Kobach begins afternoon session of voting commission by repeating his NH voter fraud lie with only "anecdotal" evidence pic.twitter.com/fPJSXbVWlm
— Kira Lerner (@kira_lerner) September 12, 2017
I keep starting long, link-heavy posts about Kobach’s hand-picked vote-suppression committee… and the evil bastids keep getting ahead of the news. Shorter: These guys are more dangerous to the American way than a coalition of acting-out white supremacists ganged up with a band of black bloc window-breakers.
… In an September 7th article for Breitbart News, Kobach claimed that 5,313 New Hampshire voters were not residents of the state. The only “evidence” he could muster, however, was that the 5,313 had registered to vote with out-of-state driver’s licenses but had not registered a car in New Hampshire. Kobach forgot—or just intentionally ignored in furtherance of his own agenda—that thousands of New Hampshire college students from other states reside and attend classes in New Hampshire districts that saw high voter turnouts in 2016.
Kobach added that New Hampshire Democrat Maggie Hassan likely only won her senate race because it was “stolen through voter fraud.” He did not even claim to have proof.
Assembled by Trump by executive order in early May, the commission was tasked with completing a report about “vulnerabilities and issues related to voter registration and voting.” Its creation followed erroneous claims repeated by the president alleging widespread voter fraud which the president has claimed cost him the popular vote. Seemingly emasculated by having obtained fewer votes nationwide than Clinton, Trump asserted weeks after his inauguration that between 3 and 5 million illegal ballots were cast for his opponent…
Kobach and Pence eventually appointed five Democrats and seven Republicans to the commission, though Democrat Luis E. Borunda, Maryland’s deputy secretary of state, has since resigned. But it remains completely under the direction of the Republicans.
“Any truly bipartisan commission on these things has to have bipartisan leadership,” Danielle Lang, an attorney for the Campaign Legal Center, told Gizmodo. “There has to be some kind of bipartisan power on the commission—or it’s just a fig leaf. If you look at all of the former commissions that this would be similar to, they all had Democrat and Republican vice chairs. Instead, in this case, you have Kris Kobach and Mike Pence. That alone truly disqualifies it from being truly bipartisan in any meaningful way.” …
And given his background, Hans von Spakovsky should be particularly ashamed of himself, if only he understood the concept of ‘shame’.
Heritage Foundation wrote to Sessions & said voter fraud commission should exclude Dems & "mainstream Republicans" https://t.co/WV6DLEpfkA pic.twitter.com/X6lbOZWyqk
— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) September 12, 2017
Update: @Heritage just confirmed Hans von Spakovsky authored the letter. He's on the election fraud panel. (DOJ had redacted his name.) pic.twitter.com/EOHMwoCk6f
— Dell Cameron (@dellcam) September 12, 2017
I asked Hans von Spakovsky point blank less than two hours ago if he authored this document, he said no. https://t.co/Gxz1ON5Pxj
— Jessica Huseman (@JessicaHuseman) September 12, 2017
Commission ended up finding Dems from GOP-run areas who wouldn't put up a fight. https://t.co/VkMP3jcZNc
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) September 12, 2017
Trump’s “Voter Fraud” Commission: Yes, They Are Indeed FraudulentPost + Comments (59)