Kris Kobach, vice chairman of the president’s commission on voter fraud, said Monday that the group will look at laws that suppress voter turnout in addition to the claims of widespread fraud.
“In addition to focusing on voter fraud and election irregularities, the commission will also be looking at claims of voter suppression, claims that certain laws suppress turnout, things like that,” Mr. Kobach said on CNN. “So, we’ll be looking at evidence of all of these questions.”
Mr. Kobach, as secretary of state in Kansas, pushed the state’s proof-of-citizenship requirement to try and prevent illegal immigrants from voting in his state.
The president signed the executive order last week to launch the “Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.” Vice President Mike Pence will serve at the panel’s chairman.
Mr. Kobach said the group has two goals.
“There’s really two goals. One goal is to, for the first time, to have a nationwide fact-finding effort to see what evidence there is of voter fraud across the country,” he said. “The other half is, if there is agreement among the commissioners that this system works pretty well or that system seems to have some flaws, the commission may say, well we recommend states try this, or don’t do that. If there’s a recommendation for federal legislation, that might come up, too.”
Mr. Kobach said the goal was to help states find better ways to execute their own elections, and not create additional federal laws unless the commission felt that recommendation was necessary.
• Sally Persons can be reached at spersons@washingtontimes.com.
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