Alan King, the lone Alabama representative on President Donald Trump's Election Integrity Commission, couldn't attend the panel's meeting Tuesday in New Hampshire.

But King, the chief election officer and probate judge for Jefferson County, let the commission know how he felt about what he sees as an effort to keep people from voting rather than expanding the right to vote.

"It is my sincere hope and prayer that this Commission will focus on the real election issues facing the United States of America, including alleged 'hacking' by the Russians, instead of spending precious time focusing on non-issues to deprive American citizens from voting," King, a Democrat, stated in a recent 5-page report to the panel.

Some, particularly Democrats, have been critical of the commission, claiming that the President formed it to bolster his claims that if not for voter fraud he would have won the popular vote during November's general election.

Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., one of the most frequent critics, said the commission received testimony at today's hearing from "political allies and long-time advocates for discriminatory voter restrictions" led by commission vice chairman, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who she says has a history of voter suppression and has been the subject of civil rights complaints.

"Today's meeting makes it clear that the real purpose of President Trump's sham voter commission is to the lay the foundation for voter suppression efforts," said Sewell stated in a press release Tuesday afternoon. "Rather than hearing from experts in the field of election integrity, the commission gathered a panel of Trump loyalists who support severe voter restrictions. This isn't an investigation, it's a kangaroo court that has put our access to the ballot box on trial. I strongly believe that to improve the integrity of our elections, we should be making it easier for people to vote, not harder. In Congress, I will not stop fighting to give every eligible voter a voice in our democracy."

King's comments, however, were the most critical so far by a member on the commission.

"I disagree at my core with voter suppression, that includes gerrymandering. To purposely come up with ways to deprive am citizens the right to vote is wrong," King said in an interview with AL.com on Tuesday. "A lot of folks have been scheming for years to come up with ways to take the right to vote," from the poor and people of color.

"The moment we start playing around with voting and we let certain people dictate who gets to vote is the moment that this nation is in trouble and we are heading down that path right now," King said. "We're heading down that path to disenfranchise segments of our society and say to them you're not good enough to vote."

King was at a technology conference for probate judges in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Tuesday. It was an annual conference that he planned to attend six months ago - before he was appointed to the panel, he said.

King admits he's in the minority on the commission. "It's clear my thinking is different than others on the commission," he said.

In his report King outlined 10 areas that, if not addressed by the commission, President and U.S. Congress, he says "will severely undermine the confidence in federal elections."

Soldiers died for the rights of Americans to vote, King said. "This Commission, and we as a people, should be expanding the rights of our citizens to vote, instead of arguably looking for ways to keep people from voting," he stated in his report.

Technology

One of the things King is pushing for is money - $5 billion every decade - for states and to their counties to get the technology to make it easier for voters to cast ballots. "States do not have money ... I think it's going to have to come from the federal government," he said.

Among the technology are e-poll books, electronic devices that can read a person's identification and quickly allow the election official to determine whether the person is registered and which ballot the voter should have. It saves time - eliminating long lines - and is more accurate, King said.

E-poll books do not track how, or for whom, voters cast ballots.

Jefferson County plans to test e-poll books by two or three different manufacturers at several polls during the Sept. 26 Senate runoff race, King said. From there the county plans to contract with one e-poll manufacturer to have them in place by the Dec. 12 general election for the senate race, he said.

Because of the cost, however, it may take some time before smaller counties will get that technology, King said.

Other areas King says needs to be addressed are:

- Enact laws to make it a crime for a person or state to suppress the right of all Americans, regardless of race, creed, color or level of affluence to vote in federal elections.

- Reaffirm and enact legislation that sets out that each individual state is responsible for conducting their elections.

- Enact federal regulations that make it a felony for a voter to be registered to vote in more than one county or parish, regardless of whether they vote in more than one location on election day or not.

- Enact federal legislation that any candidate or person cooperating with a foreign government, in connection with an U.S. election, be prosecuted for treason. As for the allegation that Russia interfered in last year's election, King said that after an investigation: "It needs to be reported and it needs to be reported truthfully and the American people deserve to know."

- Enact a law that makes it a felony to hack to a person or organization to 'hack' any voting machine, system or e-poll book or other voting apparatus.

- If states are to share voter information, as suggested by Kobach and vice chair of the commission who has supported Trump's idea that there was massive voter fraud, then it needs to be done on secure servers and "the system(s) need to be governed and operated by advanced business practices and not driven by partisan and philosophical beliefs." Some states have refused to share voter information. Alabama has agreed to comply, but without voter identification such as social security and other personal voter information.

- Engage independent "hacking" experts and have them report to the commission.

- Focus every available American resource on the alleged Russian hacking of the 2016 election.

- Ask three statistical experts from accredited colleges or universities to independently study whatever data is submitted to the commission and testify before the commission. There may be instances on both sides (Republican and Democrats) where "overzealous" voters wish to vote twice, King stated, "But, I would venture to say, thousands upon thousands more people are stricken from voter rolls without justifiable cause or have their vote suppressed.

King gave an example of 340,000 voters being stricken from active voting rolls in the past few months basted on a mailing that was returned as undeliverable. "The reality is that people move, and the post office only forwards mail for a limited number of months. To move voters from active to inactive based on a flawed system is unconscionable," he stated in his report.