Michigan: Johnson: Michigan may boost post-election audits | The Detroit News

Secretary of State Ruth Johnson said Thursday voting irregularities in Detroit and elsewhere in Michigan that spurred a state audit of the city’s ballots are prompting consideration of expanding post-election audits. Voting machines in more than one-third of all Detroit precincts registered more votes than they should have during the presidential election, according to Wayne County records prepared at the request of The Detroit News. The voting irregularities prompted an audit of the city’s ballots following the election. “We’ve done 1,400 of them, and we’re going to be looking at how we can broaden those audits even further,” Johnson said after a celebration of Michigan’s 180th anniversary as a state, without providing further details. “We’re looking at that right now because we’re doing some auditing of some of the communities that had some issues, and then we’ll know more exactly what we need to do because there’s nothing more important to democracy than making sure that we have great elections.” Detailed reports from the office of Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett show optical scanners at 248 of Detroit’s 662 precincts, or 37 percent, tabulated more ballots than the number of voters tallied by workers in the poll books.

Mississippi: Voter fraud probe traced back to ex-Mississippi welfare head | The Clarion Ledger

The former Mississippi official whose tweet may have inspired President Trump to order a “major investigation” into voter fraud in the 2016 presidential election says he has been receiving death threats. “There are people who want to kill me,” ex-welfare head Gregg Phillips told The Clarion-Ledger. “It’s insane.” PolitiFact and others have traced the original claim regarding fraud on Election Day to Phillips, who in the past has been accused of profiting from connections he made while serving in government — something he has denied. After Trump’s victory, Phillips tweeted out, “We have verified more than three million votes cast by non-citizens. We are joining @truethevote to initiate legal action.” Then he tweeted: “Completed analysis of database of 180 million voter registrations. Number of non-citizen votes exceeds 3 million. Consulting legal team.” InfoWars published a story with the headline, “Report: Three Million Votes in Presidential Election Cast by Illegal Aliens. Trump may have won popular vote.” The Drudge Report picked up the story, too.

Wyoming: House Passes Bill Which Would Automatically Restore Voting Rights of Some Nonviolent Felons | KTWO

A person convicted in Wyoming of a nonviolent felony who completes their entire sentence on or after Jan. 1, 2010, would have their voting rights automatically restored under a bill passed Thursday by the Wyoming House of Representatives. House Bill 75 passed on third reading by a vote of 41-17 with two lawmakers excused. The measure would require people convicted of a nonviolent felony who completed their sentence — including probation and parole — before 2010 to fill out a request form and be found eligible before their voting rights could be restored.

Canada: Supreme Court rejects appeal against B.C. Election Act | CBC

The Supreme Court of Canada has dismissed an appeal of what B.C. civil liberty groups have argued is an election gag law. The B.C. Election Act forces people to register before sponsoring political advertising during a provincial election — even if little or no money is spent. Though the appeal was rejected and the law was upheld, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) says the ruling is a partial win because it clarifies a law that has caused confusion and even self-censoring in the past. “The court has kind of reinterpreted what election advertising actually is in a way that I think will be helpful to individuals who want to speak out about the issues that matter to them during an election campaign,” said Laura Track, a lawyer with the BCCLA.

France: Neighbors Sound Alarm Over Election ‘Catastrophe’ Risk | Bloomberg

Leaders in Spain and Germany voiced concern that the Europe Union faces collapse as a result of anti-establishment forces campaigning to tear down the bloc, singling out their common neighbor France as the potential trigger. Europe’s unprecedented electoral calendar, with ballots this year in France, the Netherlands and Germany — plus possibly in Italy — presents the continent’s “enemies” with the chance to wreck the EU, according to German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, a Social Democrat. He cited Brexit’s cheerleaders among the bloc’s foes.

Italy: Court ruling paves way for possible 2017 election | Reuters

Italy’s constitutional court on Wednesday threw out aspects of an electoral law approved by former prime minister Matteo Renzi but presented a reworked version that can be used immediately, raising the chance of early elections this year. Italy’s largest parties – Renzi’s Democratic Party (PD) and the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement – are both calling for a vote by the summer, about a year ahead of schedule. The system laid out by the court, which only applies to the lower house Chamber of Deputies, is based on proportional representation and hands a clear parliamentary majority to any party winning 40 percent of the vote.

