Three weeks after winning the presidency, Donald Trump tweeted, “In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” Although Trump has provided no evidence to support his claim that nearly three million people voted illegally (and only for Hillary Clinton), he has relentlessly pushed his narrative. “I will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD,” Trump announced on Twitter in January, just five days after his inauguration.
Trump has fulfilled his promise: He signed an executive order today that establishes the “Presidential Commission on Election Integrity,” a bipartisan commission spearheaded by Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas secretary of state Kris Kobach.
The Commission will be tasked with reviewing both the alleged widespread voter fraud, and voter suppression, in the U.S.’s electoral system. A White House official told ABC News that by investigating voter suppression as well, it would encourage Democrats to join the effort.
Members of the Commission will begin their investigation this summer. They will have until 2018 to “review policies and practices that enhance or undermine the American people’s confidence in the integrity of Federal elections,” a White House official said, “including improper registrations, improper voting, fraudulent registrations, fraudulent voting, and voter suppression.”
Trump has yet to finalize the Commission’s list of no more than 15 members, but those under consideration are Ohio’s former secretary of state Ken Blackwell (Rep.), Maine’s secretary of state Matthew Dunlap (Dem.), New Hampshire’s secretary of state Bill Gardner (Dem.), Indiana’s secretary of state Connie Lawson (Rep.), and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s commissioner Christy McCormick.