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On Wednesday night, the White House announced that it would disband the Election 鈥淚ntegrity鈥� Commission led by Vice President Pence and Kris Kobach, the Secretary of State of Kansas, citing the refusal of state officials to go along with Kobach鈥檚 reckless plan to collect sensitive data on every single voter in the country.

Donald Trump formed the commission after he falsely claimed that he was the true winner of the national popular vote in the 2016 presidential election, that his nearly 3 million vote deficit was the result of voter fraud. Despite failing to produce any proof of rampant voter fraud, the White House insisted in its statement last night that there is still 鈥渟ubstantial evidence鈥� of fraud. The president tweeted this morning that the 鈥�.鈥�

The Trump administration also announced that the Department of Homeland Security will take up the voter fraud cause, and Kobach Politico that 鈥渉e expects officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and political appointees overseeing that agency to take over the commission's work and begin efforts to match state voter rolls to federal databases of noncitizen.鈥�

All signs suggest that Homeland Security will use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements Program (SAVE) database, which is used to verify citizenship and immigration status, to see if non-citizens have registered to vote.

When Colorado, North Carolina, and Florida tried to use SAVE to see if non-citizens were on the voter rolls, the states experienced disastrous results, many U.S. citizens. Because SAVE is not updated regularly, many people who naturalized as citizens could still be listed as non-citizens. In 2012, the Justice Department that Florida鈥檚 use of SAVE had 鈥渃ritical imperfections,鈥� and led to 鈥渆rrors that harm and confuse eligible voters.鈥� Amid widespread concerns of inaccuracy, Florida eventually abandoned its efforts to use the SAVE database after its purge was ruled illegal by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Because of the huge amount of false positives, using SAVE to purge voter rolls could be disastrous.

But purging voters is Kobach鈥檚 aim.

Kobach, who gained national notoriety for his relentless efforts to disenfranchise tens of thousands of Kansans, met with Trump before his inauguration and was a source for the president鈥檚 unsubstantiated claim that 3 million to 5 million people voted illegally in the presidential election.

The 吃瓜直播 challenged Kobach鈥檚 efforts in Kansas and was able to unseal the documents from his meeting with Trump. These records revealed that despite the administration鈥檚 insistence that the probe had no 鈥溾�� notions or results, the commission鈥檚 vice chair, Kobach, had lobbied Trump and senior advisers to gut the National Voter Registration Act as early as Nov. 20, 2016. The commission would give the White House the justification to push for such a plan, and Kobach packed the panel with others who have aggressively fanned fears of widespread voter fraud like Hans von Spakovsky, J. Christian Adams, and Ken Blackwell.

The commission faced serious resistance from the start. At least 15 lawsuits, including the 吃瓜直播鈥檚, were filed and dozens of states refused to comply with the commission鈥檚 overreaching requests.

Kobach鈥檚 own efforts to find voter fraud in the 2016 election were discredited, though he falsely argued that thousands out-of-state voters had cast ballots in New Hampshire. Trump, for his part, the statements of an who still has not released any evidence that voter fraud occurred in the presidential election.

While Trump鈥檚 commission may be disbanded, attempts by his administration and Kris Kobach to lay the groundwork for voter suppression are far from over.

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