Trump voting panel hit by resistance from states
President Donald Trump’s voting commission stumbled into public view this week, issuing a sweeping request for voter data that drew sharp condemnation from election experts and resistance from at least 19 states that said they cannot or will not hand over all of the data.
The immediate backlash marked the first significant attention to the “Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity” since Trump started it last month, following through on a vow to pursue his own unsubstantiated claims that voter fraud is rampant and cost him the popular vote in the presidential election.
Trove of information
The White House has said the commission will embark upon a “thorough review of registration and voting issues in federal elections,” but experts and voting rights advocates have pilloried Trump for his claims of widespread fraud, which studies and state officials alike have not found. They say they fear the commission will be used to restrict voting.
Those worries intensified after the commission sent letters to 50 states and Washington, D.C., on Wednesday asking for a trove of information, including names, dates of birth, voting histories and, if possible, party identifications. The letters also asked for evidence of voter fraud, convictions for election-related crimes, and recommendations for preventing voter intimidation — all within 16 days.
The letters met with swift rejection. By Friday, at least 19 states were partially or entirely refusing to provide the requested information.
“This entire commission is based on the specious and false notion that there was widespread voter fraud last November,” Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said. “At best this commission was set up as a pretext to validate Donald Trump’s alternative election facts, and at worst it is a tool to commit large-scale voter suppression.”
California, a state Trump singled out for “serious voter fraud,” also refused to participate. Alex Padilla, the California secretary of state, said providing data “would only serve to legitimize the false and already debunked claims of massive voter fraud.”
Texas officials say they’ll provide public voter information to the commission, although state law prohibits the release of Social Security numbers. The commission asked for voters’ last four digits.
Vice President Mike Pence, who is chairman of the commission, hosted a conference call with the group’s members on Wednesday morning, three weeks before they are scheduled to have their first meeting in Washington. During the call, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the vice chairman, told the other members about the letters.
The request drew a new round of scrutiny to Kobach, a candidate for governor of Kansas in 2018 and an intellectual and political leader among conservatives who want to crack down on illegal immigration and the perceived threat of voter fraud.
Pursued cases of fraud
In 2009, announcing his first bid for Secretary of State, Kobach said that registration fraud by the defunct community organizing group ACORN made Americans wonder if “the next election’s going to be stolen.” In office, Kobach aggressively pursued cases of potential fraud and promoted the “Crosscheck” system to see whether voters had registered in multiple states.
“It looks like they’re putting together a database of who people voted for,” said Jason Kander, a former Missouri secretary of state who runs the nonprofit Let America Vote. “Democrat, Republican, independent, everybody should be outraged by that. This is from the same people, from Kris Kobach to Donald Trump, who’ve tried to make it harder for people to vote, and this seems like a step in the process.”
The White House bristled Friday at states refusing to cooperate with the commission.
“I think that that is mostly political stunt,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a White House spokeswoman, said when asked about the pushback.