PRESIDENT Donald Trump has claimed US states that refused to cooperate with his voter fraud commission know there were people in those states that voted illegally.
“Many mostly Democrat States refused to hand over data from the 2016 Election to the Commission On Voter Fraud,” Trump tweeted yesterday.
“They fought hard that the commission not see their records or methods because they know that many people are voting illegally. System is rigged, must go to Voter ID.”
He said: “As Americans, you need identification, sometimes in a very strong and accurate form, for almost everything you do.....except when it comes to the most important thing, voting for the people that run your country.”
Trump has claimed that he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton in 2016 because of widespread voter fraud although he still obtained the keys to the White House by winning the electoral college system that picks the president.
But election experts say there are relatively few cases of fraud in voting.
Trump disbanded the voter fraud commission amid infighting, lawsuits and state officials’ refusal to cooperate.
The White House blamed the decision to end the panel on more than a dozen states which have refused to comply with the commission’s demand for reams of personal voter data, including names, partial social security numbers, voting histories and party affiliations.
“Rather than engage in endless legal battles at taxpayer expense, today President Donald J Trump signed an executive order to dissolve the commission, and he has asked the Department of Homeland Security to review its initial findings and determine next courses of action,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.
Critics saw the commission as part of a conservative campaign to make it harder for poor people and minority voters to access the ballot box, and to justify Trump’s claims of voter fraud.
Trump has repeatedly alleged, without evidence, that between three million and five million people voted illegally in the 2016 election, delivering the popular vote to his Democratic rival, Clinton.
Clinton received more than 2.8 million more votes than Mr Trump nationwide.
Critics also viewed the commission as part of an attempt to distract from the ongoing investigations into Russian election meddling and potential collusion between Moscow and Trump campaign aides.
The intelligence community concluded that the Russian government mounted a campaign to help Trump win, hacking email accounts and spreading false stories.
Kansas secretary of state Kris Kobach, a conservative Republican and the commission’s vice chairman, characterised the decision to dissolve the bipartisan group as a “tactical change” and argued the Department of Homeland Security can pursue an investigation of election fraud more quickly and efficiently.
He said: “The Democrats lost their opportunity, lost their seat at the table, by stonewalling.”
Kobach, a vocal supporter of tough voter ID laws, alleged that Democrats wanted no investigation.
Dale Ho, director of the American Civil Liberties Union Voting Rights Project, accused the commission of engaging in “a wild-goose chase for voter fraud, demonising the very American voters whom we should all be helping to participate, with the not-so-secret goal of making voting harder with unnecessary barriers.
“President Trump has tried and failed to spread his own fake news about voter fraud.”
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