Trump Dissolves Voter Suppression Commission
In a surprise move, President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that he was dissolving the bogus voter fraud commission he created after claiming without evidence that “millions” of people voted illegally in 2016.
“Despite substantial evidence of voter fraud, many states have refused to provide the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity with basic information relevant to its inquiry,” Trump said in a statement via the White House press secretary. “Rather than engage in endless legal battles at taxpayer expense, today I signed an executive order to dissolve the Commission, and have asked the Department of Homeland Security to review these issues and determine next courses of action.”
The commission had faced numerous lawsuits, including from one of its own commissioners, since its creation last May. It was vice-chaired by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), who is known for pushing restrictive voting laws.
Civil rights groups worried that it would be use as a pretext to push for voting restrictions that would disproportionately disenfranchise minority voters, while privacy groups object to Kobach’s request for state voter roll information.
The commission met publicly only twice, in July and in September, while Democratic commissioner Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap alleged in a lawsuit that he had been cut out of its internal operations.
This is as good a time as any to point out that the Republican goal has, for decades, been to depress voter turnout, because that ensures they will win, as Paul Weyerich of the Moral Majority explained back in the 1980’s:
Even more blatantly than that, here is a Republican state legislator in Pennsylvania named Mike Turzai stating flatly that his state’s then new Voter ID law will allow Mitt Romney to win that state in 2012:
More: President Trump Abruptly Dissolves His Own Bogus Voter Fraud Commission – Talking Points Memo