Eve Levin  //  6/27/17  //  Topic Update

President Trump’s election commission is facing mounting pushback from states and privacy advocates (WSJ; NYT).

• The ACLU filed a lawsuit on Monday against President Trump, VP Pence and the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity (Politico, The Hill).
• The Kobach commission is distracting from serious voting rights issues, including felon disenfranchisement, which must be a part of any reform agenda, notes Nancy Leong at Take Care.
• The Commission is neither necessary nor bipartisan, write Danielle Lang and Samir Sheth for Take Care
• The focus of the DOJ with regard to voter data is to pressure states to take more people off the rolls, writes Tierney Sneed for Talking Points Memo.
• The Commission reportedly halted its request for sensitive voter information after multiple legal challenges (The Hill).
• The election commission has been a disaster—and it’s going exactly as planned, argues Dahlia Lithwick for Slate.
• The Fair Elections Legal Network brought a claim that EAC Commissioner McCormick is illegally also serving on the Pence-Kobach Fraud Commission (Election Law Blog).
• Hundreds of voters in Colorado and Florida have cancelled their registration out of fear that their information will be turned over to the commission.
• In the New York Times, Michael Wines and Rachel Shorey analyze why even many Republican officials have refused to provide data to the commission.
• A federal district court in DC heard oral argument on whether the commission’s data request should be enjoined.

One in four American voters say they will consider not voting in upcoming elections due to concerns over cybersecurity (The Hill).

Texas’s strict photo ID law was written with the purpose of burdening minority voters, and the Department of Justice should not be arguing in favor of that discriminatory law, writes Danielle Lang at Take Care.

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