Vermont: Condos calls in attorney general to help find way to block Trump data grab | VTDigger

Secretary of State Jim Condos has stepped up his rebuff of the Trump administration, saying he won’t comply — for now — with the demand that secretaries of state nationwide provide voter information to a federal commission investigating claims of election fraud. The Election Integrity Commission on Wednesday asked for voters’ dates of birth, voter histories, party affiliations, felony convictions, addresses, Social Security numbers and other personal information, according to Condos’ office. Condos said last week that he is “bound by law” to provide limited information that is publicly available. But Monday, citing new information and a public outcry over the weekend, Condos issued a statement saying he wouldn’t send any information until receiving certain assurances from the Trump administration.

Wyoming: Secretary of State Won’t Release Voter Info to ‘Election Integrity’ Commission | Planet Jackson Hole

Wyoming voter information is safe from federal meddling. Republican Secretary of State Ed Murray announced Monday he will not provide voter info to President Trump’s Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. “I am going to safeguard the privacy of Wyoming’s voters because of my strong belief in a citizen’s right of privacy,” Murray said in a statement. “I believe elections are the responsibility of the states under the United States Constitution and I do believe this request could lead to a federal overreach.” In his statement, Murray also noted skepticism about the commission’s intent: “I am not at all convinced that it has clearly stated its purpose is connected to the information requested.” … Wyoming is among 44 states that have refused to provide the commission with voter data, CNN reported Tuesday.

National: Administration: Lawsuit could stop voter-fraud commission in its infancy | USA Today

The Trump administration told a federal judge Wednesday that a legal challenge to an advisory commission’s request for sensitive data on voters from all 50 states could prevent the panel from investigating alleged voter fraud. Even as most states refuse to provide at least some of the data sought by the panel — including voters’ political affiliations and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers — the Justice Department argued that it is seeking only publicly available information. The lawsuit, filed Monday by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, asks the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to block the request as an invasion of privacy. Not so, the government responded.

National: Forty-four states have refused to give certain voter information to fraud commission | CNN

Forty-one states have defied the Trump administration’s request for private voter information, according to a CNN inquiry to all 50 states. State leaders and voting boards across the country have responded to the letter with varying degrees of cooperation — from altogether rejecting the request to expressing eagerness to supply information that is public. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, vice chairman of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which President Donald Trump created by executive order in May, sent a letter to all 50 states last Wednesday requesting a bevy of voter data, which he notes will eventually be made available to the public.

National: More state officials refuse to turn over voter roll data | The Hill

Top officials in more than 10 states have announced they won’t turn over all voter roll data to President Trump’s commission on voter fraud. As of Friday afternoon, officials in New York, California, Massachusetts, Kentucky and Virginia had said they would not turn over any of their voter data to the voter fraud commission. Other officials in Connecticut, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Vermont, Utah, North Carolina, Indiana and Iowa said they would only turn over public information on voter rolls, but wouldn’t share private information. Wisconsin announced it would turn over public information but would charge the commission $12,500 to buy the voter roll data.

National: Who is Hans A. von Spakovsky of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity? | The Washington Post

President Trump on Thursday appointed a divisive conservative voting rights expert to spearhead the White House’s search into allegations of widespread fraud in the 2016 presidential election. The appointment of Hans von Spakovsky has reignited debate over the legitimacy of claims that include unsubstantiated accusations from Trump that “millions of people” voted illegally for Hillary Clinton. Von Spakovsky, a former Justice Department official, sparked legal battles over voting laws during the George W. Bush administration. Von Spakovsky, 58, will join the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, though it remains unclear what role he will take. The White House’s Thursday night announcement, which included several other administration posts, did not provide further details. The announcement did not include any biographical information about von Spakovsky, either.

