Make Them Hear You! Voter Suppression

Make Them Hear You! is a weekly feature on KGNU, produced by Chris Mohr, letting listeners know how they can have their voices heard on issues up before Congress. You can hear it Wednesday mornings at 8.20am during the Morning Magazine.

Donald Trump has deeply offended secretaries of state, both Republican and Democrat, with his utterly unfounded claim that millions of illegal aliens voted for Hillary and cost him the popular vote. But now, to investigate his delusion, Trump has created the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. Is this to look into Russian interference in our elections? No, it’s to look for those millions of voting aliens floating in Trump’s mind. A massive study of allegations of voter fraud from 2000 to 2014 by a member of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Divisio found only 31 “credible allegations” of voter impersonation out of 1 billion votes cast.

Vice Chair Kris Kobach of Kansas, notorious for voter suppression activity, just sent out a letter to all the states requesting massive amounts of voter data. Kobach barred 37,000 Kansans from voting unless they produced proof-of-citizenship. Over 29 states are pushing back on the Trump administration’s request . The Republican Secretary of State in Mississippi said the Commission can “go jump in the Gulf of Mexico.” Donald Trump is asking, what do these states have to hide?

Well, voter rolls have Social Security numbers of voters, dates of birth, party affiliations, military records, felony convictions, and other sensitive personal information. Most states have privacy laws governing these records and couldn’t comply if they wanted to. Kris Kobach claims this is information anyone can just walk in and get from any state’s office. That is a lie. Also, Cybersecurity experts assert that any electronic transfer of voter data will be a gold mine for hackers and identity thieves. And then the data analysis will be done, not by people experienced in analyzing data in voter rolls, but political hacks looking for pretexts to make it harder to vote the next time their boss re-runs for President.
Officials in Colorado, Wisconsin and Texas said their states would release public information, but not personal data.

Some consider this a timid response to a Federal agency with origins in the delusional mind of Donald Trump, staffed by people like Kris Kobach who have a shameful record of losing in the Supreme Court in their efforts at voter suppression. Many Coloradans would like to see our state take the same uncompromising stand the Republicans in Mississippi have taken and refuse to cooperate altogether.
If you have an opinion about how our state should respond to this Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity , now is the time to share those concerns with our Senators and Congresspeople, but also the Governor’s Office at (303) 866-2471 and the Secretary of State’s Office at 303-894-2200.