Election Integrity Commission Begins Work on Voter Suppression with Limited Success

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.  In May 2017, an executive order was signed to create a commision on election integrity.  We must view that executive order to eliminate non-existent voter fraud as directly from the playbook of a dictator, supported not just by Trump, but by a Republican Party determined to hold onto power at all costs.

"This entire commission is based on the specious and false notion that there was widespread voter fraud last November," Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe said. "At best this commission was set up as a pretext to validate Donald Trump's alternative election facts, and at worst is a tool to commit large-scale voter suppression."

The Election Integrity Commission is run by Kris Kobach, who has made voter suppression via a crusade against non-existent voter fraud, the central issue of his devious life.  Kobach "has a lengthy record of illegally disenfranchising eligible voters in Kansas" as so kindly stated by Connecticut's Secretary of State, Denise Merrill.  Merill went on to say, "given Secretary Kobach's history we find it very difficult to have confidence in the work of this Commission."

[Kobach] has penned a letter to all 50 states requesting their full voter-roll data, including the name, address, date of birth, party affiliation, last four Social Security number digits and voting history back to 2006 of potentially every voter in the state... “any documents that are submitted to the full Commission will also be made available to the public.”

The response was swift, with intelligent leaders sounding alarms as clearly as they can.

“The concern is that this is going to be used to justify regressive and disenfranchising federal law,” Myrna Pérez, deputy director of the democracy program at New York University Law School's Brennan Center for Justice, said in an interview.

Vanita Gupta, chief executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and former head of the Justice Department's civil rights division, said on Twitter that the letter is “laying the groundwork for voter suppression, plain & simple.”

Almost all states have respond to Kobach and his voter suppression commission with complete disgust.

Forty-four states have refused to provide certain types of voter information to the Trump administration's election integrity commission.... Nineteen openly criticized the commission's request.

Privacy is a concern of many of the states and citizens, which has caused even many states led by Republicans to reject Kobach's request. 

While civil-liberties advocates are concerned with what Kobach might do with what would amount to a nationwide voter file, privacy advocates worry about the implications of making such data available to the public, as the commission says it intends to do.

Sources: 

http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/03/politics/kris-kobach-letter-voter-fraud-commission-information/index.html
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/340192-state-officials-refuse-to-turn-over-voter-roll-data-to-trump
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/29/trumps-voter-fraud-commission-wants-to-know-the-voting-history-party-i...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/magazine/the-man-behind-trumps-voter-fraud-obsession.html