State officials from Virginia, California and Kentucky said Thursday that they will refuse a request for voter roll data from President Trump’s commission on election integrity.
Earlier Thursday, it was reported that the commission sent letters to all 50 states asking for voters’ names, birthdays, the last four digits of their Social Security numbers and their voting history dating back to 2006.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) said in a statement that he has “no intention” of fulfilling the request, defending the fairness of his state’s elections. He also blasted the commission in his statement, saying it was based on the “false notion” of widespread voter fraud in the November presidential election.
“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,” McAuliffe stated.
{mosads}California Secretary of State Alex Padilla (D) also responded to the request, saying, “I will not provide sensitive voter information to a commission that has already inaccurately passed judgment that millions of Californians voted illegally” in the last election.
“California’s participation would only serve to legitimize the false and already debunked claims of massive voter fraud made by the President, Vice President, and [Kansas Secretary of State Kris] Kobach,” Padilla stated.
Kobach is the vice chairman of the voter fraud panel who asked each state for its voter rolls.
Later in the evening, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) said she also wouldn’t offer up the information requested by the panel.
“The president created his election commission based on the false notion that “voter fraud” is a widespread issue – it is not,” Grimes said in a statement Thursday.
“Indeed, despite bipartisan objections and a lack of authority, the President has repeatedly spread the lie that three to five million illegal votes were cast in the last election,” her statement continued. “Kentucky will not aid a commission that is at best a waste of taxpayer money and at worst an attempt to legitimize voter suppression efforts across the country.”
Trump signed an executive order in May establishing the commission, stating that the purpose of the group is to “promote fair and honest federal elections.”
Kobach and Trump have both made unsubstantiated claims that large numbers of undocumented immigrants vote in the 2016 U.S. elections.