A letter from Kris Kobach, the vice chairman of a White House commission looking into voter fraud and other irregularities, is drawing fire from some state election officials. The letter, sent Wednesday to all 50 states, requests that all publicly available voter roll data be sent to the White House by July 14, five days before the panel's first meeting.
The information requested includes the names, addresses, birthdates, political party (if recorded), last four digits of the voter's Social Security number and which elections the voter has participated in since 2006, for every registered voter in the country.
Kobach, who is also Kansas' Republican secretary of state, did not say how the commission plans to use the data other than to help it "fully analyze vulnerabilities and issues related to voter registration and voting."
However, Kobach has long advocated comparing state voter rolls with other government databases to identify noncitizens or other illegitimate registrants. Voter advocacy groups say such comparisons are prone to error and worry that the effort will result in legitimate voters being purged from the rolls.
The bipartisan commission — chaired by Vice President Mike Pence — was established by President Trump after he made his widely dismissed allegations that as many as 5 million people voted illegally last November. Its stated purpose is to recommend ways to improve the public's confidence in the integrity of elections.