More than two dozen states have refused to fully comply with a sweeping and unprecedented White House request to turn over voter registration data, including sensitive information like partial Social Security numbers, party affiliation and military status.

Overall, the states that have said they will not be complying at all with the Kobach commission's request represent over 30 percent of the nation's population. That could complicate any efforts to build a truly national voter file, although it remains unclear what the commission's ultimate goal is in collecting the data.

Those states found themselves the targets of the President Trump's ire on Twitter on Saturday morning: “Numerous states are refusing to give information to the very distinguished VOTER FRAUD PANEL. What are they trying to hide?”

[Trump challenges states on voter fraud]

As it turns out, the bipartisan group of state officials withholding information from the commission have been very forthcoming about their reasons for not complying. Here's what a number of them have said.

“I will not provide sensitive voter information to a commission that has already inaccurately passed judgment that millions of Californians voted illegally,” said California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, a Democrat.

“California's participation would only serve to legitimize the false and already debunked claims of massive voter fraud made by the President, the Vice President, and Mr. Kobach,” he added. "[Kobach's] role as vice chair is proof that the ultimate goal of the commission is to enact policies that will result in the disenfranchisement of American citizens.”

[Kris Kobach: The conservative gladiator from Kansas behind restrictive voting laws]

Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, another Democrat, struck a similar note.

“The president created his election commission based on the false notion that 'voter fraud' is a widespread issue — it is not,” Grimes said. “Kentucky will not aid a commission that is at best a waste of taxpayer money and at worst an attempt to legitimize voter suppression efforts across the country.”

A number of states said they would only provide limited, publicly available information, as required by state law.

Vermont Secretary of State James Condos (D) said “I am bound by law to provide our publicly available voter file, but will provide no more information than is available to any individual requesting the file.”

North Carolina will comply with the request by handing over “publicly available data as already required under state law,” said Kim Westbrook Strach, the executive director of the bipartisan North Carolina State Board of Elections and Ethics enforcement.

Mississippi rejected the request on privacy and states' rights grounds. “They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico,” Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, a Republican, said on Friday. “Mississippi residents should celebrate Independence Day and our State's right to protect the privacy of our citizens by conducting our own electoral process."

In Alabama, another GOP stronghold, Secretary of State John Merrill told the Montgomery Advertiser he will not comply with the request until he learns more about how the Kobach commission will keep the data secure. “We’re going to get answers to our questions before we move on this,” Merrill said.

Perhaps most strikingly, at least two of the holdouts were members of the commission, including commission co-chairman Kris Kobach himself, who said that state law prevented them from fully complying with the request.

The Kansas secretary of state, a Republican, told the Kansas City Star on Friday that he would not be providing any parts of Kansas voters' Social Security numbers because that data is not publicly available under state law. “In Kansas, the Social Security number is not publicly available,” he said. “Every state receives the same letter, but we’re not asking for it if it’s not publicly available.”

Similarly, Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson said in a statement that “Indiana law doesn't permit the Secretary of State to provide the personal information requested by Secretary Kobach.” Lawson, another Republican, is also a member of the commission.

Trump's tweet suggests the commission's work remains a top priority for him. That's going to cause concern for elections experts and voting rights activists, many of whom are concerned that Kobach will use the state voter registration data to manufacture “evidence” of widespread voter fraud.

“We're concerned about unlawful voter purging, which has been something that Kris Kobach has been leading the charge,” said Vanita Gupta of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and former head of the Justice Department's civil rights division, in an interview Friday.

Gupta and others argue that Kobach doesn't exactly have a reputation for being honest about his work on voter fraud. Just a week ago, a federal judge fined Kobach $1,000 for “presenting misleading arguments in a voting-related lawsuit.”

Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly categorized South Carolina's compliance status. South Carolina has not yet publicly stated how it will respond.</s>“This commission was formed to try to find basis for the lie that President Trump put forward that has no foundation," Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes said.

A growing number of U.S. states refused on Friday to give voters' names, addresses and sensitive personal information to a commission created by President Donald Trump to investigate alleged voter fraud, saying the demand was unnecessary and violated privacy.

