SSN mismatches don’t mean a voter is ineligible

I DISAGREE with your editors’ recommendation that the N.M. secretary of state cooperate with the national commission’s request for voter information.

The commission was created to prove President Trump’s claim that he would have won the national popular vote had 5 million ineligible persons not voted. Aside from the fact that the national popular vote total is utterly meaningless — the Electoral College elects the president — there is no way to determine whether the persons who voted were eligible voters. Consider the many Journal stories about the difficulties New Mexicans, especially women, have faced when seeking a valid government ID from the Motor Vehicle Department. The commission wants partial Social Security numbers so it can match Social Security names — typically birth names — against voter role names — adult names, frequently different from birth names. Will there be many mismatches? Yes. Will it mean that the mismatches were ineligible voters? No.

The chair of the commission is a wellknown leader of the effort to disqualify eligible voters — especially older and minority voters. Those efforts have been challenged in many states, and found illegal in North Carolina and Texas. What evidence led the editors to believe that this discredited official will conduct a legitimate investigation?

It’s the N.M. secretary of state, not some national group, who is responsible for ensuring all persons on N.M. rolls are eligible to vote. If the editors believe there are a substantial number of ineligible voters on N.M. rolls, they should demand that the secretary purge the rolls, not waste time and money on a meaningless and discredited national commission. JOHN ARANGO Algodones