Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler is reviewing a Trump administration request for the state to provide specific voter information—such as addresses, party affiliations and felony convictions—to its commission on voter fraud.
Schedler remains undecided on how to respond to the request, which came Wednesday in a letter from Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the vice chair of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. Trump created that panel in May to study voting “processes” and suggest election policies. Attorneys and staff at the secretary of state’s office are reviewing the request now, Meg Casper Sunstrom, Schedler’s press secretary, says in an email.
“Our priority, as we’ve demonstrated in the past, will always be to protect voters’ protected, personal information,” Sunstrom says. “Voter history is NOT how a voter cast their ballot, it’s whether they participated.”
Kobach’s letter asks for a laundry list of details about voters in each state, including full names, dates of birth, political parties, the last four digits of Social Security numbers, voter history from 2006 onward and felony convictions—if the information is publicly available.
Louisiana offers limited personal information about voters to the public. Sunstrom says Schedler’s priority is to protect information like Social Security numbers, mothers’ maiden names and birth dates.
Kobach also has requested “views and recommendations” on election laws and policies.
Several secretaries of state have already rejected the Trump administration’s request for voter details, including Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Grimes.
“The president created his election commission based on the false notion that “voter fraud” is a widespread issue—it is not,” Grimes, a Democrat, says in a statement. “Kentucky will not aid a commission that is at best a waste of taxpayer money and at worst an attempt to legitimize voter suppression efforts across the country.”
Schedler, a Republican, has been outspoken in the past about the integrity of Louisiana’s elections, and in response to Trump’s voter fraud investigation in January said “Louisiana did not have any widespread irregularities or allegations of fraud during the 2016 Presidential Election Cycle.”
If a federal investigation does find widespread instances of voter fraud, Schedler previously said the information should be shared with the states so it could be “cleaned up and put to rest.”
Trump has claimed that millions throughout the country could have voted illegally in the 2016 election.
—Sam Karlin