"This commission was formed to try to find basis for the lie that President Trump put forward that has no foundation," Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes told Reuters in an interview.

Republican Trump has made unsubstantiated claims that millions of people voted illegally for his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. He established the panel by executive order in May despite evidence that voter fraud was not widespread.

Trump's Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity sent a letter to all 50 states on Wednesday asking them to turn over voter information including names, the last four digits of social security numbers, addresses, birth dates, political affiliation, felony convictions and voting histories.

The request from commission Vice Chairman Kris Kobach caused a backlash in states including Virginia, Kentucky, California, New York and Massachusetts, where election officials said they would not provide all the data.

California Secretary of State Alex Padilla said on Thursday that handing over information would only serve to legitimize debunked claims of widespread voter fraud.

More than 20 states said they would not or could not provide some or all of the information requested, according to statements from election officials and media reports.

Some said certain data such as social security numbers were not publicly available and that they would turn over only public information. Others raised privacy concerns or questioned the need to examine voter fraud.

Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann said in a statement that he had not seen the letter but would rebuff the commission.

"They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi is a great state to launch from," he said.

Kobach, the secretary of state for Kansas, has been a high-profile advocate of tougher laws on immigration and voter identification.

His office did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.

Kobach was quoted in a Kansas City Star article as saying that his own state would not provide social security numbers at this time since they are not publicly available. Kobach did not rule out providing that information in the future.

In his letter, a copy of which was provided to Reuters by the Connecticut Secretary of State's office, Kobach also asked states for feedback on how to improve election integrity and for evidence of voter fraud and convictions of voter-related crimes since 2000.

Civil rights groups and Democratic lawmakers have called the commission a tactic to suppress votes against Republicans.

"States are right to balk at turning over massive reams of personal information in what clearly is a campaign to suppress the vote," Dale Ho, director of the American Civil Liberties Union Voting Rights Project, said in a statement on Friday.

While the public availability of voter data varies by state, the request raises privacy concerns, said Richard Hasen, a University of California, Irvine, professor who studies election law.</s>US President Donald Trump lashed out on Saturday at the growing number of states refusing to give voters’ names, addresses and sensitive personal information to a commission he created to investigate alleged voter fraud. “Numerous states are refusing to give information to the very distinguished VOTER FRAUD PANEL,” he wrote on Twitter. “What are they trying to hide?”

More than 20 states, including Virginia, Kentucky, California, New York and Massachusetts, have declined to provide some or all of the information, saying it was unnecessary and violated privacy. “This commission was formed to try to find the basis for the lie that President Trump put forward that has no foundation,” Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes told Reuters previously in an interview.

The Republican president has made unsubstantiated claims that millions of people voted illegally for his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, in last November’s election. Trump’s Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, created in May, sent a letter to 50 states asking them to turn over voter information including names, the last four digits of Social Security numbers, addresses, birth dates, political affiliations, felony convictions and voting histories.

The request from Commission Vice Chairman Kris Kobach has caused a backlash from state election officials. Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson said in a statement on Friday that while certain voter information is available to the public, the media, and any other person who requests the information, “the information is restricted to name, address and congressional district assignment.”

Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann had said in a statement that he did not see the letter but would rebuff the commission. “They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico, and Mississippi is a great state to launch from,” he said.Trump won the White House through victory in the Electoral College, which tallies wins in states, but he lost the popular vote to Clinton by some 3 million votes. He has claimed he would have won the popular vote had it not been for voter fraud. Civil rights activists say the commission will encourage voter suppression by justifying new barriers to voting, such as requiring identity cards to vote.

Trump won the White House through victory in the Electoral College, which tallies wins in states, but he lost the popular vote to Clinton by some 3 million votes. He has claimed he would have won the popular vote had it not been for voter fraud. Civil rights activists say the commission will encourage voter suppression by justifying new barriers to voting, such as requiring identity cards to vote.

For all the latest World News, download Indian Express App</s>Democratic state officials already are refusing to cooperate with the voter fraud investigation ordered by President Trump, saying they will not hand over the extensive “voter roll data” the commission is seeking.

