Donald Trump is attempting to manipulate the election process by announcing the Pence-Kobach Presidential Commission on Election Integrity. Members of Congress must take a stand today to protect our freedom to vote and not allow Trump's All-Star team of notorious vote suppressors to further reduce our freedom to vote. Donald Trump attacked Black communities and Black voters repeatedly while he was on the campaign trail. Now that he is President he's targeting the Black community and voters who opposed him to launch a program of voter suppression to maintain control and influence over future elections. 

Almost to a person, Trump's team for the commission is an all-star line up of the most vicious anti-voting freedom officials from across the country. Vice President Mike Pence, the chair, implemented voter suppression tactics in Indiana as Governor that led the state to have the lowest voter participation in the entire country. The goal of government should be to make certain that more people are voting, not fewer, and Pence has demonstrated he is in no way qualified to lead a commission about our electoral system. 

Kris Kobach is the draconian Secretary of State in Kansas who has spent state money fighting to remove thousands of voters from the rolls and enacting the most restrictive voter ID laws in the nation. He has spread his attacks on Black voters and other voters of color nationwide by developing the Interstate Crosscheck system which some states use to purge voters. Interstate Crosscheck has been shown in multiple reports to over-represent Black voters and has purged numerous eligible voters from the rolls stripping them of their freedom to vote. Announcing Kris Kobach as a Vice-Chair of the "Presidential Commission on Election Integrity" tells us the intent of the commission is to nationalize voter suppression laws he has piloted at the state level. Kobach has also repeatedly parroted Trump's ludicrous assertion about millions of fraudulent votes in the 2016 election.

During the 2016 election, Connie Lawson, the Indiana Secretary of State and a commission member, used the Indiana State Troopers to raid a voter registration operation working in Black communities in Indianapolis, and sent the troopers to several voters houses to scare them from exercising their right to vote. She refused to turn over the records seized and thousands of voters were denied the opportunity participate in the 2016 election. 

When he was the top elections official in Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell used his power as Secretary of State to serve his partisan agenda. He manipulated and misinterpreted election rules in all sorts of questionable ways, consistently defying logic--and even court orders--to increase Bush's chances of winning in Ohio. Blackwell's policies in 2004 consistently made it harder for people in Black and low-income areas to vote, and it appears that this was a major part of his strategy to manipulate the vote in Ohio to Bush's favor.

Congress should not participate in this attempt to justify Trump's attacks on the Black community. It's clear from the members of the team that the goal of this Pence-Kobach commission is to attack the freedom to vote of Black voters and the rising new majority. All members of Congress need to stand up to Donald Trump and say no to the Pence-Kobach Commission. We will not allow Donald Trump to erode our freedom to vote any further. Mike Pence, Kris Kobach, and Donald Trump plan to use Black voters as targets to attack our democracy and we will not be silent!

Here is the Petition:

Donald Trump is attempting to manipulate of the election process by announcing a "Presidential Commission on Election Integrity." Members of Congress must take a stand today opposee Donald Trump's attempt to grab more power under the guise of battling non-existent "voter fraud."

Donald Trump attacked Black communities and Black voters repeatedly while he was on the campaign trail. Now that he is President he's targeting the Black community for voter suppression in an attempt to retain power and make it harder for communities that opposed him to vote in the future. Pledge to oppose Donald Trump's plan to attack our freedom to vote even further and commit to not voting for one dime of funding for his bogus commission.