SIDEBAR: Government funding of voter registration

Editor’s note: the following is one of the essays from The “Charities” Influencing Elections: 2024 and Beyond, a special report soon to be released by the Capital Research Center. If you wish to receive a printed copy of the report, then please contact Julie Taylor at [email protected].

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The explosion of the tax-exempt voter registration industry from 2020 to 2024 was not solely a function of private donors. The industry has received a generous amount of government funding as well thanks to the Biden administration’s frequent grants to openly left-wing political activist groups. Thanks to policies like “Bidenbucks,” which tried to turn government agencies into GOTV (get out the vote) machines, government-funded nonprofits started seeking out advice on running voter registration drives like never before.[i]

In 2021, NonprofitVOTE, a group whose sole purpose is to encourage more nonprofits to do GOTV work, published a Federal Funds and Voter Registration guide that explained how nonprofits can get around the rules that restrict voter registration drives by government funded entities. The guide explains that nonprofits receiving Community Service Block Grants (CSBG) can’t use CSBG funds “to pay for staff or materials to conduct voter registration” or “provide rides to the polls,” but can “use CSBG or other funds to do any other kinds of nonpartisan voter engagement activities” as long as the nonprofit’s work in “limited” in such a way that it avoids creating a “public perception” that it is “involved in partisan politics.” The guide gives similar directions for recipients of Head Start early education funding and AmeriCorps volunteer funding.[ii]

Essentially, nonprofits are being encouraged to play a simple shell-game with grant funds, doing voter registration alongside their federally funded work without actually using federal dollars. It’s not a hard scheme to see through since everyone knows that money is fungible, but it satisfies the minimal restrictions of the law and provides enormous utility for politicians who can direct other peoples’ money towards organizations that they know will contribute, in a big or small way, to friendlier electoral margins.

This report focuses on groups whose sole or main activity is GOTV work, so the groups mentioned (for the most part) have not received government funds. Most government funded nonprofits doing voter registration work are doing it only on the side.

But even when not the bulk of the work, many nonprofits engaged in a substantial amount of voter registration and GOTV work while receiving government funding.

Examples include:

• The National Urban League – The Biden Administration awarded the National Urban League, a veteran left-wing advocacy group, more than $10.4 million in new grants from 2021 to 2024. [iii] In 2024, according to their 2024 Form 990, government grants accounted for $35.9 million, or 41 percent, of the League’s annual revenue. [iv] During the 2024 election, the League’s president spoke on stage at the Democratic National Convention, the League spent $17.2 million on “civic engagement and leadership empowerment program,” and its “Reclaim Your Vote” program made 1.3 million voter contacts, knocked on 248,000 doors, sent over 1 million texts, and held 143 events. [v]
• UnidosUS – UnidosUS was awarded more than $12 million in new grants by the Biden administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) alone. In the lead-up to the 2024 election UnidosUS invited President Biden to speak at the group’s annual conference, [vi] and UnidosUS Action Fund, their 501(c)(4) affiliate, endorsed Kamala Harris after Biden withdrew. [vii] That year UnidosUS registered 126,796 voters through “digital and canvassing efforts in states including AZ, CA, FL, NV, NY, PA, and TX.” [viii] The group also runs a “Hispanic Electorate Data Hub” that tracks polling data, demographic trends, and turnout statistics. [ix]
• Hispanic Federation[x] – the Hispanic Federation, which received more than $95 million[xi] in new grants from the Biden Administration for programs such as teaching migrant workers how to obtain welfare, and offering “energy resiliency education” in Puerto Rico, [xii] also runs a massive civic engagement program and bragged about “[mobilizing] millions of Latino voters” in 2024 and working with 52 partner organizations to “communicate directly with 2.6 million Latino voters to participate in the 2024 election.” [xiii] The Hispanic Federation claims it has registered 160,000 and mobilized 3 million Latino voters since 2016. [xiv]

These are far from the only organizations with substantial federal funding that have engaged in voter registration and GOTV work, but they are the largest and most notable examples. Other notable federally funded groups such as the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) have gone even further than GOTV work and directly funded ballot measure campaigns or organized protests against law enforcement that turned into violent riots.[xv] [xvi]

A huge number of smaller federally funded nonprofits, such as food banks, community centers, and schools also do tiny chunks of voter registration work that are impossible to track that add up greatly over time. One of the best examples of this was a since-repealed federal policy that allowed work-study programs on college campuses to pay students to do voter registration work, sometimes even while working directly for partisan campaigns.[xvii]

As this report makes clear, even privately funded nonprofits find it almost impossible to stay away from partisan electioneering in their “civic engagement” work, and there is no indication that publicly funded nonprofits are behaving much better. In fact, since their funding is controlled by politicians whose reelection might determine whether funding continues, government funded nonprofits have even stronger incentives to cross the line into partisan electioneering.