Nepal: NC pressuring PM to declare civic elections | The Himalayan Times

Nepali Congress leaders have mounted pressure on Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal to announce local polls so that it will have a chance to lead the government after the local polls as per the gentlemen’s agreement. Senior NC leader Gopal Man Shrestha said that his party had been asking the government to announce election schedules immediately as per the recent understandingbetween the three big parties — the NC, the CPN-UML and CPN-Maoist Centre. “We want elections to be held immediately to implement and save the constitution,” he added. NC leaders claim that there was a gentlemen’s agreement between the NC and the CPN-Maoist Centre that the CPN-MC would lead the government till the local elections and the NC would take the mantle of the government after the local polls.

National: Trump wants to spend millions on voter fraud that doesn’t exist | Miami Herald

President Donald Trump wants to potentially spend tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to examine a problem that’s been proven over and over not to exist: systemic voter fraud. Trump, in tweets Wednesday, announced that he’ll seek a “major investigation” into voter fraud, echoing his unsubstantiated claim that some 3 million to 5 million people voted illegally in November’s election, helping to propel Democrat Hillary Clinton to a big popular-vote advantage. The president’s fraud claim is emphatically rebuffed by the nation’s secretaries of states, who monitor elections, as well as reams of government and academic studies that say that occurrences of voter fraud are infinitesimal. “We are not aware of any evidence that supports the voter fraud claims made by President Trump,” the National Association of Secretaries of State said in a statement Tuesday. “In the lead-up to the November 2016 election, secretaries of state expressed their confidence in the systemic integrity of our election process as a bipartisan group, and they stand behind that statement today.” Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Republican, felt compelled to do a tweet of his own challenging Trump’s assertion. “We conducted a review 4 years ago in Ohio & already have a statewide review of 2016 election underway. Easy to vote, hard to cheat,” he tweeted. Apparently, even Trump’s lawyers don’t believe voter fraud was a problem in the 2016 election. His lawyers objected in a court filing to Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein’s Michigan recount petition last year, Business Insider reported Wednesday. “On what basis does Stein seek to disenfranchise Michigan citizens?” the filing said. “None really, save for speculation. All available evidence suggests that the 2016 general election was not tainted by fraud or mistake.”

National: Voting rights advocates fear Trump’s unfounded fraud claims will lead to more restrictive laws | The Washington Post

President Trump’s plans to ask for a “major investigation” into allegations of widespread voter fraud were met with skepticism by both Democratic and Republican lawmakers — and fear from voting rights advocates that the president will use his unfounded claims to justify more-restrictive voting laws. It is unclear who will investigate Trump’s belief that he lost the popular vote in November’s election because millions of illegal votes were cast. The president could set up an independent commission or task force to look into the claims, which have already been disproved by many national studies. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the president’s investigation would examine “the integrity of our voting system” and not just the 2016 election. The Justice Department, which investigates claims of election crimes, has not historically launched a criminal investigation at the request of a president. An attorney general could order an investigation, but Trump’s nominee, Sen. Jeff Sessions, has not yet been confirmed, and his spokeswoman declined to comment. Justice officials said they knew nothing about an investigation into voter fraud and referred questions to the White House.

National: Trump’s absurd claim the 2012 Pew report researcher was ‘groveling’ | The Washington Post

“Then he’s groveling again. You know I always talk about the reporters that grovel when they want to write something that you want to hear but not necessarily millions of people want to hear or have to hear.” — President Trump, interview with ABC News, Jan. 25, 2017

For the first time since taking office, President Trump addressed the 2012 Pew Center on the States report that he and his staff have repeatedly — and unsuccessfully — used to support his claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2016 election. Trump once again referred to a 2012 Pew report as evidence of widespread voter fraud. When David Muir of ABC News noted the study’s author said he found no evidence of voter fraud, Trump said: “Excuse me, then why did he write the report?” Then Trump claimed the author was “groveling.” Really? The Facts No. David Becker, who directed the research for the Pew report, has said since the report’s release in February 2012 that there was no evidence of fraud from his findings. The report, instead, found problems with inaccurate voter registrations, people who registered in more than one state (which could happen if the voter moves and registers in the new state without telling the former state) and deceased voters whose information was still on the voter rolls. Trump did reference these other findings correctly in the interview — but then claimed these findings are evidence of fraud.

