Today, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, vice chair of the President’s Commission on Election Integrity, sent letters to all 50 Secretaries of State requesting “publicly available voter-roll data,” including full names, last four digits of social security number, and felony convictions, among many other personal data. LDF President and Director-Counsel Sherrilyn Ifill issued the following statement:
“These extraordinary letters confirm what we suspected when the President announced the creation of this commission: that it is little more than an attempt to enlist the Executive Branch in voter suppression efforts on the false pretext of preventing election fraud. These sweeping requests by an ad hoc task force to compel the states to turn over voter information about private citizens, constitutes a breathtaking assertion of federal power. In essence, this commission attempts to make states a partner in the naked effort to create a justification for voter suppression. While our elected officials waste tax-payer resources on efforts aimed at curbing access to the voting booth, we continue to wait for responses to our many requests for information to which the public is entitled.”
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Founded in 1940, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is the nation’s first civil and human rights law organization and has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957—although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or LDF.