The response comes after Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state serving as vice chair of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, wrote to all 50 states this week asking for their input as well as voter registration data.

“I have no intention of honoring this request. Virginia conducts fair, honest, and democratic elections, and there is no evidence of significant voter fraud in Virginia,” Virginia Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe countered in a statement Thursday, claiming the commission is based on the “specious and false notion that there was widespread voter fraud last November.”

Trump created the panel via executive order in May to review alleged voter fraud, after making the explosive claim that 3 million to 5 million people illegally voted in the 2016 presidential election.

In his letter, Kobach had asked for recommendations on how to improve election integrity and for guidance on which laws “hinder” that goal. But what rankled Democratic officials was his request for voter information including names, dates of birth, political party, the last four digits of Social Security numbers, voter history (“elections voted in”), felony convictions, military status and more.

Kobach specified in the letter he would only request “publicly-available voter roll data” under each state’s laws.

Connecticut Secretary of the State Denise Merrill said in a statement that her office would provide such information “in the spirit of transparency.” But, suggesting some of the requested data would not be sharable under state law, she said she would ensure “the privacy of voters is honored by withholding protected data.” Merrill also voiced concern that state officials “have not been told precisely what the Commission is looking for.”

Virginia and California were more brazen in their response.

McAuliffe, a former Democratic National Committee chairman and longtime Clinton family ally, said, “At best this commission was set up as a pretext to validate Donald Trump’s alternative election facts, and at worst is a tool to commit large-scale voter suppression.”

The governor declared he would not “divert resources” to this.

California Secretary of State Alex Padilla struck a similar chord, saying in a statement he would “not provide sensitive voter information to a commission that has already inaccurately passed judgment that millions of Californians voted illegally.”

He added, “California’s participation would only serve to legitimize the false and already debunked claims of massive voter fraud made by the President, the Vice President, and Mr. Kobach.”

Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes – a Democratic official in a state with a Republican governor – also said she does “not intend to release Kentuckians’ sensitive personal data to the federal government.”

“Kentucky will not aid a commission that is at best a waste of taxpayer money and at worst an attempt to legitimize voter suppression efforts across the country,” she said in a statement.

Kobach told The Kansas City Star he’s just looking for the “best data possible.”

He rejected as “nonsense” any claims that the data could be used to suppress the vote, saying, “The purpose of the commission is to quantify different forms of voter fraud and registration fraud and offer solutions. And so you have to have this data in order to do any meaningful research.”

Trump’s voter fraud claims and commission have been controversial from the start.

He originally called for a major investigation into voter fraud back in January, after telling congressional leaders that 3 million to 5 million people illegally voted in the November election.

Trump said the probe would focus on those registered to vote in two states, “those who are illegal” and registered voters who are actually dead.

The commission was not created until months later and was panned by critics as a vehicle to pursue his claim about millions voting illegally. Trump won the Electoral College vote, and with it the presidency, but lost the popular vote to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by about 3 million votes.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said back in January he had seen “no evidence” to back up Trump’s claim of millions of illegal votes. Trump has since said the issue mostly revolves around voter registration problems.

A 2012 Pew study indeed found evidence of outdated voter registration forms, though the author of that study tweeted earlier this year there is “zero evidence” of fraud.

There have been some documented cases of voter fraud, however, including cases Kobach has pursued in Kansas.

Kobach told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” in May that the commission, chaired by Vice President Pence, would look beyond the 2016 election to cover voting irregularities and fraud and registration problems.

“We’ll be gathering data from all 50 states and we’ll be using the federal government’s databases which can been very valuable,” he said at the time.

Asked Friday about the state-level pushback, Pence Press Secretary Marc Lotter said the commission is “seeking publicly available information per state law” and noted that no one on the bipartisan commission itself objected.</s>WASHINGTON, July 1 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump lashed out on Saturday at the growing number of states refusing to give voters' names, addresses and sensitive personal information to a commission he created to investigate alleged voter fraud.

