citizens, Peace Corps will include usa.gov/voter-id hyperlink on the landing page, which provides information on voter ID requirements.”
The Peace Corps’ strategic plan says the agency will connect more citizens in the U.S. as well as citizens living abroad to the Federal Voting Assistance Program, known as FVAP, for information about registering and voting.
“For overseas citizens, registration forms are only in English; however, Peace Corps can highlight that FVAP has registration instructions in French, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic. Provide translated instructions to post via Diplomatic Pouch. For domestic citizens, we can provide those same instructions either in hard copy format or pdf,” the plan says.
Biden’s order, issued in March 2021, required most federal agencies to submit a strategic plan for getting out the vote.
House Republicans advanced legislation to rescind the Biden executive order on elections, asserting that it could put the federal government’s thumb on the scale in elections.
Meanwhile, GOP state legislators in Pennsylvania have sued to challenge the constitutionality of Biden’s order.
The Peace Corps is at least the third agency to make a plan public even as the Justice Department invokes presidential privilege to block release of its own strategic plan to implement Biden’s order.
“If requested by the District of Columbia, Peace Corps HQ agrees to be designated as a voter registration agency,” the strategic plan says.
Neither the Peace Corps nor the D.C. city government responded to inquiries from The Daily Signal for this report.
The Daily Signal previously reported, based on documents made available through the Freedom of Information Act, that taxpayer-backed federal agencies were partnering with transparently left-leaning organizations—among them Demos, the Brennan Center for Justice, and the American Civil Liberties Union—to implement Biden’s executive order.
The Peace Corps plan mentions working with nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, but doesn’t specify which groups.
“For domestic citizens, invite NGOs to Peace Corps HQ to provide informational seminars to staff, unless COVID keeps Peace Corps HQ at Phase I. If so, invite NGOs to conduct virtual informational seminars,” the plan says.
The agency’s plan uses 12 steps to explain how the agency will expand its website to promote greater voter participation.
“Peace Corps will build out an information/landing page on peacecorps.gov (a public website), PC Live and Intranet (for both staff and Volunteers) that covers both domestic and overseas access to voting,” the plan says, adding:
For overseas citizens, have FAQ [frequently asked questions] and video to show How to Register. Provide the hyperlink to the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) which provides registration services/information to overseas citizens. Additionally, Peace Corps will use State Department’s Diplomatic Pouch to distribute voter registration forms to each post. For domestic citizens, include vote.gov hyperlink on the landing page, which provides access to on-line registration forms.
