Highlights from First Meeting of Commission on Election Integrity

The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity met for its inaugural meeting today in Washington, D.C. The commissioners gave opening statements, shared what they think priorities for the commission to study should be, and emphasized that they hope the commission's work can increase voter confidence in the election system.

The RNLA live tweeted many of the key moments of the meeting, which was streamed live online. We wanted to summarize and bring you the highlights:


Vice President Pence, also serving as Commission Chair, during opening remarks:

"We want to hear the voice of the American voter," @VP says. #electionintegrity

— RNLA (@TheRepLawyer) July 19, 2017

President Trump greeted the Commission. He rhetorically questions why some states willfully refuse to share public voting information:

President Trump on states that refused to share voter information: "One has to wonder what they're worried about" https://t.co/rIic2jaUqd

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) July 19, 2017

Vice President Pence, no less than three times, emphasized and reemphasized the following point:

"We have no preconceived notions or preordained results." ~ @VP #electionintegrity

— RNLA (@TheRepLawyer) July 19, 2017

Commission Vice Chair Kris Kobach, and Kansas Secretary of State, attempted to dispell the rumors of the left:

Kobach reiterating private voter data will be kept private.

— RNLA (@TheRepLawyer) July 19, 2017

Commissioner Bill Gardner, Democrat Secretary of State from New Hampshire, was consistently on point. He pointed out this excellent fact--voter ID does not equate to lower turnout--two of the highest turnout states have voter ID laws in place:

Busting the suppression myth: States with the highest voter turnout are those that require #voterID https://t.co/yvWiMqQ4zm pic.twitter.com/l9qcq9a0YH

— Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) July 19, 2017

Commissioner McCormick, who also sits on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, did not parse words about her experience with voter rolls:

EAC Com. McCormick never seen an accurate voter list. Despite Obama com. supporting such efforts, Left has opposed efforts 4 clean lists.

— RNLA (@TheRepLawyer) July 19, 2017

Commissioner Hans von Spakovsky, from the Heritage Foundation, wants to be clear not all errors in voter rolls are malicious, but, nonetheless, they need to be promptly corrected:

von Spakovsky wants to distinguish between error in duplicates on voter rolls and those who may be trying to "take advantage" of the system.

— RNLA (@TheRepLawyer) July 19, 2017

You can watch the entire meeting here. The next meeting is not expected until sometime in late-September or October. In the meantime, we will keep you up-to-date with any news and developments.

Democrats Upset that You have to Live in New Hampshire to Vote in New Hampshire

An 'extremely controversial' bill was signed into law recently in New Hampshire.  SB 3 was the New Hampshire "domicile bill" as the Union Leader put it in an Editorial entitled Voting in NH: You actually have to live here:

If you live in New Hampshire, you can vote in New Hampshire. 

If you don’t live in New Hampshire, you can’t vote in New Hampshire.

This should not be controversial, but ambiguity in the law led to confusion over what it means to be domiciled in the Granite State. . . . 

Democrats are oddly passionate about protecting access to the polls for people who don’t really live here. Our elections should be reserved for New Hampshire voters.

The Democrats main argument was that SB 3 disenfranchises college students.  As the Union Leader pointed out earlier:

Democrats are riling up college students with the specious argument that they wouldn’t be welcome in New Hampshire, hoping to spark protests. Given the stunning political ignorance on campuses these days, it’s a safe bet. Yet nothing in SB 3 would prevent a college student from declaring New Hampshire residency and casting a ballot. Freshmen might not arrive in time for the September primary, but could certainly register for the November general election. In fact, attending college is one of the criteria that could be used to establish residency.

A common example of the person who votes in New Hampshire with no intention of being domiciled in New Hampshire is the campaign worker.  The most famous example of this is Alana Biden, Joe Biden’s niece, who was working on his campaign in 2012:

Election Day is always big in New Hampshire, and in the months leading up the general election last year, Alana Biden the vice president’s niece, worked on the campaign of President Barack Obama in the Granite State.

Biden voted on Election Day by swearing in an affidavit that her domicile was 145 Steinmetz Drive in Manchester. After the election, she left the state and moved to New York, according to her LinkedIn profile.