"Numerous states are refusing to give information to the very distinguished VOTER FRAUD PANEL. What are they trying to hide?" Trump said on Twitter.

More than 20 states have declined the requests, saying they are unnecessary and violated privacy, according to statements from election officials and media reports.

"This commission was formed to try to find basis for the lie that President Trump put forward that has no foundation," Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes told Reuters previously in an interview.

Trump's Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity sent a letter to all 50 states on Wednesday asking them to turn over voter information including names, the last four digits of social security numbers, addresses, birth dates, political affiliation, felony convictions and voting histories.

Republican Trump has made unsubstantiated claims that millions of people voted illegally for his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. He established the panel by executive order in May despite evidence that voter fraud was not widespread.

The request from commission Vice Chairman Kris Kobach caused a backlash in states including Virginia, Kentucky, California, New York and Massachusetts, where election officials said they would not provide all the data.

Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann had said in a statement that he did not see the letter but would rebuff the commission.

"They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi is a great state to launch from," he said. (Reporting by Joel Schectman and Chris Kenning; Editing by Bernard Orr)</s>SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s commission investigating alleged voter fraud in the 2016 elections has asked states for a list of the names, party affiliations, addresses and voting histories of all voters, if state law allows it to be public.

A Wednesday letter from the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity gives secretaries of state about two weeks to provide about a dozen points of voter data. That also would include dates of birth, the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers and any information about felony convictions and military status.

Some Democratic officials refused to comply, saying the request invades privacy and is based on false claims of fraud.

Trump lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton but has alleged, without evidence, that 3 to 5 million people voted illegally. In addition to the voter information, the letter asks state officials for suggestions on improving election integrity and to share any evidence of fraud and election-related crimes in their states.

The data will help the commission “fully analyze vulnerabilities and issues related to voter registration and voting,” vice chairman and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach wrote.

On Thursday, Virginia’s governor and the secretaries of state in California and Kentucky, all Democrats, responded that they will not share the information.

The California and Virginia officials said attention would be better spent upgrading aging voting systems or focusing on Russia’s alleged election meddling. Trump has alleged “serious voter fraud” in both states.

“California’s participation would only serve to legitimize the false and already debunked claims of massive voter fraud,” Democratic Secretary of State Alex Padilla said in a statement.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said there is no evidence of voter fraud in the state.

“At best this commission was set up as a pretext to validate Donald Trump’s alternative election facts, and at worst is a tool to commit large-scale voter suppression,” he said in a statement.

Trump created the commission through an executive order in May.

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” and said there were no objections to it by anyone on the 10-member commission, which includes four Democrats.

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat, said he is not sure whether he will share the data because of privacy concerns. Vermont’s top election official, Democrat Jim Condos, said it goes beyond what the state can publicly disclose.

In Missouri, Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft said he is happy to “offer our support in the collective effort to enhance the American people’s confidence in the integrity of the system.” Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams, a Republican, said he’ll provide what state law allows.</s>More than two dozen states have refused to fully comply with a White House request to turn over voter registration data, including sensitive information like partial Social Security numbers, party affiliations and military status.

Among the most populous ones refusing are California and New York. But even some conservative states, such as Texas, that voted for President Donald Trump say they can provide only partial responses because of state law limitations.

Trump expressed frustration with the situation Saturday, saying in a tweet: "Numerous states are refusing to give information to the very distinguished VOTER FRAUD PANEL. What are they trying to hide?"

The refusals could effectively scuttle much of the work of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity before it even begins. Officials on the panel said they planned to compare the state records with databases of illegal and legal foreigners to determine if large numbers of unqualified voters are participating in U.S. elections.

[PRESIDENT TRUMP: Timeline, appointments, executive orders + guide to actions in first 100 days]

Trump established the commission to investigate allegations of voter fraud in the 2016 elections, but Democrats have blasted it as a biased panel that is merely looking for ways to suppress the vote.

Critics have complained that the panel is stacked with people who have long sought to make access to the polls more restrictive, including Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the panel's vice chairman, and former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.

New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner, a Democrat who is a member of Trump's commission, defended the request Friday. He said the commission expected that many states would only partially comply because open records laws differ from state to state.

