More states refuse to give up voter data
At least 23 won’t fully comply with Trump election panel request.
A growing number of states have rejected a request for personal information about voters from a presidential commission on vote fraud — a stance that prompted President Trump to lash out on Twitter.
“Numerous states are refusing to give information to the very distinguished VOTER FRAUD PANEL,” Trump wrote Saturday. “What are they trying to hide?”
The president was referring to the commission that controversial Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach helps lead. Last week, Kobach, the vice chairman of the commission, sent letters to each state and Washington, D.C., asking for voters’ personal information. The request asked for names, addresses, voting history and the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers.
Trump alleges he lost the popular vote in 2016 only because millions of people voted illegally — a claim that numerous states’ election officials from both parties and outside experts have called groundless. He prevailed in the electoral college but lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton by about 3 million votes.
As of Friday, at least 13 states had outright rejected the request from the Presidential Advisory Committee on Election Integrity. These included red states such as Indiana and blue states such as Massachusetts.
Officials in other states either said they would not supply all the data or would need more information before making a decision.
Some officials said state law barred them from providing some information, such as Social Security numbers. Vermont requested an affidavit from the commission. Wisconsin suggested that the commission could purchase the publicly available data.
By Saturday, at least 23 states had said they would not fully comply with the commission’s request, according to the Associated Press.
Some officials did not mince words.
“They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico, and Mississippi is a great State to launch from,” that state’s Republican secretary of state, Delbert Hosemann, said in a statement.
California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, a Democrat, criticized Kobach, vowing in a statement to “continue to defend the rights of all eligible voters to cast their ballots free from discrimination, intimidation or unnecessary roadblocks.”
Kobach has been a leading backer of immigration restrictions and of measures to toughen voter eligibility requirements in Kansas. His opponents note that he was fined recently for misleading a federal court in a voting rights case.
Democratic elected officials in several states criticized the commission itself.
“The president created his election commission based on the false notion that ‘voter fraud’ is a widespread issue — it is not,” Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Grimes said in a statement.