Editorials: Trump’s Voter Suppression Efforts Have Begun | Dale Ho/The New York Times

Last Wednesday, Kris Kobach, the secretary of state of Kansas and the vice chairman of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, wrote a letter to all 50 states, requesting that they send the commission the personal information of all registered voters. This includes full names, birth dates, addresses, political affiliations, voting history and last four digits of Social Security numbers. The letter says that all documents provided to the commission will be made public. What could possibly go wrong? There are obvious data privacy concerns. Digital security experts have called the plan a gold mine for hackers. Mr. Kobach’s letter says the data will be held on a “secure FTP site,” but offers no details. Mr. Kobach himself appears to be backtracking, recently saying that, notwithstanding his request to other states, he will not be giving Kansas voters’ Social Security information to his own commission.

Editorials: What Is Kris Kobach Up To? | Charles Stewart/Politico

When President Donald Trump’s Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which is chaired by Vice President Mike Pence, sent a letter to every state in the country on Thursday requesting “publicly available voter roll data,” Delbert Hosemann, the Republican secretary of state from Mississippi, responded simply: “Go jump in the Gulf.” The letter that evoked Hosemann’s colorful retort was sent under the signature of the commission’s vice chairman, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, one of only a few public figures to embrace the president’s unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud—the combating of which is the commission’s ostensible mission. In addition to all publicly available data on the states’ voter rolls, it also asked for data that are rarely considered to be public election records, such as information about felony convictions and the last four digits of the voter’s Social Security number. I’ve been studying America’s election administration since 2000, and I’ve rarely seen a firestorm like this. A few states have responded to Kobach’s letter with fiery opposition, such as California Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s statement that he refused to “legitimize” its work by contributing his state’s voter file. Others, like Hosemann, have used the request to remind Washington of the states’ pre-eminent role in running elections. But most states have approached the Kobach letter as a standard public records request, supplying the data they would supply anyone else who asked—sometimes for the required $12,500 fee, as in Wisconsin.

Editorials: All Your Voter Data Are Belong To Us | Justin Levitt/Take Care

Kris Kobach just asked for help building a national voter file in two weeks. That’s massively irresponsible. And it might well be illegal. Yesterday, on behalf of a federal commission that seems slapped together to validate precooked but half-baked conclusions, Kris Kobach asked states to send him all publicly available information in the state voter files. First, let’s be clear about the scope of the behemoth he wants to assemble in the span of two weeks, with no public conversation. He’s aiming for a national file with hundreds of millions of records. It would include the name, address, political party affiliation (why is this relevant?), and voting history of virtually every voter in America. For some states, it would include at least some, and occasionally all, information about date of birth. For some states, it would include telephone numbers and email addresses. For some states, the voter rolls will include information about minors, who are not yet eligible to vote but are “pre-registered” so that they can vote without undue delay when they turn 18.

Editorials: Trump launches his opening voter suppression salvo | The Washington Post

President Trump’s claim that 3 million to 5 million undocumented immigrants voted illegally in last fall’s elections is as evidence-based as the assertion that space aliens on Saturn are bombarding planet Earth with marshmallows. Nonetheless, Washington being Washington, Mr. Trump’s declaration has generated its own politically charged momentum in the form of a presidential commission to investigate voter fraud — a topic that has been endlessly investigated for years, with consistent results: There is no evidence that it is widespread or has materially affected the outcome of any U.S. election. Now Mr. Trump’s Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity is beginning its work under the guidance of its vice chair, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Republican notorious for his efforts at vote suppression.

Voting Blogs: The Kobach fallout on election security | Derek Muller/Election Law Blog

The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity offered its first public request this week, as Vice Chair and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach requested voter information from every state. That single request has likely done long-lasting damage to the political ability of the federal government to regulate elections. In particular, any chance that meaningful election security issues would be addressed at the federal level before 2020 worsened dramatically this week. The request is sloppy, as Charles Stewart carefully noted, and, at least in some cases, forbidden under state law. The letter was sent to the wrong administrators in some states, it requests data like “publicly-available . . . last four digits of social security number if available” (which should never be permissible), and it fails to follow the proper protocol in each state to request such data. Response from state officials has been swift and generally opposed. It has been bipartisan, ranging from politically-charged outrage, to drier statements about what state disclosure law permits and (more often) forbids. But the opposition reflects a major undercurrent from the states to the federal government: we run elections, not you.