"If only half the states agree, we'll have to talk about that. I think, whatever they do, we'll work with that," said Gardner, adding that the commission will discuss the survey at its July 19 meeting.

He said he has received calls from unhappy constituents who said they didn't want Trump to see their personal information.

"But this is not private, and a lot of people don't know that," he said.

White House spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders blasted the decision by some governors and secretaries of state not to comply.

"I think that that's mostly about a political stunt," she told reporters at a White House briefing Friday.

It's not just Democrats bristling over the requested information.

Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, a Republican serving his third term, said in a statement that he had not received the commission's request.

If he does receive it?

"My reply would be: They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico, and Mississippi is a great state to launch from," he said. "Mississippi residents should celebrate Independence Day and our state's right to protect the privacy of our citizens by conducting our own electoral processes."

In a federal court case after a contentious U.S. Senate primary in Mississippi in 2014, a group called True the Vote sued Mississippi seeking similar information about voters. Hosemann fought that request and won.

Officials in 10 states and the District of Columbia said they would not comply at all with the request. Those states are California, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee and Virginia. They represent more 30 percent of the nation's population.

Some Democratic officials have refused to comply with the data request, saying it invades privacy and is based on false claims of fraud. Trump, who created the commission through executive order in May, lost the popular vote to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton but has alleged, without evidence, that up to 5 million people voted illegally.

"I will not provide sensitive voter information to a commission that has already inaccurately passed judgment that millions of Californians voted illegally," said California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, a Democrat.

"California's participation would only serve to legitimize the false and already debunked claims of massive voter fraud made by the president, the vice president, and Mr. Kobach," he added. "[Kobach's] role as vice chair is proof that the ultimate goal of the commission is to enact policies that will result in the disenfranchisement of American citizens."

"The president created his election commission based on the false notion that 'voter fraud' is a widespread issue -- it is not," Grimes said. "Kentucky will not aid a commission that is at best a waste of taxpayer money and at worst an attempt to legitimize voter suppression efforts across the country."

No state election official planned to provide the commission with all of the information requested -- even Kansas, where Kobach is secretary of state. He sent the letter asking for the names, party affiliations, addresses, voting histories, felony convictions, military service and the last four digits of Social Security numbers for all voters.

Kobach, a Republican, told the Kansas City Star on Friday that he would not be providing any parts of Kansas voters' Social Security numbers because that data are not publicly available under state law. "In Kansas, the Social Security number is not publicly available," he said. "Every state receives the same letter, but we're not asking for it if it's not publicly available."

Similarly, Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson said in a statement that "Indiana law doesn't permit the Secretary of State to provide the personal information requested by Secretary Kobach." Lawson, another Republican, is also a member of Trump's commission.

Myrna Perez, director of the nonpartisan Brennan Center's Voting Rights and Elections project, said some states require that only registered voters receive the kind of data requested by Kobach. In others, anyone who wants the information has to sign an oath testifying how it will be used. Some state officials are afraid that providing the data will undermine voters' trust in the way they're administering elections, she said.

"Being that Kobach is a secretary of state, I'm baffled about the problem he has given his fellow secretaries of state," Perez said. "He's handing them both a legal and a political problem of significant proportions."

In Arkansas, Chris Powell, a spokesman for the secretary of state's office, said the office had not yet received the letter and so had no comment about it.

Oklahoma, where nearly two-thirds of the vote in the November presidential election went to Trump, will provide nearly all of the commission-requested data, save for one bit of information: Social Security numbers.

"That's not publicly available under the laws of our state," said Bryan Dean, a spokesman for the Oklahoma State Election Board.

Dean said the commission's request will be treated like any other from the general public. The election board will tell the panel to fill out an online form asking for the information.

North Carolina officials said in a statement that they'll comply only with requests for public information and won't turn over partial Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers or dates of birth, which are confidential under certain state or federal laws.

Vermont Secretary of State James Condos, a Democrat, said "I am bound by law to provide our publicly available voter file, but will provide no more information than is available to any individual requesting the file."

