Alison Lundergan Grimes, the Kentucky secretary of state, on Thursday evening said she would not comply with a data request from President Donald Trump’s “election integrity” commission, joining several other states in rejecting the request.
In her statement, Grimes called out the bogus commission as an attempt to bolster conservative voter suppression efforts.
“The president created his election commission based on the false notion that ‘voter fraud’ is a widespread issue — it is not. Indeed, despite bipartisan objections and a lack of authority, the President has repeatedly spread the lie that three to five million illegal votes were cast in the last election,” Grimes said in the statement. “Kentucky will not aid a commotion that is at best a waste of taxpayer money and at worst an attempt to legitimize voter suppression efforts across the country.”
"I do not intend to release Kentuckians' sensitive personal data to the fed. gov't." — Sec. Grimes
Statement on Pres. Commission request: pic.twitter.com/9Js05x99eF
— Alison L. Grimes (@KySecofState) June 30, 2017
A spokesman for the secretary of Massachusetts also said Thursday that the state would not comply with commission’s request.
“They’re not going to get it,” spokesman Brian McNiff told Commonwealth Magazine. “It’s not a public record.”
The Vermont secretary of state said Friday morning that the state will not give the commission all of the data it asked for.
VT will only give limited voter info that's already publicly available. Sec'y Condos' previous stmt on the Comm'n: https://t.co/fWvlgtCZVN https://t.co/HyCdGNee8F
— VT Sec. of State (@VermontSOS) June 30, 2017
The only info that will be provided is that already available to the public, which requires a sworn affidavit to obtain
— VT Sec. of State (@VermontSOS) June 30, 2017
Our deeper concern is that the focus of this Commission is using false voter fraud claims to lay the groundwork for voter suppression laws
— VT Sec. of State (@VermontSOS) June 30, 2017
Kris Kobach, vice chair of the commission and Kansas secretary of state known for his obsession with voter fraud, sent letters to states on Thursday asking them to turn over publicly-available data on the voters in their states.
Officials in California and Virginia quickly announced that they would not fulfill Kobach’s request.
Awwwwww… No one likes you and your little friend Kobach.
Yay for VA! Terry set the tone. But Kentucky is very red and this is going to make Mr. Twitterstorm very angry. Maybe he can talk about the Kentucky SOS bleeding from somewhere?
I’m sure Bevin is already conferring with his advisors on how to force compliance, or do an end-run around Grimes.
Kobach and Trump-two rotten peas in a pod.
Now this is something. Hip hip hooray!
Oh and yay for MacAuliffe too. But that was kind of predictable (even though his incisiveness far exceeded expectations and good on him for it). But this is a most pleasant surprise.