Election Commission Documents Cast Doubt on Trump’s Claims of Voter Fraud

The following article by Jessica Huseman was posted on the ProPublica website August 3, 2018:

Thousands of pages of internal records are likely to bolster critics of the short-lived Trump administration commission.

A White House staff member records President Donald Trump speaking at a meeting of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in July 2017. Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP Photo

In May of 2017, President Donald Trump established a presidential commission to explore the threat of voter fraud — staffing it with multiple Republicans who had theorized that fraud was a substantial problem in American democracy. The commission, widely called the voter fraud commission, was immediately criticized as a political creation aimed at a phony problem.

In January, Trump disbanded the commission, which by then had produced little if any evidence that voter fraud was a significant menace.

Today, thousands of commission documents were released that show aspects of the body’s inner workings. As critics have suggested, the records — a mix of memos, internal emails and reports — make clear the commission’s work was driven by a small number of members who were convinced voter fraud was widespread, and that other members were often excluded from critical decisions about the commission’s aims and tactics.

View the complete article here.