UPDATE: Looks like the commission is indeed closed, in theory, but its responsibilities (ie voter suppression tactics) are moving over to DHS. Politico is reporting that officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and political appointees will take over efforts to "match state voter rolls to federal databases of noncitizens."
I can't see how this could possibly work, unless you are trying to purge voter rolls of anyone with a Hispanic or Latino "sounding" name.
Kobach said: "It’s the right move. It's a shifting in tactics from having the investigation be done by a federal commission to having it be done by a federal agency. The agency has a greater ability to move quickly to get the investigation done."
ICE has almost no expertise in this type of work. But hey, people that are known for intimidating citizens and non-citizens, utilizing brutal and abusive detainment and the new tactic of tearing away children from parents...that is who Trump thinks is the best at finding non-existent voter fraud.
Donald Trump's "Voter Fraud Commission" is officially closed for business. I guess they found their scam committee's work stumped when at least 30 states refused to hand over extremely sensitive information on their voters.
Democrats rejoiced at the news of the commission's disbanding. Senator Chuck Schumer said in a statement:
“The commission never had anything to do with election integrity. It was instead a front to suppress the vote, perpetrate dangerous and baseless claims, and was ridiculed from one end of the country to the other. This shows that ill-founded proposals that just appeal to a narrow group of people won’t work, and we hope they’ll learn this lesson elsewhere.”
The commission has been fraught with problems since its inception, flooded with lawsuits and facing numerous challenges from states who refused to hand over voter roll information. The panel only formally met twice - once in July and once in September.
It became clear pretty early on that the focus of the commission was not detecting fraud but rather voter suppression. Intimidation, rolling back voter protections and scaring people from actually even showing up was their focus from the inception.
The White House put out this statement
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. Rather than engage in endless legal battles at taxpayer expense, today President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order to dissolve the Commission, and he has asked the Department of Homeland Security to review its initial findings and determine next courses of action.
If by "substantial evidence of voter fraud" they mean these FOUR cases from the 2016 election. Oh, and they were all Republican. Further, the Brennan Center for Justice published a comprehensive report regarding the (lack of) voter fraud, with numerous cited studies.
Jim Acosta, with the sick burn
Are you tired of all the winning yet? I am (not).
