Not to worry. He'll find other bogeymen.
They're standard characters in nightmares.
1
An election system is "rigged" when it allows a man who lost the popular vote by several million to become President anyway!
1
Mr. Trump has no compunctions about squandering taxpayer money for unending golf outings to his own properties (on which he personally profits) or on phony investigations such as this one designed to intimidate Democratic voters and suppress their votes. And no wonder. Since he pays no taxes while bilking America, why should he be concerned in the least?
2
"Smoke screen dissipates." What was it that 45 intended it to mask? What did we miss while we were fulminating about this latest ham-handed attempt to justify his false assertion that he won the popular vote "except for" imagined millions of votes by undocumented Californians.
2020 is coming. Be on the lookout for—and be prepared to resist—vote suppression, defunding of the (constitutionally mandated!) census, more Gerrymandering, and more fraudulent attempts by the GOP to separate Americans from their rights.
2
"Rather than engage in endless legal battles at taxpayer expense" -- that's rich. How much has this kangaroo commission cost already? Trump needs reimburse us all, down to the very last penny.
1
While he's at it, how about eliminating the electoral college and changing the voting day to a Saturday, when even more citizens could participate?
1
Trump disbands his fraudulent commission, because it's becoming too embarrassing and the more facts they find, the more clear it is how big a liar Trump is. Amazing how much money and time he's willing to waste - of OUR money and time - to try to prove his lie about winning the popular vote.
2
Oh, come on. There was clearly voter fraud, just not by American citizens. A.) Trump is still having a hissy fit because he didn't earn 100% of the popular vote in the last election, and actually, Hillary won the majority of the votes. His ego just can't stand it. And B.) Russia messed with our election results, somehow, some way, and Trump doesn't want to know just how hard the Russians had to work to get him elected. That's why he's pulled the plug on the commission, because what he doesn't know won't hurt him, and it already looks bad, really bad.
Besides, he was on tape as the one who invited the Russians to investigate Hillary, so he already knew they were involved, and he already said, during the campaign, that the election was "rigged." He implied that Hillary, the DNC and the media was rigging it, but technically, he didn't come right out and say it. He knew it was rigged, and he knew who was rigging it, and for whom. And now that the Mueller investigation is getting closer to the smoking gun, his smoking gun, it's time to hide as much of the remaining evidence. as he can.
2
What a dangerous time for our republic -- certainly the the most perilous juncture it has faced in peacetime:
A Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity -- conceived in a miscarriage of justice if ever there was one -- did not have as its mandate that which unarguably -- to any reasonable observer -- severely damaged and still threatens the perceived if not actual integrity of our elections...namely, Russian interference via hacking and social and mass media manipulation.
And, very recently, our nation's Attorney General has plainly acknowledged that the Executive is neither adequately preparing for continuation of Russian (or others') interference nor adequately interfacing with the Legislative on the issue. (See, for example,https://www.yahoo.com/news/sessions-u-s-not-enough-stop-future-election-... )
I fear that mass nonviolent civil disobedience by the millions of Americans who get it may be the only way to save our republic and way of life.
6
If lying to voters 1000s of times constitutes fraud, then please don't disband....
5
reminds me of when the three stooges botched that fountain of youth
drug they came up with
1
Tom Brady hurts his arm the week before the Superbowl. Doctor #1 examines it and says "it's broken, he can not play next week". Doctor #2 examines it and says "it's not broken, he can play next week".
Doctor #1 says "let's get an x-ray then decide". Doctor #2 says "you only want more information because you want to somehow use that information to suppress Tom's right to play in the Superbowl!!"
Which doctor is the idiot?
3
The only massive voting fraud took place in Florida when the right-wingers of their voting commission and SCOTUS chose W. Later the woman who certified W as president was chosen by Covfefe to serve in his fraudulent administration.
2
In Italy voting is held over a full week-end and required. To hold elections on Tuesdays and only a few daylight hours is self defeating. If the US truly wants to be fair about future voting rights it should change these archaic laws which prohibited women and blacks from the voting privilege. It should be a right not a privilege.
4
Dear Mr. President, Fundamentally most people don't like you. You are rude, disrespectful and have offended practically every group in the nation, with the possible exception of white supremacists. So, how could you even rationally think you were cheated out of the popular vote. You are the tyranny of the minority, put into our highest office by nothing more than a technicality. No amount of investigation will ever prove otherwise. The majority is counting down the days to the end of your reign as the 'bozo of the western world'.
7
My state is in Republican hands--totally! Our election commission and Sec. of State has repeatedly stated there was no voter fraud in Mississippi. (Suppression perhaps, but not fraud.)
This was a bogus idea from it's inception and a complete waste of taxpayer dollars! Moving some of its functions to Homeland security sounds like just another way to suppress voters from their rightful exercise. Can we guess the main targets.....???
4
This has always been a fraud to justify voter registration requirements designed to lower voter turnout of minorities which typically vote Democrat. Period, end of story. The decentralization to the county level of voting makes wide spread voter fraud virtually impossible. Polls have designated poll watchers from both parties. I have been a poll watcher. I was amazed at the integrity of the process and how the resultant votes were locked up and protected. This is all about President Blowhard's ego not being able to take losing the popular vote to Hillary. Another LOSS for Trump. Not going to get tired of winning at this pace.
4
This GOP has proven themselves to the America's biggest threat.
Redistributing the wealth of the nation to the top 1%.
Disbanding the AIDS council.
Passing on Voter's rights.
Attacking the EPA.
Kicking millions off healthcare.
They have proven there is nothing they won't do. No part of America they won't attack. America has to stand firm and defeat these people at the ballot box. It was bad enough under Bush. The deficits, the deficit creating Bush Tax Cuts, the fake wars, the endless spending on undermining the country.
How could this country make an even worse mistake?
And now we have Trump playing the shell game. Tricking his base into believe he can bring manufacturing jobs back when 87% of lost manufacturing jobs were automated and are never coming back.
And if there is any collusion, it's between an unwitting media and Trump. The media gave Trump an estimated 4.8 billion in free air time by playing him constantly on air. They almost did the same thing with Roy Moore. We need to defeat this dangerous party and hole the media accountable.
4
Chris Kobach, is the key to this. Where he fits into Trumps plan will be telling. He is the maniacal genius, behind voter disenfranchisement.
2
I think the following just about says it all: "As a White House commission, the voter-fraud panel was subject to public-disclosure requirements and other restrictions that Mr. Kobach said opponents of the inquiry had seized on in “a determined effort by the left to hamstring its investigation." In other words, if the "investigation" cannot continue without public-disclosure requirements and other restrictions, Kobach is taking his ball and going home.
4
Nice. Hand it over to the Schutzstaffel where those pesky transparency rules don't apply for some reason. Why? Oh yeah, we're all supposed to be living in fear.
3
There was a voter ID law in place in Alabama when the state held a Senate election last month and Doug Jones beat out Roy Moore. The fact that the law did not guarantee a Republican victory in a Southern state must have told the GOP that the commission wasn't going to help them, hence its being disbanded.
Now that Trump has delegated this nothingburger to the Department of Homeland Security, we can only hope that DHS agents show more forthrightness and backbone than Trump's enablers in the Congress (may their tribe decrease).
4
Remember the analysis of the outward-facing document that Kobach is holding in the photo? It includes proposals like “bar the entry of potential terrorists” and track “all aliens from high risk areas.” The document also includes a proposals for “extreme vetting questions” and halting the acceptance of Syrian refugees. Perhaps because Trump has already accomplished this, the commission’s work has already been completed.
3
Here's a guess. Mostly likely, the commission started to find evidence of massive GOP voter fraud, so he dissolved the commission to prevent this from becoming news.
5
Exactly what I see as the reason. Can't see the evidence until you look in a mirror, then run, still protesting the evidence is fake.
1
In no other "democracy" is voting as difficult as the USA; it contributes greatly to our meager voter turn-out. Political goons like Kris Kobach have devoted to their careers to conspiracy campaigns and voter harassment. The soon Kobach is flushed down the political toilet (along with Bannon et al.), the better for our country. For now, let him just plague Kansans.
8
We have vote-by-mail in Oregon. Essentially absentee voting for all. You get a ballot a few weeks before the deadline along with a Voter's Pamphlet. No long lines at polling stations. No fraud. A national model. A common sense approach that works beautifully.
10
We the people desperately need investigative journalists, citizen-organizations, and our honest civil servants and politicians to monitor what Trump/GOP at state and local levels are doing (in the open and in secret) to undermine our one-citizen-one-vote democracy and our census, so that all citizens AND residents are fairly represented, as specified in the Constitution. The GOP as highjacked by greedy billionaires like the Kochs, Mercers, Adelsons, etc are lying, cheating, stealing, and even cooperating with at least one hostile foreign power to retain power so these filthy-rich folks can have MORE money -- the rest of us and our planet be damned as far as they are concerned. We cannot assume this is a win for the people. They are hiding the pea under another shell. We must not take our eye off it.
3
There is voter fraud in this country: it's called voter suppression based on districts and indigency to keep "minorities" from voting and, of course, gerrymandering. It's how the Republicans win seats in State Congressional districts and Federal. The real voter fraud begins with the Supreme Court recognizing corporations as individuals and allowing unlimited $$ into elections which have totally corrupted our government and allow these stupid "billionnaires" to believe they can be President and run the country like a corporation, instead of by the people, for the people, as public servants. There's your voter fraud.
8
Good. Now these resources can be directed to helping OJ find the real killer.
5
The Constitution limits the right to vote to U.S. citizens. Since there is no way of ensuring this limitation is enforced without inspecting state voter registration rolls, Congress should amend the Voting Rights Act to require states to include the last four digit of social security numbers on voter registration applications and provide free copies of their voter registration rolls to the Federal Election Commission.
1
Since individual states are responsible for managing the election processes within their borders, how do you justify the implied judgement that the Federal government has to look over the shoulder of each state's election commissions? States controlled by GOP or Dems, or split, all report extremely low instances of the felony of voter fraud.
Since non-citizens put themselves at risk of imprisonment or even expulsion if caught trying to vote, what makes you think they're a problem worth big-government intervention in the states?
3
Dropping people from the roles because they did not vote seems against the law. Where is the law permitting that? If you have proof the person is dead, OK, but other than that one can have no idea about the circumstances surrounding the individual situation of the person. This would seem like an assault on their rights.
6
How about a commission to actually look into how a foreign hostile power hacked our voter systems in 21 states!
6
The question that needs to be ask is how much of the taxpayers money was just thrown away on this madness?
5
So there is some small scant evidence that our democracy may be stronger then a paranoid autocratic president.
But the test is clearly not over however, the idea of Homeland Security, a federal law enforcement agency, driving their black SUV's up to the doorsteps of State government election offices requesting access under the guise of national security should frighten every man, woman and child in this country.
5
Maybe The NY Times can interview every member of Congress and ask if they agree with Trump that our voting system is "rigged" and there is substantial evidence of voter fraud as Trump erroneously claims.
