Trump fraud search could become witch hunt

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s call for a “major investigation” into voter fraud sparked concerns among voting rights groups that the move could prompt Congress to impose nationwide restrictive voting laws.

Trump, who has stated without evidence that 3 million to 5 million votes were cast illegally in November, announced the investigation on Twitter yesterday, adding: “Depending on results, we will strengthen up voting procedures!”

While states govern most election laws, the federal government has broad authority to enact “time, place and manner” restrictions on federal elections.

“An investigation could easily devolve into a witch hunt or worse — it could be used to try to justify the need for more sweeping voting restrictions,” said Adam Gitlin, counsel for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.

Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert and University of California Irvine School of Law professor, said Congress “can impose voter ID laws. It could ban early voting. It can ban same-day voter registration.” But such measures, passed by several Republican-led state legislatures in recent years, would be tough to overcome Democratic lawmakers’ filibuster power in Washington.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, when asked about Trump’s claim Tuesday, cited a Pew Research Center study he said “showed 14 percent of people who voted were non-citizens.” But the study he cited was not from Pew, but a 2014 study in the journal Electoral Studies stating 14 percent of non-citizens were registered, not that they voted. The methodology of that study was later contested by other studies.

Pew’s study in 2012 found nearly 2 million deceased people on the voter rolls and 2.75 million people registered in multiple states. The Heritage Foundation, which advocates more restrictive voting laws to guard against fraud, was only able to find 742 proven cases of fraud nationwide.

“We know that voting fraud is a real, but very small problem,” said Hasen, who supports a federal investigation if it is conducted outside of the Justice Department by an independent bipartisan panel that includes voting officials.

Kristen Clarke of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law said she was concerned about any investigation led under Attorney General-designate Jeff Sessions, whose past prosecution of civil rights advocates for voting fraud drew fire from opponents.

“The U.S. Department of Justice needs to be an independent agency that operates free from the partisan influence of the president,” Clarke said.