Voter Suppression Commission Has Been Dissolved

Dictators stay in power by not allowing a vote for their position at all or staging an "election" that is controlled in a manner that pre-determines the results.  In the United States, something so brazen seems unimaginable.  Wake up.

An Executive Order in May 2017 established a "Election Integrity Commission" with the intend to supress votes in future elections. That move to supposedly fight what we know to be non-existent voter fraud was directly from a dictator playbook, supported not just by Trump, but by a Republican Party determined to hold onto power at all costs.

As reported in July 2017, this commission was having little success thanks to the resistance of many states.

Now the commission has been dissolved via a Trump Executive Order.

White House announced Wednesday that President Trump's controversial Advisory Commission on Election Integrity — which was mired in lawsuits and had received pushback from states over voter data requests — has been dissolved..... many states have refused to provide the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity with basic information relevant to its inquiry.... Multiple lawsuits were filed against the group, which some Republicans on the panel last fall complained ultimately hobbled its work.

As noted by David Dayen, a writer for The Nation, New Republic, and The Intercept, "The important point on the voter fraud commission is that they never had a mandate to do anything. Just had to create 'periodic reports,' no end date, no deadline. The real goal was to use it as a conduit to get state voter records, to plug in to Operation Crosscheck and other vote-suppressing mechanisms. Once that went awry in the courts, there was no reason for it."

The commission....was led by Vice President Pence and Kansas Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who has long claimed there is widespread voter fraud by noncitizens despite providing no evidence of any such improprieties and only prosecuting a few fraud cases in Kansas.

 

Sources:

https://www.npr.org/2018/01/03/575524512/trump-dissolves-controversial-election-commission

http://smartdissent.com/article/executive-order-commission-election-integrity-voter-suppression

http://smartdissent.com/article/election-integrity-commission-begins-voter-suppression-effort

https://twitter.com/ddayen/status/948708638503288832

 

Date: 
Thursday, January 4, 2018