*** Endnotes

[i] “Steil, Foxx Blast ‘Bidenbucks’, New Policy Aimed to Tilt the Scales and Federalize Elections.” Desk of Bryan Steil, United States Congressman. March 12, 2024. Accessed May 27, 2026. https://steil.house.gov/media/press-releases/steil-foxx-blast-bidenbucks-new-policy-aimed-to-tilt-the-scales-and-federalize-elections.

[ii] “Federal Funds and Voter Registration.” Nonprofit VOTE. Accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.nonprofitvote.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/FS-Federal-Funds-and-Voter-Registration-2020-copy.pdf.

[iii] Stilson, Robert. “DOGE and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.” Capital Research Center. January 23, 2025. Accessed May 27, 2026. https://capitalresearch.org/article/doge-and-the-department-of-housing-and-urban-development/.

[iv] National Urban League. (EIN: 13-1840489). 2024 IRS Form 990. Accessed May 27, 2026. https://nul.org/sites/default/files/2025-11/NUL-990-FOR-2024-SIGNED-35.pdf.

[v] “Reclaim Your Vote.” National Urban League. Accessed May 27, 2026. https://nul.org/reclaim-your-vote.

[vi] Lvarez, Priscilla, and Donald Judd. “President Joe Biden tests positive for Covid-19 at pivotal moment in reelection campaign.” CNN. July 17, 2024. Accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/17/politics/joe-biden-tests-positive-covid-19/index.html.

[vii] “Statement Endorsing Kamala Harris for President of the United States from UnidosUS Action Fund President Janet Murguia.” UNIDOS US Action Fund. July 22, 2024. Accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.unidosusaf.org/news/statement-endorsing-kamala-harris-for-president-of-the-united-states-from–unidosus-action-fund-president-janet-murguia.

[viii] “2024 Impact Report.” UNIDOS US. Accessed May 27, 2026. https://unidosus.org/2024-impact-report/.

[ix] “Hispanic Electorate Data Hub.” UNIDOS US. Accessed May 27, 2026. https://unidosus.org/hispanicvote/.

[x] “USA Spending Advanced Search: Prime Award ID 75D30122C14081.” USA Spending.gov. Accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.usaspending.gov/search?hash=1c445f299d46682d66e1bba15151696b.

[xi] “USA Spending: Grant Summary.” USA Spending.gov. Accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_AM22FFWNY0016_012.

[xii] “USA Spending: Grant Summary.” USA Spending.gov. Accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_DEGD0000949_089.

[xiii] “Hispanic Federation Mobilizes Millions of Latino Voters to Show How Latinos are Shaping the 2024 Election and Beyond.” Hispanic Federation. November 4, 2024. Accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.hispanicfederation.org/news/latino-voters-2024/.

[xiv] “Civic Engagement: La Voz de Mi Gente.” Hispanic Federation. Accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.hispanicfederation.org/our-work/civicengagement/.

[xv] Stilson, Robert. “Housing and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation: Pharmaceuticals and Propositions.” Capital Research Center. June 17, 2025. Accessed May 27, 2026. https://capitalresearch.org/article/housing-and-the-aids-healthcare-foundation-part-1/.

[xvi] Nesi, Chris. “House Judiciary Committee opens probe into taxpayer-funded group’s potential ties to LA anti-ICE riots.” House Judiciary Committee. June 24, 2025. Accessed May 27, 2026. https://judiciary.house.gov/media/in-the-news/house-judiciary-committee-opens-probe-taxpayer-funded-groups-potential-ties-la.

[xvii] “U.S. Department of Education Prohibits Federal Funds from Supporting Political Activism on College Campuses.” U.S. Department of Education. August 19, 2025. Accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-prohibits-federal-funds-supporting-political-activism-college-campuses.

Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/sidebar-government-funding-of-voter-registration/