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Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (left) is a longtime advocate for tighter voter identification laws and recently announced his candidacy for governor of Kansas. | Pablo Martinez Monsivais/ AP Photo

Critics get chance to hear Trump voter-fraud panel in N.H.

Many say the commission on election integrity is really trying to suppress minorities at the polls.

By JOSH GERSTEIN
09/12/2017 05:22 AM EDT





President Donald Trump's commission on voter fraud will go face to face Tuesday with a group it hasn't met before: its critics.
The election-integrity panel, headed by Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, has been widely denounced by civil rights groups who contend it is a transparent effort to throw up obstacles to minority voters.

For the first time Tuesday, some of those opponents will have a chance to be in the room as the panel meets at St. Anselm's College in Manchester, N.H., although the exchange of views may be limited because the public is not scheduled to have any time at the microphone.
"One of the reasons I want to be there is to bear witness to what's going on, because they haven't been transparent," said Louise Spencer, an activist with the Concord-based Kent Street Coalition. "Since they're not taking public presentations, the most I can do is to comment with my presence. … I'm opposed to this commission and the fact that it's focused on voter fraud, and not focused on voter suppression and trying to protect people's right to vote."
The panel announced in July that it would take comments from the public at future meetings, but thus far it is accepting such input only in writing or via email.
It's not clear how much dialogue some of the commission's opponents are interested in, with some group organizing protests Tuesday aimed at ensuring that the commission is "dismantled."
"We're very concerned that [the panel] is aimed at undermining American confidence in our elections and that it will be used to justify voter suppression," said Devon Chaffee of the American Civil Liberties Union's New Hampshire chapter. "We're encouraging people throughout New Hampshire who are interested in protecting the right to vote to turn out and voice their concern. … It'll be interesting to see who turns out."
It appears only a few dozen pre-registered members of the public are likely to make it into the hall. Marc Lotter, a spokesman for Pence, said those seats were allocated on a first-come, first-served basis from among people who emailed to express interest in attending.
Lotter said that the room at St. Anselm's seats about 150 people and that some members of the media will be present throughout the session. He did not provide numbers for the number of press or public expected to be in the hall, but stressed that the session would be livestreamed.

An agenda for Tuesday's meeting indicates the first two panels are expected to focus on voter fraud and voter identification issues, with later presentations on electronic voting systems and on century-old voting machines still used in some New Hampshire polling places.
"I'm going to give a presentation on our voter fraud database," said the Heritage Foundation's Hans Von Spakovsky, a panel member. "I'm going to be talking about some of the problems we know have been experienced around the country, like problems with voter registration lists."
The panel's critics aren't impressed by the fraud-focused panels or the presentations posted online.
"This is obviously not a balanced set of panelists or presentations, and in fact it's by and large stacked with a group of people who've been trying to make the case that there's widespread voter fraud and have been repeatedly debunked," said Wendy Weiser, an election law expert with New York University's liberal Brennan Center.
One of the issues expected to be discussed at the session, allegations that out-of-state voters visiting New Hampshire used same-day registration to vote in the state last fall, is already triggering a backlash.

President Donald Trump (center) speaks while flanked by Kansas Secretary of State, Kris Kobach (left) and Vice President Mike Pence (right) during the first meeting of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, on July 19. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images


A column that Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state, posted on Breitbart News last week alleged that more than 5,000 voters may have voted illegally. He based the assertion on data showing those voters used out-of-state IDs to vote, but never sought a New Hampshire license. He said this made it "highly likely that voting by nonresidents" led to the defeat of Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte by Democrat Maggie Hassan.
Critics slammed the claim, saying there are numerous innocent explanations for the voting, which was largely in college towns, not border areas. Many of the new registrants are likely students who have no need to drive on campus but have a legal right to register there.
"New Hampshire voters are not required to have a state driver's license in order to vote," Chaffee said. "We're appalled Mr. Kobach is making these allegations and innuendos in the press."
Even one of the panel members, Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap, pushed back against Kobach's contention.
"It's a phantom menace. There's nothing wrong with this," Dunlap said in an interview. There's no connection "between voter fraud and not updating a driver's license. It's like saying if you have money in your wallet, you probably robbed a bank. It's not relevant."


The claims have also put New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardiner, who serves on the commission, in an awkward spot. Gardiner, a registered Democrat, has defended the integrity of the state's election process, but did not respond to an interview request Monday.
"His election system has been unfairly and improperly tarnished, and he hasn't said anything significant in rebuttal," Weiser, of the Brennan Center, complained.
The 12-member election-integrity panel has been highly controversial since before its inception, when Trump promised a federal investigation into his unsubstantiated claim that three to five million people voted illegally in last fall's presidential election.
Many lawmakers urged him to drop the issue, but in May he announced plans for a bipartisan panel called the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. The panel's vice chairman, Kobach, quickly prompted an outcry and a flurry of lawsuits by asking states to turn over copies of their voter rolls, including such information as criminal convictions and partial Social Security numbers.
Leaders of several states said they wouldn't comply, citing privacy concerns and fears about how the commission would use the data, but Kobach stressed that the request was only for information already available to the public upon request.

Kobach, a longtime advocate for tighter voter identification laws and for regular purges of the voter rolls, recently announced his candidacy for governor of Kansas. He did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
Pence and Trump both turned out for the commission's first official meeting, on July 19, at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in the White House complex.
While the session was closed to the public, it was webcast on the White House website. Under precedents set during the Obama administration, authorities have deemed a video livestream sufficient to meet the requirements of open-government laws like the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
Nevertheless, the voter fraud panel is facing at least five lawsuits charging that it is failing to comply with that law and others, including rules for handling sensitive personal data. None of the suits have gotten much traction in the courts thus far, although the litigation seems to have spurred the commission to make more information about presentations at upcoming meetings available to the public in a more timely fashion.
While Pence is officially the chairman of the panel, the White House announced last month that he would not attend Tuesday's session, meaning Kobach will run it.