More than 140 jurisdictions across the country have more people registered to vote than their entire voting-age populations, according to a watchdog group that says there is reason to have the kind of investigation into voter fraud that President Trump called for Wednesday.
Mr. Trump said in a Twitter post that he was concerned about illegal immigrants voting and dead people remaining on voter rolls. He said he would ask for a “major investigation.”
“Depending on results, we will strengthen up voting procedures!” he said via Twitter, which has become his direct avenue to communicating with voters.
Voting rights groups dismissed Mr. Trump’s claims that millions of illegal votes were cast in November and said his complaint is an effort at “voter suppression” for upcoming races.
The League of Women Voters said the claims were false and that it was odd for the winner of an election to call for an investigation.
“We know that widespread voter fraud is a myth perpetuated to push election laws that restrict voting,” said Chris Carson, president of the League of Women Voters. “There is no need for an investigation into a nonexistent problem. The issue has been studied and put to rest.”
Democrats said it’s wrong for the Trump administration to investigate questionable claims of voter fraud while refusing to probe Russia’s role in trying to influence the election.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said an investigation into voter fraud was warranted to determine the scope of the problem and identify possible remedies.
“Voting is the most sacred right that we have as Americans,” he said. “This is the hallmark and the foundation of our democracy, and to ensure that we know that each person’s vote counts as equally as the next citizen’s is probably one of the greatest things we can do.”
Mr. Trump came under fire this week after saying he believed 3 million to 5 million people could have voted illegally in the November election.
Mr. Spicer insisted that the president was confident in his Electoral College victory but that more could be done to safeguard the voting process.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation, which tries to clean up voter rolls, has identified at least 141 jurisdictions that have more voters listed than their total populations.
That statistic signals a problem and represents an invitation to fraud, the group said.
“The Obama administration had the tools to fight voter fraud but let them gather dust. Because of that neglect of their duties, aliens got on the rolls, people voted multiple times and lawlessness took hold of our elections,” said J. Christian Adams, the legal foundation’s president.
His group just reached a settlement with a Mississippi county to clean up its rolls, which have 10 percent more voters listed than the county’s total number of people of voting age.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation and other voter groups said part of the problem is that the extent of voter fraud is hidden because so little information is collected.
“Current research exists only in silos of disparate data and shallow analysis, offering no basis for comprehensive examination. Known problems, like noncitizen voting, are rarely chronicled and anecdotal evidence is insufficient,” said Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of True the Vote.
Some congressional Republicans have urged Mr. Trump to move beyond questions over the November election.
Democrats have said the voter inquiry is misguided.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Democrat, told CNN that an investigation during the George W. Bush administration turned up no voter fraud.
“He seems to be questioning the legitimacy of his own election, all while for the last couple of months touting how legitimate and huge his election was and how historic it is,” Ms. Wasserman Schultz said. “It can’t be both.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, said at her weekly press conference, “For a person who is a newly elected president of the United States should be so insecure as to declare that — he’s now the president, he is ensconced in the White House and he’s saying, ’I won the popular vote, 3 to 5 million Americans voted illegally in our country’ — to suggest and to undermine the integrity of our voting system is really strange.”
She called Mr. Trump’s claim “not fact-based” and said, “I, frankly, feel very sad about the president making this claim. I felt sorry for him. I even prayed for him. But then I prayed for the United States of America.”
Mrs. Pelosi was one of several House and Senate leaders who met with the president at the White House on Monday, when he apparently repeated his belief that he lost the popular vote in the election because millions of ballots had been cast illegally.
She noted that Mr. Trump’s attorneys argued that there wasn’t evidence of massive fraud when they opposed Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s bid for a recount in several battleground states.
• S.A. Miller contributed to this report.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.