President Trump’s controversial voter fraud commission met in New Hampshire yesterday, but not before its vice-chair and de facto leader claimed, based on an erroneous understanding of state law, that the 2016 US Senate election there had been “stolen.” And while the meeting was underway, an email surfaced revealing that one of the commissioners had expressed outrage that Democrats or “mainstream Republicans” would be appointed to the body.
It was all a bit too much for Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, a member of the commission who has been frustrating many fellow Democrats with his “wait and see” stance on its trajectory. As I report in tomorrow’s Portland Press Herald, Dunlap called the allegations of a “stolen” election in New Hampshire “absurd” and says he now realizes that the majority view on the commission is that “fraud” is making it easy for people they don’t like to vote.
I’ve been covering the commission regularly, including a story just a few days ago on how it has been using private email accounts to conduct official business, a possible violation of federal public records laws.
[Update, 11/18/17: Dunlap has now sued the commission and asked for an injunction. For more updated coverage, start here.]
COLIN WOODARD is a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning journalist. He is the author of six books that have been translated into a dozen foreign languages and inspired an NBC television drama. He is currently Director of Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Affairs at Salve Regina University. As State and National Affairs Writer at the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram he won a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2016. He is a contributing editor at POLITICO and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, Smithsonian and dozens of other major publications.