A conservative group is seeking any documents that would shine light on whether President Obama’s campaign apparatus and the Democratic National Committee were involved in the inclusion of a voter registration option on Obamacare forms.
In a Freedom of Information Act request letter sent Monday, Citizens United president David Bossie requested that the Department of Health and Human Services hand over an assortment of electronic records relating to the matter.
Last week, it was reported that a draft for an online application for health insurance under President Obama’s health-care law asks applicants if they would like to register to vote. If they say yes, they are directed to a voter registration form.
Bossie’s group is going so far as to ask whether Democratic campaign organizations could have been behind the inclusion.
“This request includes, but is not limited to, all emails and text messages between HHS staff, the Democratic National Committee, Obama for America, and Organizing for America,” he wrote in the letter obtained by The Daily Caller. “In addition, I am requesting phone records between those three political organizations and HHS.”
Citizens United is also asking for records of electronic communication between Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and her staff related to the inclusion of a voter registration option on the forms.
Since the news was broken, conservatives have been questioning why such a question is asked on a health-care form.
“While the health care law requires that government agencies collect vast information about Americans’ personal lives, it does not give your department an interest in whether individual Americans choose to vote,” House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Charles Boustany said last week.
Last week, White House press secretary Jay Carney dismissed the questions, saying the option is nothing new on government forms.
“The linkage of checking off whether or not you want to register to vote goes back to a 1993 law regarding Medicaid. … It’s not about the Affordable Care Act,” he said.
He added: “As a separate measure, I’m not sure that it’s such a terrible thing that people might want to register to vote. But I think this predates the Affordable Care Act.”