Kansas: Kobach: Kansas won’t give Social Security info to Kobach-led voter commission at this time | The Kansas City Star

Multiple states plan to buck Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s request for personal information on voters on behalf of a presidential commission. Kobach said Friday that Kansas, at least for now, also won’t be sharing Social Security information with the commission, on which he serves as vice chairman. The state will share other information about the state’s registered voters, including names and addresses, which are subject to the state’s open records laws. Kobach sent letters on behalf of the commission to every state requesting names, addresses, voting history and other personal information, such as the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers, earlier this week.

National: Trump’s voter-fraud commission wants to know voting history, party ID and address of every voter in the U.S. | The Washington Post

The chair of President Trump’s Election Integrity Commission 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. In the letter, a copy of which was made public by the Connecticut secretary of state, the commission head Kris Kobach said that “any documents that are submitted to the full Commission will also be made available to the public.” On Wednesday, the office of Vice President Pence released a statement saying “a letter will be sent today to the 50 states and District of Columbia on behalf of the Commission requesting publicly available data from state voter rolls and feedback on how to improve election integrity.”

Editorials: Trump’s Voter Fraud Endgame | Richard Hasen/Slate

Donald Trump’s attempt at voter suppression through his “election integrity” commission is a voting rights nightmare that is being enacted so clumsily it just might backfire. Both before and after the election, Trump made wild and unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud and the system being “rigged.” Before the election, many of the claims were about voters voting five, 10, or 15 times by impersonating other voters. The ridiculous and unproven charges of voter suppression had a racial tinge, with suggestions the fraud would happen in majority minority communities. According to the New York Times, he told an audience in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, a few weeks before Election Day: “I just hear such reports about Philadelphia. … I hear these horror shows, and we have to make sure that this election is not stolen from us and is not taken away from us.” He added for emphasis: “Everybody knows what I’m talking about.”

National: Trump Slams States for Pushing Back on Panel’s Voter-Data Demand | Bloomberg

President Donald Trump fired off a tweet Saturday aimed at the growing number of secretaries of state resisting a broad request for data by his voter-fraud commission, including officials from deep red states whose support the controversy-laden White House can ill afford to lose. “Numerous states are refusing to give information to the very distinguished VOTER FRAUD PANEL,” Trump tweeted of officials from more than 20 states who so far have questioned the panel’s request. “What are they trying to hide?” Indiana, home of Vice President Mike Pence, and Mississippi, a state that voted heavily for the president, are among those states. Trump’s taunt may have been meant to counter a backlash that could effectively scuttle much of the work of Presidential Advisory Commission on Voter Integrity before it begins. Officials on the panel said they planned to compare the state records to databases of undocumented immigrants and legal foreigners in order to determine if large numbers of unqualified voters are participating in U.S. elections.

National: State officials refuse to turn over voter roll data to Trump election panel | The Hill

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.

National: Presidential Commission Demands Massive Amounts of State Voter Data | ProPublica

On Wednesday, all 50 states were sent letters from Kris Kobach — vice chair for the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity — requesting information on voter fraud, election security and copies of every state’s voter roll data. The letter asked state officials to deliver the data within two weeks, and says that all information turned over to the commission will be made public. The letter does not explain what the commission plans to do with voter roll data, which often includes the names, ages and addresses of registered voters. The commission also asked for information beyond what is typically contained in voter registration records, including Social Security numbers and military status, if the state election databases contain it. … A number of experts, as well as at least one state official, reacted with a mix of alarm and bafflement. Some saw political motivations behind the requests, while others said making such information public would create a national voter registration list, a move that could create new election problems.

