SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
"Kobach, who gained national notoriety for his relentless efforts to disenfranchise tens of thousands of Kansans, met with Trump before his inauguration and reportedly was a source for the president's unsubstantiated claim that 3 million to 5 million people voted illegally in the presidential election." (Photo: Stephen Melkisethian/flickr/cc)
Trump Wants Homeland Security to Continue Dirty Work of Voter Suppression
Purging voters is Kobach’s aim.
Jan 05, 2018
On Wednesday night, the White House announced that it would disband the Election "Integrity" Commission led by Vice President Pence and Kris Kobach, the Secretary of State of Kansas, citing the refusal of state officials to go along with Kobach's reckless plan to collect sensitive data on every single voter in the country.
Donald Trump formed the commission after he falsely claimed that he was the true winner of the national popular vote in the 2016 presidential election, claiming that his nearly 3 million vote deficit was the result of voter fraud. Despite failing to produce any proof of rampant voter fraud, the White House insisted in its statement last night that there is still "substantial evidence" of fraud. The president tweeted this morning that the "System is rigged, must go to Voter I.D."
The Trump administration also announced that the Department of Homeland Security will take up the voter fraud cause, and Kobach told Politico that "he expects officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and political appointees overseeing that agency to take over the commission's work and begin efforts to match state voter rolls to federal databases of noncitizen."
All signs suggest that Homeland Security will use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements Program (SAVE) database, which is used to verify citizenship and immigration status, to see if non-citizens have registered to vote.
When Colorado, North Carolina, and Florida tried to use SAVE to see if non-citizens were on the voter rolls, the states experienced disastrous results, incorrectly flagging many U.S. citizens. Because SAVE is not updated regularly, many people who naturalized as citizens could still be listed as non-citizens. In 2012, the Justice Department said that Florida's use of SAVE had "critical imperfections," and led to "errors that harm and confuse eligible voters." Amid widespread concerns of inaccuracy, Florida eventually abandoned its efforts to use the SAVE database after its purge was ruled illegal by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Because of the huge amount of false positives, using SAVE to purge voter rolls could be disastrous.
But purging voters is Kobach's aim.
Kobach, who gained national notoriety for his relentless efforts to disenfranchise tens of thousands of Kansans, met with Trump before his inauguration and reportedly was a source for the president's unsubstantiated claim that 3 million to 5 million people voted illegally in the presidential election.
The ACLU challenged Kobach's efforts in Kansas and was able to unseal the documents from his meeting with Trump. These records revealed that despite the administration's insistence that the probe had no "preordained" notions or results, the commission's vice chair, Kobach, had lobbied Trump and senior advisers to gut the National Voter Registration Act as early as Nov. 20, 2016. The commission would give the White House the justification to push for such a plan, and Kobach packed the panel with others who have aggressively fanned fears of widespread voter fraud like Hans von Spakovsky, J. Christian Adams, and Ken Blackwell.
The commission faced serious resistance from the start. At least 15 lawsuits, including the ACLU's, were filed and dozens of states refused to comply with the commission's overreaching requests.
Kobach's own efforts to find voter fraud in the 2016 election were discredited, though he falsely argued that thousands out-of-state voters had cast ballots in New Hampshire. Trump, for his part, cited the statements of an obscure partisan activist who still has not released any evidence that voter fraud occurred in the presidential election.
While Trump's commission may be disbanded, attempts by his administration and Kris Kobach to lay the groundwork for voter suppression are far from over.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
© 2023 ACLU
Brian Tashman
Brain Tashman is a political researcher and strategist at American Civil Liberties Union.
On Wednesday night, the White House announced that it would disband the Election "Integrity" Commission led by Vice President Pence and Kris Kobach, the Secretary of State of Kansas, citing the refusal of state officials to go along with Kobach's reckless plan to collect sensitive data on every single voter in the country.
Donald Trump formed the commission after he falsely claimed that he was the true winner of the national popular vote in the 2016 presidential election, claiming that his nearly 3 million vote deficit was the result of voter fraud. Despite failing to produce any proof of rampant voter fraud, the White House insisted in its statement last night that there is still "substantial evidence" of fraud. The president tweeted this morning that the "System is rigged, must go to Voter I.D."
The Trump administration also announced that the Department of Homeland Security will take up the voter fraud cause, and Kobach told Politico that "he expects officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and political appointees overseeing that agency to take over the commission's work and begin efforts to match state voter rolls to federal databases of noncitizen."
All signs suggest that Homeland Security will use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements Program (SAVE) database, which is used to verify citizenship and immigration status, to see if non-citizens have registered to vote.
