Life on Richthofen: Signature needed: Trump’s voter suppression is ramping up

No collaboration with Trump's voter suppression commission

Tell governors and state election officials:
"Defend the privacy of your state's voters and the integrity of our democracy. Refuse to release any of your state's voter data to Donald Trump's Presidential Commission on Election Integrity."

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Dear Katy,

Donald Trump's voter suppression commission is "laying the groundwork for voter suppression, plain & simple."¹ The commission has not even had its first meeting but its vice chair – one of the worst perpetrators of voter suppression in the country, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach – just made a dangerous, unprecedented demand to state election officials: give me your voter rolls, now.²

Election integrity advocates immediately raised alarms about Kobach's massive data request. Our friends at the Brennan Center said the request could be used to "justify regressive and disenfranchising federal law." Other experts highlighted that the commission's plan to make all the data public poses a dangerous privacy risk.³

State election officials are under no obligation to provide the data Kobach is demanding. Officials from more than 18 states have already indicated they will not comply in any way with the commission's demand. Officials in every state should wholly reject the request and refuse to provide even one piece of data to Kobach and his right-wing voter suppression commission.

Tell governors and state election officials: Defend our democracy. Refuse to share your state's voter data with Trump's voter suppression commission. Click here to sign the petition.

Trump and extremist right-wing Republicans relentlessly perpetuate the myth of voter fraud to cast doubt on the electoral process, reinforce racism, undermine the voting power of communities of color and justify laws that suppress the vote. Trump's commission is designed to legitimize the voter fraud myth and supercharge suppression efforts at the national level.

The scale of private data that Kobach requested is staggering. He requested:

the full first and last names of all registrants, middle names or initials if available, addresses, dates of birth, political party (if recorded in your state), last four digits of social security number if available, voter history (elections voted in) from 2006 onward, active/inactive status, cancelled status, information regarding any felony convictions, information regarding voter registration in another state, information regarding military status, and overseas citizen information.⁴

Voting rights advocates worry that Kobach is trying to use the data to expand his reckless and discriminatory Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck program. Crosscheck is supposed to prevent double voting, but it encourages and enables voter purges. The system kicks two hundred eligible voters, often young people and African-American, Latinx and Asian-American voters, off the rolls for every double vote it finds.^5,6 Only 32 states participate in Crosscheck now. Having 50 states' data would allow Kobach to purge voters nationwide. No state should help him do that.

Tell governors and state election officials: Refuse to share your state's voter data with Trump's voter suppression commission. Click here to sign the petition

Trump has stacked his commission with people infamous for their efforts to suppress the vote, including Mike Pence, Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson and former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.^7-9 The day after Kobach sent his letter to the states, Trump added Hans von Spakovsky, who politicized and gutted the Department of Justice's voter protection work during the George W. Bush administration, to the commission.¹⁰

Democratic and Republican officials in at least 18 states from California to Mississippi have said they will refuse to comply at all with the commission's data request.¹¹ Some states have said they will partially comply with the request while protecting private voter data.¹³ Unless they are required by law to do so, no state should enable or legitimize Trump's attempts to steal the vote by sharing any data with Kobach.

Even if your state has refused to comply with Kobach's request, it is important to speak out now to ensure that decision makers in every state feel massive public resistance. Click the link below to tell governors and state election officials to refuse to let any of their state's voter data be used to undermine democracy:

https://act.credoaction.com/sign/Kobach_Data?t=8&akid=23954.12967895.Kzkgk_

Thanks for helping protect the right to vote,

Heidi Hess, Senior Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

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