Editorials: Why Wednesday’s ‘Election Integrity’ Actions Should Be Watched By States | David Becker/Route Fifty

On Wednesday, word arrived of three seemingly unrelated events. While each of these events has broad implications for the security and integrity of American elections, the nature and timing of each of these—all on the same day—raise serious questions. The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, or PACEI, sent letters out to every state requesting that they provide:

“publicly available under the laws of your state, the full 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, cancelled status, information regarding any felony convictions, information regarding voter registration in another state, information regarding military status, and overseas citizen information.”

They requested that this information be provided within 16 days, via e-mail or via the Safe Access File Exchange, a secure FTP site. It is notable that the PACEI does not state where or how this information will be stored or protected, other than to admit that all these files will be made publicly available, and furthermore does not state what it will do with this sensitive and personal information, other than “fully analyze” it.

Voting Blogs: First Thoughts about the Pence Commission Voting List Request | Election Updates

I’ve had a chance now to read the letter that vice-chair Kris Kobach has sent to the states, requesting that they send the Pence Commission copies of their publicly available voter files. My initial reactions fall into two buckets, the small and the expansive. I want to make clear that there is no intrinsic problem with matching voting lists against other lists and reporting the results. In fact, valuable insights can emerge from linking voter records. I don’t know a better way to advance knowledge and practice than to conduct research, report the results, and then hash out what they mean. But here’s the caveat. As a social scientist who has conducted voter roll matching both for scientific research and for litigation, I know how hard it is to do this right. For example, the well-known “birthday problem” makes it likely that two different people will be mistakenly matched to one another. Few people have the expertise to handle these complexities correctly. Just as litigation is rarely the best vehicle to advance the science of a field, I worry about developing matching routines on the fly in the context of a commission that is controversial.

California: Top elections officer to Trump’s voting fraud panel: No | Los Angeles Times

President Trump’s voter fraud commission will not be getting the names and addresses of California’s registered voters. The panel’s request was denied on Thursday by Secretary of State Alex Padilla, who said it would only “legitimize” false claims of massive election cheating last fall. Padilla refused to hand over data, including the names, addresses, political party and voting history of California’s 19.4 million voters. Kris Kobach, the secretary of state of Kansas who serves as vice chairman of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, sent letters to all 50 states on Wednesday for information he said would help the group examine rules that either “enhance or undermine the American people’s confidence in the integrity of federal elections processes.” Padilla, though, suggested the effort is little more than a ruse.

Colorado: Elections head will withhold confidential data from White House commission | Colorado Springs Gazette

Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams said Thursday he plans to fulfill a White House commission’s request for detailed state voter data by providing the same public information that would be available to anyone who asks. However, if information that’s considered confidential is requested, it’ll be held back, he said. Williams and all other secretaries of state in the country received a letter Wednesday detailing the request from Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a co-chair of the bipartisan Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. President Donald Trump created the commission last month to examine vulnerabilities in election systems “that could lead to improper voter registrations, improper voting, fraudulent voter registrations and fraudulent voting.”

Connecticut: Trump Voter Fraud Panel Request For Information Gets Chilly Connecticut Reply | Hartford Courant

President Donald Trump’s special commission to investigate alleged voter fraud is asking Connecticut election officials for reams of personal data on all registered voters in the state and got a frosty reply from Secretary of the State Denise Merrill. “In the spirit of transparency, we intend to share publicly-available information with [President Trump’s] Kobach Commission while ensuring that the privacy of voters is honored by withholding protected data,” Merrill said in a public response Thursday. Letters from the new commission reportedly went out to all 50 states Wednesday requesting publicly available voter information, and information on “law, policies or other issues [that] hinder your ability to ensure the integrity of elections you administer.” Also, the commission asked for “convictions for election-related crimes” dating to the 2000 presidential election.

Kentucky: Secretary Grimes denies White House request for voter information | WKYT

Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes says her office will not comply with a request by the President’s Commission on Election Integrity. The commission, headed by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and Vice President Mike Pence, was formed by President Trump in May to investigate alleged acts of voter fraud. Trump has claimed without evidence that 3 million to 5 million people voted illegally in the 2016 election.

