What has happened to President Donald Trump’s Advisory Commission on Election Integrity? The president — convinced he actually won the popular vote in 2016 over Hillary Clinton — established the commission in May. Vice President Mike Pence is the chairman, but Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach is widely considered the real leader of the group. The commission has all but disappeared publicly, and there are growing indications it will set a new standard for uselessness. The commission ran into immediate problems last summer when it asked for voter data from all 50 states. Several states denounced the request and refused to comply in whole or in part. Lawsuits followed. By mid-July, the Washington Post reported, at least seven plaintiffs had sued the commission, including the ACLU, the NAACP, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center. The cases are winding their way through the courts.
… Several Senate Democrats are fed up. They wrote the Government Accountability Office in October, asking for a review of the commission’s activities. They want to know how much the commission costs, whether it’s following federal rules and how it’s doing its work. GAO has agreed to the review.
The slap-dash nature of the commission’s public efforts will sound familiar to Kansans who know Kobach. In fact, there are new questions about the privacy and security of his program designed to check voter registrations across states.
Some may take solace in the commission’s quixotic search for non-existent evidence. Perhaps the commission is fading into well-deserved oblivion.
Full Article: Why have Kris Kobach and the Trump voter commission faded from view? | The Kansas City Star.