An attempt by Donald Trump’s
newly convened commission on election integrity to gather detailed information on the country’s voting population prompted a furious backlash on Friday, as at least 24 states either resisted the request on privacy protection grounds or flat-out rejected it as a backdoor effort at mass voter suppression.
On Saturday the president gave voice to his frustration,
tweeting: “Numerous states are refusing to give information to the very distinguished VOTER FRAUD PANEL. What are they trying to hide?”
In a
letter sent to the states on Thursday, the commission’s vice-chair, Kris Kobach, asked for comprehensive lists including names of voters, addresses, voting histories, party affiliation, criminal histories, military status and more. The letter did not spell out how the commission intended to use this information, but in an
interview with the Kansas City Star newspaper, Kobach said he wanted to “quantify different forms of voter fraud and registration fraud and offer solutions”.
That set alarm bells ringing among election experts and voting rights activists who have followed Kobach’s career as elections chief in Kansas and seen him cite the risk of individual voter fraud – in reality, a negligible or non-existent problem – as an excuse to pass controversial laws making it harder for many lower-income and minority voters to cast a ballot.
Many of them believe the commission has been set up to justify Trump’s false claim – echoed by Kobach and by the commission’s chairman, vice-president Mike Pence – that 3 to 5m votes were cast illegally in last November’s election.
California’s elections chief, Alex Padilla, said his state’s participation “would only serve to legitimize the false and already debunked claims of massive voter fraud”. He called the commission “a waste of taxpayer money and a distraction from the real threats to the integrity of our elections today: aging voting systems and documented Russian interference in our elections”.