The top Democrats on four House committees are calling on Kris Kobach, the vice chair of President Trump’s voter fraud commission, to step down from the panel.
In a letter sent Tuesday to Vice President Mike Pence, who chairs the commission, Democratic Reps. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, John Conyers of Michigan, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, and Robert Brady of Pennsylvania asked Pence to request Kobach’s resignation from the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.
“Mr. Kobach has repeatedly claimed, falsely, that widespread voter fraud exists and advertises his work on the Commission to promote his own campaign for governor of Kansas,” the Democrats wrote. “These actions undermine the integrity of the Commission and raise significant concerns that the Commission will be used as a tool for voter suppression.”
The four Democratic congressmen also asked Pence to rescind Kobach’s request to all 50 secretaries of state for public voter roll data. Kobach sent a letter to states last month asking for the full names of all registered voters, their address, birth date, political party, last four digits of their Social Security number, voter history, and other information.
Officials in at least 45 states refused to comply with Kobach’s request in some form.
“We have serious concerns that Mr. Kobach’s purpose in gathering state voter rolls is to conduct a data-matching project that matches each state voter list with other federal databases, in an attempt to discover and then potentially purge purported ‘fraudulent registrations,'” the Democrats wrote. “The Commission should explore increasing access to voting, not perpetuating the false and damaging notion that massive voter fraud exists in our nation’s elections.”
Kobach’s involvement with Trump’s voter fraud commission has been scrutinized because of his staunch support for strict voter ID laws.
Since Kobach was elected Kansas secretary of state, the ACLU has filed four lawsuits against him.
Others have said they worry that Kobach is using his post as vice chair of the voter fraud commission to promote his campaign for governor of Kansas — an issue the four Democrats raised.
“Mr. Kobach’s partisan activity and his recent sanctions for dishonesty before a court of law cast a shadow over the Commission and undermine its integrity,” they wrote. “Mr. Kobach should step down as vice-chair and be replaced with an individual who can be trusted to ensure that the commission operates in a bipartisan manner to protect voter information and to protect the right of Americans to vote.”
The president created the voter fraud commission after claiming millions of illegal immigrants cast votes for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election, which caused him to lose the popular vote.
The commission will gather for its inaugural meeting Wednesday.
