Britany Riley  //  6/23/17  //  Topic Update

President Trump’s Commission on Election Integrity held its first public meeting (NYT, LA Times, Politico, The Hill).

• The heavily criticized commission is a misguided response to the President’s popular-vote loss, argues Heather Digby Parton at Salon.
• The Commission’s goal is to stoke fears and pave the way for harsh voter restrictions, argues Michael Waldman on the Daily Beast. 
• Eliza Newlin Harley argues that the Commission’s actions reveal its true intent, regardless of lofty promises made by the President and his commissioners at The American Prospect. 

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund filed a lawsuit alleging that the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity has behind it the intention to discriminate against voters of color (WaPo).

• The NAACP’s complaint can be found here.   

The Commission has published hundreds of public comments criticizing the commission’s work, including the names and contact information of critics (Ars Technica, WaPo, Vox).

• Common Cause has sued to block the Commission from collecting certain voter data. 

• The Commission recently responded to the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s motion in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for a temporary restraining order to stop the commission from collecting state voter-roll data (The Hill).
  
  

Presidential Commission on Election Integrity Vice Chair Kris Kobach proposed revisions to the National Voter Registration Act to allow states to require proof of citizenship from all registrants, per an email released as part of litigation by the ACLU (WaPo; Huffington Post).

The Commission argues that it does not need to follow the E-Government Act as it is not a federal agency (The Hill, Washington Times).

• Chris Geidner explains how this argument works at Buzzfeed.  

The DOJ has urged a district court to end their supervision of the Texas voter ID controversy remedy, writes Rick Hasen at Election Law Blog. 

• The DOJ’s brief can be found here.

State and local election officials must work with non-governmental organizations to guard against the joint threats of external interference in elections and federal voter suppression, writes Rick Hasen in the New York Times.

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