I'd like to see a tally of congresspeople who agree with such nonsense.
3
How much did this bogus panel, whose sole purpose was to massage trumps hyper inflated ego, cost the taxpayer?
7
Using the word "fake claims" in the lead on the NYT homepage isn't editorializing in the news section? "Unverified" would have been the proper word since the States didn't turn the data.
2
By the way, how many $ millions were spent on this commission? I want my money back!
7
Or, maybe the commission started getting an inkling that voter fraud is what pushed Trump over the top with small margins in a few key electoral college states.
What we need is a commission to investigate the Commission on Voter Fraud. This looks very Deep State, the right-wing version to me.
Let the games begin.
4
As a European, I find it preposterous and backward the fact that the USA don't have mandatory voting ID verification to avoid suspicions of voting fraud and I don't understand why Democrats are against voting ID requirements at the voting booth, and consider them racist, Voting IDs have been mandatory in all Europe for the last 100 years.
2
How many commissions has he destroyed this week? This is at least the second I think. This administration is just plain negligent and incompetent--almost to a criminal extent.
3
Trump learned from his mentor Roy Cohn that the best defense is a powerful offense. Trump was placed in office by Russian hackers with the help of the Republican voter suppression/gerrymandering strategy. Trump lost the popular vote by 3,000,000 and tried to convince the nation that he would have won the popular vote but for voter fraud. This deliberate distraction from Russiagate has played its course and now Trump is dealing with the intense Manafort and Bannon fallout, both of whom know full well, up-close and personally, that Trump engaged in traitorous collusion with the Russians. All of these criminals need to be prosecuted to save our democracy.
5
It's encouraging that POTUS is concerned about wasting taxpayer money chasing the voter fraud rabbit. Maybe next, he should consider the exorbitant cost to taxpayers for his permanent-vacation-protection by the Secret Service, or at least not profit by it?
We'd be making progress then. But, he is a slow learner.
3
Several of the commission members objected to working with Kobach. Understandable.
People of Kansas, you are not getting your Secretary of State back yet because he has decided to go work at DHS. When the employee’s at DHS start objecting to working with him he may come back if he can’t find anywhere else to go.
2
Kobach, the pride of Kansas. Enough said.
3
Kobach is ace to win the gov slot in Kansas, you know, the mother ship of failed trickle down economics, the model the GOP used to build the best ever tax bill? Bring that winning home, Kris.
1
Now Kobach can go back to Kansas. As if they didn't have enough problems already.
3
Utterly hilarious -- Trump's fragile ego is forced to admit that his gaslighting was all a farce.
3
Rumor has it that he will take the money and team up with OJ to help find the real killers. It's just insane. We have a President who is twisted and we have to wait it out. Painful
2
Keep your eyes on Mueller...this is a DISTRACTION.
3
Must be something there or he'd be shouting about Hillary the crook. Oh, right, it was rigged in his favor! No fraud there...keep moving along.
4
May we assume genius wanted to make room for investigating Hillary's UFO fleet?
More positive news in the fight to address real issues with our election process, instead of feed the ambitions of Kobach and the insecurity of Trump:
"New bill could finally get rid of paperless voting machines
The bill reads like a computer security expert’s wish list."
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/new-bill-could-finally-get-r...
Kobach might also have violated a new transparency law in his home state by hiding work on this commission under the pretense that he was just acting as some average guy, not the Kansas Secretary of State (whose heavily-promoted work to attack voter fraud in Kansas netted maybe 6 convictions - Kansas population of 2.9 million).
http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article173996136.html
9
Anyone remember the endless stream of Trump surrogates on cable news shows insisting that massive voting fraud took place in 2016 and they were eager for an investigation? Some even argued that millions of "illegals" voted for Hillary.
We won't be hearing much from any of them, they all knew the real goal of all this - it was about gearing towards further voter suppression.
This is just another self-inflicted loss for Trump.
12
I can’t remember any of that cable news because I don’t watch TV (except that which a fitness center forces me to watch). I get my news from at least four newspapers, including the present, because they have such a wide array of news and opinions. I can skip that which doesn’t interest me and read more about that which does.
Sometimes the serendipity of newspapers yields interesting results. My wife was visiting a sister north of Toronto watching TV news. To prove my point about newspapers offering more perspectives, I visited the Globe and Mail. A lead story was about a Muslim father who didn’t want his kids to take music classes in school because music was “haram” (forbidden). A simple google search of Muslim and military bands yielded a Saudi military band playing the “Star Spangled Banner” for Pres. Obama and an Iranian military band parading by Pres. Ahminadjad (sp). You can’t get two more major Muslim countries that would be very concerned about “haram” acts.
A side effect was that I put “Little Mosque on the Prairie” on my Netflix list. One of the commenters to the Globe and Mail story was the producer of the series. It was a delight to watch the hilarious combination of personalities and their foibles and triumphs.
The media let Trump get away with this nonsense unchallenged. Before setting up such a body to investigate voter fraud, Trump should be forced to produce incontrovertible evidence supporting his contention. Millions of voters fraudulently cast would not be subtle in this country. The Secretaries of State who are in charge of elections in the States would be overwhelmed with them. They have not seen anything worth losing sleep over.
This is how he gets away with bleating 'fake news' every week. Nobody challenges him to produce solid evidence of all the documented lies and half-truths and exaggerations he has spewed in the last two years.
17
This ranks as dirty joke within a filthy joke.
A commission by any other name is still a commission. Moving it behind closed doors under the auspices of this administration's homeland security is even more frightening to me than what we had before. And what happens to the lawsuits in progress? No mention from the author about the status of the information sought. Will we ever know what shenanigans Kobach and his Republican co-conspirators were up to?
5
Kris Kobach has staked a lot of his career on this junk. Now, having utterly failed on the national stage, let's hope he slinks off into the plains of West Kansas and is NEVER heard from again.
14
Our big problem with voting is the suppression of voters. Kobach has this stupid program crossed Crosscheck and it's designed to stop minorities from voting.
5
For any who did not realize it the commission was a thinly veiled republican voter suppression effort. They sought our personal data from each state so that they could use the info for that purpose.
That is the be all and end all of what Mr Kobach was up to which is why he and his team kept what they were doing secret from the DEM members of the commission.
11
State and local governments should redouble efforts to root out election fraud, since those who were named to Trump's voter fraud commission have been as instrumental as anyone in disenfranchising voters in the past. Do not assume that they will recede quietly into the night.
3
Another non-problem, created by Trump himself, solved. What were the chances?
2
Voter Fraud Commission Shutdown...some states refused to cooperate with the Commission. Those states probably didn’t want to expose how they used gerrymandering and voter ID laws to help their preferred party. Or, not wanting to reveal that Russia had successfully hacked into their voter information files or voting machines
2
Given who was requesting the data, it is far more likely states did not want to share information to help Republicans develop more targeted voter suppression methods, in order to ensure continued electoral success by the party of wealth and privilege.
1
Has it been definitively proven that Trump’s claims are “false” or that when he claimed them he knew them to be false? How is it then that a newspaper can so definitively use the word “false” without any sort of qualifier? Is that not biased reporting? I may agree that there is limited voter fraud and so may all your other readers but it does not behoove a reputable newspaper to fall to the level of Fox TV.
2
Vlk -- your argument is on par with "you haven't PROVEN to me that unicorns don't exist."
The whole premise of the voter fraud commission was that undeniable voter fraud exists -- that Trump lost the popular vote due to "millions" of illegal immigrants voting in California, yada yada.
No such thing happened. It's a fact that no such thing happened. The New York Times is not obliged to bow down to unicorns, in the interest of not being FOX News.
3
Only one thing explains this: nothing supported Trump's outlandish statement. By the way, where's the "proof" he promised about Obama tapping his phones?
4
Back to Kansas, Kobach, for you deserve each other. Pure voter suppression attempted by Trump and his evil band. We need a new and updated Voting Rights law covering all states in the nation, because places such as Kansas and Wisconsin (well outside the Deep South) have crafted insidious laws keeping poor people and minorities away from the polls.
We need to expand voting rights, not protect white supremacy!
4
As usual, the biggest quack of all made worthless claims about supposed widespread corruption in our voting process, but left out gerrymandering of course.
His baseless claims went no where. He lost again. What a loser.
The only people with a bigger vacuum between the ears are his supporters and dishonest zealots like Kobach, who will now slither back to bankrupt Kansas and a heroes welcome no doubt.
The rest of us better wake up and remove trump before he completely steals our democracy as we do nothing and just watch it happen.
4
Trump does realize he won...doesn't he??
1
trump does not want winning, he wants worship.
1
Interesting how concerned Trump is about "taxpayer expense", at least selectively. When Trump lays a Nothingburger on this topic (no state found evidence, & experts say it isn't true), it's suddently about saving tax money. When Obama "the consumate vacationer" had done a couple golf weekends, Trump was all upset about the cost; but how many has Trump had so far @ $3 million per, about which he said "I like spending other peoples' money". And one reason he gave for why the Russia investigations should end was the huge cost (about $6 million at that point, = 2 golf weekends). Yet when it's a pet project that he thinks he can win, let's say the Muslim immigration ban, he has no hesitation about causing "endless legal battles... expense".
Yup, Trump is trying to save us all a bunch of money; what a swell guy, I sure feel badly I didn't vote for him.
Fact-checkers help me out on this one please: Didn't this claim start with someone telling Brietbart that 3 million illegal votes had occurred, and they published it without evidence - Then legitimate media asked Brietbart for their proof - Then Brietbart acknowledged it had no proof, just took someone's word for it - And then Brietbart retracted the story?
It's truly amazing what sources of "news" some people will accept. I guess if they just find some way of arguing back at the other side, that's what's most important.
6
When this was first announced yesterday, I sent out a tweet and received a response within seconds telling me that Trump won the popular vote. Based on that statement I sent an article from a conservative publication stating that Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump by three million votes. The same person wrote back immediately stating that there was evidence of nearly five million illegal votes cast for Clinton.
Sarah Sander's statement last night simply put kindling on the voter fraud fire conspiracy. Trump will always claim there was and will blame the states for not providing the information sought to prove the occurrence of comprehensive voter fraud by the Democrats. Trump's core followers will continue to buy into this belief. Sean Hannity will continue to espouse the same belief. Donald Trump will say everyone is still talking about the massive voter fraud and the cycle will never end.
In 2020 we will have another vote and if the Democrats win, the Republicans will ask for a recount claiming voter fraud. This will never end. We also saw the same tactic used by Roy Moore in Alabama where they concentrated their fraud stories around people of color coming across state lines from Mississippi to vote.
You can never put a conspiracy theory to rest. Some still, believe that Kennedy was shot by more than one person. Some still believe in flying saucers. We now hear how an alternative government called the "deep state" is controlling impeding Trump. Sad!
4
WE know those fraud voters are out there,, lurking in their second or third homes in different states, preparing to cross state lines and vote again and again and again....The CARNAGE!
2
Ah, another prime example of Trump's "winning."
2
MYbe trump ended it because what they actually found was evidence of Republican voter tampering.
