On Wednesday, the commission that Donald Trump set up to investigate his bogus claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2016 presidential election came to an end.
There never was any evidence for his claims, although that didn’t stop the president from saying otherwise, using the conspiracy theory to offset the fact that he lost the national popular vote to Hillary Clinton.
He stuck by his claims in a Twitter message posted the day after the commission dissolved.
Note that he claimed that he dissolved the commission because Democrat-led states refused to hand over information, but in reality, numerous Republicans came out against the commission’s overbearing requests for voter information as well.
Now, in the aftermath of the commission being dismantled, a former member has spoken out, backing up the widespread understanding that there was never any substance to the president’s claims.
Democrat and Alabama Judge Alan King was one of the Democrats on the commission and he told AL.com that he didn’t even have any forewarning that the committee was going to be disbanded, although he thinks the dismantling of the commission was appropriate.
King says that the commission was run exceedingly poorly, quipping that he’d been in church and high school groups that were run better than the commission was.
He said:
‘Throughout my career I have been involved in civic groups, church groups, high school groups, that were run better than this commission. And to say that is a disappointment would be an understatement.’
The commission only met twice in the face of an onslaught of lawsuits, with the aim of the body seeming at times to be as much about limiting access to voting as much as it was about solving the supposed problem of widespread voter fraud.
King’s issues with the commission don’t end with the way that it was run, with him also maintaining criticism of the very idea behind the entity’s work.
King commented:
‘If we’re going to go down the road of studying issues, let’s do it right. Don’t just spend a whole lot of taxpayer money…if we’re not going to do it right, let’s not just do it at all.’
He added, in the face of comments from the Trump administration that the issue of supposed widespread voter fraud would be handed off to the Department of Homeland Security, that he thinks that the White House’s whole push is nothing more than a “wild goose chase.” He says that he hopes officials will “focus on real issues instead of made-up issues.”
In the statement, Sanders said Trump had signed an executive order asking the Department of Homeland Security to review voter fraud issues and “determine next courses of action.” #Thisisyourgovernment #gridlockhttps://t.co/4ARBZJQME5
— Sharon Martin Andre (@Sharonema) January 4, 2018
Ironically, there have been concerns raised about issues with the voting system in the wake of Trump’s victory, but those issues have mostly all worked out in Trump’s favor. For instance, there have been reports pointing out the striking decline in voter turnout in counties crucial to Trump’s victory in the face of new, restrictive voting laws.
In addition, there also remains the issue of Russian propaganda efforts affecting the final outcome in 2016, but it’s not as though the president has shown a willingness to take that issue seriously.
Featured Image via Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images
