Voter data request raises questions
Forgive us if we are a bit suspicious of the request from Kris Kobach and the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity for information on voters from every state in the country.
Kobach, Kansas’ secretary of state and a Republican candidate for governor, is vice chairman of the advisory commission. He has advised President Donald Trump on immigration, as well.
Last week, Kobach requested information about voters as part of the commission’s work to “increase the integrity of our election system.”
According to a letter Kobach sent to the Alabama secretary of state, he asked for publicly-available voter data including the “first and last names of all registrants, middle names or initials if available, addresses, dates of birth, political party (if recorded in your state), last four digits of social security number if available, voter history (elections voted in) from 2006 onward, active/inactive status, canceled status, information regarding any felony convictions, information regarding voter registration in another state, information regarding military status, and overseas citizen information.”
Kobach received the authority to prosecute voter fraud in Kansas in 2015 and has been on a crusade regarding a problem that has, until now, proven to be nothing more than minimal. He has won eight convictions for voter fraud since 2015.
Trump has said that up to 5 million people voted illegally in the presidential election but has provided no evidence to support his statements.
Kobach’s credibility dipped further last week when he was fined $1,000 by a federal magistrate in a case involving efforts by the American Civil Liberties Union to see a document Kobach took to a meeting with Trump in November that made reference to a possible amendment to the National Voting Registration Act.
U. S. Magistrate Judge James O’Hara described Kobach’s conduct in the matter as deceptive and said he made “patently misleading representations” to the court about the contents of the document. Kobach has said it was a misunderstanding.
As advocates for access to public records, we would never suggest that the commission be denied access information that is, by law, public. We are glad to see that Kansas and other states have said they will not provide information that does not meet that standard, such as the social security numbers of voters.
Kobach and the commission should also be subject to laws that allow states to charge those asking for access to public records for staff time to prepare, review and redact the information.
In the end, however, we have serious doubts about the premise of the request for information and about the motives of those involved.
This story was originally published July 5, 2017 at 5:04 AM with the headline "Voter data request raises questions."