So according to CNN all these 44 states refused to send their voter lists to Kobach’s Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, right?
Wrong!
This new scoop by Greg Palast sheds light on what really has been going on;
A national outcry followed last week’s request from Kris Kobach, Vice Chair of President Donald Trump's Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, that state election officials provide him with a long list of personal information on every voter, including party affiliation, date of birth, last four digits of social security number, and more.
Election officials in forty-four states say they will refuse to comply with the June 28 written request from Kobach, whose advisory commission was created in May by Trump via executive order. Trump has made repeated and so-far unsubstantiated claims that millions voted illegally in the 2016 election.
“They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico, and Mississippi is a great state to launch from,” responded Mississippi's Republican Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann.
“The President’s Commission has quickly politicized its work by asking states for an incredible amount of voter data that I have, time and time again, refused to release,” said Louisiana’s Secretary of State Tom Schedler.
To the contrary, Schedler and voting officials from fifteen other Republican states, the majority of those allegedly “resisting” Kobach’s demand, have already shared detailed voter files with Kobach in his capacity as Secretary of State of Kansas.
Records obtained by The Progressive from the Kansas Secretary of State office showed that Schedler turned over nearly three million voter files to Kobach earlier this year, including voter birthdates and Social Security information.
Sixteen Republican-controlled states, the majority of those allegedly “resisting” Kobach’s demand, have already shared detailed voter files with Kobach In Mississippi, Hosemann turned over the state’s entire voter rolls to Kobach, some 2,092,886 files. Each file includes voter names, last four digits of their social security numbers, voting address, and voting history.
Kobach, who has recently announced his candidacy for Governor of Kansas, has indicated the lists will be used to remove illegal voters. But voting rights advocates say the goal is actually to allow fewer people to vote.
Twenty-one states listed by CNN as refusing Kobach his demands for voter files have already turned over voter files to Kobach’s office.
Actually it’s more like 28 states. I just got this list from Greg and he got it from Kansas
The number of rows is the number of voters whose information Kobach already has. Notice that it includes 3 blue states; New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine.
This Election Integrity Commission will be sworn in on Monday. It will be lead by Kris Kobach. In Kansas he came up with the Crosscheck software. The software is supposed to spot voters who are registered in more than one state among other things. This software has been crunching all the data obtained from states that now say they refuse to send their lists since last year. This is probably where Trump got the false information that there were over 3,000,000 fraudulent voters.
Greg Palast covered Crosscheck in this Rolling Stone article last year;
The GOP's Stealth War Against Voters
When Donald Trump claimed, "the election's going to be rigged," he wasn't entirely wrong. But the threat was not, as Trump warned, from Americans committing the crime of "voting many, many times." What's far more likely to undermine democracy in November is the culmination of a decade-long Republican effort to disenfranchise voters under the guise of battling voter fraud. The latest tool: Election officials in more than two dozen states have compiled lists of citizens whom they allege could be registered in more than one state – thus potentially able to cast multiple ballots – and eligible to be purged from the voter rolls.
The data is processed through a system called the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program, which is being promoted by a powerful Republican operative, and its lists of potential duplicate voters are kept confidential. But Rolling Stone obtained a portion of the list and the names of 1 million targeted voters. According to our analysis, the Crosscheck list disproportionately threatens solid Democratic constituencies: young, black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters – with some of the biggest possible purges underway in Ohio and North Carolina, two crucial swing states with tight Senate races.
It is a “stealth war” alright. And the battlefield is far from symmetrical.
The Democratic platform was changed last year to focus more on voter suppression and the DNC has formed a new commission to focus on this issue. But IMO, our side needs to really step up and become far more aggressive and committed to engage and rally everyone.
This attack on democracy was inspired by Paul Weyrich back in 1980. Since then Republicans have been doing everything they can everywhere to limit the number of voters, specially minorities.
x YouTube VideoWe need to get much more organized, visible and active when it comes to this existential issue.
Speaking of Greg Palast, his film The Best Democracy Money Can Buy will be screened at the Rainbow Push Coalition meeting in Chicago this Saturday. Hosted by Jesse Jackson and featuring Greg.
x Vimeo Video