A longtime left-wing voter registration strategy that uses purportedly “nonpartisan” nonprofit organizations to register Democratic-aligned voters is under renewed scrutiny, as activist groups gear up to generate increased voter turnout in 2026.

For years, the Democratic Party has depended on a network of these nonprofit groups, technically “nonpartisan” in name, to tap new voters who would then presumably vote blue.

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As part of these efforts, numerous left-leaning nonprofit groups registered as 501(c)(3) organizations perform voter registration operations in apparent violation of IRS rules banning “political campaign intervention.”

IRS regulations forbid 501(c)(3) charities from engaging in certain political activities. Specifically, charitable entities exempt from federal income taxes under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code cannot “participate in, or intervene in … any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.”

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Tax-exempt groups, however, may conduct voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives so long as the outreach initiatives are carried out in “a neutral, nonpartisan manner” without reference to any candidate or political party. Voter education or registration-related activities that appear to be biased in favor of or against any candidate are strictly prohibited.

Despite these restrictions, many left-of-center 501(c)(3)s appear to flout federal tax law by seeking out demographics, minorities, and young people in particular, whom they expect to cast their ballots for Democrats.

A New York Times report published last week about the Democratic Party’s voter registration crisis admitted the longtime left-wing strategy of using “nonpartisan” nonprofit organizations was to register voters likely to align with Democrats.

“For years, the left has relied on a sprawling network of nonprofits — which solicit donations from people whose identities they need not disclose,” according to the New York Times story, “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 article continues.

For example, during the 2020 election, the supposedly nonpartisan Voter Participation Center, whose leadership has deep ties to the Democratic Party, mass-mailed millions of ballot applications to prospective voters in battleground states, with many of the forms prefilled.

The 501(c)(3) group’s stated goal is to increase voter registration among “people of color, unmarried women, and young people,” a voting bloc that Democratic allies have dubbed the “New American Majority” needed to win on Election Day. The VPC has helped 6.6 million such applicants register to vote since 2003. Ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, the VPC is launching another nationwide voter registration push, its largest direct-mail campaign to date.

According to a VPC-commissioned survey of young, unmarried women and women of color registered to vote in select 2020 swing states, most respondents had a “favorable” view of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, 57% and 51%, respectively, while an overwhelming majority, 64%, disliked Donald Trump.

The voter behavior study, which examined how this subset of swing-state voters planned to cast their ballots, found that 61% of those surveyed indicated they would vote for Democratic congressional candidates compared to only 28% who would pick Republicans. Of the Democratic-oriented respondents, 46% said they would “strongly” support these candidates.

The VPC’s 501(c)(4) offshoot, the Center for Voter Information, spent $1.27 million on opposing Trump throughout the 2024 election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

Tom Lopach, a former Democratic Party operative, is the VPC president and CEO. Page Gardner, who founded the VPC, was a Bill Clinton presidential campaign staffer. Clinton’s ex-chief of staff, John Podesta, had helped launch the VPC’s predecessor, “Women’s Voices, Women Vote,” and previously served on its board

Progressive journalist Sasha Issenberg said of the VPC in The Secret Science of Winning Elections, a research book on modern electioneering methods, “Even though the group was officially nonpartisan, for tax purposes, there was no secret that the goal of all of its efforts was to generate new votes for Democrats.”

Another dubious actor is the Everybody Votes Campaign, a 501(c)(3) also known as the Voter Registration Project, which works to “close the voter registration gap in communities of color.”

EVC executive director Nellie Sires, who was a regional field organizer for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, attributes this perceived racial disparity in voter registration numbers to “modern forms of Jim Crow laws,” such as proof-of-residency requirements.

Over the past decade, in partnership with a vast web of various voter outreach organizations, which it trains and finances, the EVC has registered more than 7 million people to vote, 75% of whom were ethnic minorities.

Mi Familia Vota, one recipient of funding from the EVC, whose mission is to “mobilize Latino power” through “activation of the electorate,” aims to achieve a litany of liberal objectives, such as expanding access to abortion, combating climate change, and enacting sanctuary city laws, according to its 2025 policy agenda.

Héctor Sánchez Barba, the president and CEO of Mi Familia Vota, told the New York Times for its recent report on the Democratic Party’s voter registration crisis that it would be detrimental if “progressive donors cut off organizations like his.”

The New York Times article acknowledged another aspect of this vote-harvesting scheme: Democratic-minded donors “reap tax breaks from their gifts to some groups that register voters on a nonpartisan basis and that are considered charities. The donors would not get such tax breaks if they gave to traditional PACs.”

VOTER REGISTRATION WAS NEVER NONPARTISAN

Thus, funneling funds into nominally “nonpartisan” nonprofit organizations offers tax deductions for deep-pocketed Democratic donors and provides a mechanism to circumvent limits on political contributions.

In a leaked 2020 memorandum, Mind the Gap, a secretive super PAC dedicated to turning out the Democratic vote, strategized that “501(c)(3) voter registration focused on underrepresented groups in the electorate” would be the “single most effective tactic for ensuring Democratic victories.”

Doing so is “4 to 10 times more cost-effective” on an after-tax basis at “garnering additional Democratic votes,” the group, which advises donors on political spending patterns, determined.

The EVC reportedly accrued over $190 million in contributions from foreign billionaires, unions, and activists between 2016 and 2021, including pass-through grantmaking groups such as the Soros-funded Foundation to Promote Open Society and the New Venture and Hopewell Funds, both managed by the dark-money consulting firm Arabella Advisors.

Notably, the idea for the EVC was laid out in a 2015 WikiLeaks email from Democratic strategist Stephanie Schriock to Podesta, then acting as Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager. “Is this the registration program you were hoping for? Can I push it?” Schriock asked Podesta.

In light of ramped-up efforts to increase 2026 turnout among the Democratic base, ethics watchdogs are renewing concerns about the duplicitous nature of these voter mobilization machines, which benefit from tax-exempt status while simultaneously working behind the scenes to support Democratic candidates and causes.

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Benjamin Weingarten of RealClearInvestigations calls them “thinly veiled Democrat vote-generation vehicles” weaponized to win elections. Get-out-the-vote groups are the Democratic Party’s “electioneering super-weapons,” says Parker Thayer of Capital Research Center.

The Washington Examiner contacted the VPC and the EVC for comment.