Democrats’ ‘nonpartisan’ voter outreach might have broken IRS rules

Ben Weingarten writes for the Federalist about a recent analysis of Democrats’ voter recruitment efforts.

In a stunning analysis of the rapid decline in registered Democrat voters, The New York Times let slip a dirty secret about the cynical and legally dubious machinations the party has used to try and game the political system and win elections in recent cycles.

“For years, the left has relied on a sprawling network of nonprofits — which solicit donations from people whose identities they need not disclose,” the Times reported, “to register Black, Latino and younger voters.”

“Though the groups are technically nonpartisan, the underlying assumption has been that most new voters registering would vote Democratic,” the report added, matter-of-factly.

Set aside that Democrats’ funneling of money into 501(c)(3)s to turn out voters solely based on identity reflects a dismal view that people’s politics can be reduced to their skin color, sex, or age. And set aside the key follow-on takeaway: That Donald Trump proved this assumption flawed in winning re-election by garnering growing support from the minorities and younger voters that the left had targeted and whose votes it had taken for granted.

The Times has now said the quiet part out loud: Putatively nonpartisan charitable voter registration and mobilization organizations are thinly veiled Democrat vote-generation vehicles — or at least understood to be Democrat vote-generation vehicles — ones that as the report details, fat cats have funded to skirt political contribution limits while getting a nice big tax break.

Why is that such a big deal?

First, it suggests that such organizations may have violated IRS rules. That’s because tax-exempt nonprofits may not engage in voter registration or get-out-the-vote activities “in a biased manner that favors (or opposes) one or more candidates.” Yet the Times make clear that the left in effect sought to use such organizations to support Democrat candidates. Why target those you assume to be Democrat voters if not to get them to vote for Democrats? Their supporters evidently seemed to think the point was to elect Democrats. Minimally, it would appear such organizations circumvented the IRS’s strictures in spirit.

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