[EL] Trump "voter fraud" "commission" is coming

Thu May 11 06:46:40 PDT 2017

To members of this listserve, especially the academics:

If the President does indeed create a commission to study voter fraud 
and voter suppression in the American election system to be headed by 
the Vice Preisdent and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, I'm 
calling on scholars of election administration to resist participation 
of any kind in such an effort.  We should expect a Pence-Kobach 
Commission to find "evidence" of rampant voter fraud across the U.S., 
and to recommend proposals to amend the Voting Rights Act and the 
National Voter Registration Act to require proof-of-citizenship to 
register and a national voter ID requirement, among other changes that 
will be damaging to voting rights and therefore, damaging to democracy.

I am proposing a Commission of scholars and voting rights advocates to 
gather information to inform the public.  Such a commission (or a 
working group of some kind) does not need the participation of partisan 
luminaries or politicians for credibility.  With the assault on 
democracy underway, the most important divide is not between Democrats 
and Republicans, it is between lies and the truth, and democracy and 
authoritarianism. Please email me if you would like to be involved in 
organizing a non (not bi-) partisan commission on voter fraud and voter 
suppression to offer evidence, facts and analysis that the public will 
need to sort through what we can anticipate will come out of a 
Pence-Kobach Commission.

Lori Minnite (lminnite at gmail.com)

On 5/11/17 7:25 AM, Rick Hasen wrote:
>
> *Breaking: Trump to Launch a Voting “Commission” with No Credibilit, 
> with Pence, Kobach, and the EAC’s McCormick 
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92471>*
>
> Posted on May 11, 2017 4:23 am 
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92471> by *Rick Hasen* 
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>
> ABC News: 
> <http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-trump-expected-launch-commission-election-integrity/story?id=47337222>
>
> /President Donald Trump 
> <http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/donald-trump.htm> is expected to 
> sign an executive order 
> <http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/issues/executive-orders.htm> today 
> establishing a commission to review alleged voter fraud and voter 
> suppression 
> <http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/issues/voter-suppression.htm> in 
> the American election system, multiple senior administration officials 
> tell ABC News./
>
> /The officials say Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of 
> State Kris Kobach will be announced as Chair and Vice Chair of the 
> ‘Presidential Commission on Election Integrity’ in a press release 
> today. It’s not clear whether the White House will allow coverage of 
> the order signing./
>
> /The commission, which will include Republicans and Democrats, will be 
> tasked with studying “vulnerabilities” in U.S. voting systems and 
> potential effects on “improper voting, fraudulent voter registrations 
> and fraudulent voting,” according to one official with knowledge of 
> the announcement…./
>
> /Membership of the commission is still taking shape even as Trump is 
> poised to sign the order creating it. Indiana Secretary of State 
> Connie Lawson (R), New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner (D), 
> Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap (D), Christie McCormick, 
> commissioner of the election assistance commission, and former Ohio 
> Secretary of State Ken Blackwell (R), are among the names under 
> consideration, the administration officials said./
>
> Not sure what Democrat or election professional would be on a 
> commission with Kobach or with Ken Blackwell—this is not a commission 
> designed to ferret out the truth given their track record. But I am 
> extremely disappointed to see EAC Commissioner Christie McCormick on 
> this commission, lending the EAC’s credibility to a farcical effort.
>
> Back on January 25, when the idea for this “commission” was first 
> floated, I laid down some markers 
> <http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/01/trump_s_voting_fraud_investigation_is_a_great_idea.html> at 
> Slate for what a fair commission would look like, and the need for a 
> shadow commission if Trump did not follow fundamental rules of fairness:
>
> /First, members of the commission should be bipartisan and 
> well-respected on all sides. This was the model of the Carter-Ford 
> commission 
> <http://web1.millercenter.org/commissions/comm_2001.pdf> that 
> investigated problems with the 2000 election, the Carter-Baker 
> Commission 
> <https://www.eac.gov/assets/1/AssetManager/Exhibit%20M.PDF> that 
> investigated problems with the 2004 election, and the Presidential 
> Commission on Election Administration 
> <https://www.supportthevoter.gov/> that was led by leading Democratic 
> lawyer Bob Bauer and leading Republican lawyer Ben Ginsberg and that 
> investigated problems with long lines and election administration 
> after the 2012 election.* 
> <http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/01/trump_s_voting_fraud_investigation_is_a_great_idea.html#cx> Legal 
> commentator Andrew Cohen has suggested 
> <https://www.brennancenter.org/blog/its-time-to-investigate-voter-fraud> a 
> commission headed by retired Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day 
> O’Connor, David Souter, and John Paul Stevens, with a staff led by 
> former U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. (All are Republicans, though 
> Souter and Stevens leaned pretty liberal when they were on the court.)/
>
> /Second, the commission should have professional staff with experience 
> dealing with election administration aimed at searching for the truth 
> through an examination of credible evidence. The Bauer-Ginsberg 
> commission’s research director was Nate Persily 
> <http://www.persily.com/>, a Stanford law and political science 
> professor who is known for his careful and even-handed research. Back 
> in 2000 there were few political scientists and law professors 
> studying the details of election administration. Now there are many 
> and a large set of peer-reviewed studies on these issues, including 
> questions of voter fraud. There are plenty of ways to try to examine 
> these issues, and the precise claim of President Trump that 3 million 
> to 5 million votes could have been cast illegally in a massive 
> conspiracy without detection should be probed in a fair and scientific 
> way…../
>
> There’s a lot more in there.  I expect few of any of these markers 
> will be met.
>
> The only good news since I wrote this piece? The Administration’s 
> credibility is so low that few except the true believers are likely to 
> believe anything produced by the likely worthless report.
>
> hare 
> <https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D92471&title=Breaking%3A%20Trump%20%20to%20Launch%20a%20Voting%20%E2%80%9CCommission%E2%80%9D%20with%20No%20Credibilit%2C%20with%20Pence%2C%20Kobach%2C%20and%20the%20EAC%E2%80%99s%20McCormick>
>
> -- 
>
> Rick Hasen
>
> Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
>
> UC Irvine School of Law
>
> 401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
>
> Irvine, CA 92697-8000
>
> 949.824.3072 - office
>
> 949.824.0495 - fax
>
> rhasen at law.uci.edu <mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>
>
> http://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
>
> http://electionlawblog.org <http://electionlawblog.org/>
>
>
>
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