Heidi M Przybyla

USA TODAY

Correction: Iowa’s new voter identification law does not impose restrictions on Election Day registration.

WASHINGTON — The Democratic National Committee is launching a new voting commission to combat a recently announced Trump administration effort — to investigate voter fraud — which Democrats fear will lead to voter suppression in poor and minority communities.

The commission will document and report on “voter suppression tactics” and make recommendations for strengthening access to the polls for all Americans, according to a statement provided to USA TODAY.

It is part of a broader restructuring by the committee's new leadership that prioritizes voting rights after a number of U.S. states imposed new restrictions for the first time in 2016, including the swing states of Wisconsin and Virginia.

“President Trump’s commission is nothing but a sham to justify the GOP’s voter suppression efforts across the country,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez said in the statement. “While Trump’s misleading claims about voter fraud were probably made to mend his bruised ego after losing the popular vote, he created an opening for Republican politicians to nationalize their efforts to complicate voting and suppress eligible voters,” said Perez.

Consistent with a pledge made during his campaign, the newly minted chair is also reorganizing the DNC to embed multiple voting-rights experts into several departments, including the communications and political units, to flag early problems and to go on the offense.

Earlier this month, Trump announced a commission led by Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state who has advocated for some of the strictest voter identification laws in the nation. The group, expected to issue a report next year, grew out of Trump’s unproven claim that millions of undocumented “illegals” voted for his Democratic competitor, Hillary Clinton, depriving him of winning the national popular vote. The claim has been repeatedly disproven by fact checkers.

Jason Kander, President of Let America Vote and a former Missouri secretary of state, will chair the 13-member commission with Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala. It will also include members of Congress, such as Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas, and state and local officials including Alison Lundergan Grimes, the Kentucky secretary of state. In an interview, Kander said the new panel signifies that combating voter suppression is now a "top priority." He accused Trump of "formally pushing a lie" about voter fraud through his dueling commission.

Attempts to fight 'vote fraud'

The Democratic Party’s concerns about voting rights were paramount even before Trump formed his commission. Many point to the case of Wisconsin, where Republican Gov. Scott Walker instituted new voting restrictions that may have led to historically low participation levels in Milwaukee. Trump won Wisconsin in November by fewer than 30,000 votes.

Myrna Perez, director of voting right and elections project at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, said the pace of new restrictions is building this year. “The biggest example of this being 'a thing' is where states are right now," she said. "This legislative cycle already we have seen more suppressive bills pass than we had in the prior two years put together," and that comes of top of already passed laws in previous sessions, she said.

Examples include:

• Arkansas passed two bills to bring back voter ID to the state after a court struck down an earlier law. North Dakota did the same after being blocked in 2016.

• Iowa's governor signed a law to require voter ID and restrict voter registration drives.

The Democratic offensive on voter suppression is in addition to court challenges to congressional maps. Democrats have lost hundreds of seats at the state and congressional level in the past few cycles. In 2010, Republicans gained 43 House seats and took control of the chamber, the largest swing in any midterm election since 1938. Many experts believe gerrymandering, which created districts with more conservative electorates, played a significant role, particularly after 2010.

While Democrats have enjoyed some success in challenging these maps in court alleging “racial gerrymandering,” including a recent ruling on North Carolina maps, addressing voter suppression is fast becoming a new front in the party’s attempts to regain power.

Since Trump's announcement, civil rights groups have raised concerns, including the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a legal request demanding records showing evidence of fraudulent voting. A 2014 study by the non-partisan Government Accountability Office, noted that the studies consistently found “few instances of in-person voter fraud.” While writing a 2012 book, one researcher went back 30 years to try to find an example of voter impersonation fraud determining the outcome of an election, but was unable to find even one.

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