Officials from three states said Thursday they would refuse to cooperate with President Donald Trump’s Election Integrity Commission.
Authorities in the states of Democrat-controlled Virginia and California and the Democratic Secretary of State of Kentucky told the White House that they would not supply the commission with the names, birthdays, the last four digits of social security numbers, and the voting history of their voters.
The Democratic Governor of Virginia, long-time Clinton operative Terry McAuliffe, told the commission he has “no intention” of supplying the information. McAuliffe said the commission is fueled by the “false notion” of voter fraud in the 2016 election, according to The Hill.
In a statement, California Democratic Secretary of State Alex Padilla said, “I will not provide sensitive voter information to a commission that has already inaccurately passed judgment that millions of Californians voted illegally” last year.
“California’s participation would only serve to legitimize the false and already debunked claims of massive voter fraud made by the President, Vice President, and [commission head] Kobach,” Padilla added.
Kentucky’s Democratic Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes also insisted the commission was based on a false claim of widespread voter fraud in last year’s presidential election. Grimes also said President Trump was “spreading a lie” that up to five million illegal votes were cast in 2016.
“Kentucky will not aid a commission that is at best a waste of taxpayer money and at worst an attempt to legitimize voter suppression efforts across the country,” Grimes concluded.
President Trump has often repeated his claim that millions of illegal votes were cast in the 2016 election, and he convened his panel to get to the truth of the matter.
“The Commission will review policies and practices that enhance or undermine the American people’s confidence in the integrity of Federal elections,” a White House official said in May. “This will include reviewing laws and activities that lead to improper registrations, improper voting, fraudulent registrations, fraudulent voting, and voting suppression.”
Meanwhile, a new look at voter data from past elections seems to show that there was, indeed, millions of votes cast by people voting illegally.
A review of data by the think tank Just Facts found that up to 5.7 million votes were cast illegally in 2008.
And, even as Virginia Governor McAuliffe continues to maintain that there was no vote fraud in 2016, analysis of Virginia voting rolls has shown that there were as many as 5,556 people registered to vote in the Commonwealth who did not qualify to vote or whose registration was fraudulent.
In addition, several states have begun eliminating illegal or outdated voter registrations from their rolls after tens of thousands of illicit registrations were discovered. States including West Virginia, Indiana, Oregon, Mississippi, and New Mexico have all taken steps to cull their voter rolls of illegal voter registrations lending credence to the president’s claim that there is something seriously amiss in our election system.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston, or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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