Presidential panel’s request for voter records sets off alarm bells

Sunday, July 2, 2017 | 2 a.m.

Amid the furor over Donald Trump’s latest bout of Twitter idiocy on Thursday, something chilling happened in the background.

Media reports emerged saying the vice chairman of Trump’s Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity had asked every state for names, birthdates and Social Security information on registered voters going back to 2006.

Think about that for a second.

The request came amid investigations over possible collusion between Trump or his surrogates and the Russian government during the 2016 election. It came after findings by all 17 U.S. intelligence organizations that Russia was involved in the hack of Democratic Party email records last year and tried to influence the outcome of the vote to favor Trump. Finally, it came weeks after the revelation that Russia’s attempts to hack into state voting systems were far more extensive than originally reported.

Against that backdrop, giving the Trump administration more information on voters is a chilling prospect. Until the Trump team is cleared of any suspicion of collusion, sharing it with the presidential administration is an invitation to disaster.

Plus, given the president’s bizarre and impulsive behavior — as evidenced yet again with his unhinged Twitter rant against “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski — who knows what he might do with it?

Then, consider the source of the request — Kris Kobach, who not only serves as vice chair of the commission but is the Kansas secretary of state.

Kobach has been dubbed the “King of Voter Suppression” by the ACLU for spearheading changes in voting policy, and also is a hard-liner on immigration. He’s been a leader in the GOP’s longtime snipe hunt for illegal voters.

Kobach said the personal voter data the commission is seeking would be placed on a secure server and would not be shared with the public.

But keep in mind that his assurances came just days after he was fined by a federal magistrate judge for “patently misleading representations” he made to the court in a lawsuit involving a document he was holding when photographed before a November meeting with Trump. The ACLU had requested the document, a deportation plan that was labeled “Department of Homeland Security Kobach Strategic Plan for First 365 Days,” but the Associated Press reported that Kobach essentially said he didn’t have any such documents. That claim prompted the judge’s rebuke.

Kobach said the personal data would be used to help prevent unauthorized voters from using registered voters’ info, but he’s not exactly a pillar of trustworthiness at this point.

Officials in several states have already blown back on the request. As of midday Friday, 20 had announced that they would either not comply or would provide only part of the information being request.

The latter was the case in Nevada, where Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske offered information that is already public under Nevada law — a voter’s name and address, as well as whether he or she voted in various elections. Cegavske indicated Nevada would not provide such information as Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, Department of Motor Vehicles identification card numbers and email addresses.

Good for her and others who are offering resistance. Not only is there the trust issue with Kobach and the Trump administration, but the request is part of a wasteful exercise to prove the existence of widespread voter fraud — even though multiple studies have failed to show that unauthorized voting is anything but a spotty problem.

States have traditionally protected voters’ personal data and resisted forming a national federal database because such a thing invites significant abuse no matter who is in power. Voters rolls are a precious thing and should be maintained at the state level. The federal government should help protect state databases from hacking, but shouldn’t try to create their own national database of sensitive data.

That’s especially the case now. Why put the information all in one place and make it easier for the Russians to hack it?

Keep in mind that Trump went so far last year as to say he hoped Russia had successfully hacked Hillary Clinton’s email and would disclose any materials they had stolen.

Given everything that’s happened in the last year involving Trump, the election and the Russians, this one stinks on a lot of different levels.