Election fraud commission is a Trump sham

I am appalled by how little President Trump knows about the U.S. Constitution. He has recently instituted an election fraud commission that will require every state to collect personal information on each individual voter which then must be submitted to this federal commission before the voter will be allowed to vote. He states that the reason for this is to put a stop to what he terms the “massive voter fraud” occurring in our country.

First of all, voter fraud in our country is minuscule, not massive. Every study published has verified this fact. Many of them state that it occurs at approximately 1 percent or less.

Second, this federal commission is probably a violation of the Constitution, which grants to the states the power to set voting requirements, not the president or the federal government. This would be nothing less than an infringement on state’s rights. For example, in New Jersey, the voting age was 21 when I lived there. In Florida, it was 18.

Third, it may be a violation of the right to privacy clause in the Constitution. This, of course, would depend upon the kind of personal information a person would be required to reveal.

Many states already require a photo ID to vote. All states require some form of ID. There is no valid reason for such a commission to exist.

When President Trump did not win the popular vote in 2016, he immediately blamed it on voter fraud and claimed that millions of “illegals” had voted for Hillary Clinton. However, he offered no definitive proof to back up this accusation.

I believe the president is looking ahead to the next election and concocted this commission to throw legitimate voters who would probably not vote for him or his party off the voter rolls. Neither the president nor the Republicans in Congress are very popular right now, so this seems like a logical motive to me. I am hoping that most states will continue to refuse to comply with his demand.

This story was originally published July 20, 2017 at 4:36 PM with the headline "Election fraud commission is a Trump sham."