July 28, 2017
The Trump Administration on Thursday again asked for registration information on Pennsylvania voters. But like last time, Pennsylvania's governor quickly rebuffed the request in a rejection letter to Washington.
Gov. Tom Wolf sent his message to Kris Kobach, chairman of the Presidental Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, and shared it on social media Friday.
Kobach originally requested information last month on all registered voters in Pennsylvania and all other states, including their partial Social Security numbers.
"The commonwealth did not provide the information then and my position has not changed," Wolf said. "Your updated letter does not satisfy my serious concerns that the real intention of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity is to pursue restrictions on the rights of Pennsylvanians to vote."
"For many months, candidate [Donald] Trump and now the President's administration have repeatedly made false and misleading claims about our nation's voting process, and without proof, questioned the accuracy of the election results," Wolf added.
As he did in his prior letter, Wolf advised Kobach that, like any citizen, he can buy publicly available voter information from the state for $20, although Pennsylvania law prevents it from being posted online or used for commercial purposes.
Trump created the commission in May to investigate his allegations that millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 general election.
A District Court judge in the District of Columbia on Monday cleared the way for Trump's commission to resume collecting the voter roll information from all 50 states.
Kobach called the ruling "a major victory for government accountability, transparency and the public's right to know about the integrity of our elections processes," according to the Associated Press.