2
Clearly voter suppression glad to see Kobach's commission is out.
1
Fake news? This was a five ton lie from the beginning. Hairboy had more people vote against him than for him. How could that be? Not in his teeny weeny world! He could have left it at just lying and running away like most of the time, but no - he needed to spend our dough while screaming about being cheated. Like most of his totally no thought given to it attacks this one produced zippo and made him look stupider. If that is possible. I'll bet the number of folks not voting for him next time around will be even more significant so he needs to keep this commisision all warmed up,
3
Kobach threw Kansas' election system into a cocked hat. Glad the states stepped up to deny access to records to this "kangaroo commission". Common sense and the ability to recognize a true witch hunt when they see it are still valued commodities in our political system. Please proceed.
4
Delusional Don just doesn't get that 3 million illegal residents did not organize in a Democratic conspiracy against him. For that to happen they all would have had to risk deportation just to acquire phony IDs to vote for Hillary Clinton. There would be no gain whatsoever for them risking their sanctuary here.
5
Kris Kobach, what a charlatan and deceitful person you have always been. Finding a spot in Donald Trump's "Voter Fraud Panel" was only fitting - two grifters and con men seeking out kindred spirits. Now that POTUS Trump has dissolved your panel, exactly what do you intend to do for the rest of your miserable life? You were the "Voter Fraud Specialist", and since POTUS has dissolved your commission, maybe you ought return to Kansas and do something honest once in your life.
"Voter Fraud" are two coded words fro voter suppression and denial of Americans' most cherished franchise - the power at the ballot box to elect leaders. REAL voter fraud has been perpetrated by Republicans who have sought (through legislation and courts) ways of denying people what is constitutionally guaranteed. People like Kris Kobach are but pliable pawns, sycophants to the powerful who will willingly sign-up for the Faustian bargain in order to promote themselves to higher positions of political power and self-enrichment. And these same individuals are the first to wrap themselves in the American flag demanding the integrity of voting.
For now, until removal of gerrymandered districts makes races more competitive throughout the nation, Americans can only fight this conduct by out-organizing, out-voting, and out-energizing the nefarious conduct of voter suppression. America, YOU have the POWER to send these cretins packing.
5
O.K., I confess. I am at the center of a "possible" voter fraud case. Since my mother died in 2011 I have continued to get cards telling her where to vote (locations are all on earth, none in heaven or hell). I have just thrown them away, but eventually called the Board of Elections. They told me that I would have to send a death certificate to get her off the rolls, or just forget about it and eventually she would be removed. I took the path of least effort.
However.... I could have passed on the card to an illegal immigrant who in 2016 would have looked like nearly 100 years old, and I could have helped said immigrant- willing to risk deportation to cast one vote for or against Trump- learn to forge my mother's signature.
If the authorities are reading this, for the record, I didn't do that. But hypothetically I could have. For this I wish to express my deepest apologies.
3
Mission accomplished. He just needed the initial photo op and something for Fox News to bray about.
2
Another big win for Trump!
3
Three Suddenly Gone:
1. 2017.
2. Warm weather.
3. Voter fraud panel.
=======================
Tis the season-
To eliminate a panel that
was devised for simply no
good reason.
2
Now that the states have rejected Trump's attempt at nationalizing voter disenfranchisement, Republicans will go back to their original playbook of devising methods of discouraging voting from young people, ethnic minorities, African-Americans and the urban poor at the state level. They know deep down that if the American people vote in large numbers they'll be buried - there just isn't much of a constituency for tax cuts for billionaires and decimating Medicare and Social Security and the social safety net, while giving free rein to drug companies, insurance companies, gun manufacturers, and oil companies.
4
The only voter fraud that Trump should be investigating is the hacking of our election by a hostile foreign country, Russia. But he's yet to even acknowledge that this has even happened despite the fact that our intelligence agencies have confirmed it.
Maybe Putin ordered the Commission on Voter Fraud to make his hacking easier next time.
5
All joking aside, the real issue here is the failure of the Electoral College.
Time for the House to initiate legislation to abolish the Electoral College, and make the presidential election subject to popular vote totals, nothing else.
Go to work, Congresspeople!
4
Unfortunately, I respectfully disagree. I live in the State of Washington. We had a Gubnatorial election that resulted in the same winner 3 times --- original tally, plus 2 computer recounts. However, during the final manual recount, one county, King County, made mistake after mistake and certified what I believe is a bogus recount (and by the way, it's count was delayed until all other manual counts we're in). This is in the same city (Seattle - many believe the most corrupt in the country) that encourages opioids, including heroin, by providing needles, nurses to help and a place to do it. I believe that election was rigged by the same folks. Too bad Trump disbanded this.
This commission is an absolute sham considering that 32 States were controlled by Republicans in 2016 (so going into the 2017 election). So now it’s not only Democrats who are practically paying illegal migrants, drug dealers and murders to cast fraudulent votes- it’s also Republicans.
Secondly, I am totally behind voter ID laws but there must be an outreach plan to the poorest, most vulnerable voters who may need a helping hand or extra time to obtain a legit ID- and if there are bureaucratic snafus along the way, voters can’t be penalized by clawing back their right to vote.
1
If we are going to investigate anything, spend some dollars on social security fraud, dead recipients, phony disabilities, etc.
Why worry about voter fraud when all a voter has to do (in California) is apply for a driver's license and he's automatically registered to vote?
WASTE & FRAUD: So how much *did* this faux "voter fraud" commission cost us? How about the current resident's frequent trips to his properties to play golf? And his large family's security and travel expenses throughout the world? How about his billionaire cabinet members' personal, unreimbursed trips on government planes?
FRONT PAGE: The NYT could perform a valuable public service by providing a daily or weekly chart of this maladministration's expenses. Researching, verifying, and compiling this data would be a highly stressful job, but it's information that we who foot these bills are entitled to know and would gratefully receive. Judging by friends' reactions to this idea, such a chart would quickly become one of the Times' most faithfully followed features.
4
With all the evidence of Russian interference, I'd like an independent audit firm like EY or KPMG to review the election results in the swing states with the closest popular votes. They should be empowered to take a statistical sample of results and confirm them with the voter, at least with their Presidential choice. This is particularly important in paperless states. If we find a bunch of people said they voted for Clinton but the records have Trump, we've got a big problem.
I am very happy to see that the latest GOP hamfisted attempt at voter suppression has failed. Just like the current administration has.
The true patriots are the Secretary of State officer holders who refused to hand over private voter data and the state attorneys general who filed lawsuits challenging the legality of this commission. Thank you for protecting the integrity of our elections.
3
Trump wasted millions of dollars of taxpayer money to stroke his tender ego - to somehow "prove" he won the popular vote. He is not doing his job with his endless tweet rants and ridiculous lies. He is a fake president.
If Democrats take both houses of Congress, they need to investigate Trump's many undemocratic, and probably unconstitutional, actions.
4
The vote fraud commission was always a silly and border-line racist idea. However, there is a strong case to be made for ensuring that people have some form of ID which will help them vote. As Democrats have the most to gain from this, perhaps they could spend time and effort ensuring this. The portents indicate a landslide for the Dems come November though, even without steps like these.
Why? Because election fraud is another one of those alternative truths.
1
Just like everything else that this administration does, this bogus commission was set up to do the opposite of what its stated intent was.
A commission to investigate imagined voter fraud was meant to suppress votes and possibly seek retribution against people who didn't vote for the Great Leader.
Thankfully, the states stood up to this narcissistic baby and defended our democracy. If only the Republicans in congress would do the same.
4
Trump's M.O.: Say something ridiculous, ignorant, and patently wrong, that will reinforce his bizarre psychopathology about the world and his perceived place in it. (i.e., "3-5 million illegal voters;" BTW, had HRC won the popular vote by 4.9 million instead of by 2.9 million, Trump's allegation would have been "5-7 million"!). Then, when honest people point out the glaringly obvious falsehood, Trump doubles down with some ridiculous series of responses - in this instance, setting up a "commission" headed by another known buffoon. Republican opposition to this insanity? Not much to be found (too busy hoping to get tax breaks for the rich, stolen SCOTUS appointments, and means to decrease voting rates by minorities and young people).
Then, when all the hoopla quiets down, Trump will move away from his lies and crazy pronouncements, with no apology for all the time wasted, money spent, or harm done to principles of truth and honor, resulting from his shenanigans. And his "supporters" seem to be totally unfazed by this series of clown-acts!
4
So how much taxpayer money was wasted on funding this "Commission"? Someone should keep a running total of how much Trump has spent on his vanity projects (including his "pep rallies").
4
The true fraud is how this president and Republican-led Congress continue to deflect focus away from the treasonous and complicit behavior of those who worked with the Russians to impact the outcome of the 2016 Election.
1
So what happens to the information that was easily handed over to Kobach and his ilk. Some states handed over information. Many did not. Voting histories and other information had nothing to do with voter fraud. Handing it over to the Trump administration aka Homeland Security is indeed worrisome.
3
This is a tacit acknowledgement by our Commander in Tweet that his commission was the joke we all knew it was from the start. This is also a good reminder that the American people favored Hillary Clinton over Mr. Tweet by over 3.000,000 votes and that he cannot erase that loss of popular vote even though he tries so hard to do so. Please investigate how many millions Mr. Tweet wasted on this commission, while almost half the people in Puerto Rico remain without power.
1
The real purpose of this commission was to justify voter ID laws and other initiatives that suppress the vote, especially within minority communities. One of the values of the commission, however, has been to highlight the important role secretaries of state play in our democracy. They have real power to either hinder or enhance access to the voting booth and we should be paying more attention to the individuals who occupy those roles. Secretaries of State should be advocating for laws that increase access and make voting easier for all who are eligible, such as automatic voter registration systems and early voting. Secretaries of State like Kris Kobach from Kansas do an injustice to our democracy when they advocate for policies that would suppress the vote, all in the name of addressing voter fraud that is non-existent. People have died fighting for the right to vote and we should honor their memories by ensuring everyone eligible is able to exercise that right.
1
To improve a system, it is important to first understand the system fully, with data.
That Democrats fight so fiercely to prevent any acquisition of data that might give us insight into the actual current state of our voter registration and maintenance processes is just strange when it should be obvious to everybody that we can improve our voting processes.
Nobody knows whether people that shouldn't vote do vote and the frequency with which that occurs, or the frequency of other irregularities for that matter.
The absence of convictions for various offenses is not data that is very useful.
I take from this prevention of the application of scientific methods, the Democrats have no interest in improving our voting system.
The real voter fraud in this country is instigated and perpetuated by state governments that support gerrymandering, restrictive voter id laws and limited access to polling facilities.
At the federal level, the electoral college is a remnant of the pre civil war era that ensured outsized influence by rural slave states. It needs to go just as the "three fifths" count for slaves that gave those same rural states an outsized influence an legislation.
Odd how the states with the highest voter suppression rates are also the states that have the highest civil rights suppression rates!
