Trumpâs voter fraud commission is dead. But the GOP voter suppression effort is just getting started.
Kris Kobach
President-elect Donald Trump and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach in November 2016. (Reuters/Mike Segar)
Trumpâs commission was led by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach  who not only is the countryâs most prominent advocate of vote suppression  but also is an anti-immigration activist  which is an important part of this story. The White House issued a statement saying the president âhas asked the Department of Homeland Security to review [the commissionâs] initial findings and determine next courses of action.â
Where is the Trump administration heading now that the voter suppression commission is gone? We can get an idea from a system called Crosscheck that  Kobach  has promoted to states all over the country. That system flags anyone who has the same name and date of birth but is registered in more than one place as a possible instance of fraud.
You can immediately see the problem: There are going to be a huge number of people who share the same name and birthday  so people will get wrongly flagged constantly. Indeed  one analysis of the program found that Crosscheck risks eliminating huge numbers of registrations used to cast legitimate votes.  Kobach  sees the program as a model for what  he  wants to do nationally.
That brings us to the Department of Homeland Security. I need to stress that nobody knows exactly what theyâll be doing on this issue  because all we have are the somewhat vague statements from  Kobach  and the White House. But they have lists of immigrants and people visiting the country (like this one)  and those databases are almost certainly what  Kobach  is after.
President-elect Donald Trump and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach in November 2016. (Reuters/Mike Segar)
Trumpâs commission was led by  [TGT] but also is an anti-immigration activist  which is an important part of this story. The White House issued a statement saying the president âhas asked the Department of Homeland Security to review [the commissionâs] initial findings and determine next courses of action.â
Where is the Trump administration heading now that the voter suppression commission is gone? We can get an idea from a system called Crosscheck that  Kobach  has promoted to states all over the country. That system flags anyone who has the same name and date of birth but is registered in more than one place as a possible instance of fraud.
You can immediately see the problem: There are going to be a huge number of people who share the same name and birthday  so people will get wrongly flagged constantly. Indeed  one analysis of the program found that Crosscheck risks eliminating huge numbers of registrations used to cast legitimate votes.   [TGT] sees the program as a model for what   [TGT]   wants to do nationally.
That brings us to the Department of Homeland Security. I need to stress that nobody knows exactly what theyâll be doing on this issue  because all we have are the somewhat vague statements from   [TGT] and the White House. But they have lists of immigrants and people visiting the country (like this one)  and those databases are almost certainly what   [TGT] is after.