Thanks To Three Democratic Senators, Trump’s ‘Election Fraud’ Commission Will Be Investigated (Video)

There is so much going on already this week for which we progressives should be thankful.

But if you’re able to tear yourself away from Paul Manafort’s indictment, here is something else to look forward to.

Thanks to the efforts of Democratic senators Cory Booker (NJ), Michael Bennet (Colo.), and Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), the Government Accountability Office (GAO) will be investigating President Donald Trump’s Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity (PACEI) formed in May.

The commission convened in the spring to feed into Trump’s fiction about three to five-million illegal voters casting fraudulent ballots last November.

Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach serve as the commission’s chair and co-chair.

Kobach is infamous for the “Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program” which supposedly uncovered 697,537 “potential duplicate voters” in fifteen states.

Those “potential duplicate voters” are listed by first and last names only on the supposition they are running around from state to state on election day casting multiple ballots. Everyone with that first and last name is kicked off subsequent nationwide voter roles irrespective of other identifying information, such as Social Security numbers, addresses, or birth dates.

Investigative reporter Greg Palast, in his Rolling Stone piece “The G.O.P.’s Stealth War Against Voters,” said:

“The Crosscheck list disproportionately threatens solid Democratic constituencies: young, black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters – with some of the biggest possible purges underway in Ohio and North Carolina, two crucial swing states with tight Senate races.”

For example, Donald Alexander Webster Jr., of Dayton, Ohio appears on the Crosscheck list a second time as Donald Eugene Webster from Charlottesville, Virginia. James Evans Johnson is listed the same as James P. Johnson. Palast reports one-fourth of the names on the list actually lack middle-name matches. The system can also mistakenly identify fathers and sons as the same voter, ignoring designations of Jr. and Sr. Hundreds of men named “James Brown” are suspected of voting or registering twice, 357 of them in Georgia alone.

Database expert Mark Swedlund examined the Crosscheck data. He found African-American, Latino, and Asian names dominate the Crosscheck list. With the name “Washington,” there is an 89% chance a person is African-American; “Hernandez,” a 94% chance he or she is Hispanic; “Kim,” a 95% chance he or she is Asian.

Now Kobach’s present commission with Vice President Pence is coming under scrutiny for lack of transparency.

In a letter to the GAO, the three Democratic senators argued:

“Unfortunately, the PACEI has ignored numerous requests from Members of Congress seeking clarification on the PACEI’s activities. Open record requests and court documents from litigation have provided some insight into the creation and operations of the PACEI, which we believe are cause for serious concern. Additionally, investigative reports raise questions about the motives and actions of the Commission.”

Is the house of cards beginning to fall?

Remember, it is one week to election day, and exactly one year from mid-term elections in which Democrats have a significant opportunity to re-claim the majority in Congress.

Image credit:  kcnonline.com

Ted Millar is writer and teacher. His work has been featured in myriad literary journals, including Better Than Starbucks, The Broke Bohemian, Straight Forward Poetry, Caesura, Circle Show, Cactus Heart, Third Wednesday, and The Voices Project. He is also a contributor to The Left Place blog on Substack, and Medium.