1
Both sides keep tip-toeing around the issue of "vote fraud", when what is really meant is that there are a significant number of people who live in the US illegally who have registered to vote who should not be able to according to our current law. They register in the usual way; and when they show up at the polls they are allowed to vote as any registered voter does - but they should not have been legally eligible to register, because they are not citizens.
The current debate has both sides talking past each other, with one side focusing on everyone who votes being registered, and the other side claiming millions of fraudulent votes, and each side thinks the other is crazy. What's crazy is ignoring this issue and pretending it doesn't exist.
This is the most important passage, which indicates that they've taken their "mission" to Homeland Security so that they can conduct their nefarious actions in secret.
"As a White House commission, the voter-fraud panel was subject to public-disclosure requirements and other restrictions that Mr. Kobach said opponents of the inquiry had seized on in “a determined effort by the left” to hamstring its investigation. At last count, he said, the panel faced at least eight lawsuits accusing it of ignoring various federal requirements, including one from a commission member, Matthew Dunlap, the Maine secretary of state, that claimed he had been illegally excluded from its deliberations.
“It got to the point where the staff of the commission was spending more time responding to litigation than doing an investigation,” Mr. Kobach said. “Think of it as an option play; a decision was made in the middle of the day to pass the ball. The Department of Homeland Security is going to be able to move faster and more efficiently than a presidential advisory commission.”
1
This commission was the fraud. Good riddance to an ill-constructed effort at voter suppression. Those efforts won't go away a however, and attention should be paid to where the administration will next seek to park this anti-democratic program.
Trump's tweets today only reveal his ignorance of the mechanics of voting -- a state function -- and the measures states have in place to oversee voter rolls. But ignorance never stops the guy from popping off what rattles around in his head as if he actually has reasoned thoughts.
Well surprise surprise. The 'panel' served the demagogue's nefarious purposes, and now he will move on to other democracy-unravelling and fear-creating schemes.
1
The question is: how much taxpayer money and time was spent on this fraudulent boondoggle? Too much, obviously.
1
Donald never met a problem he couldn't fix with money. He's about to discover a series of problems his money won't help. It's good to see a man's character developing at that age.
How convenient for Donnie. Shutting down his fake commission will allow him to insist that there was "voter fraud" without having to produce any proof.
I think they were about to conclude that there was no voter fraud and that Hillary really did get 3 million more votes than he did. Can't have that.
Trump will never live down the fact that he lost the popular vote. I don’t think that bodes well for 2018 or 2020. Mr. Trump, when you’re so egocentric that you question the integrity of our voting system in every corner of our nation, you assume the worst intentions on behalf of a majority of the American people. We will hold you accountable at the polls for your high levels of arrogance and mistrust in the basic good nature of the American people.
I wish the tweeting would stop so we could savor this event properly. The fact that this commission collapsed on its own and not through protracted litigation demonstrates the fact that racism will never, ever win!
1
This was a thinly veiled attempt at voter suppression. Bravo to the states that wouldn't relinquish individual's information to perpetuate this fraud and waste of taxpayer dollars. Hopefully Kris Kobach will crawl back into his hidey hole and not re-emerge courtesy of Homeland Security. He's all yours now, Kansas. Good luck!
How about a committee on Russian intervention in our elections and how to prevent it again. Seems that we are not prepared to thwart attempts this year either and Sessions is more concerned win enforcing federal marijuana laws even though people in numerous states voted to legalize marijuana. He says pot is the same as heroin and is the cause for new crime and violence yet he does not stop Mckesson company from distributing millions of opioids to towns and cities that do not need them. What is he smoking or should be smoking.
Given that Kobach's career is entangled with continuous efforts to disenfranchise potential Democractic voters, it was a no-brainer to conclude that this commission was more of same, with the intent of national implementation. Good riddance. Really, he belongs behind bars. As does Don the Con.
Wasn't this a waste of tax payer money to assuage a man-child's ego?
Now let me guess: this is the moment when rank-and-file GOP hold up this as evidence of Trump's "fiscal prudence", "pragmatism" or his "common sense"--willfully ignorant of the fact that it was Trump who set up this sham voter-fraud panel in the first place.
Very hard for Trump to push for voter identification when, as he knows because he has married foreigners twice, we have no national database of citizens and no national ID.
I got my Social Security number years before moving to the US and got a US driver's license simply by handing over as foreign one. I pass.
Then, the INS as it was lost my wife's files and gave her a Green Card "on good faith." A couple of years later the INS admitted to losing mine too.
Gave us citizenship though. Passports too.
So, we, the most undocumented of all, have the most ID!! But we have never been asked for any of it when we go to vote.
I would love to see Dumb Don flip out when, to vote he has to document his right to live and work in the US. And pay his lawyers for the privilege.
1
I so agree with Senator Schumer, "the commission never had anything to do with election integrity. It was instead a front to suppress the vote, perpetrate dangerous and baseless claims, and was ridiculed from one end of the country to the other."
What a bogus operation, but Kobach will still be collecting a federal paycheck from Homeland Security. His move there has raised red flags among some because the commission tried to operate covertly, like every other agency under Trump, but was outed, and now it may have the opportunity to do its dirty deeds in darkness.
Trump is such an amazing narcissist who never gets bored, seemingly, of thinking of himself 24/7. Putin got him in the WH but those who voted for Hillary are under investigation as they are his enemy. If you did not vote for Trump, you are his enemy, plain and simple.
I also agree with Vanita Gupta, the dismantled "commission's entire purpose was to legitimize voter suppression". The states already have a heads up on this.
What really worries me about Homeland Security is its foot=dragging on checking out state systems to be sure they were not penetrated by Russian cyber hackers or any other hackers. Their work is behind schedule, due to staff constraints?, and most states won't get the 'all clear' or be informed about problems until just weeks before the 2018 elections giving them not enough time to fix these problems. They will be just as vulnerable as in the 2016 election, leaving the door open for Putin.
2
My guess is that they were finding too many cases of Republican voter fraud.
3
This is not good news. The myth of voter fraud persists on the right. This commission notionally was bi-partisan. Trump now turns this "investigation," actually a front for voter suppression, over to the Department of Homeland Security. That ought to be chilling to those of us who value civil rights, including the right to vote. Republican voter suppression is not over. It merely moved to a new venue.
49
Truman won the election through the electoral college. 60 million people voted for him. Hillary Clinton had 2.9 million votes more than him. All this talk about illegal aliens in CA driving Clinton's landslide there are as ludicrous as the Democrats and the NYTs claim that the Russians gave the election to Trump.
2
It seems so obvious that he shut the panel down after losing the court case that would require the dem on the panel to get all the info. I hope that dem will still get all the info, and publicize it widely.
And secondly, obviously, Trump's action was designed to distract, as he always does - this time probably from the image of Melania crying on election night, Trump unable to read at a fourth grade level, and GACK, Ivanka for president??Thank you Mr. Wolf for your interesting read!
7
Wasn't Kris Kobach's own state of Kansas one that refused to turn over the requested information? Based on Kobach's own interpretation of state law?
20
Edit. NOT up to his job...
4
If he *honestly* thought voter fraud could throw elections, it would be his duty under the constitution to investigate and eradicate it.
If he *dishonestly* though voter fraud could throw elections, then he is a liar and a slanderer.
As he walks away, he proves he is either up to his job, or he is a blatant liar and manipulator.
Take your pick.
11
The supposed "voter fraud" commission was a fraud.
The Con Don/Robber Baron cabal tried to mess with my voter registration. I am in independent voter who leans democrat and in the past few elections have only voted for democrats.
I've used a U.S. P. O. box for most of my adult life, since mail was stolen from my home mail receptacle and have had my current P.O. Box for over 20 years. I've received my King County voter information, and other county voter information for years before that, with no problem. Until this year.
The voter ballot and other voter information came to my home and when I called the King County Elections office to find out why I was told they can't mail voter information to a P.O. Box. It's a bold-faced lie. I told them I'd gotten voter information in my P.O. Box for over 25 years. The man said, I'm not sure why this happened" and I said I did. It happened because I am in independent/democrat voter. I told them to put my P.O. Box address back on their "voter" database and if I get one piece of mail at my home address I will sue the state and King County.
I have written to the Washington State Attorney General with copies to the Secretary of State (R), King County Executive and Elections director.
Please, Good People, if you notice anything unusual with your voting rights contact the State Attorney General. Many of my friends, who tend to vote democrat, did not receive voter pamphlets and weren't sure who to vote for. Not acceptable.
42
The USPS will not deliver mail to my home, so they give me a free PO Box. But I DO have to put my street address on all my voter forms, and on any petitions I sign. I'm astounded Washington does differently.
1
Once Kobach turns over his "records" to Homeland Security, let him slink back to Kansas, a state virtually bankrupted by buddy and fellow right-wing nut job Gov. Brownback.
42
Anyone know the status of Trump's investigation into Obama's birthplace? You remember, the group of investigators sent to Hawaii to get the truth on Obama's birth certificate, or lack thereof...Trump promised he had "tremendous" news forthcoming from his "commission."
Well, mr president, as they would say "where's the beef"? Are you going to dissolve your little birther deal also. Put up or shut up, dude!
18
What a clown. The real miracle is that this moron managed not to lose all of the millions his daddy gave him.
22
He did - he went bankrupt.
1
Since he hasn't released his tax returns how could we possibly know that?
We know from the public records of Trump's 4 bankruptcies and counting. If Trump is such a good business man, he should show his taxes just like all the previous modern Presidents. The IRS doesn't care if he shows his taxes while under audit. (If he really is under audit).
I trust the Times has made a FOIA request for all records of the commission and its members. Something fishy about this. Resist.
35
We always knew that there was no serious interest in investigating true voter fraud. Either they obviously accomplished whatever they were after or it got too hot for them.
Is Kris Kobach now eligible for a pension ala Omarosa? Just asking.
18
Look at that photo. Everyone knows what they are seeing there. Two seriously dumb rich white high school dudes. They aren't on the football team, but they want to be. They aren't popular with the ladies, but they desperately want to be. They aren't in the klan but they show their allegiance to each other by a stream of ongoing racist and sexist jokes and attitudes. They keep doing dumb things and their rich parents keep bailing them out. They aren't good at school but daddy will see they make it to college and find a job where all their obnoxious qualities will generate money (e.g. real estate). Fast forward 20-40 years and those are the idiots we have running the country. Only that kind of stupidity could make a totally false accusation, carry on a charade of an "investigation" for 12 months, and then cancel it and claim they were in the right all along. These are people for whom their lies and stupidity never had any consequence.
35
Now Kobach can return to Kansas and start his 2020 presidential bid! He’s an American hero having successfully uncovered all the 3-5 million people who all voted illegally and all for Hillary. I think they all live in Kansas.
18
The only fraud is sitting in the Oval office.
27
There are quite a few in Congress as well.
1
Hopefully Trump won't also disband his Flat Earth Commission
29
So how much *did* this faux "voter fraud" commission cost us? How about the current resident's frequent trips to his properties to play golf? And his large family's security, and travel expenses throughout the world? How about his billionaire cabinet members' personal, unreimbursed trips on government planes?