Minnesota: Simon skeptical of White House request for voter data | Minnesota Public Radio

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon says he’s not sure he’ll turn over the data requested by a White House panel for a study of voter fraud. The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity asked all states this week to supply publicly-available voter roll information. The request includes voters’ names, addresses, dates of birth, recent voting history and details about military status and felony convictions. Simon, a Democrat, is hesitant.

Kansas: Kobach Fined for Misleading the Court | Courthouse News Service

A federal judge slapped Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach with a $1,000-fine Friday for misleading the court about the nature of the documents he was holding while photographed at a November meeting with President Donald Trump. The front page of the documents, widely scrutinized after the Associated Press published the photo, referenced possible changes to national voter laws. The ruling comes from the ongoing class action voting rights lawsuit Fish v. Kobach, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Kansas. The lawsuit alleges that Kansas law requiring voters to show proof of citizenship documents such as birth certificates violates the National Voter Registration Act.

Kansas: Civil rights advocates: ‘Confidential’ documents undercut Kobach’s voting fraud claim | Lawrence Journal-World

A Kansas election official is trying to hide materials that undercut his public claim that substantial numbers of noncitizens have registered to vote and that documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements are necessary to stop it, civil rights advocates contend in a court filing. The American Civil Liberties Union obtained the materials as part of its federal civil lawsuit in Kansas challenging the state’s voter registration law that requires people to submit citizenship documents such as a birth certificate, naturalization papers or U.S. passport. It asked a federal judge in a filing late Tuesday to remove the confidential designation that Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach placed on materials he was photographed taking into a November meeting with then President-elect Donald Trump, as well as a separate draft amendment to the National Voter Registration Act.

Kansas: The Man Behind Trump’s Voter Fraud Obsession | The New York Times

Kris Kobach likes to bill himself as “the A.C.L.U.’s worst nightmare.” The Kansas secretary of state, who was a champion debater in high school, speaks quickly for a rural Midwesterner, with the confidence of a man who holds degrees from Harvard, Oxford and Yale Law School, and until January he hosted his own local radio show, which used that line about the A.C.L.U. to introduce each episode. On March 3 he strode into the Robert J. Dole Federal Courthouse in Kansas City, Kan., to face the latest lawsuit filed against him by the civil-liberties organization. In an unusual arrangement for a secretary of state, Kobach, 51, personally argues all of his cases. He seems to see it as a perk of the job — and a mission. The A.C.L.U. has filed four suits against Kobach since he was elected in 2010. All of them challenge some aspect of his signature piece of legislation, the Secure and Fair Elections Act, or SAFE Act, a 2011 state law that requires people to show a birth certificate, passport or naturalization papers to register to vote.

Editorials: Kobach ‘Voter Fraud’ Commission Gets Fast Thumbs Down | Miles Rapoport/The American Prospect

The Kobach Commission (sometimes referred to as the Pence Commission) on voter fraud was created in the way so many things have been in the Trump administration. It started with an angry and completely unsubstantiated tweet, echoing a campaign trope, followed by public statements doubling down on the message, followed by a half-baked executive order. The Commission was created to investigate the allegations of Trump’s alternative universe, where massive voter fraud cost the president millions of votes. The true voter fraud—creating obstacles to the right to vote—is not part of its mandate. Kris Kobach is of course the perfect choice. As Kansas secretary of state, he has made his reputation seeking to make it as difficult as possible for people in Kansas to vote, and by fanning the fantasy of massive voter fraud.

Kansas: ACLU seeks sanctions, disclosure of Trump documents | The Kansas City Star

The American Civil Liberties Union has asked a federal court to enable documents from Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s November meeting with President Donald Trump to be made public. Kobach earlier this month handed over the documents, which outline a proposed strategic plan for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, under a federal judge’s order. However, he marked the documents as confidential. The ACLU filed a motion with U.S. District Court of Kansas in Kansas City, Kan. late Monday seeking to remove that designation and enable their contents to be shared with the wider public.