Letter to the Editor: Voter Fraud or Voter Suppression?

As White House press conferences are held without cameras or sound, as legislative proposals are hatched behind closed doors in secret, and while members of Congress hide from their constituents, the White House is trying to suppress our right to vote! Is this truly what has become of our democracy?

Trump tweeted erroneously that millions of voters voted illegally in November’s election and then he established the “Election Integrity Commission” with Kris Kobach as vice chair and VP Pence as chair. In fact there is little evidence of voter fraud – 30 out of 23.5 million suspected incidents or .0001 percent according to a major study [by the Brennan Center for Justice] completed in 2016. This current commission is requesting Social Security number, driver’s license number, political party affiliation, DMV identification number and email address of all voters. All of this information would then become public information. How could this information be used? What is the purpose?

With no evidence of voter fraud and no established goal of what this commission is trying to accomplish, this initiative can only be interpreted as an attempt to manipulate voters and lead to the suppression of our right to vote. Fortunately, 44 states so far have refused or partially refused to turn over this data to the WH.

When our focus should be on the Russians tampering with our elections, which Trump refuses to admit despite all national security intelligence officials backing this claim, we need to be focused on updating our state elections systems against any foreign interference. Every state and our national government must make the elimination of election tampering a priority. Our democracy is at stake. Our country is at stake. Voter fraud is not what is threatening our democracy. Do not be distracted or fooled by the tweets. They are a smoke screen, an attempt to cover up and divert resources from solving the challenging issues facing our country today.

Judy Brodd

Sister Bay, Wis.