The following article by Kira Lerner was posted on the ThinkProgress website January 3, 2018:
The panel has been mired in controversy since its inception.
President Donald Trump signed on executive order late Wednesday dissolving the commission he created to substantiate his lie that millions of illegal votes cost him the popular vote in November 2016.
The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity has been mired in controversy since Trump signed an executive order in May 2017 tasking it with investigating voter fraud. A majority of states refused to provide commission vice chair, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), with the personal voter information he requested, and the commission is the subject of at least eight ongoing federal lawsuits.
Earlier this week, Kobach claimed that the panel would meet for a third time in January, despite the fact that Democratic commissioners said they were never informed of the group’s plans. But on Tuesday, Trump said in a statement that because states would not provide the commission with voter information, he would be ending its activities.
“Despite substantial evidence of voter fraud, many states have refused to provide the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity with basic information relevant to its inquiry,” Trump said in a statement provided by White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “Rather than engage in endless legal battles at taxpayer expense, today I signed an executive order to dissolve the Commission, and have asked the Department of Homeland Security to review these issues and determine next courses of action.”
Trump has not yet indicated how he expects the Department of Homeland Security to handle his claims of voter fraud.
View the post here.