Ariz. to provide voter data to Trump commission

PHOENIX — The state’s top election official is preparing to turn over data on Arizona’s 3.6 million registration voters to the head of a Trump-created commission exploring elections fraud.

In a statement Friday, Michele Reagan said Kris Kobach who is making the same request of all 50 states is entitled to “the same redacted information that is available to the general public through a public records request.’’

Reagan said he won’t get everything he wants.

She said state law precludes her from giving out the last four digits of voters’ social security numbers. And the data will not include a date of birth but only the birth year.

But Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes said Kobach, a Trump ally who contends millions of people not in this country legally voted in the last election, may not be entitled to even what’s left.

He agreed that Arizona law does make the records public.

But Fones said that law also says information in registration records can be used only for political party activity, campaigns, revising voter precinct boundaries and other purposes “specifically authorized by law.’’ He contends that does not include Kobach’s purported interest, even for purposes of a presidential commission.

What’s worse, Fontes said, is that Kobach, in his letter to state election officials, told them that whatever they turn over to him will, in turn, be made public by the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.

“Here’s Kris Kobach, running around and telling everybody that they’re going to publish everything all over the place,’’ he said. “That’s voter suppression.’’

Fontes said people already are worried.

“I’ve already got voters calling me, asking me how they can unregister to vote because they don’t want Donald Trump to have their voter information,’’ he said. Fontes said there’s reason for concern, citing is Kobach’s “history of voter suppression’’ as secretary of state in Kansas.

Pima County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez had her own questions about why Kobach should get the information.

“What is the goal, what is the objective?’’ she asked.

Rodriguez also noted that the request, while on commission letterhead, appears to come strictly from Kobach. She questioned whether this is what the commission wants or just Kobach.

But David Stevens, his Cochise County counterpart, said Kobach’s intent may not matter legally.

“The voting records are public if you come into my office,’’ he said. And Stevens said anyone can purchase the list as long as it’s not for commercial purposes.

Reagan spokesman Matt Roberts said his boss hasn’t received her copy of the letter that already has been sent to election officials in several other states. He said a formal response to Kobach will come once that happens.

Trump established the commission in May, naming Kobach and Vice President Mike Pence as co-chairs. Among its duties are to find laws, rules, policies and practices that “undermine the American people’s confidence in the integrity of the voting processes used in federal elections’’ and “vulnerabilities’’ that could lead to fraudulent registration and voting.

But the choice of Kobach has led to fears the commission is being guided to a pre-conceived conclusion that there is massive voter fraud.

For example, he told Fox Business in January that “probably in excess of a million’’ people who are not citizens voted in the 2016 election and that Trump might have won the popular vote over Hillary Clinton but for “really big states like California, Texas ... that have a large alien population.’’

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said he won’t honor the request, questioning Kobach’s agenda.

“At best this commission was set up as a pretext to validate Donald Trump’s alternative election facts, and at worst is a tool to commit large-scale voter suppression,’’ said McAuliffe, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee said.

According to the Associated Press, officials in 10 states and the District of Columbia said they would not comply at all with Kobach’s request. Those states are California, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee and Virginia.