A voter-suppression effort, rerouted

From the Chicago Tribune:

A letter from the panel President Donald Trump formed to look into alleged voting irregularities finally has arrived at the Illinois State Board of Elections after first being sent to the wrong office.

Last week, Trump’s Election Integrity Commission sent a letter to election authorities across the nation seeking voter roll data that includes name, address, birth date, the last four digits of Social Security numbers and voting history going back to 2006.

The letter arrived Wednesday at Secretary of State Jesse White’s office. Many states’ top election administrator is the secretary of state, but the State Board of Elections handles those duties in Illinois. White’s office sent the letter to the the state elections board.

Here is yet another example of the new administration’s failure to employ people who understand the workings of the institutions that the administration seeks to undermine. A Google search for who is in charge of elections in illinois points to the website of the State Board of Elections. From a page on that website:

Illinois law currently provides that Illinois’ centralized statewide voter registration list is not available to any person or entity other than to a state or local political committee for political purposes or to a governmental entity for a governmental purpose. Private information, such as driver’s license numbers or the last four digits of a [S]ocial [S]ecurity number are never provided to any entity.

The Tribune reports that at least forty-four states have refused to turn over at least some of the information requested. Among those states: Indiana, whose former governor, Mike Pence, heads the commission with the Orwellian claim to Election Integrity. If it doesn’t go without saying, there is no evidence of widespread “voting irregularities” in Illinois, or in any other state.