Panel sought data on Texas’ Hispanic voters
Lawsuit prevented handoff of records to Trump commission
President Trump’s voting commission asked to see Texas records that identify all voters with Hispanic surnames, documents show.
President Donald Trump’s voting commission asked every state and the District of Columbia for detailed voter registration data, but in the case of Texas it took an additional step: It asked to see Texas records that identify all voters with Hispanic surnames, newly released documents show.
In buying nearly 50 million records from the state with the nation’s second-largest Hispanic population, a researcher for the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity checked a box on two Texas public voter data request forms explicitly asking for the “Hispanic surname flag notation,” to be included in information sent to the voting commission, according to copies of the signed and notarized state forms.
White House and Texas officials said the Texas voter data was never delivered because a lawsuit brought by Texas voting rights advocates after the request last year temporarily stopped any data handoff.
Panel disbanded Jan. 3
The voting commission was disbanded Jan. 3 after Trump cited a host of ongoing state and federal lawsuits and resistance from state officials over the sweeping pursuit, in the name of investigating voter fraud, of information about more than 150 million voters across the country. The voting panel said it would destroy all voter data it had gathered.
Civil and voting rights groups in particular have said the nationwide initiative could establish a pretext to target black and Latino voters. State officials criticized the project for its potential effect on American’s privacy, state oversight on elections and voter participation.
Texas since 1983 has identified voters with a Hispanic name to mail bilingual election notices in Spanish and English as required by state and federal laws, said Sam Taylor, spokesman for Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos, a Republican. Names are selected from the U.S. Census Bureau’s list of most common surnames by race and Hispanic origin, Taylor said.
Trump created the voting commission after repeatedly suggesting that millions of illegal voters cost him the 2016 popular vote.
On the forms sent to Texas by the voting commission, commission policy adviser Ronald Williams II checked a box to flag Hispanic names and signed a notarized form required as part of the overall process to get voter records released.
The commission paid Texas officials about $3,500 on Sept. 22 for 49.6 million records that were to include lists of voters who were active, those with canceled registrations, and those with an outdated or incorrect address on file; and a list of those who voted in the past six general elections from 2006 through 2016. The flags for the Hispanic surnames would be in the lists.
Commission denial
The voting commission vice chairman, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Republican, who launched the drive to collect data from every state, said “at no time did the commission request any state to flag surnames by ethnicity or race. It’s a complete surprise to me.”
Told of documents showing the Texas purchase, Kobach said, “Mr. Williams did not ask any member of the commission whether he should check that box or not, so it certainly wasn’t a committee decision.”
Such “information does not, did not advance the commission’s inquiry in any way, and this is the first I’ve heard the Texas files included that,” Kobach said Friday.
Voting commission member Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, a Democrat who has sued the voting panel to disclose records that he says were not provided to him, said the selection of Hispanic names appeared improper and could explain why the voting panel has sought to act in secret.
“I find it shocking that they would flag voter names by ethnicity or race, to discover what, we don’t know,” said Dunlap, who said none of the purchases of state data was disclosed.