IMHO the NYT could be performing a valuable public service through public daily box on the front page insuproviding estimated costs of all the above, updated on a daily basis
19
Apologies for the garbled, rather nonsensical second paragraph in my earlier submission. Looks like I tapped "send" without realizing it (and then wondered where my comment-in-process had disappeared!).
1
"It is an issue that continues to resonate with base voters."
"Base voters" is right.
25
Kris Kobach: The Dunce's dunce.
Just one of many intellectually vacuous and bitter Congresspersons elected by an equally vacuous and, more dangerously vile, electorate.
The realization that so many of our population are just fine with the dearth of intellect, decency, humility and selflessness trumpeted by our leadership is the fertilizer for despair.
18
Duh. Trump and his minions will have to find other fake stories to push on their gullible base. ;)
9
Why are the Democrats thwarting this inquiry if "voter fraud" is fake. Hmmmmmm. If you have nothing to fear, you have nothing to hide.
2
Maybe because they were not allowed to see any of the 'evidence.' Bipartisan hearings run by this current crop of Republicans are a joke. (Except ..perhaps ... the Senate Intelligence Committee.)
Nice try Hank, but resistance to the commission from state officials was one of the few bipartisan causes of 2017, not a case of "Democrats thwarting this inquiry..." as you claim.
My favorite was of course Mississippi Secretary of State (and Republican) Delbert Hosemann's response: "They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi is a great state to launch from."
1
It’s not only the Democrats who know this is a shameless tactic to suppress votes- pretty much every other Republican governor knows it too- and that’s why 44 States refused the request. A total of 32 States are fully controlled by Republicans. How do you explain these metrics?
1
He had to disband the commisssion; they were starting to uncover actual GOP voter fraud.
19
Headline 2018:
"Mueller Dissolves Trump/Pence Administration"
20
I would suggest that Vanita Gupta not celebrate too hard and that swing state governments like Ohio, Wisconsin, Colorado, Virginia and New Hampshire pay attention to the amount of input that Kobach has in Homeland Security. I believe that Tyler Houlton is correct in his concern of the influence that the fanatical Kobach could have in these states in influencing the suppression of Democratic leaning voters in located there. Radicals like Kobach and the Republican legislators in states like North Carolina will stop at nothing to enforce their radical, voter suppression agendas
13
No surprise that Trump signed this Executive Order sans cameras and fanfare.
16
That just doesn't seem "fair". Sad.
2
All the evidence points to Trump being an illegitimate president. Surely, his voter fraud commission knew that.
13
Even while disbanding his fraudulent commission, Trump had to toss in a few lies in favor of voter suppression.
Resist! It works.
10
Combine this article with the revelations coming from the Wolff book and you have an answer. The president knew there was voter fraud because he just knew there was voter fraud. Regardless of facts, because he knew it, it had to be true. Don't confuse him with the facts because his mind was already made up.
11
Yawn.
Donald Trump has always been an attention hog. He'll say and do anything to please a crowd or get a rise out of someone. The commission on voter fraud served its purpose at the time.
We can only hope he'll keep his big button buttoned. Launching a nuclear weapon would get him attention the way, say, the Los Vegas shooter got himself attention. Bigly.
5
Google "unhackthevote" or "Pennsylvania Voter Registration Data" - links to other states affected for a serious investigation into voter fraud .
Also live information on Twitter #unhackthevote hashtag
There certainly is a concerted attempt to destroy Democracy in the US
5
Don't claim victory here. This hasn't ended. The Trump administration will just pursue its voter suppression goals through a federal agency that operates many times in secrecy in the name of protecting Americans. This is getting very scary.
6
How much tax payer money Trump has wasted on this? Or shall I say; how much tax payer money Trump has given to Kobach for supporting his false claim during election?
6
The biggest fraud in this whole dive to depravity continues to be the failure to make the only public office with a national constituency a genuine one person one vote popular election, with run-offs when no one candidate wins a majority.
5
Always reassuring when public disclosure requirements are said to "hamstring" the making of public policy. Three cheers for Matthew Dunlap, from Maine.
4
Trump just couldn't have said we've found no evidence of voter fraud. Nope, he had to go on the record with a false claim. The damage this guy does is just incredible.
10
Reminds me of a comedy routine where the guy hanging out in front of the drug store is hired to keep people from hanging out in front of the drug store.
But once again, Trump Administration beats fiction.
7
The panel was fraud itself.
6
Yeah we had attempted massive voter fraud attempted in my adopted state of NC until the US 4th Circuit stepped in and invalidated the Tea Party legislature’s racially discriminatory voter id law.
Similar laws in other states are the only voter fraud going around in these United States.
5
I read not long ago that one case of voter fraud involved a confused woman who voted FOR Trump.
9
What wild goose chase will the Trump administrations waste tax payer dollars on next?
5
Typical Trump garbage. He's lying again and poisoning the public's already dwindling faith in the electoral process. It's bizarre coming from a guy who lost the popular vote by millions and whose party benefits from widespread gerrymandering and ballot suppression. Every flaw in the system works in their favor, so Trump and others in the GOP need to pretend illegal voting is a real thing. It isn't.
3
There is only the biggest fraud and it's not the voters. Sad!
5
Great now lets dissolve everything else he's done.
3
For fear of being proved wrong on his voter fraud charade Trump thought it prudent to dissolve the White House investigation but he's getting restless as to how to get rid of the other investigation that's really moving closer to fix him and his near and dears on the Russian meddling.
8
For fear of being proved wrong? He has been proved wrong and Trump and his diehard band of Trumpets who guzzle his lies like a Humvee guzzles gasoline are the only ones who don't seem to understand this.
2
There was clear, documented, and publicized evidence of voter machine tampering in Wisconsin following the 16 election in districts that flipped for Trump--and a recount that started and then was suddenly shut down by a Republican judge. How about starting with that fraud?
28
Well, Edith you got your good voter fraud and you got your bad voter fraud......
All I can say is that I am deeply hopeful that this failure derails Kobach's campaign for governor here in Kansas. Right now he is the presumed front-runner, and after eight years of Sam Brownback the idea that Kris Kpbach could be running our State is truly terrifying.
18
Has it never been considered that 3 million more voters simply preferred Clinton? I know did. Maybe my vote was one of the 3 million--not fraud, just a vote from a person who didn't want Trump.
20
I'd like to know just how much taxpayers' money was wasted on this fake commission investigating Trump's fake claims of voter fraud before this final acknowledgement that it was all fakery.
20
"...Mr. Kobach said opponents of the inquiry had seized on in “a determined effort by the left” to hamstring its investigation."
Short memory, Mr. Kobach. Red states, including his own Kansas, Kentucky and Mississippi also resisted the intrusive ruse. This is not a leftist fight; chafing at the fraudulent voter fraud commission is the legitimate response to those who don't want to indulge nonsense.
20
The people who win elections do not have a long history of challenging those elections as fraudulent. When Trump started his fraudulent investigation, the people he was accusing of malfeasance were precinct poll watchers who were rightly affronted at the false allegations.
Voter fraud is a myth generated by folks who find they can't use poll taxes and voter tests to chase minority voters from the voting booth.
The problem with voter fraud allegations is that both parties have exactly the same incentive to steal elections, that individuals rarely see any benefit in taking the risk of federal offense to vote more than once, and that investigations therefore turn up nothing.
8
Kansas gave Kobach the power to prosecute voter fraud cases a couple of years ago. Since then, with a staff of Kansas taxpayer funded lawyers he has prosecuted nine cases of voter fraud. Most of the culprits were older Republicans who owned property in more than one state and believed they were entitled to vote on local issues. Kobach is a Trump sycophant, out for himself. He wants to be governor of Kansas. I think not. After Brownstain, Kansas will go Democratic I think.
17
Maybe Trump finally realized that maybe he shouldn’t pry too deeply into the results, given where he now sits despite losing the popular vote. But that points to a valid area of study for a bipartisan or nonpartisan election reform committee, were we so inclined to form one — the continued usefulness and validity of the Electoral College, as well as how districts are redrawn by partisan actors that effectively disenfranchise many legitimate voters.
Fat chance of THAT ever happening.
6
Let’s not forget honorable Vice President Mike Pence’s role in this debacle. He’s back there waiting in the wings and every bit the disaster that Trump is.
17
I demand an immediate return of my state's voter data with signed statements from Kobach swearing there are no copies of the data and an apology for wasting my tax dollars.
14
So the department of "we didn't know where else to put this" will be paying Federal government employees to look at state election practices for ....what? Applying the state election laws?
Why does every Trump tweet end with a referral to some heretofore unoccupied Federal employee with presumably nothing else to do? Homeland Security is completely nailed down, obviously. Can't we transfer these detectives and dogged investigators to searching for cancer cures or criminal environmental polluters being championed by the new EPA of Business Puppetry, or doing something else we actually need?
6
Another big "win" for Trump. When I think of the taxpayer dollars wasted on this fraud it makes my stomach churn.
What makes my stomach churn even more is the notion that moving the "voter fraud" inquiry to DHS does raise a real threat, as correctly noted by Commissioner Matthew Dunlap.
9
A committee more fraudulent than anything it was supposed to be investigating.
10
Gee, given that Trump and his lackey Kobach insisted that 5,7 million illegal immigrants voted in the last Presidential election that they could at least find a million or so documented cases.
Yes, the whole thing was an attempt to put onerous requirements on voters (their especially minorities) to prove they are eleigible to vote.
Oh, and just who were these Republicans that so bravely stood in the path of Trump’s attempt to deny Americans their greatest franchise?
6
I'm still concerned about states that use electronic voting machines. Everyone needs to go to paper ballots NOW. I heard there was a move in that direction across the country. It can't happen fast enough.
6
A short-term win for democracy! Of course, trump ignores the fact that there has been no studies to suggest wide spread voter fraud. This was just another Republican attempt to suppress the vote of minorities. Thankfully, a free press shined a spotlight on their efforts and certain state governments resisted.
7
The president is admitting that his voter fraud commission was bogus all along, just another attention-getting device aimed at disenfranchising minorities. That states have refused to co-operate with his request for voter information and have found no evidence of voter fraud has told him nothing at all. He still wants to play the victim even after winning the election. Election integrity is at the heart of the democratic voting process and for a sitting president to denigrate the states’ handling of voter registration and monitoring is disingenuous.
7
This is unfortunate. By not cooperating with the probe, the states that refused to provide voter data give Trump the ability to continue to claim massive voter fraud. If the commission had done its work - and the expected result of little or no evidence of fraud was confirmed - Trump would have been proven wrong.
In the absence of any findings from the commission, expect red states to continue their efforts to eliminate "voter fraud."
1
With this commission gone, and no conclusions drawn, Trump and the Republicans will still be able to cry "voter fraud" if/when they get romped in the 2018 elections, and when Trump loses his bid for re-election.
5
Trump is setting himself up for an out or excuse if he loses the 2018 or 2020 elections...he might have disbanded the commission but still believes that millions of people voted illegally.
