I have written this oped for the Portland Press Herald. It begins:
Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap is making a serious mistake by agreeing to participate in a sham “voter integrity” commission established by President Trump to validate his ludicrous claims about voter fraud. But it is not too late for Dunlap to withdraw, and it’s the right thing to do….
President Trump raised the voter fraud rhetoric to an unprecedented extent by claiming before the election that there was massive voter fraud taking place in “urban” (read: minority) areas of Pennsylvania and elsewhere. After the election, he made a totally debunked claim that 3 million or more noncitizens voted in 2016. So far, the most credible count of such votes, by the Brennan Center for Justice, is 30 possible noncitizen votes across the entire country. That’s right: not millions, not thousands, not even hundreds.
No responsible election professional or academic has supported Trump’s claims of massive fraud. There’s only one election professional I know of who has: Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who said, without credible evidence, that there could be a million or more fraudulent votes in the election. Kobach has a reputation for hyping unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud for his own political agenda.
Of course, Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have put Kobach in charge of a so-called “Election Integrity” commission nominally headed by Pence. Prior commissions examining election problems have been bipartisan and headed by party elders: former presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford in 2000, Carter and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III in 2004, and Bob Bauer and Ben Ginsberg in 2012. There’s no Democratic co-chair of this commission.
No one expects this commission to do what the other commissions did: consult experts, hear testimony and issue a data-driven report on ways to improve the electoral process for all Americans, Democrat or Republican. Instead, the commission’s report is likely to echo the president’s unsubstantiated allegations that fraud – or the potential for fraud – is serious. So serious, the commission will likely urge the passage of national legislation making it harder for people to register and vote. It is a means to suppress votes on a national scale.
And this is where Maine’s secretary of state fits in. He’s going to be used like a patsy….
Dunlap is skeptical of Trump’s claims, and has said his purpose in serving on the commission is to work from the inside, with a seat on the table. There is no reason to believe he can serve this purpose, even if he issues a minority report disagreeing with its findings. The report will still be trumpeted as a “bipartisan” commission that reached certain conclusions.