National: Trump’s voter fraud claims undermine the democratic process and his presidency | The Washington Post

There is no benign explanation for President Trump’s false assertion that millions of people voted illegally in the last election. It is either a deliberate attempt to undermine faith in the democratic process, an exhortation to those who favor new restrictions on access to the ballot box or the worrisome trait of someone with immense power willing to make wild statements without any credible evidence. By repeating as president what he had said as a candidate, for whatever purpose, Trump is striking at the foundation of a democratic society. This is yet another example of Trump being willing to cast doubt on information, individuals or institutions that he believes threaten his legitimacy, challenge his authority or question his actions — from attacks on “phony polls” or the “dishonest media” to assertions now of vast voter fraud. This is not a debate about the size of the crowd at last week’s presidential inauguration. That is a piddling controversy compared with his claim that the election system overseen by the states is somehow riddled with fraud. Trump is chipping away at a shared public confidence in a system that is fundamental to a representative government for no apparent reason other than that he’s bothered by the fact that, although duly elected and now in the White House, he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by almost 3 million votes.

National: Author of Trump’s Favorite Voter Fraud Study Says Everyone’s Wrong | WIRED

Jesse Richman used to be one of those researchers who only dreamed his work might someday capture national attention—maybe even inspire some sort of systemic change. On Ratemyprofessor.com, his students describe him as tough but fair, a “genius” who was liberal with extra credit projects and went out of his way to offer help. In 2014, Richman’s world changed when he co-authored a paper on voter fraud that instantly caught fire. At first, he was energized by all the buzz and proud to get his work published. Now, he says, “there are days I wish I hadn’t.” That’s because his paper, “Do Non-Citizens Vote in US Elections?” which was published in the peer-reviewed journal Electoral Studies, has become a cornerstone of President Trump’s false claim that he would have “won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” This week White House Press secretary Sean Spicer once again dragged the study to the forefront, noting that a study of the 2008 election (which he wrongly attributed to Pew Research) showed 14 percent of non-citizens are registered to vote. That was Richman’s research, all right. The problem, says Richman, who identifies as a political moderate, is that the Trump administration’s interpretation of his report is totally off. “Trump and others have been misreading our research and exaggerating our results to make claims we don’t think our research supports,” Richman says. “I’m not sure why they continue to do it, but there’s not much I can do about that aside from set the record straight.”

National: Tiffany Trump, Steve Bannon, Steven Mnuchin Registered to Vote in Multiple States | US News

President Donald Trump called for an investigation into alleged voter fraud, including whether citizens are registered to vote in more than one state, but least one member of his family, one of his senior aides, and a Cabinet nominee have been found to be registered in at least two states. “I will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD, including those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal and even, those registered to vote who are dead (and many for a long time),” Trump tweeted Wednesday. “Depending on results, we will strengthen up voting procedure.” Trump’s nominee to be the secretary of the Treasury, former Goldman Sachs partner Steven Mnuchin, is registered to vote in both New York and California, according to a review of documents by CNN.

National: President Trump Calls For Probe Into Unsubstantiated Voter Fraud Claim | Fortune

President Donald Trump declared Wednesday that he is ordering a “major investigation” into widespread voter fraud, raising the prospect of a federal government probe into a widely debunked claim and sparking alarm among experts and Democrats.
Trump announced in a pair of early morning tweets that the investigation will look at those registered to vote in more than one state, “those who are illegal and … even, those registered to vote who are dead (and many for a long time).” Depending on results, the Republican tweeted on his sixth day in office, “we will strengthen up voting procedures!” He went further later Wednesday, claiming: “You have people registered in two states. They’re registered in a New York and a New Jersey. They vote twice.” “There are millions of votes, in my opinion,” Trump told ABC. “Of those votes cast, none of them come to me. None of them come to me.” All 50 states and the District of Columbia have finalized their election results with no reports of the kind of widespread fraud that Trump alleges.

National: Trump’s Voter Fraud Example? A Troubled Tale With Bernhard Langer | The New York Times

On Monday, President Trump gathered House and Senate leaders in the State Dining Room for a get-to-know-you reception, served them tiny meatballs and pigs-in-a-blanket, and quickly launched into a story meant to illustrate what he believes to be rampant, unchecked voter fraud. Mr. Trump kicked off the meeting, participants said, by retelling his debunked claim that he would have won the popular vote if not for the three million to five million ballots cast by “illegals.” He followed it up with a Twitter post early Wednesday calling for a major investigation into voter fraud. When one of the Democrats protested, Mr. Trump said he was told a story by “the very famous golfer, Bernhard Langer,” whom he described as a friend, according to three staff members who were in the room for the meeting. In the emerging Trump era, the story was a memorable example, for the legislators and the country, of how an off-the-cuff yarn — unverifiable and of confusing origin — became a prime policy mover for a president whose fact-gathering owes more to the oral tradition than the written word. The three witnesses recall the story this way: Mr. Langer, a 59-year-old native of Bavaria, Germany — a winner of the Masters twice and of more than 100 events on major professional golf tours around the world — was standing in line at a polling place near his home in Florida on Election Day, the president explained, when an official informed Mr. Langer he would not be able to vote.

