White House releases colorful emails of public feedback on demand for voter information for commission, formed on basis of unfounded claims by Trump

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Donald Trump’s controversial election integrity commission, which critics see as a blatant voter suppression effort, is facing a public backlash.



The commission has released a tranche of emails from the public that includes feedback on its demand that all 50 states submit detailed voter information to the commission.



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The commission, led by the vice-president, Mike Pence, was formed in February in response to Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that up to 5m illegal votes were cast in the 2016 election – in which he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by more than 2.5m ballots but won the White House in the electoral college.

The feedback from 112 Americans who submitted comments to the email electionintegritystaff@ovp.eop.gov included pointed and colorful statements about the purpose of the commission.

Jerold B Coburn, an air force veteran from South Miami, Florida, wrote: “It is obvious your commission will be using this information, especially voting history, to target people who are likely to vote Democratic and use various well-known techniques to suppress as many of their votes as possible. I am a Teddy Roosevelt Republican. He would never condone such un-American behavior.”

Several voters suggested simply keeping voter rolls up to date with automatic voter registration in which Americans are registered to vote when they interact with state government agencies. This proposal has already been adopted by six states and is growing in popularity.

One emailer suggested that concerns about election integrity would be better focused on examining Russian collusion with pro-Trump websites to produce “fake news” in the 2016 election, and included a link to an exclusive story by the Guardian’s Julian Borger on congressional investigations of this issue.

There was at least one supportive email. Christopher Green of Rapid City, South Dakota, who described himself as a Republican who had supported Trump since his announcement, wrote: “There is ample evidence to suggest that voting fraud occurred in the November 2016 election and in fact occurs in every election.

“The real question is to what extent it occurs and what principalities and powers are behind the voting fraud.”

He went on to detail an exchange he had with the South Dakota secretary of state’s office where he asked if Muslim refugees and “the Demonrats” (sic) were voting multiple times in South Dakota elections.

Perhaps the most colorful email came from an anonymous person with the subject line: “Piece of shit, you are. Yoda.” The text simply read: “Just fuck off already you shit stain on democracy.”