"The political uproar over a White House commission’s request to state election officials for a trove of personal data on the nation’s voters continued as secretaries of state gathered for their annual meeting on Friday in Indianapolis.
The panel was set up to investigate claims of voter fraud, which experts generally agree is rare, after President Trump claimed illegal voting had cost him the popular vote in November’s election, and it has come under attack by election officials from both parties.
As of Thursday evening, 20 states and the District of Columbia had outright rejected the request by Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state and vice chairman of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, which works to promote expanded access to the ballot. Most of the remaining states either said they were studying the request or agreed to provide only public information like lists of voters who are registered.
Some of the reaction was blistering, even from Republican state officials. Mississippi’s Republican secretary of state said last week those behind the request could “go jump in the Gulf of Mexico.” (The news organization Mississippi Today reported on Thursday that Mississippi has been providing this data to Interstate Crosscheck, a Kansas initiative with similar goals that Mr. Kobach runs.)
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The commission fired back on Wednesday, issuing a statement that called the dust-up “fake news” arising from “obstruction by a handful of state politicians.” Some election scholars say, however, that there are real questions about the panel’s intent.
Here’s what to know about the panel and access to voter data.
What information is being sought?
The commission’s request is voluminous: For 200 million voters, it seeks names, addresses, dates of birth, political affiliations, the last four digits of Social Security numbers, which elections they voted in and whether they are active, inactive or canceled voters. It also requests records of felony convictions, whether voters are registered in other states, and whether they serve in the military or live or cast votes by mail from abroad.
The official request asks for information if it is “publicly available,” which is commonly the case for much of this data.
Why is the commission seeking data from the states?
The panel wants to compare state voter databases with “a number of different databases, looking for the possibility for areas where voter rolls could be strengthened,” Marc Lotter, a spokesman for Vice President Mike Pence, told the investigative news organization ProPublica on Thursday.
Mr. Kobach, who prepared the request without input from at least some of the other commissioners, has a history with this issue: He already oversees the Interstate Crosscheck program that compares voter rolls from some 30 states in an effort to turn up people who vote in two states. Crosscheck has been widely criticized as inaccurate; one analysis found that of the 7.2 million potential double voters the program had identified, no more than four were actually accused of deliberately registering or voting in two states.
Voting rights advocates and some scholars say they have concerns that Mr. Kobach, who maintains that voter fraud is pervasive, may want to build a case for stricter requirements for registering to vote and casting ballots. They also argue that the database comparisons he wants to make will, like the Crosscheck program, vastly overestimate the potential for fraud.
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