Blackwell sees need for panel on voting
WASHINGTON — Former Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell said he does not necessarily believe that as many as 5 million people voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election.
But he doesn’t believe the nation’s system of voting is flawless, either.
Blackwell is one of 12 members of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. There can be as many as 15, not counting Vice President Mike Pence, its leader.
Blackwell said the panel, which he was named to in May, isn’t designed to prove President Donald Trump’s oft-repeated, never-substantiated assertion that 3 million to 5 million voted illegally, but rather, to take a comprehensive approach to the nation’s election system.
Blackwell, who also has been Ohio’s treasurer, said that when he was asked to serve on the commission, “it was with a vision and an understanding that we would do just as some of our predecessors in terms of commissions have done in the past: to review the complex system of American elections and see what new vulnerabilities and new threats are in play.”
He said the commission’s task is valid, and one that many government agencies have undertaken over the years.
“The notion that this commission is one that should not exist, and the false narrowing of the mission to kill it in the crib, I find to be offensive,” he said.
The commission, which is to hold its first meeting Wednesday in Washington, D.C., is tasked with “reviewing the integrity of elections in order to protect and preserve the principle of one person, one vote,” Pence said in a release announcing the formation of the panel.
That same release listed the commission’s role as studying vulnerabilities in voting systems that could lead to
improper voter registrations, improper voting, fraudulent voter registrations and fraudulent voting. The panel also has been asked to study voter suppression and voter irregularities, and to issue a report on its findings next year.
Blackwell said that throughout his career, “I’ve constantly worked to make sure that all of the traps have been run, all of the reviews have been taken, to make sure that not one legal ballot is negated by an illegal ballot, and that we clean up our voter rolls to reduce vulnerabilities in the system.”
His tenure as Ohio secretary of state from 1999 to 2007 has been under renewed scrutiny since he was named to the commission. The Los Angeles Times noted that Blackwell ordered county elections workers not to accept voter registration on anything less than paper the thickness of a postcard. After that requirement was reported by The Dispatch, Blackwell halted it.
He also was criticized for accidentally distributing voter lists that had the full Social Security number of Ohio voters. The computer disks were eventually returned to Blackwell’s offices.
The renewed criticism irritates Blackwell. He said the postcard standard was established when Bob Taft was secretary of state for a legitimate reason: During that era, there was a trend of having voter- registration cards in newspapers. But the paper was flimsy enough that the cards were being lost in U. S. Postal Service mail sorters.
Blackwell blamed the release of voter data on “an inarticulation” of what was required by law, compounded by the need to release the information quickly to abide by the law. He said once his office was alerted to the issue, staff members worked quickly to correct it.
Catherine Turcer, a policy analyst for Common Cause Ohio who is an expert on elections issues, said the issue wasn’t Machiavellian in nature: The office screwed
up, plain and simple.
“You know how they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder?” she said. “So is incompetence.”
The federal commission quickly became embroiled in controversy after it asked secretaries of state nationwide to provide voters’ personal information, including their names, addresses and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers. Forty-five states have refused to hand over the information, and a watchdog organization has sued, saying the request violates privacy laws.
Blackwell said he understands the resistance in states where law prohibits turning over the data. But some of the states where elections officials are refusing to turn over the data have made the information requested publicly available elsewhere, he said.
“At that point, all we’re talking about is expediting getting the information quicker,” he said.