Kris Kobach, Kansas secretary of state and vice chair of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, is taking a page from Donald Trump's marginalize media critics strategy.
In defending the request for voter data from states, Kobach said, in a statement released by the office of Vice President Mike Pence, news reports that 44 states had refused to provide voter information to the commission were patently false and "more fake news."
Kobach says only 14 states and D.C. have refused the request, which he said was for publicly available information and called suggestions otherwise "media distortions."
On June 28, Kobach said, the commission issued the request for voter information data "as permitted under state laws." He says that 20 states have agreed to provide it and another 16 are reviewing what info they can release, which makes a total of 36.
(Photo via Diego Cambiaso's Flickr. Image taken on July 6, 2017 and used per Creative Commons 2.0 license. The photo was cropped to fit 9x16 aspect ratio.)
