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Shut down destructive voter fraud hunt

Wed., July 5, 2017

Before discussing the newly formed federal commission on voter fraud in the 2016 election, it helps to understand the paucity of evidence.

The conservative think tank Heritage Foundation keeps a voter fraud database. It has compiled 462 cases in 44 states, some reaching back two or three decades. It averages out to about 10 per state. Not 10 per year, but 10 per state.

President Donald Trump has claimed anywhere from 3 million to 5 million illegal votes in 2016 alone. Somehow he has divined that these alleged votes were for Hillary Clinton, which explains, to him anyway, why he didn’t win the popular vote. You should wonder why secretaries of state from both parties haven’t suspected the same.

Let’s take the estimate of 3 million. That would be an average of 60,000 illegal votes per state – more in large states, fewer in small states. The Brennan Justice Center, which has studied the issue, says it’s easier to find cases of people struck by lightning than instances of in-person voter fraud.

Still think it’s possible that fraud could be this vast? Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach agrees, and he’s been named the head of the federal commission looking into the matter. In May, Kobach secured his ninth conviction on voter fraud charges, most recently against a man who voted in Topeka and Dallas. He said, “This conviction demonstrates once again how prevalent the crime of double voting is.”

A mere nine convictions proves the opposite, as a Kansas City Star editorial pointed out. The state has 1.8 million registered voters.

Nonetheless, the president has launched a commission, which has asked all states for detailed information about its voters. Initially, it even asked for information that would be illegal to produce under many states’ laws, such as the last four digits of Social Security numbers. Most states balked at the sweeping request.

Kobach belatedly discovered that his own state couldn’t fully comply with the information request. As for information that falls under the category of public records, state officials have said the feds can access that information the way the rest of the public does.

Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman, a Republican, says if it’s a public record, the feds can have it. That includes names, addresses and dates of birth of registered voters, but it excludes Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, phone numbers or email addresses.

She also said the notion of widespread fraud is “ludicrous on its face.”

The president suggested in a tweet that states must have something to hide if they won’t fully comply. That’s a fascinating position for someone who has been reluctant to accept the overwhelming evidence that Russia meddled in the same election.

Trump’s commission isn’t about claiming an election victory – he already has that – it’s about gaining a boast. It’s a destructive exercise that only serves to undermine the credibility of a vital democratic process.