When Colorado, North Carolina, and Florida tried to use SAVE to see if non-citizens were on the voter rolls, the states experienced disastrous results, incorrectly flagging many U.S. citizens. Because SAVE is not updated regularly, many people who naturalized as citizens could still be listed as non-citizens. In 2012, the Justice Department said that Florida's use of SAVE had "critical imperfections," and led to "errors that harm and confuse eligible voters." Amid widespread concerns of inaccuracy, Florida eventually abandoned its efforts to use the SAVE database after its purge was ruled illegal by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Because of the huge amount of false positives, using SAVE to purge voter rolls could be disastrous.
But purging voters is Kobach's aim.
Kobach, who gained national notoriety for his relentless efforts to disenfranchise tens of thousands of Kansans, met with Trump before his inauguration and reportedly was a source for the president's unsubstantiated claim that 3 million to 5 million people voted illegally in the presidential election.
The ACLU challenged Kobach's efforts in Kansas and was able to unseal the documents from his meeting with Trump. These records revealed that despite the administration's insistence that the probe had no "preordained" notions or results, the commission's vice chair, Kobach, had lobbied Trump and senior advisers to gut the National Voter Registration Act as early as Nov. 20, 2016. The commission would give the White House the justification to push for such a plan, and Kobach packed the panel with others who have aggressively fanned fears of widespread voter fraud like Hans von Spakovsky, J. Christian Adams, and Ken Blackwell.
The commission faced serious resistance from the start. At least 15 lawsuits, including the ACLU's, were filed and dozens of states refused to comply with the commission's overreaching requests.
Kobach's own efforts to find voter fraud in the 2016 election were discredited, though he falsely argued that thousands out-of-state voters had cast ballots in New Hampshire. Trump, for his part, cited the statements of an obscure partisan activist who still has not released any evidence that voter fraud occurred in the presidential election.
While Trump's commission may be disbanded, attempts by his administration and Kris Kobach to lay the groundwork for voter suppression are far from over.
Brian Tashman
Brain Tashman is a political researcher and strategist at American Civil Liberties Union.
On Wednesday night, the White House announced that it would disband the Election "Integrity" Commission led by Vice President Pence and Kris Kobach, the Secretary of State of Kansas, citing the refusal of state officials to go along with Kobach's reckless plan to collect sensitive data on every single voter in the country.
Donald Trump formed the commission after he falsely claimed that he was the true winner of the national popular vote in the 2016 presidential election, claiming that his nearly 3 million vote deficit was the result of voter fraud. Despite failing to produce any proof of rampant voter fraud, the White House insisted in its statement last night that there is still "substantial evidence" of fraud. The president tweeted this morning that the "System is rigged, must go to Voter I.D."
The Trump administration also announced that the Department of Homeland Security will take up the voter fraud cause, and Kobach told Politico that "he expects officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and political appointees overseeing that agency to take over the commission's work and begin efforts to match state voter rolls to federal databases of noncitizen."
All signs suggest that Homeland Security will use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements Program (SAVE) database, which is used to verify citizenship and immigration status, to see if non-citizens have registered to vote.
When Colorado, North Carolina, and Florida tried to use SAVE to see if non-citizens were on the voter rolls, the states experienced disastrous results, incorrectly flagging many U.S. citizens. Because SAVE is not updated regularly, many people who naturalized as citizens could still be listed as non-citizens. In 2012, the Justice Department said that Florida's use of SAVE had "critical imperfections," and led to "errors that harm and confuse eligible voters." Amid widespread concerns of inaccuracy, Florida eventually abandoned its efforts to use the SAVE database after its purge was ruled illegal by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Because of the huge amount of false positives, using SAVE to purge voter rolls could be disastrous.
But purging voters is Kobach's aim.
Kobach, who gained national notoriety for his relentless efforts to disenfranchise tens of thousands of Kansans, met with Trump before his inauguration and reportedly was a source for the president's unsubstantiated claim that 3 million to 5 million people voted illegally in the presidential election.
The ACLU challenged Kobach's efforts in Kansas and was able to unseal the documents from his meeting with Trump. These records revealed that despite the administration's insistence that the probe had no "preordained" notions or results, the commission's vice chair, Kobach, had lobbied Trump and senior advisers to gut the National Voter Registration Act as early as Nov. 20, 2016. The commission would give the White House the justification to push for such a plan, and Kobach packed the panel with others who have aggressively fanned fears of widespread voter fraud like Hans von Spakovsky, J. Christian Adams, and Ken Blackwell.
The commission faced serious resistance from the start. At least 15 lawsuits, including the ACLU's, were filed and dozens of states refused to comply with the commission's overreaching requests.
Kobach's own efforts to find voter fraud in the 2016 election were discredited, though he falsely argued that thousands out-of-state voters had cast ballots in New Hampshire. Trump, for his part, cited the statements of an obscure partisan activist who still has not released any evidence that voter fraud occurred in the presidential election.
While Trump's commission may be disbanded, attempts by his administration and Kris Kobach to lay the groundwork for voter suppression are far from over.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.