The National Election Infrastructure Built by America's Election Czar Saved Democrats
With almost no fanfare HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge has rolled out a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative-Style election effort in the 3,000+ Public Housing Agencies she manages.
With little fanfare, much less oversight, former Ohio Representative Marcia Fudge was sworn in as Biden’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Six months later she would become the nation’s unofficial ‘Election Czar’. Secretary Fudge has been given more than a billion dollars and orders to build a nationwide election infrastructure on top of the nation’s 3,000+ Public Housing Agencies. Secretary Fudge multiplied the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s 2020 election successes by more than ten times - expanding it from five states to all fifty.
When Democrats learned that Mark Zuckerberg had decided to discontinue his effort to build election infrastructure they looked to the government to fill the void. The billionaire invested more than $400 million in the 2020 presidential election to help election officials in swing states set up parallel election infrastructure consisting of thousands of ballot drop boxes and the personnel to manage and maintain them. To fill that gap President Biden signed the Executive Order on Promoting Access to Voting on March 7, 2021. Six months later Biden allocated more than $5 billion to be shared by a dozen agencies including more than a billion dollars for the Department of Housing and Urban Development and outlined specific actions to be taken by each agency.
Democrats have repeatedly attempted to pass legislation that would nationalize federal elections. Their most recent effort was called “Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act” (H.R.5746) and would have turned over elections to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats from the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ which is headed by Kristen Clarke who has written extensively on race claiming that Blacks have “greater mental, physical, and spiritual abilities” than other races. Republicans blocked the legislation but Biden’s EO has opened the backdoor allowing for the creation of a de facto National Election Infrastructure.
HUD, flush with almost a billion dollars in startup capital on top of the $48 billion the agency already receives, features a majority-minority workforce almost completely made up of registered Democrats. These dedicated Democrats provide services to a majority-minority population who live in 958,000 public housing units and typically identify as Democrats but are traditionally unreliable voters. By tapping Marcia Fudge as Election Czar and using HUD’s massive footprint and infrastructure Democrats are guaranteed to bring these unreliable voters into the fold and provide a federal election beachhead into every state in the union. Observers have pointed out that having a federal employee actively running a de facto partisan election agency would violate the Hatch Act. In fact, just last March the Office of Special Counsel investigated Fudge and determined she had, indeed, violated the Hatch Act and as a result issued her a stern warning.
On its face, the president’s EO sounds innocent enough. But in practice, it provides Democrats with a blank check to create a permanent national election infrastructure. DNC operatives and NGOs aligned with the Democratic Party are ‘helping’ PHAs read between the lines to understand the actual intent of the president’s EO - to create a massive election machine designed to increase the Democratic representation in federal elections. To that end, HUD has notified PHAs that they are to use Section 8 administration fees and public housing operating subsidies to fund the following mandates:
HUD is requiring each of the nation’s 3,000+ Public Housing Agencies (PHA) to apply to each state to become official ‘Voter Registration Agencies’ including the hiring of staff to manage election-related efforts. Designation is designed to protect their electioneering efforts from scrutiny.
Where PHAs cannot submit voter registrations electronically they are required to stock voter registration forms along with procedures for conducting regular voter registration drives. PHAs are instructed to collect completed applications and transmit them to election officials on a regular basis as permitted by law.
PHAs are to create ‘safe community spaces’ with adequate technology to support candidate forums, phone banking, ballot distribution/collection, and in-person early and election day voting (power outlets, HVAC, internet, etc).
HUD is collaborating with local election officials to locate one or more HUD approved/provided/funded/serviced voter ballot dropboxes in each public housing unit operated by a PHA. The collaboration will ensure compliance with local laws and allow for legal challenges as necessary.
HUD is collaborating with local election officials to ensure that at least one or more in-person voting site is located in facilities managed and controlled by each PHA to facilitate both early and election-day voting.
HUD has instructed PHAs to fund ‘Resident Advisory Boards’ to assist with electioneering efforts. For example, RABs may use federal funds to provide transportation to ANY voter enabling them to vote at a PHA voting location or any other voting location in the area.
HUD is providing PHAs with funds to hire homeless outreach staff to ensure that every homeless person is registered to vote. U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness has provided guidance to PHAs that they can use the PHA’s address for the homeless person regardless of rules, regulations, or laws stating otherwise.10 It is expected that PHAs will handle 10X as many ballots for the homeless than they do for residents.
Publicly, HUD is stating:
“PHAs must not fund partisan political facilities or activities. Additionally, PHAs should not suggest that benefits are tied to voting activity, nor should they give the appearance that voting and voter registration are not voluntary activities. Additionally, PHAs should follow all applicable civil rights laws, including those that ensure voting processes are accessible for individuals with disabilities.”
What do you think? Did the new Election Czar and her National Election Infrastructure change the outcome of the 2022 midterms? Why weren’t Republicans more outspoken about this development? Please let me know in the comments.