Even seemingly obscure federal agencies are working to turn out more voters under President Joe Biden’s executive order on elections.
The Railroad Retirement Board’s strategic plan includes calls for distributing flyers and posters; keeping metrics on directing individuals to the federal voter registration website Vote.gov; and working with an “equity team” to boost voting among non-English speakers.
The plan also contemplates turning some of 53 field offices across the country into “voter registration agencies,” but a spokesperson says the railroad agency lacks the resources for that.
The Railroad Retirement Board’s strategic plan to comply with Biden’s Executive Order 14019 was obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project through a request under the Freedom of Information Act. (Heritage is the parent organization of The Daily Signal.)
The Chicago-based railroad board is among the few federal agencies to release such a plan, which may offer a glimpse at how larger government agencies are implementing the president’s executive order to get out the vote.
Although some agencies have announced broad steps to implement Biden’s order, or released limited documents, most have held tight to the strategic plans mandated by the order.
The Foundation for Government Accountability is suing the Justice Department to obtain access to the required strategic plans.
The Defense Department said it updated an existing strategic plan to fit Biden’s executive order.
The Pentagon’s strategic plan isn’t dated but appears to have been drafted in 2021 after Biden signed the order that March, weeks after taking office, to direct federal agencies to boost voter registration and voter participation.
Some Republican lawmakers and watchdog groups expressed fears that federal agencies’ involvement in elections would be used to tip the scales for partisan reasons.
Others worry that the order will put federal employees in the awkward position of violating laws such as the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from political activity on government time or using government resources.
“Biden’s potentially illegal election-interfering executive order is finally coming into fruition, and it’s scarier than we thought,” Roman Jankowski, senior investigative counsel with Heritage’s Oversight Project, told The Daily Signal.
“If the Biden administration is using the force and scope of a tiny agency like the RRB to drive up the vote,” Jankowski said, “then what do you think he will do with these really large and well-funded federal departments and agencies?”
Among the proposed actions listed in the documents obtained by the Oversight Project: The Railroad Retirement Board’s public affairs office “could also work with field service in determining if and in which states we should send notification of our agreement to be designated as a voter registration agency.”
But the railroad agency currently lacks the resources to make its field offices also serve as voter registration offices, spokesperson Elizabeth Mocek said.
“The RRB’s response to Executive Order 14019 pledged to help promote the vast resources available at Vote.gov,” Mocek told The Daily Signal in a written statement. She added:
In implementing this effort, we added Vote.gov to the footer of our website (RRB.gov) and created a handout promoting Vote.gov to be included in materials distributed at pre-retirement seminars for individuals nearing retirement, and at various meetings and rail labor conventions. We also created a Vote.gov logo to be included in publications issued by Public Affairs, which are available at all field offices.
In 2021, Daniel J. Fadden, senior executive at the Railroad Retirement Board, submitted the plan to Susan Rice, then an assistant to the president for domestic policy.
The Railroad Retirement Board is a small, independent agency in the executive branch that focuses on administering benefit programs related to retirement, survivorship, unemployment, and sickness for the nation’s railroad workers and their families.
The agency was created in the 1930s under the Railroad Retirement Act of 1934, the Railroad Carriers and Taxing Act of 1935, and the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act of 1938.
The agency’s public affairs office, along with its Bureau of Information Services, is responsible for implementing Biden’s executive order on voting, according to the strategic plan.
“Success will be defined by adding the Vote.gov link to the RRB’s website. RRB.gov has tracking metrics that will be utilized to determine how many ‘hits’ the link receives,” the plan says.
The concept of “equity,” a major focus of agencies during the Biden administration, is included in the railroad board’s elections plan—specifically in helping non-English speakers to vote.
“The RRB, through the efforts of its Agency Equity Team (AET), recognizes that although the agency does not serve the general public, there are populations of railroad workers that are traditionally underserved,” the strategic plan says. It adds:
Specifically, the RRB has determined that in addition to Spanish-speaking railroad workers, there are workers speaking Navajo and Burmese who may have had difficulty accessing railroad retirement information. In coordination with the efforts of the RRB’s AET, the EO 14019 compliance team believes that providing a direct link to Vote.gov and eventually expanding language options on RRB.gov will allow for Limited English Proficiency (LEP) railroad workers to equitably access information on voter registration.
The railroad board’s document goes on to explain plans for related flyers and posters.
