Celeste Katz: Because the commission hadn’t officially met to begin business, Dunlap said the letter signed by Kobach and sent to all 50 states wasn’t first vetted by other panel members. As for the reaction, Dunlap said, “some of that … Continue reading
Category Archives: The Voting Wars
Larry Schwartztol for Take Care: In other words, the Commission’s failure to adhere to the PRA isn’t a matter of mere technical non-compliance; it flouted a legal framework whose provisions would have offered a safeguard against a misguided, and potentially … Continue reading
Statement via Jessica Huseman, who adds: “A good way to prevent ‘media distortions’ is to answer the phone when the media calls with questions, or to respond to emails with questions…lot of journalists *did* mischaracterize the email Kobach sent out/states … Continue reading
Release: On Monday, the Lawyers’ Committee submitted a request under the Federal Advisory Committee Act for all of the Commission’s records to date. The request includes all emails from Commission members — including Vice President Mike Pence and the Commission’s … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
NLJ: A federal judge may decide by Friday whether to block President Donald Trump’s newly created voting commission from asking states to hand over voters’ personal data. … Continue reading
Stuart Shapiro for Regulatory Review: Recently, the newly created Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity sent a letter to all fifty states asking them to submit extensive information about registered voters. The letter has created an uproar among state officials, and many have announced their … Continue reading
Ari Berman for The Nation. … Continue reading
HuffPo: Former Department of Justice officials and voting advocates are seriously alarmed over a DOJ letter sent to states last week that they say could signal a forthcoming effort to kick people off voter rolls. This comes as national attention … Continue reading
Becker oped in The Hill: I led an effort several years ago, working with election officials of both parties and experts to solve the problem of inaccurate voter records, most of which are not due to fraud at all, but … Continue reading
Tierney Sneed reports for TPM. … Continue reading
Speaking to Anderson Cooper at CNN, Kobach defended the Faux Commission by stating: “First of all, the commission is not to prove or disprove what the President speculated about in January,” Kobach said. “The purpose of the commission is to … Continue reading
CNN: Forty-four states have refused to provide certain types of voter information to the Trump administration’s election integrity commission, according to a CNN inquiry to all 50 states. State leaders and voting boards across the country have responded to the … Continue reading
Colorado Politics: A group of Georgia voters and a Colorado-based watchdog organization filed a lawsuit late Monday asking a judge to overturn the results of last month’s 6th Congressional District special election and scrap the state’s voting system, Colorado Politics has … Continue reading
Texas Tribune: Yet despite the hassle — and the significant cost — Phillips, Denton County’s elections administrator, is looking forward to this fall, when he will implement the county’s newest voting plan: a complete return to the paper ballot. The … Continue reading
Charles Stewart for Politico: If Kobach’s goal was to create a super crosscheck program, he would have been disappointed, even if every state had complied. His letter requests data that are ill-suited for accurate matching. Not only are the matching … Continue reading
Mic: Asked for comment about the recent turmoil involving the commission, a White House spokesperson responded late Monday night: “President Trump has charged this commission with producing a set of recommendations to increase the American people’s confidence in our election … Continue reading
NYT editorial: The better question is what Mr. Trump and his allies so desperately hope to find. Remember that the commission was reverse-engineered to provide a veneer of legitimacy to Mr. Trump’s bogus claims that millions of noncitizens voted in 2016 — … Continue reading
Great Dale Ho NYT oped: There are obvious data privacy concerns. Digital security experts have called the plan a gold mine for hackers. Mr. Kobach’s letter says the data will be held on a “secure FTP site,” but offers no details. Mr. Kobach … Continue reading
Baltimore Sun: Maryland’s deputy Secretary of State has resigned from a controversial Trump administration panel probing alleged voter fraud in last year’s presidential election….Borunda did not respond to a request for comment. Correction: The initial headline of this post indicated that Borunda … Continue reading
ProPublica interview with former WI legislator Dale Schultz: The Republicans pushing the voter ID effort cited voter fraud as a concern and a reason to tighten voting rules and requirements. Did anyone ever show you compelling evidence of that? No, in … Continue reading
Release: Today, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law filed a formal Hatch Act Complaint against Kris Kobach who appears to have violated the Hatch Act in connection with his role as Vice Chair of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. … Continue reading
Celeste Katz: When President Donald Trump’s new Commission on Election Integrity sent out a request for reams of personal information about voters, Denise Merrill was skeptical — but tentatively cooperative. The Connecticut secretary of state released a statement saying that “in the spirit of transparency,” she … Continue reading
WaPo editorial. … Continue reading
Government Executive: A spending bill from the House Appropriations Committee unveiled Thursday would give the Election Assistance Commission 60 days to terminate itself. The small agency was created after the tightly contested 2000 presidential election. It has an annual budget of about … Continue reading
