From the inbox:
Today the ACLU of Texas filed an open records request with the Texas Secretary of State seeking documentation related to the State’s compliance with the federal Election Integrity Commission, which had asked states to submit voters’ full names, the last four digits of their social security numbers, their voting histories and information regarding felony convictions. The ACLU’s request seeks all communications between the Texas Secretary of State and the Election Integrity Commission, including records relating to the “views and recommendations” Texas submitted at the Commission’s request.
“The true threat to electoral integrity is voter suppression, not voter fraud,” said Edgar Saldivar, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas. “This nonsense of voter fraud is a lie peddled by politicians complicit in a corrupt scheme to rig elections by keeping minority and low-income Americans away from the polls. We are demanding this information of state officials to ensure they are doing everything they can to advance the right to vote, not threaten it.”
The ACLU of Texas’s request comes days after the ACLU national office sued the Trump administration over the Commission’s failure to comply with the Federal Advisory Committee Act, a law that guarantees transparency and public accountability of advisory committees.
“The President’s Election Integrity Commission is a voter suppression machine, pure and simple” said Terri Burke, executive director of the ACLU of Texas. “It threatens our right to privacy, endangers the foundations of our democracy, and its mission is based on a lie. No wonder it conducts its business behind closed doors.”
The Commission’s vice chairman Kris Kobach, who requested the sensitive voter information, was recently fined $1,000 by a federal magistrate judge in a voting-related lawsuit for “deceptive conduct and lack of candor.” The judge said that Kobach and his legal team had “made patently misleading representations to the court.”
The ACLU of Texas is not requesting any information related to private voter information or voter roll data.
See here for a copy of the open records request, and here for a copy of the ACLU’s lawsuit against the Trump Commission, which is one of seven that have been filed so far around the country. This phony commission is all about suppressing the vote. It needs to be resisted on every front.
Trump wins round one of the legal wars:
http://archive.is/FTPfo
Bill, the only thing won is the ability to continue requesting data. States may still decline to provide it. I saw nothing in the article you linked about states having to acquiesce to the demands of the commission. Has this commission done anything yet to make anyone think that it will be a trustworthy custodian of the data it collects, or a competent analytical team capable of eschewing partisan politics while tackling their poorly defined mission?
@Voter:
That’s why I specifically said, round 1. This is going to be fought hard, by lots of folks, in spite of the fact that there is virtually zero voter fraud. Kinda makes one wonder why so many, would fight so long, so hard, and spend so much money, fighting an investigation that would vindicate their position that no voter fraud takes place. Unless…..
You don’t have to wonder why some people are fighting this Bill, because they’ve already said why. They fear voter suppression, and if you look at history, those fears are not without merit.
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