“We will secure (or produce) flyers, posters, or other materials promoting Vote.gov (or voter registration in general) and make these available to our customers,” the RRB strategic plan says. “Our field offices nationwide are currently closed to the public. When we resume normal operations, we will post this material in all of those offices. We will also include promotional items in informational packages provided at pre-retirement seminars for individuals nearing retirement, and at various meetings and rail labor conventions.”
Earlier this week, the Department of Education released a “toolkit” to expand voting among college students, as well as to provide information about voting for students in K-12.
Also under Biden’s initiative, the Department of Homeland Security registers new voters during naturalization ceremonies.
As The Daily Signal previously reported, the Biden administration carved out paid administrative leave to encourage federal bureaucrats and other employees—seen as a loyal Democrat constituency—to volunteer as poll workers during elections.
The Daily Signal also reported that federal agencies are working with Demos and other liberal advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union.
Fred Lucas is chief news correspondent and manager of the Investigative Reporting Project for The Daily Signal. He is the author of “The Myth of Voter Suppression: The Left’s Assault on Clean Elections.”
Reprinted with Permission by The Daily Signal – By Fred Lucas
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
Steal the election, use federal agencies (funded by taxpayers, Repub as well as Dems) to be boots on the ground for the socialist Democrats’ machine…..Repubs, you better be paying attention.
Americans have to realize that biden mandates are only a tip of the iceberg when it comes to intimidating Americans to vote the biden elitist agenda, and has nothing to do with actually encouraging Americans to get out and vote their conscience. biden and his government henchmen are the most corrupt “fellow travelers” in our nation’s history and make the communist manifesto of the 30s and 40s pale in comparison.R
I am a retired Railroad worker. I cannot believe that this is constitutional. Federal employees are not to participate in elections or promote any political candidate. This is a direct challenge to the Hatch act. On top of that I would hope that the railroads both Class 1 and Shortlines are verifying citizenship stature before they hire an employee. I find it difficult to believe that illegals are being hired, especially illegals that cannot speak or read English. There are absolute safety and rules which must be followed and are not published in various languages.
The public needs to know how this order can be challenged and stopped. It is illegal and should not be enforced.
They’ve never governed or properly managed anything… but they’re experts at claiming ownership of what isn’t theirs.
Our previous USofA is gone and our Republic and it’s Democracy is under attack. Commercial advertisers have known for several decades that they can sway public opinion on ridiculous statements like sugar frosted flakes is part of a complete breakfast. That same mental manipulation based on both repetition and more recently NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) to cement erroneous thoughts and concepts!!! Now, the Democratic party has got on the delusion train and used mental manipulation to destroy American freedoms and entrepreneurship ALL for financial control and gain. NOW in our society its totally unacceptable to call people on their lies because everyone is entitled to their opinions!? Of course but now our Government is telling us what is right and wrong while betraying The Constitution and acting against all common sense and moral rationale. Our government is using NLP to reshape your logic to liberalism for profit! Unless we get Donald Trump back in control of the governments ethics and morals we are simply screwed. The hilarious and sad part is that the liberals think they are winning. HOW MANY LIBERALS DO YOU SEE IN RUSSIA, CHINA OR VENEZUELA??? HOW MANY GAY PARADES OR TRANSVESTITES TEACHING IN CHILDREN’S LIBRARY’S??? Liberals are screwing themselves and us at the same time and sincerely don’t know it ! They are functionally brainwashed! We are watching the Pied Piper at work !
Trump gets elected, Keystone XL is on again, oil gets pumped to refineries, and the railroads lose hundreds of millions transporting oil.
Why ole Joe can put an executive order to put federal organization to work to get voters registered and provide interpreters. But ole Joe cannot sign an executive order to close the border. How many more American people and children have to die before sloppy puts a halt to that. Ole Joe you have blood on your hands. Will we allow him to continue or are we going to impeach him now. He has been governing what is good for ole Joe, the country and the citizens be damned. Millions of dollars from the Ukraine, mayor of Moscow, Chinese companies. And still is making money every day by destroying America as mandated by the WEF and their elites.
I worked for the Railroad 45 years and now to see this leftist liberal Marxist government under Biden/Obama hijack the RRB is the last straw. We are at war and these people must be stopped by any and all means possible, we must have fair elections this November or ALL IS LOST. The leader country of the free world is being taken down with its funding by the Chinese regime, if we don’t stop them now then we will be slaves forever and evil filth will reign.
I am a Christian Conservative and if this ugly government is allowed to rule people like me will be hunted down and done away with.