State Sen. Martha Fuller Clark, D-District 21, has eight people registered to vote under her single-family address in Portsmouth. Several of them came to New Hampshire to work on campaigns for various periods of time and voted in elections before moving on.

Thanks to Secretary of State Bill Gardner's (Democrat) leadership and Governor Chris Sununu (Republican) signing the bill, New Hampshire voters will actually have to live in the state.  

Trump Wants to Fix Elections with Integrity Commission; Left Says Election Integrity Study Will Pollute Our Water?!?

RNLA Vice President for Communications Ron Hicks wrote praising President Trump for formally announcing his Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity earlier today:

This study, and the recommendations for reform and better practices that will come from it, is long overdue.  Only 30% of Americans expressed confidence in the “honesty of elections,” according to a recent Gallup poll. 

Like the response to any action by President Trump, we can expect manufactured public outcry from the left, likely centered on the fact that the commission will investigate problems of vote fraud as part of its mission.  The activists on the left who deny the existence of vote fraud despite evidence to the contrary will decry the commission, even though vote fraud is a non-partisan issue. 

A typical overreaction from the left is here: the Friends of the Earth think a commission on election integrity is a partisan action that somehow destroys the environment:  

By signing this order, Trump is using his office to silence voters and is ignoring Americans demanding action to address climate change, protect our drinking water, and ensure the food our children eat is safe.

In reality, as Hicks explains, it is non-partisan:   

Why is it non-partisan?  Because vote fraud takes many different forms and is a much broader problem than the voter impersonation fraud often discussed in the news—when someone shows up at the polls pretending to be a legitimate voter and votes in his or her name.  When vote fraud occurs, it cancels out the vote of someone voting for a different candidate.  It’s a broad problem that affects honest voters broadly.  And no voter who has taken the time to research the candidates and issues and vote wants to know that a fraudulent vote has negated his or her vote. 

The best example of the non-partisan nature of the study is Secretary of State Bill Gardner.  Gardner has been Secretary of State of New Hampshire since 1976 during very Democrat and very Republican swings in the New Hampshire electorate.  Gardner is just one of the qualified Secretaries of State on the commission who act in a non-partisan manner for election integrity:  

Commission member Democrat New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner understands this well.  His party affiliation does not prevent him from caring deeply about the integrity of New Hampshire elections and working tirelessly to ensure that eligible votes from New Hampshire citizens are counted and not canceled by fraudulent votes. . . . Commission vice chair Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State, also has worked for years to improve the integrity of elections not just in Kansas but around the country.  He founded, and his office administers, the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck (IVRC) program, which compares voter registration databases from member states to identify possible errors and duplicate registrations.

We look forward to to reviewing the findings and recommendations of the commission and working together with election officials to ensure that the problems that harm the integrity of our elections are eliminated or reduced to protect the lawful votes of all eligible voters.

NH Governor Overrules Democrat Secretary State Efforts to Prevent Vote Fraud

Democrat New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan vetoed a bill that would require a 30-day waiting period to vote claiming the bill “places unreasonable restrictions upon all New Hampshire citizens’ right to vote in this state…”

Also the bill would redefine domicile to a person’s primary residence or abode in a state where people could vote in an election although they may be simply visit for a short time and intend to move. Even political campaign workers or consultants could vote in New Hampshire under the current laws.

Requiring voters to be in the state for 30 days before voting would have prevented this type of voting that goes against the spirit of the law. Democrat Secretary of State Bill Gardner supported this bill. Gardner knows that every New Hampshire vote counts. He stated:

We had three ties in the last election cycle, one in the primary and two in the general election, and we had six other recounts that were in the single digits.

Gardner also emphasizes that in order to vote in New Hampshire, “…working on political campaigns is not sufficient evidence.”

Other Republican lawmakers were disappointed in Hassan’s veto. House Majority Leader Jack Flanagan said,

Our citizens should have a reasonable expectation that their vote will not be cancelled out by temporary visitors," he said. "Under our existing laws our doors are still technically open for people with little intent on staying here to participate in (the presidential) primary. That seems unfair to most people, and it’s unfair to the process we hold so dear.

The state legislature will vote on vetoed bills in September and hopefully Democrats will follow Secretary State Gardners lead to prevent vote fraud and "drive by voting" instead of the Governor's efforts to allow vote fraud and out of state political consultants voting.