Trump is setting up his base to believe that any elections he loses are based on a rigged and corrupt system...so don't be surprised when Trump refuses to accept the will of the people in future elections.
3
And how much did Trump's will o'wisp paranoia cost the American taxpayer? I never thought I'd see a more ridiculous expenditure than to investigate the question 'do eggs talk to one another', but here it is, and it's not even a boondoggle, which at least benefits some citizens.
6
Voter suppression efforts haven't been abandoned. They've just been moved to DHS, where they can continue to operate without the scrutiny to which the supposedly bi-partisan commission was subject, and without the lawsuits.
4
The goal was to intimidate voters by giving the Trump crime family our personal data -- names, addresses, dobs, social security numbers -- so that family's operatives could steal our identities or threaten us with financial harm in exchange for our votes. Even the right-wingers would have been at risk.
3
Our problem in this country is extreme gerrymandering, illustrated by the fact that a majority of Americans vote for Democrats in House elections, and yet the Republicans maintain their majority. Here in Georgia, 45% voted for Clinton, 51 for Trump, which is a strong indication that the state is almost evenly divided, and yet Republicans hold 9 out of 13 congressional seats. That stinks of fraud if you ask me!
I've had to show photo ID every time I've voted in the 21st century, and as an election worker who checks people into the polls using the Express Poll database, I know it would be extremely difficult for someone to beat the system, and I can't imagine why anyone would risk a felony to cast a single fake vote. There are many checks built into the system to prevent fraud, and the most anyone with a questionable ID can do is cast a provisional ballot.
This whole issue is built on farce, and Republicans (and their supporters) should be ashamed of themselves for wasting time and resources on it. Our state election boards are full of dedicated professionals who take their work seriously. Let's face it: the real issue here is that too many Americans vote for Democrats, and that's a direct threat to the Republicon party.
8
It would be appropriate for the New York Attorney General to hire the Federal prosecutors fired last year and those being replaced this week by the Justice Department that had been working in New York in order to strengthen New York State investigations of fraud by the disparate Trump entities.
Want to talk about abuse of the electoral process in America?
Fine. Let's talk about redistricting, let's talk about Citizens United, let's talk about the Electoral College, let's talk about Gove v Bush, let's talk about Russia, let's talk about paid Eastern European internet trolls. There is indeed plenty to investigate when it comes to "rigging" the American electoral process in the 21st Century, but the type of "voter fraud" that right-wing zealots like Kobach and Trump have targeted is not one of those things.
The WH "commission" these traitors to Constitutional ideals assembled in 2017 was all about diversion and deflection and not at all about subversion of the system.
This week, the "commission" ended the same way it began; with the "president" and Kobach piling lies so high that Americans would need to sprout wings to stay above them.
5
Kobach is running for Governor in Kansas, hoping to replace the infamous Sam Brownback. Distancing Kobach from the Commission may have been seen as important to his candidacy. Heaven help the Sunflower State.
3
But it was the biggest commission panel ever, in the history of the US, maybe even the world.
4
Between his "working vacations" and this fiasco somebody needs to look at how much Trump is costing the tax payer, after all he did say that he was going to drain the swamp or did he really mean that he was going to flood the swamp.
4
Speaking of voter fraud, are we sure Trump is a US citizen, and not a Russian spy? If he’s a Russian spy and voted for himself....
3
The only verifiable voter fraud were those claiming there was verifiable voter fraud. As with most other developments concerning this regime, truth will out.
1
What was Mike Pence's part in this? Wasn't he overseeing this "commission?"
The VP is involved in so much, yet, seems to disappear with no thought in wondering the who, what and where of his behavior.
7
It's depressing that the Office of the President of the United States actually wrote in a official statement that there was "...substantial evidence of vote fraud..." when there actually is none.
That our current executive branch could actually put out a blatant lie and not care that the entire educated world thinks they are ridiculous is humiliating for our country.
157
It's best to read all White House press statements after donning camouflage. Opioids seem likely to help, too.
3
Your country's embarrassment will continue on a daily basis until the orange one is removed from office.
3
"That our current executive branch could actually put out a blatant lie and not care that the entire educated world thinks they are ridiculous is humiliating for our country."
See "2003 Invasion of Iraq, Rationales for"
1
Vive la Resistance
40
What a big waste of taxpayer money.
38
The Democrats should throw "fake news" claims right back at him!
29
"Despite substantial evidence of voter fraud . . . "
He and his idiot fans will continue banging on that drum in spite of NO evidence.
Ohmigod, I am so very tired of him, his ramblings, and the media covering every inane tweet. Please stop.
75
To Trump and his fans, "voter fraud" consists black votes influencing the outcome of elections they care about.
3
NYT Should stop reporting on every stupid tweet. actually they should stop covering him for a day or two and then he’ll be begging the time to write about him.
1
How much taxpayer money was wasted?
35
Yes, but what to do about the 3 million illegal votes for Hillary in California?! Sad.
5
Don Jr. your avatar gives you away!
1
Right, and Trump is greatest president ever. Wait, greatest leader in world history! that's it.
3
Kobach is revealed for what he is - a blatant opportunist and Trump lickspittle.
59
Is it possible he did something good?
2
I doubt it ....
1
No
1
What a waste of the taxpayers money!
The system is "rigged" but they found no evidences.
So who are those 3 millions? Former students at Trump University? Donkeys who vote Democrat? Elephants who, without realize it, vote Democrat (Remember the butterfly ballot of 2000)? Aliens? Mexicans (quick build the wall)?
But do not worry, they will find out, Homeland Security is on the case.
Stay tune.
10
FIRE and FURY should make it to the NYTimes best seller list.
This shows JUST how poorly organized, and conceived AND horrifying it is at the Whitehouse with the self proclaimed sexual predator at the helm.
26
You know, after the last 24 hours of listening to the quotes from Michael Wollf's new book, where every man, woman and child is calling trump "dumb", "stupid", "out of touch", etc., telling tales of what a laughing-stock he is, then I'm questioning exactly who it is that is giving the orders over there.
DID trump:
1) order that commission?
2) IS he the one who shut it down?
3) Aside from a half dozen tweets on the subject, what PROOF do we have that he was the instigator to that commission? Do we have interviews? Papers written in his own hand on the subject?
In fact, have we ever seen him write anything except his name?
CAN he write?
I ask that because the word is that he is incapable/unwilling to read at all, even a 1-page synopsis.
So, what proof do we have that trump was the originator of that order?
I now question every iota of trump.
Who is writing the orders?
Who is writing his tweets?
I don't think it is trump. Writing (even a comment to the NYTimes) is a complex business. If trump is incapable of reading a 1-page position report, then he is utterly incapable of being President.
Do we have a true "shadow government" running this show?
The word is that at New Year's he was unable to recognize any of his friends as they greeted him.
We had this little problem with Reagan.
We don't need it again.
The R's need to stop their boot-licking and get on that impeachment.
The game is over.
52
All you have to do is watch how long it takes Trump to sign his name. Most people who have to sigh their names frequently would not get much accomplished.
2
Putin?
1
Trump has friends?
1
Yes, the American voting system is corrupt, a fraud. It is due to voter suppression masterminded by Kris Kobach in the form of "Interstate Crosscheck" that threw at least one million poor, minority, inner city residents off the rolls. Overwhelmingly Democratic voters. Investigate Crosscheck and prove Trump was not legally elected, and neither were many of the other Republican "winners" in 29 states across the country. NYT: get up the courage to do a full scale expose of Crosscheck and throw these traitors out of office. Put Trump and Kobach behind bars.
70
Just look at the picture. Two people that brag about their education, proof that if you have the cash you can get a degree from our finest institutions.
1
Well here is some grist for your journalism mill! I hope you folks will do a followup investigative article. It would be fascinating to see the internal communications, work papers, emails, etc related to the commission. Now that the Commission has been disbanded their work should be public information, right? Yay freedom of information act! Sic em!
66
Baloney! The reason was that the gang found nothing and the states refusal was due to complete lack of evidence of votind fraud. Period!
11
AnothervTrimp waste of taxpayer money.
13
Hoorah!! Well, here's one con that the Fake President did not get away with. The American People: 1 ; Trump: 0. It feels so good to win! (And for him to lose.)
13
The "fraud" sits in the White House and thinks he's qualified to be president.
29
Congrats, NYT, on putting the word "false" right there in the dek! Hooray for concrete statements!
6
On their website, the Heritage Foundation, a Conservative Think Tank, states. "The Heritage Foundation is providing a list of election fraud cases from across the country, broken down by state, where individuals were either convicted of vote fraud, or where a judge overturned the results of an election. This is not an exhaustive list but simply a sampling that demonstrates the many different ways in which fraud is committed. Preventing, deterring, and prosecuting such fraud is essential to protecting the integrity of our voting process.” Fair enough, but if you’re going to believe the Heritage statements, you really need to do due diligence. So I did, looking into their database. I chose to look at Arizona, mainly because it came towards the beginning of a long list.
Roughly 2,300,000 people voted in the 2012 Presidential election. What I found was laughable. For Arizona, the Heritage Foundation database lists about 20 cases of voter fraud covering the years 2008-2012. Out of over two million people. As the Pro Football commentators say, “C’mon Man!” But how many people are going to look this stuff up? If you take what Heritage says without doing any checking, of course you can believe that voter fraud was rampant during the 2016 elections! But even their own data show that there was no significant voter fraud. It would be nice if Heritage would admit it...
87
It really does take an expert to calculate where voter fraud would make any difference here in the US.
" It would be nice if Heritage would admit it..."
Yes, but it would go against everything they've worked to build over the last 60 years.
Actually being truthful would probably cause them to break out in a rash of biblical proportion.
1
According to the Federal Election Commission, 129,085,410 votes were cast in the 2012 presidential election, not 2,300,000.
I agree that the threat to voting integrity is still severe with Homeland Security running the show now. They will NOT be open and transparent. They will do what Mr. Kobach has always dreamed of (along with AG Sessions) and suppress any vote that may be made by "UN" Americans - people of color, Democrats and anyone with a 'foreign sounding' name.
The GOP has not finished rigging the system. It's the only way they know how to win.
23
The fraud disbands the fraud looking into the alleged fraud `despite substantial evidence.' Sounds like fraud to me.
12
Could it be that the Commission could only find fraud that was on behalf of Republicans?
20
My FIRST thought.
So Trump will save tax dollars by closing his ludicrous vanity project on voter legitimacy. If only he had sense enough to end his other vanity project...his presidency!
22
That Trump determined it essential to disband the Commission on Voter Fraud should serve as a 2018 wake-up call to start acting like the president of the United States; that is, to start serving us rather than constantly patronizing us. But it won't.
That Trump determined it essential to disband the Commission should also serve as a lesson to stop stoking our mounting Resistance -- Resistance empowered early in 2017 by his narrow, selfish agenda and bullying style of "leadership". But it won't.
