By Ryan Lenz and Stephen Piggott
In an executive order signed in private,
President Trump named Kansas Secretary of State Kris
Kobach, who moonlights as an attorney for the legal arm of the Federation
for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), to serve as vice-chair of a
commission to review claims of voter fraud, which will be chaired by Vice
President Mike Pence.
The panel will “look at allegations of
improper voting and fraudulent voter registration in states and across the
nation,” The New York Times reported on Thursday. The commission’s formation follows
Trump’s false claim that millions of people voted illegally in the 2016
election, costing him the popular vote.
Trump’s action was viewed by civil
rights groups, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, as a vehicle to
promote voter ID laws and other restrictions that suppress the votes of
minorities and the poor.
As early as October, three weeks before
Election Day, Trump questioned the legitimacy of the presidential vote,
prompting many far-right extremists to warn of violence if Hillary Clinton were
to win. Since then, the president has claimed, without any evidence, that as many
as 5 million “illegals” voted.
All available research demonstrates that
voter fraud is exceedingly rare. Trump’s claims have received no support from
experts and little or none even from GOP politicians.
The White House said Kobach will
co-chair the commission along with Vice President Mike Pence. Kobach has long
advocated for highly restrictive voting laws.
“I’ve followed Kris Kobach’s career for
20 years. He is seriously dangerous, a xenophobic threat to democracy,” Jed
Shugerman, a law professor at Fordham University, tweeted on May 11.
Click here for the full article.
Source:
The Southern Poverty Law Center
No comments:
Post a Comment