National: Awarding Electoral Votes by District a Temptation for GOP | New York Magazine

You might think Republicans would be entirely satisfied with an Electoral College system that has twice in the last five elections elevated a fellow party-member to the presidency despite a loss in the national popular vote. But GOP legislators in Virginia and Minnesota are reviving pre-2016 legislation designed to emulate Maine and Nebraska in awarding Electoral College votes by congressional district rather than statewide vote totals. The ostensible rationale for these proposals is to provide representation in the Electoral College for regions that are outvoted at the state level by urban areas like Northern Virginia. But it’s really a hobbyhorse for state lawmakers who control states the other party typically carries at the presidential level. Indeed, Virginia toyed with such legislation shortly after the 2012 elections, along with Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. What these states had in common at the time was Republican “trifecta” control of state governments in states that had voted for Barack Obama over Mitt Romney. Not coincidentally, such a system would have awarded the presidency to Romney, who won 226 House districts against Obama’s 209 (Romney also won 28 states to Obama’s 22, which under the system Republicans are pushing, would have given statewide winners two bonus EVs).

Editorials: Lie Is No Longer a Good Enough Word for Trump’s Repeated Voter Fraud Claim | Ben Mathis-Lilley/Slate

The poor New York Times gets it from every direction. Conservatives think it’s an organ of the Democratic Party. Leftists think it’s stuffy and out of touch. Moderates … I don’t know, let’s say they circumvent the online paywall system by using multiple browsers. Freakin’ cheapskate moderates! But anyway. One of the media controversies of the Donald Trump era has been over how to describe the nonsense he says. The old journalistic convention of writing that a politician has made a “controversial” or “disputed” claim seems inadequate to the relentless, bad-faith assaults on empirical truth that Trump and his goons regularly conduct. (See: “alternative facts.”) A lot of Trump critics think that journalists, especially the influential ones at the Times, should be more willing to say that Trump or his administration lied about this or that. Last night the Times used the L-word in a headline on its report that Trump, in a meeting with congressional leaders, had repeated and embellished his earlier claim that millions of undocumented immigrants voted illegally for Hillary Clinton last November. Many of Trump’s online haterz were pleased by this callout, including, to pick a random example, vampire expert Anne Rice. But, but, but. Was it really a lie? A lie, in the common definition, is an intentionally told untruth. For Trump’s statement to be a lie, it would have to be a “proven” “fact” both that millions of undocumented immigrants didn’t vote in 2016 and that Trump knows this.

Arizona: County recorders call relationship with Secretary of State ‘dire’ | ACIR

Arizona’s 15 county recorders this week delivered a letter to Secretary of State Michele Reagan in which they said communication between their offices and hers is “in a dire state” because state Election Director Eric Spencer has been “ineffective and disrespectful.” The county recorders said in the Jan. 23 letter that Spencer has been verbally abusive, “rude” and “dismissive” of questions posed to him by the recorders and their staffs. In one instance, they wrote, Spencer said the recorders were “incompetent,” and that he has refused to answer “questions of critical importance posed by those same elections officials.” The recorders also said Spencer has neglected statutory obligations and created legal and ethical conflicts with his demands that recorders remove voters from registration rolls.

Florida: Does Stephen Bannon live in Sarasota County? Because he’s registered to vote here | Herald Tribune

One of the most powerful men in America happens to be a resident of Sarasota County. We think. His name is Stephen K. Bannon, the scruffy-faced senior adviser to our new president. Maybe you’ve heard of him. But has anyone actually seen him? In particular, has anyone ever seen him at 3108 Casey Key Road, though probably not asking neighbor Stephen King to borrow a cup of sugar, considering King once wrote on Twitter: “My newest horror story. Once upon a time there was a man named Donald Trump and he ran for president.” Anyway, this is where Bannon lives, or is supposed to live, still, according to the Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections office. It’s the address listed on his voter registration form, effective Aug. 25. There is only problem: Bannon is also registered to vote in New York City, listing a home address on West 40th Street, and according to a spokesman for the New York State Board of Elections, he voted there in November by absentee ballot. That means he voted in New York while still registered in Sarasota County, where he did not vote. His voting status in both places remains active, records show.

