Amid all the predictable rhetoric and partisan agendas at play around the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, several points remain self-evident.
First, this isn’t about “election integrity.” Claims of widespread voter fraud have been proven again and again to be unfounded. What’s fraudulent is the premise. Talk about “fake news.”
What this is really about is Donald Trump’s ego. He lost the popular vote. By a lot. More than 3 million. How the hell could that have happened? It’s an embarrassing asterisk for one who has always reveled in ratings.
Second, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner made the right call by only providing voter information that is currently public record. The federal government already has enough hacker-vulnerable data. Most states are doing what Florida is doing.
Third, such a commission, in effect, diverts our attention from the biggest threat to America’s electoral democracy. Bigger than so-called “voter fraud.” Bigger than Moscow meddling.
It’s electorate ignorance, laziness and susceptibility to fake news and lowest common denominator pandering. That had more to do with the outcome of 2016 than fraud or Vladimir Putin.