Election chief won’t turn over voters’ data

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, applauded Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted on Friday for rejecting a request for confidential voter information from the vice-chairman of the Presidential Advisory Commission.

The commission was established by President Donald Trump, following his claim, without evidence, that millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election.

Trump said the commission was needed to re-establish confidence in American elections and it has asked all secretaries of states in 50 states for copies of voter records, which would be made publically available.

“Who you vote for is none of the government’s business. I’m grateful to Secretary Husted for standing up for Ohio voters and protecting our private information,” Brown, who once served as Ohio’s secretary of state, said in a news release. “This witch hunt is a waste of taxpayer dollars and an invasion of privacy that undermines our democracy.”

Husted said he wouldn’t turn over the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers or their driver’s license numbers to President Donald Trump’s Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. He called both confidential.

“Confidential info won’t be provided to Pres Advisory Comm on Election Integrity,” Husted tweeted, later adding, “We do not want fed intervention in our state’s right & respon to conduct elections.”

According to Secretary Husted’s office, only 52 possible cases of voter fraud were turned over for investigation following the 2016 election.

Husted said he ordered detailed reviews of credible allegations of voter fraud and voter suppression after the last three federal elections. The investigations were conducted by Ohio’s 88 bipartisan county boards of elections, he said, and their reports are already in the public domain.

None found significant instances of voter fraud or abuse.

“In Ohio, we pride ourselves on being a state where it is easy to vote and hard to cheat. Voter fraud happens, it’s rare and when it happens we hold people accountable,” Husted said. “I believe that as the Commission does its work, it will find the same about our state.”

In May, Brown blasted the executive order President Trump signed to create the commission, and said the commission will waste taxpayer dollars and fuel voter suppression efforts.

Following the 2016 presidential election, Brown took issues with Trump’s claim of voter fraud, and warned him “his false conspiracy theories and lie that millions voted ‘illegally’ are a threat to democracy.”

Husted, a Republican, is not alone in refusing to turn over records to the commission. Secretaries of state in more than 20 states, including Democrat Alison Grimes in neighboring Kentucky, have similar refused the request.

The panel is seeking “public information and publicly available data” from every state and the District of Columbia, said Marc Lotter, a spokesman for Vice President Mike Pence, who is chairing the commission. Lotter described the intent of the request as “fact-finding.”