Trump's disbandment of the Commission on Voter Fraud is just one more loss for a presidency that proved to be a lost cause from its very beginning 12 months ago. Add to this the loss in the courts of his immigration ban, the loss of his effort to dismantle Obamacare, his losses in last fall's midterm elections, (etc.) -- and above all, our continuous loss of faith in him (the continuous fall of his approval rating).
These losses, and many, many others to come, point to a probable and imminent culmination: an early end of his presidency.
32
If Donald Trump abruptly shut down the commission, it was probably because the commission was getting too close to discovering that the election was indeed rigged, and that it was Trump's digital team (more than the Russians) who rigged it. He was right to question how he won the electoral vote when Hillary Clinton managed 2.9 million more popular votes. I've learned always to pay attention to what Trump says. Especially in his many lies, there is always a germ of truth.
2
On the surface, this is obviously good news.
I remain uneasy, though, about Trump's motives to do something like this now as it so perfectly fits with everything about him and how he operates.
It makes you wonder if he has something else planned that is even worse, and the fact that there was a "handoff" of sorts to Homeland Security is a red flag that they are not going to give up on this issue.
Fanatics like Trump and Kobach never throw in the towel.
5
We desperately need a voting commission in this country. Just not this one.
The commission should examine global and national best practices for secure and accountable voting systems, make recommendations, and require states to meet minimum guidelines for their systems. And provide oversight for private voting system providers.
It should also look globally and locally for ways to INCREASE voter participation, not decrease it. Can we offer more places to register and vote? Should we make voting mandatory? Change elections to weekends? Standardize vote-by-mail?
Ideally, it would also review our entire system of primaries and national elections. Surely we can do a better job of picking candidates than the current system in which Iowa plays an outsize role. Options have been proposed, ranging from rotating (and shortened) primary calendars to regional primaries. But this would require a bipartisan recognition of the problem — not likely.
4
The Federal Election Commission is a collection of drones. One of the commissioners surfaced recently when Trump appointed him to the federal judiciary. Once exposed in the confirmation process, he had to withdraw.
3
and how much of our tax dollars was spent on this searching for a solution to a problem that never existed?? how long must we endure this nightmare?
6
Law professor is dead-on when he states "the commission was poorly organized and lacked an endgame." Trump should not sleep well at night because Robert Mueller is well organized, and does have an endgame.
4
Maybe voter ID's would reassure us that ballots are not stuffed.I loved JFK but there were rumors that Mayor Daily rigged the election in Chicago in JFK's favor.Vote early and often was the mantra in Boston.
---Another example of time and money wasted ostensibly trying to prove...yet another presidential untruth. As to the system being "rigged", an ongoing, cover-all claim that the dishonest one likes to apply to a number of situations, primarily to appeal to the so-called base...the actual rigging is the gerrymandering and voter identification requirements that his party has been long engaged in, attempting to marginalize and eliminate votes they know will not go their way. The monumental dishonesty behind this hijacking of our electoral process IS real, and it is ongoing. It must be reversed.
4
So I guess there was no “there” there; either that, or he got bored.
But I’m sure he’ll find some place and some way for Kobach to further infest the electoral process. Nothing is ever entirely finished when Trump is involved.
While it most likely does exist at every level, voter fraud is nowhere near the threat that the GOP wants people to believe. And even if it were, the Republicans would be the last group I’d want to have trying to fix it.
3
I find the timing ... odd. After months of inaction (or secret action), Trump dissolved the commission 6 business days after the commission lost a court case and was ordered to release information to the Maine secretary of state, Matthew Dunlap.
But in any case, the explanation that States' refusal to supply information seems like a smoke screen. Heck, Kansas (Kobach's state) refused to release SSNs (http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article159113369.html) back in June.
8
Someone made money off this fake idea.
Who? When the Dems take over congress, I urge an investigation.
5
They found out that Trump had even fewer votes than reported.
17
Call me cynical, but I'm suspicious about the reasons the commission was disbanded.
Maybe Trump realized that its existence mobilized people interested in fair elections, who would be spurred to watch the elections in 2018 and 2020 with hypervigilance—impeding whatever shenanigans he and Vlad have in mind next.
Or maybe he finally realized that since he won, it didn't serve his self-interest to question the results of the last election. Or maybe there were indeed forms of voter fraud to be uncovered from 2016, except they favored Trump, and this commission risked calling attention to them.
In any case, Trump stated explicitly that he believes voter fraud exists on a massive scale, so it's certain he didn't disband the commission for any of the good reasons against it.
84
You're giving trump the benefit of the doubt when it comes to logic, thinking, and ego. Nothing that comes out of his mouth has been thought through. It's his ego that demands the lie that 3 million more people voted for Clinton. Ego alone forced him to create his voter fraud commission and give them the order to find voter fraud that favored Clinton. Guess what they found? They found that trumpie is wasting their time, and your tax dollars.
4
You're correct to be suspicious. Disbanding the commission and moving it to Homeland Security is simply a way to evade scrutiny. Here's the money line:
"But Mr. Kobach insisted in an interview that the commission’s work...would be transferred to the Department of Homeland Security, one of the federal agencies charged with ensuring election integrity and one that he said critics would find more difficult to target."
17
You are correct to be suspicious.
Hooray for sanity rarely glimpsed in this administration!
3
Oh, I’m totally sure he shut it down for honorable reasons. I also have a nice, lightly-used bridge to sell you.
7
Not sure sanity had much to do with it.
7
What sanity? This administration CREATED the commission.
And now you’re giving them credit for disbanding it?
Wake up!
3
President abruptly shuts down White House commission he had charged with investigating voter fraud. Trump acting erratically. Sundowners?
8
The only shame here is that dissolving the commission fails to delegitimize anti-democracy trolls such as Kris Kobach.
Rest assured, he and his pestilence will be back in November.
35
You assume that he would have run a 'fair and balanced' commission. Really?
1
"Think of it as an option play" should be the title of the White House employment manual.
7
At the very least, there should be a thorough public accounting of the tax money spent by and on this commission, including the cost of the litigation to ensure that the Democrat members of the commission received all documents and information. Transparency will limit this type waste of time and money.
168
Trump is the biggest election fraud ever perpetrated on the US.
128
A commission based on a long held belief that people of color has no right of representation, good riddance that it has been wiped out. Lets move on to the next battle to free our democratic country of brutal assault by Trump regime and his GOP cohort.
18
The only reason for disbanding this commission is to short circuit the judges ruling to open files to the Democratic commission panel members who were locked out of deliberations. Now this treacherous commission want to hide behind DHS.
56
But even with this disbanding, the right wing false message will persist on right wing radio and TV for years. That liar Hannity will make another mini career of false "voter fraud" for years as will other talking heads
38
The Kings of 'Fake News' - Trump and his complicit GOP Foxers find it's so much easier to continue spewing lies rather than provide proof. It's a win-win for them. They get to keep saying there's widespread fraud regardless of evidence and thereby keep stroking those who are proud to remain willfully, and blindly ignorant. And then we have the real conern of voting fraud via hacking and undue influence that is the key to the Russian interference in our election, which Congress is doing nothing to protect.
95
Russia maybe interfered with the election, but it sure didn't change my vote. But then I don't watch TV with all of its sensationalism. I get a much wider array of news by reading four or more newspapers from local to state to NYT and Washington Post. And boy, in all of them I get a much greater variety of news and opinions than I can get in a half-hour or even an hour of TV news program.
2
As with every other objective, observable, reality-based fact that Donald Trump doesn't believe casts him in the best light possible, this commission sought to blame someone else...just as Trump does continually in every area of his life. It must be "the left" - it must be "illegals" - it must be "felons" - it must be "people doubly registered in multiple states" (like Jared, if memory serves), etc.
NO...it's that Trump won the Electoral vote, and Hillary Clinton won the popular vote...period. If he wants to blame anybody for that, he should blame those who voted for her, and those who refused to vote for him...but it's not these other populations whose supposed actions constitute "fraud" - if anything, this commission was fraudulent, and a perfect beginning to a coup attempt by the Trump administration, controlling the information on people's very identities.
If the Trump administration, utilizing any of its many agencies, really wants to "focus our efforts on securing elections against those who seek to undermine the election system or its integrity" it need look no farther than the Trump campaign and Russia...of course, we shouldn't stop with Russian interference, we should be hardening our systems against any and all interference by any players, be they state sponsors or individuals with axes to grind.
Spend the energy and money where it really needs to be, which is in protecting our systems, and respecting our democratic institutions.
28
"If he wants to blame anybody for that, he should blame those who voted for her, and those who refused to vote for him."
Well, yes, he does blame "blue states," and so does the GOP.
That's why we no longer have deductions for state and local taxes -- taxes which, I should add, give us better access to health care, better schools, and bigger cultural institutions than found in, say, Missouri or Alabama. Can't fix envious and stupid.
3
trump should be billed and required to pay for all costs associated with this committee, which sprang from the paranoid depths of his weak and oh-so-fragile ego.
34
How much did this cost? I know the conservatives are concerned with wasting $$.
16
Especially when it could be better spend enriching their donors.
They are only concerned with expenditures that don't go to directly benefit their oligarchy. Or haven't you heard about the latest "tax cuts"?
1
Yea, shut it down just before they'd have to admit there wasn't any. Now he can still lie about it being fixed.
19
Yet another example of flaws in our constitution. If you give people the freedom to govern themselves, you make room for them to elect a goon. How much money did Trump cost the taxpayers with this boondoggle?
13
A pathetic attempt to justify his fictitious campaign claims. The States were right to shut this kangaroo commission down.
11
Small victories!
Hmmm,...
Can’t help wondering whether the committee WAS finding evidence of fraud, in FAVOR OF TRUMP???
11
Pretty sure I saw thousands of illegal immigrants come out of hiding and cast votes last election. What were they thinking?
5
It’s a mouthful, but the word uneducable perfectly suits Trump and this posse of sycophants. There are mistakes, and there are crimes. Trump assuredly recognizes the latter from personal experience and his career, and he hasn’t the character or the cognition to admit the former. When will enough mass and purpose accumulate to toss this fraud and his spineless base back into the trash and “cease and desist” from wasting the world’s precious time?
6
Mr Kobach has built his political career on a non issue. He is a phony.
Now, Don the Con is next in line to have his administration eliminated.
2018 will be a great year.
12
This is just a darn shame - is what it is. How are Republicans now going to fabricate evidence about non-existent voter fraud to justify further suppression of minority voters ? Don't those non-cooperative States recognize the need ? Sigh ... well, back to voter suppression efforts at the State and local level I guess.
28
I hope that the Democrats take the House in 2018 so that they might assemble an ACTUAL voter fraud commission to investigate the ACTUAL voter fraud that ACTUAL evidence points to -- the systemic disenfranchisement by the Republican Party of black people from the vote in the United States.
I'm a regular old white guy. But I can read history books -- we have such a shameful history of keeping black people away from the polls.
You might think that an actual introspective voter commission would keep an emphasis on allowing ALL black people, and all U.S. Citizens, to express their political voice. Instead, we are moving steadily from "one person one vote" to "one dollar one vote." This must end.