Michigan: State Selects New Voting Machine Vendors for Next Election | Government Technology

New voting equipment will be available for the next statewide election in August 2018 after the Michigan Secretary of State announced the selection of three vendors Tuesday that local clerks can use for future elections. The pricetag will not be cheap. The state administrative board approved contracts Tuesday with the three vendors that will cost between $52 million and $82 million. The state has $30 million leftover from the federal Help America Vote Act funds that were provided to states for new equipment after the 2000 elections. And the Legislature approved an additional $10 million last year to pay for the new machines. And while that will cover the majority of the cost for the new system, Fred Woodhams, spokesman for Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, said Tuesday that there will be a cost for local communities of roughly $1,000 to $2,000 per precinct. Some communities have a minimal number of precincts, but for cities like Detroit, Warren, Southfield and Grand Rapids, the costs could be significant. Detroit has nearly 500 precincts, while Grand Rapids has 77, Warren has 58 and Southfield has 36.

Mississippi: Senate likely to kill early voting, online registration | Hattiesburg American

The Senate Elections Committee passed its own version of campaign finance reform on Wednesday and an ‘omnibus’ bill to clean up and tweak Mississippi election code. Senate Elections Chairwoman Sally Doty, R-Brookhaven, said her committee would be open to a House-passed campaign finance bill, but indicated House proposals to allow early voting and online voter registration would be DOA if passed on from the House to the Senate. “There are just too many concerns about online hacking — even allegations from this last election — to look at (online registration) this year,” Doty said of a measure House Elections approved to allow first-time voters to register online. Last year, the Legislature approved people changing their registration online after they move, but the Senate stripped out first-time registration online.

Texas: Pasadena voting rights case heads to appeals court Feb. 1 | Houston Chronicle

With deadlines looming for the upcoming May elections, a federal appeals court has agreed to hear arguments Feb. 1 in a voting rights lawsuit that overturned the Pasadena election system. The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will consider whether to temporarily halt the order from the Houston judge until after the appeals are exhausted. But that would leave in place an election system that has been found discriminatory against Latinos. The Fifth Circuit court set an expedited hearing at the Bob Casey Courthouse in Houston for lawyers to present argument as to why the city should or should not proceed with its May elections for city council positions using a 2011 map of eight single-member district seats as directed by a federal judge in Houston.

Virginia: After Clinton wins Virginia, state Republicans try to change how votes are tallied | The Washington Post

A bill advancing in the Virginia House of Representatives would end the familiar “winner take all” system of awarding the state’s presidential electoral votes and replace it with a system to award electoral votes by congressional district, similar to what’s currently done in Maine and Nebraska. The goal is a noble one. Under the winner take all system, the votes of people who opted for a candidate other than the statewide winner are quite literally not counted when the electoral college convenes in December. If votes were allocated by congressional district, the final electoral vote tally could more closely represent the statewide popular vote mix. In 2016, for instance, Hillary Clinton won 49.8 percent of Virginia’s popular vote but 100 percent of its 13 electoral votes. Had those votes been allocated by congressional district instead, Clinton would have received only 7 while Trump got 6.

Europe: How Europe’s elections could be hacked | CNN

Russian hackers meddled in the U.S. election campaign. Now they’re turning their attention to Europe. France, Germany and the Netherlands are holding elections later this year, and experts agree with former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden that Moscow will try to sway the results. The voting infrastructure is expected to be relatively secure since all three countries use paper ballots. But here’s how Russian hackers (and others) could influence the outcome: The most common and successful election hacking strategy involves revealing embarrassing information about candidates, which could sway public opinion, say security experts. Hackers generally find this information using phishing — encouraging victims to click on malicious email links or download shady attachments. This allows hackers to gain access to a computer system where they can snoop around for dirt on candidates and their associates.