In Alabama, another GOP stronghold, Secretary of State John Merrill told the Montgomery Advertiser that he will not comply with the request until he learns more about how the Kobach commission will keep the data secure. "We're going to get answers to our questions before we move on this," Merrill said.

Several other states announced that the president's panel will get limited data and will have to pay for it, the way political campaigns do.

The letter from the presidential commission gives secretaries of state about two weeks to provide the voter data and other information, including any evidence of fraud and election-related crimes in their states. It also asks for suggestions on improving election security.

Information for this article was contributed by Adam Kealoha Causey, Holly Ramer, Jill Colvin, Roxana Hegeman, Geoff Mulvihill, Blake Nicholson and Kyle Potter of The Associated Press; by Michael Riley and Greg Sullivan of Bloomberg News; and by Philip Bump and Christopher Ingraham of The Washington Post.</s>As of Friday afternoon, twenty-two states have declined to cooperate completely with the Trump administration’s request for them to submit sensitive voter data. Voter data they have no right to have. All in order for the President to carry on with the silly conspiracy theory that he actually won the popular vote, as well as the electoral vote.

The request from the “Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity” is tangential to the allegation Trump made following the 2016 election that millions of votes had been cast illegally. An allegation that’s been debunked since, and honestly makes no rational sense to anyone who knows anything about how elections actually happen at a local and state level.

The bipartisan declines from states to comply with sending the commission such sensitive data as social security numbers (and via email, as the request indicates, which is notoriously unsecured) is an optimistic sign that states still take their role as the holder of voter and election information sacrosanct.

On Wednesday, Kansas Secretary of State, Kris Kobach, who is the vice chairman of the commission, sent a request giving states approximately two weeks to comply.

The request included over a dozen data points, including date of birth, current address, last four of social security numbers, military status, voting history, party registration, and felony convictions. Most of which is against the law for the executive branch to obtain since the Nixon-Watergate era and the Privacy Act of 1974, which limits keeping records of a voter’s party affiliation, except in rare cases. State political parties are largely the only apparatus that retains those records for primary and caucus purposes.

Even Kobach, who sent out the request, has said his state cannot comply with the commission’s request. Fancy that.

Brandon Finnigan, the founder of The Decision Desk HQ, an election calling, polling and voting data collection organization, told RedState, “When the guy who’s pushing this has admitted he can’t do it in his own state, you know it’s a joke.”

All of this is in addition to the fact that what Donald Trump alleges is simply another conspiracy theory that he’s bound and determined to use his office to pursue. The mere idea that an election could be swayed on a national level would require thousands of city and county officials, of any and all party affiliations, to be in on the conspiracy.

Full disclosure, I’ve worked with the Decision Desk since its infancy. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in the last four years is what a hodgepodge our states have for collecting votes. And that’s a good thing. It makes one realize just how ridiculously difficult it would be for Russians, or any other foreign powers, to “hack” our elections.

States are right in telling the administration to take a hike on this one. Or as Mississippi Secretary of State, Delbert Hoseman (R), said in response to the request from Kobach,

States that have said they refuse to comply in any way with the request include Virginia, California, Tennessee, New York, Kentucky, Massachusetts, and New Mexico.

Many others have said they would only hand over data that was already publicly available. Which indicates all of this is simply a huge time waste and money bleed, so the president can beat his chest and save face by pushing another conspiracy theory.

Is vote integrity a constant concern? Yes, and it always has been and always should be. However, Trump’s voter integrity commission is not the way to go about it.

“The better way to do it, would be to require states to conduct a random sampling and send the results to the commission to see if voter fraud is going on in any magnitude worth noticing,” Finnigan said. “Multiple vote offenders are always caught up with these days. This isn’t the 1960’s or 1970’s.”

Beyond that, the voter fraud cases we’ve seen since 2016 have been Trump voters violating voting laws, not the other way around.

Hillary’s popular win was achieved by overperforming in California and Massachusetts. It’s time Trump accepted his remarkable electoral win — the only win that matters — and move on.