365
Absolutely. And how about investigating the Republican gerrymandering that's essentially disenfranchising voters of all races?
6
I too am an old white guy, and frankly embarrassed when I see how our group polls. if we could just motivate the electorate to fight back against disenfranchisement and suppression. if we learn nothing else from this crooked, disgusting presidency it ought to be that we cannot continue to have around 50% of the people vote and expect we will get fair representation.
6
No, I really don't trust electronic voting at this point. There may be more fraud than just disenfranchisement.
4
Of course there wasn't widespread voter fraud. But as Emperor in Chief, he could spend our taxpayer money on investigations that he felt would validate his supremacy. Would love to have my privacy back...NC courteously gave our voters' information to the commission -- I think as soon as it was requested! Would that the money spent on this foolish and wasteful exercise were instead going to CHIP, DACA, Medicaid, education. Also that our pres was more concerned about Russian involvement in our elections than his ego.
18
I would like do know: in comparison of other countries, like Brazil, for a example, how safe or secure are the election process in USA? We have a lot of problems in Brazil, but we are proud of our electronic ballot box...
1
Marcio, That is such a great question. Maybe someone working toward a PhD in political science can take this on as a research topic.
The Trump Campaign itself was the only widespread form of voter fraud perpetrated in 2016. Coordinating with the Russians to change the results of U.S. Elections was treason. Politicians that continue to ignore this obvious fact do so at their own peril. Without concrete steps taken to stop outside interference in our elections including prosecution, more sanctions, and travel bans, the Russians will try again this year.
13
As Vanita Gupta said, there has been no evidence of significant voter fraud anywhere in the country. So there was nothing for the commission to investigate. Trump continues to try to make something out of nothing because he can't accept that he lost the popular vote with legally-cast votes. I am insulted that he is casting any doubt on the integrity of our voting process, and on my vote, because of his own insecurities. I don't know where Trump wants to go with his attacks on our voting process, on our free press, and on other aspects of our critical democratic institutions, but, as far-fetched as it may seem, he is making me very nervous about the future of our democracy.
9
Right decision for the wrong reasons.
True voter fraud is linked to Russian collusion, which this group would never investigate.
With Mueller around, the issue will still be addressed. Just wait and see.
15
The White House and Trump keep using the premise that they have proof of this fraud. Either they are lying, or they have it and aren’t using it because it most likely damages them. Regardless, shouldn’t this be obtainable via a FOIA request? If they have it, I don’t see how they could prevent it from being disclosed. This would also give the agency that did this even more cover from the fake news blabber that gets thrown around. They tried to follow up properly, but it was Trump who couldn’t perform when required.
5
Unfortunately, when no valid proof of voter ID is necessary to vote in an election, one cannot say there is no voter fraud. As long as Voter Registration forms require no proof of American citizenship, one cannot say there is no voter fraud. When states accept college student IDs as a legal document for voting, especially when many colleges and universities both public and private require no proof of citizenship for entrance. Of course, there is voter fraud. Re voter suppression... a democrat won the senate seat....thanks to the black vote. Show me where the suppression was and where was the black vote all of these years? Indifference or laziness? Voter suppression is a fallacy as proven in Alabama
2
@BeachBum, There is absolutely no incentive to vote illegally, PARTICULARLY if you are not a resident - as it is, voting is almost an insane act, to think that your one vote may count. And to vote illegally - why would anyone do that? The whole concept is ridiculous. And to think that there are millions or even thousands - it is just nonsense.
Voter supression, on the other hand, is alive and well - reduced voting site, removal from voting rolls for no reason, reduced voting hours, the 1.3 million 'felons' in Florida who have been taken off the rolls, all of this has been documented, my dear.
I dare you to go find one person to vote who is an illegal alien. What would that be worth to them - a lifetime's salary? Because that is what it could cost them. It just does not make any sense, and does not happen.
1
I think the citizens of Kansas should demand a refund of the salary they paid Kobach as Secretary of State, since he did so little work for them in their behalf - but roamed the country trying to convince other states (and the Feds) that voter fraud was rampant. This is criminal.
19
Of course the system is rigged. Decades of right-wing illegal and unconstitutional voter suppression and gerrymandering have seen to that. And the fact that Bush 2 and Trump 1 both lost elections yet won the electoral college proves beyond any question just who has been rigging the system.
14
In this case, “State’s Rights”, the US Constitution and the truth trounced Trump’s overreach by his own “Witch Hunt” based on “Trump’s Lies”.
Thus one Trump swamp has been stopped in its tracks. Hopefully it also dies in Homeland Security bureaucracy.
6
I guess we'll never know. Historians weep.
1
You're kidding, right?
4
Attention America!
Anything that can be done to corral, subdue, attenuate, and hopefully eliminate any influence Kris Kobach has on public policy is win for freedom and liberty. Kobach is very dangerous. He is not anyone's tool. He truly believes this voter fraud insanity. This isn't a political position. It's a holy cause.
Kobach is like an alchemist that knows lead can be turned into gold. He knows that the gold people are hiding the formula. He will find it.
Kobach is not a scientist, an investigator or legislator. He's out of his mind. No wonder Trump likes him.
25
Kris Kobach is running for governor of Kansas in 2018 and with Kansans preference for people with an (R) after their name, he has a good chance of being elected.
2
So, the Department of Homeland Security says it "will continue to focus efforts on securing elections against those who seek to undermine the election process or its integrity." I guess that means DHS is opening its own investigation into the many and secret meetings Trump campaign team and transition members had with Russian officials and operatives.
86
Great News!!
11
They probably started to detect suspicious votes FOR TRUMP, so better shut it down. How much did Republicans waste on this particular witchhunt?
145
How strange that the thing everyone knew wasn't a widespread problem, backed by academic studies (remember those?) that said "this is not a widespread problem", turned out to be something that "the president" couldn't prove.
He claims he won't waste any more on this (not exactly true if the project is moving to DHS), but how many taxpayer dollars has the president already wasted here? How many more will he waste on dealing with the fact that more people voted for the other candidate?
79
The only fraud was the commission itself.
233
No no no. The fraud was there - just was not what they want to reveal: they stole the election.
13
You failed to mention who the other fraud is.
6
far from the only fraud, but we can start there and then move on to this presidency, if one can even call it that.
3
Our entire national election system is rigged? This from the rigger-in-chief, who foisted Trump University and shady business dealings on clients and customers, and lies and slurs about his political opponents on the general public. Even the voter fraud commission was a blind to legitimize the popular vote lie to his base. We have to throw this administration in the can and start over ASAP.
100
It had an endgame, it just wasn't "restoring the integrity of the voting system". Quite the opposite, actually.
59
Given the amount of neurosis in the public, this is very good news.
4
Voters and voting are clearly crucial elements of a democracy. In Australia, voting is required (a fine is charged to people who don't vote). I have no doubt the two parties are most enthusiastic about tweaks or pushes that favor them, but I believe that universal direct election is the strongest single antidote to the concentration of political power. So, let's HAVE strong voter IDs....and make a part of the constitutional mandate (the Census) be the creation and maintenance of those IDs. Let's eliminate the electoral college: it contributes nothing good whatsoever, and the Founders created it in an utterly different context (electors rode a horse for weeks in the winter to represent their state in the most supportable way possible, at that time). Whatever the numbers on this most recent election, gerrymandering has been a tool for the political powers to use that power to retain that power, a clear violation of basic democracy.
162
I am not against voter ID's but we have to solve the problem of the people who come from poverty and disadvantaged circumstance who do not know how to get one and may not have the documentation necessary of ability to gain such documents.
I'm guessing but it must cost at least $50 to start from scratch and get the documents necessary to get an official ID then there is the cost of the ID itself and the travel to all the places one might have to get to as well as finding the time to do that since people that poor are usually working a schedule that is very tight and subject to random changes in their employment schedule.
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I'm not sure about all your suggestions, but I do like the one calling for universal IDs from the Census Bureau. Even better would be universal passports, but that would be unaffordable for many. A simple ID could be done automatically and cheaply.
If the voting system is rigged, as claimed by the emperor, doesn't that mean his election was rigged for him?
He can't be that dumb to see that irony....or can he?
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This POTUS couldn't recognize irony if it slept with him last night and had breakfast with him, this morning. He isn't dumb; he just hasn't had to know ANYTHING other than bullying, bragging, and using the law to his financial advantage for over 40 years. The emperor has been naked for so long that not only does he not realize that he doesn't have new clothes, he is unaware that he has no clothes at all.
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He never misses a chance to try and flip the narrative. It’s an essential skill of a scammer wannabe dictator.
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'A spokesman for homeland security, Tyler Q. Houlton, said on Wednesday that “the department continues to focus our efforts on securing elections against those who seek to undermine the election system or its integrity.” '
Try starting with Russia.
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Start trying with Trump and republicans- they are the culprits. Russia merely provided a service - for a lovely “fee” I’m sure.
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And the Trump cartel that does Russia's bidding.
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One less government agency the people have to pay for, thanks for winning Mr. President.
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The winning indeed. We, the taxpayer, could not afford another government agency and pay for the numerous (I won't have time for golf) golf outings and visits to his castles on our dime.
Yup, this winning is just making many of so happy and proud.
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Construction Joe, President Trump created and funded that new agency.
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Sigh. TRUMP put this commission together to waste your money, it wasn’t in existence before him. So congratulations are not in order. It was disbanded because he didn’t discover what he wanted to, and probably discovered what he already knows: that he contracted with Putin to steal the election. This “commission” was ludicrous from the beginning- and he DID waste your money. So much “winning”. Wake up.
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Maybe Trump shut down the Voter Fraud Commission because they found evidence that he is indeed an illegitimate president!
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Trump shut down an investigation that would uncover fraudulent voting by his own party. Perhaps not illegal, but it would expose gerrymandering to the 38 percent of Trump's base voters, those who don't know what redistricting is, and how the process effects elections. What was his statement? Millions voted illegally, I'm not a short fingered vulgarian, I signed more legislation than any President in history? Enough of his distasteful persona and lies.
To all the news outlets and author Mr Wolff, thank you for yesterday! Let's get this man, staff and family out of DC and into FDOC!
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Gerrymandering is a tool used by BOTH parties as you well know. The last thing the Political Class wants is an honest election. Voter ID is a no-brainer, but it will never happen.
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Ounce of Logic, Unfortunately, you are correct. As soon as the Democrats are in power, they will gerrymander to their advantage. Alas.
Sure, Ounceoflogic, and yet republicans have turned it into an art form. Far and away superior at it than democrats. Which is why they control the large majority of state houses, regardless of the fact that, in aggregate, more votes are cast for democrats in some of those states.
Even so, I can agree two wrongs don’t make a right: so can you agree that ALL gerrymanders should be eliminated? That independent commissions redraw maps hewing to simple geometric forms? No? Why? Because that would shift power to democrats? Hmmmm.
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"Poorly organized and conceived"... Yes, ir's definitely another of Trump's half-baked concepts.
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That also explains the procreation that led to Trump the Elder.
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