Wyoming: Voters would be required to show ID under proposed bill | Casper Star Tribune

As Republican legislatures across the country pass various restrictions on voting, Wyoming remains one of the easiest states in which to cast a ballot. Residents do not need to provide identification when they go to the polls, and they can even register to vote on the day of the election. But House Bill 167, filed at the Wyoming Legislature last week, would change that by requiring people to show photo identification when they go to vote. The measure is sponsored by Rep. Lars Lone, R-Cheyenne, who said that during the general election in November he was not asked for photo identification. “I was given a ballot for (House) District 44, and I’m in 12,” he said.

Nepal: Parliament endorses two poll-related bills | The Kathmandu Post

The Legislature-Parliament on Wednesday endorsed two poll-related bills, paving the way for the government to announce the dates for local elections. The Bill to Amend and Integrate Laws Related to the Election Commission and the Bill Related to Voters’ List, which have been endorsed by the House, will come into effect once they are authenticated by the President. Out of nine Acts required to hold three levels of elections—local, provincial and central—-and conduct the elections of president and vice president, three are still under consideration at parliamentary committee. The Ministry of Home Affairs is working on four other bills. However, five Acts—two are set to come into force with their endorsement on Wednesday and three other bills that are under consideration—will be enough to hold local level elections. The government is planning to hold local level elections by mid-May and plans to announce the dates by January 28.

Somalia: Electoral commission sets presidential election for Feb. 8 | Middle East Online

Somalia will hold its presidential election on February 8, its electoral commission said Wednesday, after months of delays in a tortuous process for the conflict-torn country. Candidates will have until January 29 to register, the commission said in a statement. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, a 61-year-old former academic and activist from the Hawiye clan, is seeking re-election. The vote will come six months after it was originally set for August, following delays in the election of lawmakers because of clan disputes, fraud accusations and organisational challenges.

National: Donald Trump’s indefensible claims of rampant voter fraud are now White House policy | The Washington Post

Technically, the proper way to describe claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2016 election is to state that there’s no evidence that it happened. Shortly after the election, we tallied up reports of in-person voter fraud that occurred last year and found a grand total of four examples. There is no evidence that there was fraud at any significant scale at all. Saying this, that there’s no evidence, is a hedge. We say it just in case somehow there emerges evidence that, indeed, hundreds of people registered to vote illegally and went to cast ballots. If we say it didn’t happen and then some evidence emerges, we are stuck. So we say “there’s no evidence” instead of “it didn’t happen.” That’s on the scale of hundreds of votes. On the scale of millions of alleged fraudulent votes, though? It didn’t happen. There’s not only no evidence that it did, it defies logic and it defies statistical analysis to insist that millions of votes were cast illegally in the 2016 election.

National: Sean Spicer just said Trump believes millions voted illegally. Here’s the problem: No one can tell him otherwise. | The Washington Post

As you’ve heard, in a meeting with congressional leaders, President Trump privately repeated the claim that millions voted illegally in the presidential election, and if you discount those votes, Trump actually won the popular vote. In his latest rendition of this tale, which he had previously recited just after the election, Trump claimed that as many as three to five million people voted illegally. Tuesday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer was grilled on this news, and disconcertingly, Spicer confirmed that Trump really believes this to be the case. That’s bad enough. But this quote from Spicer may be even more worrisome:

“I think there have been studies; there was one that came out of Pew in 2008 that showed 14 percent of people who have voted were not citizens. There’s other studies that have been presented to him. It’s a belief he maintains.”

Post fact checker Michelle Ye Hee Lee posted a piece Tuesday taking apart Spicer’s assertion. There are no studies that show what Spicer claims. But what’s really problematic here is that there are no indications that any of Trump’s advisers have been able to talk him out of this belief, presuming they even tried, which is not clear, either. After all, Spicer himself said that Trump gathered his conclusion from actual data — the “studies that have been presented to him.” Did any of his advisers try to “present him” with the contrary evidence, which is far more conclusive and persuasive? If they did, why did Trump not find this convincing? If they did not, why didn’t they? Whichever of these is the case, neither is particularly reassuring.

National: Senate committee moving forward with Russia hacking probe | The Hill

The Senate Intelligence Committee is moving forward with its probe into Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential race. Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top members on the committee, made the announcement after the intelligence panel held its weekly closed-door briefing on Tuesday. “The Committee today agreed to move forward, under terms of reference proposed by Chairman Burr and Vice Chairman Warner, with its inquiry into Russian efforts directed against the 2016 US elections and related efforts abroad,” read a joint statement from the pair. The committee “hopes to expeditiously conduct its review and report its findings,” the two lawmakers added.