Miles Rapoport: Well, it’s now the end of June, and while some legislatures are still in session, the great majority have finished their business for the year. Several states have indeed passed bad bills. But, overall, the results are significantly … Continue reading
Celeste Katz: He’s calling a spade a spade. President Donald Trump lashed out at critics of his “election integrity commission” on Twitter Saturday, describing the group specifically as a “very distinguished VOTER FRAUD PANEL.” … Continue reading
Politico: Cybersecurity specialists are warning that President Donald Trump’s voter-fraud commission may unintentionally expose voter data to even more hacking and digital manipulation. Their concerns stem from a letter the commission sent to every state this week, asking for full … Continue reading
Important Michael Wines in the NYT, rounding up the state of play: ata of the nation’s 200 million voters set off an avalanche of opposition by state leaders in both parties on Friday, as officials from California to Mississippi called … Continue reading
Watch. … Continue reading
Nice job by Ari. You can listen here. Kobach falsely claims he is just asking for publicly available information. But it includes SSNs and other information. He says the Commission will study security of state voter rolls. This is new. … Continue reading
“They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi is a great state to launch from,”….“Mississippi residents should celebrate Independence Day and our state’s right to protect the privacy of our citizens by conducting our own electoral processes.” … Continue reading
I have written this piece for Slate. It begins: Donald Trump’s attempt at voter suppression through his “election integrity” commission is a voting rights nightmare that is being enacted so clumsily it just might backfire….. Kobach’s likely going to use this information … Continue reading
Justin at Take Care on the requests for voter information I expressed concern about yesterday: In the abstract, the information itself isn’t the real problem. There are ways that careful researchers engage voter files that can assist and enlighten. But … Continue reading
[Bumped to top] I thought it could not get worse with the Pence-Kobach faux election integrity commission with the appointment of Kris Kobach, the Secretary of State of Kansas who has trumped up claims of voter fraud to advance his … Continue reading
Statement. … Continue reading
WFPL: Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes says her office will not release state voter data to President Donald Trump’s election commission…. Grimes, a Democrat, issued a statement on Twitter saying she would not release state voters’ sensitive personal … Continue reading
Smart and careful post from Charles: I’ve had a chance now to read the letter that vice-chair Kris Kobach has sent to the states, requesting that they send the Pence Commission copies of their publicly available voter files. My initial … Continue reading
Smart post: The fact that all these things happened on the same day raises significant questions and concerns. Is the DOJ coordinating with the PACEI, and if so, what role is the DOJ playing in the PCEI’s efforts? How does … Continue reading
This morning I blogged about the Pence-Kobach commission’s call for voter data, and how that raised privacy and other concerns. We we now have seen the letter (via Bryan Lowry), and it raises three immediateconcerns. The letter calls on each state’s … Continue reading
The sham Pence commission wants data from state voter rolls. But it is not clear how this will go. David Becker on the privacy issue and about concerns of securing the data.. It is also not clear whether Democratic election … Continue reading
Pam Fessler for NPR: Most Americans – 59 percent — think everything possible should be done to make it easy for citizens to vote. Almost 80 percent say they oppose making voting mandatory. These are the results of a new … Continue reading
VICE News reports. … Continue reading
Capital News Service: Last fall, a pair of groups supported by conservatives released a report with the sensational title “Alien Invasion in Virginia: The discovery and coverup of noncitizen registration and voting.” It said illegal voting is a “massive problem”:… … Continue reading
The 24-page order and opinion of the magistrate judge could be appealed. The underlying document—Kobach’s advice to Trump as to how to make it harder for people to register to vote by changing the federal National Voter Registration Act (NVRA)—remains … Continue reading
Zack Roth: President Trump’s commission on voter fraud appears to be struggling to attract A-list talent, at least among Democrats. The White House announced three new members of the panel late Wednesday: Mark Rhodes, the clerk for Wood County, West … Continue reading
Letter: This letter was sent to the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence following a hearing on June 21, 2017. (Download PDF) Verified Voting vigorously applauds the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for its leadership and commitment to securing our … Continue reading
This, from the SOS of a state whose voting security is most worrisome: Brian Kemp, the Republican secretary of state of Georgia, used the call to denounce Johnson’s proposal as an assault on state rights. “I think it was a … Continue reading
CNN; On Super Bowl Sunday this year, President Donald Trump told Fox News that Vice President Mike Pence would head a commission into voter fraud allegations — ones that he made, claiming that between three to five million people voted … Continue reading
Politifact: The claim made on Fox and Friends is based on an extrapolation of a controversial study that relied on a very small number of responses. Researchers involved in the underlying survey of voters have cautioned against using their data … Continue reading