Hopefully, more states stand up to this request and say no.</s>President Donald Trump lashed out on Saturday at the growing number of states refusing to give voters' names, addresses and sensitive personal information to a commission he created to investigate alleged voter fraud.

"Numerous states are refusing to give information to the very distinguished VOTER FRAUD PANEL," he wrote on Twitter. "What are they trying to hide?"

More than 20 states, including Virginia, Kentucky, California, New York and Massachusetts, have declined to provide some or all of the information, saying it was unnecessary and violated privacy.

"This commission was formed to try to find basis for the lie that President Trump put forward that has no foundation," Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes told Reuters previously in an interview.

The Republican president has made unsubstantiated claims that millions of people voted illegally for his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, in last November's election.

Trump's Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, created in May, sent a letter to 50 states asking them to turn over voter information including names, the last four digits of Social Security numbers, addresses, birth dates, political affiliations, felony convictions and voting histories.

The request from commission Vice Chairman Kris Kobach has caused a backlash from state election officials.

Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson said in a statement on Friday that while certain voter information is available to the public, the media, and any other person who requests the information, "the information is restricted to name, address and congressional district assignment."

Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann had said in a statement that he did not see the letter but would rebuff the commission.

"They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico, and Mississippi is a great state to launch from," he said.

Trump won the White House through victory in the Electoral College, which tallies wins in states, but he lost the popular vote to Clinton by some 3 million votes. He has claimed he would have won the popular vote had it not been for voter fraud.

Civil rights activists say the commission will encourage voter suppression by justifying new barriers to voting, such as requiring identity cards to vote.</s>(CNN) - If we need any further evidence that President Donald Trump's voter fraud commission is a sham, we can find it in its request for all 50 states to turn over exceedingly detailed information on its voter rolls, without any apparent justification.

The vice chairman of the commission, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, sent a letter to all 50 states requesting the state's publicly-available voter rolls, including such personal information as the last four digits of someone's Social Security number and "information regarding military status."

In the abstract, matching voter rolls with other available data may not seem like a bad idea. After all, we all want accuracy in our voter registration information.

The problems come about when one looks deeper into Kobach's history, which I'll discuss in a moment, and which offers some blunt clues about his true motivations.

To begin, the information he's seeking will reveal what we know already -- that some voter registration rolls are bloated -- and not much else. The voter databases include extra people for a particularly innocuous reason: Individuals die or move quite frequently.

But there is no evidence whatsoever that outdated voter lists lead to any kind of voter fraud. Simply put, dead people, or those who have moved, do not vote illegally in any significant number.

In addition, election dataexperts -- notably lacking on this commission -- know that simply comparing large lists of voters will not provide useful information because of the number of false matches. The well-known "Birthday Problem" shows that it is somewhat likely that two people with the same common name -- say, John Smith -- will also share a birthday. The fact that two different state voter rolls might list this same name is not evidence of voter fraud.

Yet those who peddle the rampant voter fraud canard have been looking for evidence to support their theories, all in an effort to justify ever-stricter voting laws. They cannot find any widespread voter fraud, so they use issues of bloated voter registration rolls as their evidence. But that proves nothing beyond the reality that states need a better way to update their voter rolls.

This is exactly what Trump's Commission on Election Integrity is positioning itself to do, as well: use evidence of voter registration anomalies to promote strict voting rules that make it harder for some people to vote.

Indeed, we already know that one of Kobach's main policy goals is to repeal the National Voter Registration Act, also known as Motor-Voter, which makes it easier to register to vote. He also supports strict proof of citizenship requirements for registration that make it harder for some people to vote -- with zero corresponding "integrity benefit."

Seen in this light, it seems obvious why Kobach has requested detailed voter data from all 50 states, and why almost half the states, like Virginia and Kentucky, are rightly refusing to comply. Setting aside the privacy concerns (of which there are many), this information will provide nothing useful while laying the groundwork for the commission to peddle its theories of massive voter fraud.
Numerous U.S. states, including California, Mississippi, Kentucky and New York, reject requests for voter registration data from President Donald Trump's voter fraud commission.