WAKE UP PEOPLE AND FIGHT BACK!!!!!!!!!
How is this effort legal? FED employees working on the election at the direction of the Executive branch. There is no justice working in DC apparently.
Now, if they could only give him a working brain.
If anyone believes the 2024 election will reflect the actual will of the people and not again be rigged, they are fools.
IF somehow the left is unable to steal a victory there will not be a single life insurance carrier that would write a policy for President Trump, even a high premium policy one would expect a man of his age to pay. The carrier that AMAC advertises wouldn’t write such a policy unless it was small enough to consider the buyer to be enough of an advertising plus of writing a policy for the President to overcome the SOON to be loss of his life by most violent means.
Think the left wouldn’t go that far? Then like the believers of the coming election integrity, you too are a fool.
I hope President Trump has some super duper enhanced biology super security agents but even if that was true…….man, the left will do anything to keep their psychosis based “monster” from again being the legally accepted President. Anything,
Well…as a retired railroad worker I’m of the opinion the 80-90 percent of railroad workers are conservative. Republican administrations pass far more legislation favorable to railroads. Basically, we hate democrats. Would never vote for them!
We have to remember this isn’t Pedo Joe, he can’t spell railroad. His Puppet Masters will not quit trying to destroy this country. He can’t even walk and talk at the same time!
We are witnessing government corruption at the highest levels in our history. The people’s money is being used in all forms by government, corporations and globalists to destroy our culture and our freedom. It is excruciatingly painful to know that we the people are funding our own destruction through the corruption in the military industrial complex, the big pharma industrial complex, the Marxist education, gov’t supported complex, the Wall St/ Federal Reserve complex and the censorship industrial complex.
Wake up America. This election is not about Trump. It is about our last chance to return power to the people. If we lose this one there is absolutely no doubt the CLoward-Piven crowd will finish us off and really kick in the utter destruction of the Constitution and the end of the two party system.
Proof- Can you name one other person who can lead the American people to shut down the deep state? I cannot think of one. He or she would be destroyed in half the time it would take them to stop Trump.
What are Republicans going to do to counteract???
Helping people to register to vote is laudable, however, the Commie D traitors to our Constitutional Republic pushing this endeavor will be targeting D-rich areas pushing their garbage. Years ago at a table set up at my community college, there was zero R info on the table, ONLY D info, and a brief conversation showed me staff at the table were ALL indoctrinated Democrat useful idiots. I looked for a Republican staffed table, but nope, none…the traitors have been much better organized. At the 2022 election they had tables set up the required 100 ft. from our county’s main polling place. Chock full of their propaganda, they were so bold, actually stopping people coming in to vote to encourage voting D. I responded to the little dope who inserted herself in front of me as I walked up, saying, ” I’m not supporting communism, go away useful idiot.”
Include agriculture dept. what will be done about this?
More Biden criminal activity.
Somebody needs to pay for this crooked sh!t! Soon.
We need to educate voter that a mandate doesn’t mean you have to vote democrat. That could help the republican nominee to win the election.
Dummies do and say what the puppeteers wants can’t you see the hand going up Bidens back
Biden wants congress to pass their “non-partisan” Senate bill to fund Isreal and the Ukraine its to fund his spending to all federal offices to harass federal employees and illegally use their time and federal money to bring in to votes for Democrates. The Democrate party will do anything to maintain power over the American people. Not to work for the Amerivan people but use and control them. If they are not stopped Stalin will seem like school boy!By the way, this wasn’t a thought Biden conceived it’s his handlers. Biden can’t offer a general discussion on any topic unless he is reading it. He is not our president, the Democrate is!
Too old, too frail and limited memory but he’s able to use executive orders to get government workers to win him an election.
An what is my former party
doing to counter this? Nothing as usual.
How is this legal? And how can they say having a photo ID is illegal when you need it for virtually everything?
Just another 3 letter Federal Agency that is being mandated to interfere in elections.Rail road workers even ones that don’t read or write english would have to be highly capable people to work anywhere on the rail road system.Also they almost certainly have to speak english and understand orders / commands.This is just another bogus waste of government resources to enable the Totalitarian Democrat Party Comrade’s to gather fraudulent votes.
We have known this was coming, if Republican Leadership hasn’t done their homework we will get beat again by false votes. What have you done, tell us something we want to hear.
This is very disturbing. I disagree with the Railroad Retirement Board having anything to do with voting. Especially non citizens. Something had better be done. I doubt that these Retired railroad workers are even in knowledge of this over run by the liberals.