It appears the joke's on Mike Pence and Kris Kobach. The former Indiana Governor and Trump's running mate and Kansas Secretary of State, respectively, can';t even get their respective states to go along with their voter suppression plan. Why? Well, who wants to be responsible for handing over millions of voter records, including Social Security information, to the Russians?
At least 24 states are pushing back or outright refusing to comply with the Trump administration’s request for voter registration data.
The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, formed by President Trump to investigate his widely debunked claim that millions of illegal votes cost him the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election, sent letters this week to the 50 secretaries of state across the country requesting information about voters.
The letter, signed by commission vice chairman and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), asked for names, addresses, birth dates and party affiliations of registered voters in each state. It also sought felony convictions, military statuses, the last four digits of Social Security numbers and voting records dating back to 2006, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Hill.
Many states immediately raised concerns and voiced their opposition to providing the information.
And two of those states? Kansas and Indiana.
Kobach said Friday that Kansas, at least for now, also won’t be sharing Social Security information with the commission, on which he serves as vice chairman. The state will share other information about the state’s registered voters, including names and addresses, which are subject to the state’s open records laws.
Kobach sent letters on behalf of the commission to every state requesting names, addresses, voting history and other personal information, such as the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers, earlier this week.
Kobach said Thursday that Kansas would provide all the information requested in the letter, but in a follow-up interview Friday, he said the state would not be sharing the Social Security information at this time.
“In Kansas, the Social Security number is not publicly available. … Every state receives the same letter, but we’re not asking for it if it’s not publicly available,” Kobach said.
He did not rule out the possibility of providing that information to the commission in the future.
“If the commission decides that they would like to receive Social Security numbers to a secure site in order to remove false positives, then we would have to double check and make sure Kansas law permits,” Kobach said.
“I know for a fact that this information would be secured and maintained confidentially,” he added in response to security concerns.
But of course he won't do it now, despite assurances that "the information would be secure". It's because he knows it won't be secure at all, especially given that this is precisely the information the Russian hackers who hit our election and voter registration systems wanted, and that the Trump regime must be considered still compromised by Moscow. It would be an utter disaster, and Kobach knows it.
They won't even go along with thier own voter suppression scam, because of the chance Putin will use it in other ways. I'd laugh, but this is how much of a dark comedy America is right now.
Even Texas turned Kobach down. Hell, Mississippi told him to go to hell. Crooks we can understand in America. Traitors on the other hand, well not even the GOP will put up with them, it seems.
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