[EL] more on Trump commission EO

[Rick Hasen]

My Thoughts on President Trump’s Executive Order Establishing “Voter Fraud” Commission<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92477>
Posted on May 11, 2017 11:19 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92477> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
The President has just issued the promised executive order (I’ve posted it below the fold).  A few notes:

  1.  Although it broadly states a goal to look at public confidence in the election process, it seems to do this only by demanding a study of supposed voter fraud (not, as had been rumored<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-trump-expected-launch-commission-election-integrity/story?id=47337222>) voter suppression.
  2.  This breaks with the tradition of Carter-Ford, Carter-Baker, and Bauer-Ginsberg of having two well respected bipartisan leaders in charge of the Commission. It is not only led by the Republican vice president, but reports suggest that Kris Kobach<http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article149910457.html> will be the vice chair. (The EO does not list the members of the up-to-15 member commission.) That alone makes this commission suspect<http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/01/trump_s_voting_fraud_investigation_is_a_great_idea.html>. The presence of some members of the Commission who have made it their mission in life to exaggerate or lie about the extent that voter fraud is a problem in this country today as an excuse to make it harder to register and vote makes this Commission illegitimate to begin with.
  3.  It is not clear whether any serious Democrats or election professionals or academics who study election administration will be involved in the effort. Many have called for a boycott <http://www.moresoftmoneyhardlaw.com/2017/02/choosing-respond-pence-commission/> of the Commission, and that could well happen.
  4.  What is the purpose of the Commission? It does not appear aimed at studying voter fraud in a serious way. We already know that the amount of voter fraud in the last election was very small. Very very small.<https://www.brennancenter.org/publication/noncitizen-voting-missing-millions> There is absolutely no evidence supporting the President’s outlandish claim that 3 million or more non-citizen voters voted in the 2016 elections. So the point is either to give the President validation for his outlandish claims and/or to provide a pretext for passing more laws to make it harder to register and to vote.
  5.  As far as pretext goes, the thing I’m most concerned about is using the report’s “conclusions” as an excuse for Congress to pass new legislation making it harder to register and vote, such as repealing voter friendly portions of the 1993 NVRA (motor-voter law). I suspect this is the end game. (We may get some insight into this if and when Kobach’s notes<http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article149757479.html> on how to kill the NVRA are released.)
  6.  This is not a good day for those who believe we should have a system where all eligible voters, but only eligible voters, can easily cast a ballot that will be fairly and accurately counted.
Continue reading →<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92477#more-92477>




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Rick Hasen
Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
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rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>
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http://electionlawblog.org<http://electionlawblog.org/>
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