What Trump's Voter-Fraud Commission Found

Not much, according to Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Aug 4, 2018 11:29 AM CDT
What Trump's Voter-Fraud Commission Found
In this June 28, 2016, file photo, an elections clerk cuts from a strip of "I Voted" stickers at a polling place in Oklahoma City.   (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

The now-disbanded voting integrity commission launched by the Trump administration to investigate the 2016 presidential election uncovered no evidence to support the president's claims of widespread voter fraud, according to an analysis of administration documents released, the AP reports. In a letter to Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who are both Republicans and led the commission, Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap says the documents show there was a "pre-ordained outcome" and that drafts of a commission report included a section on evidence of voter fraud that was "glaringly empty." "It's calling into the darkness, looking for voter fraud," says Dunlap, a Democrat. "There's no real evidence of it anywhere."

President Trump convened the commission to investigate the 2016 presidential election after making unsubstantiated claims that between 3 million and 5 million ballots were illegally cast. Critics, including Dunlap, reject his claims of widespread voter fraud. The Trump administration last month complied with a court order to turn over documents from the voting integrity commission to Dunlap. The commission met just twice and has not issued a report. Dunlap's findings received immediate pushback Friday from Kobach, who says there have been more than 1,000 convictions for voter fraud since 2000, and that the commission presented 8,400 instances of double voting in the 2016 election in 20 states. In response, Dunlap says those figures were never brought before the commission, and Kobach hasn't presented any evidence for his claims of double voting.

(More Election 2016 stories.)

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