?i?nittd Starts $rnatt WASHINGTON, DC 20510 October 18, 2017 The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity c/o Of?ce of the Vice President The White House 1600 Avenue, NW Washington, DC. 20500 Dear Commissioners: We write to follow up on previous letters sent to the Commission that continue to go unanswered and to express concern regarding recent actions taken by the Commission.1 As Senators Klobuchar and Whitehouse noted to the Commission in a September 12 letter, the Commission ?has not responded to a single letter from Senators with oversight jurisdiction over the Commission and continues to be rebuked for its questionable activities.? To date, not only has the Commission failed to respond to congressional requests, but it has also ignored the overwhelming bipartisan pushback on its data collection effort from both state election of?cials and national security experts.2 We write to express continued concern in light of the Commission?s second request for sensitive voter data from state of?cials. Following the Commission?s original request, a group of twenty-?ve Senators wrote a letter on July 6 to request the Commission rescind its demand for sensitive voter registration information. While the Commission did not respond to that letter, it did send a new letter to state election of?cials on July 26 reiterating a request for state-level voter data. The Commission appears to be determined to push forward with its data collection efforts. Accordingly, we demand answers to the questions that were originally posed in the July 6 letter related to the Commission?s procedures and plans for: safekeeping of any voter data collected; (2) use of any voter data collected; and (3) quality control measures to ensure any usage of or conclusions drawn from the obtained voter data are based on a matching program that provides a high level of statistical con?dence. We also remain concerned about what the Commission intends to do with the data it does collect. Reports indicate that the Commission is pursuing a data?matching program similar to the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck (Crosscheck) program.3 This raises serious concerns because the 1 The Commission?s posting of Congressional correspondence on its website con?rms that the Commission has received our earlier correspondence and has chosen not to respond. Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity Resources. Available at 7- Following the Commission?s original requests for this voter registration data, the vast majority of state election of?cials questioned the request with some going as far as Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hoseman, who told the Commission to ?Go jump in the Gulf of Mexico.? In addition to push back from state election of?cials, national security experts like Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush, pointed that aggregating this voter data creates an attractive target for foreign adversaries and other hackers thereby establishing a potential national security risk. This fact alone should be suf?cient for the Commission to rescind this request. 3Charles Stewart 111, What is Kris Kobach Up To?, Politico Magazine, July 3, 2017, available at Crosscheck program currently operated by Secretary Kobach in Kansas has longstanding issues regarding accuracy and has been the source of substantial litigation. Researchers from Stanford, Harvard, Yale and the University of found that Crosscheck?s methodology would wrongly identify 200 legitimate voters for every double voter that could be identi?ed.4 In other words, the Crosscheck program ?gets it wrong over 99 percent of the time.?5 Questions about the quality of Crosscheck?s data are not just academic, election of?cials have also acknowledged the poor data quality produced by Crosscheck. It has been reported that Florida, Oregon and Washington withdrew from Crosscheck because the results of its matching were riddled with errors. Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon elected not to participate in the program noting that it had ?an unacceptably high risk of false positives.?6 Maintaining accurate voter registration lists is very important, however the manner in which lists are updated is vital to ensuring that the voting rights of Americans are protected. Crosscheck?s false positives affect more than just voters who are mismatched. Crosscheck?s data has a history of being used to push false claims of widespread voter fraud and to justify legislation that makes it harder for Americans to vote. North Carolina identi?ed Crosscheck?s incorrect matches as justi?cation for a law7 that the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals would condemn for targeting ?African Americans with almost surgical precision.?8 The process for updating voter rolls must be compliant with the National Voter Registration Act and should not impede Americans from exercising their right to vote. We strongly encourage the Commission to be more transparent about how sensitive voter data will be used. We request the Commission?s prompt attention and response to the issues raised in this letter and expect a response no later than November 1. Sincerely, Amy Richard J. Durbin United States Senator United States Senator 4Sharad Goel et al., One Person, One Vote: Estimating the Prevalence of Double Voting in US. Presidential Elections, July 28, 2017 available at 5 Ari Berman, The Man Behind Trump ?3 Voter-Fraud Obsession, The New York Times, June 13, 2017, available at 6 Christopher Ingraham, This program gets it wrong over 99 percent of the time. The GOP wants to take it nationwide, July 20, 2017 available at 7 Ari Berman, The Man Behind Trump ?s Voter-Fraud Obsession, The New York Times, June 13, 2017, available at 8 N. C. State Conference v. MeCrwy, No. 16-1468 (4th Cir. 2016) available at Kirsten Gillibrand United States Senator 1911K mic/MM Patty M@ay 6 United States Senator United States Senator ?Fammy?aldwin United States Senator Jeanne Shaheen United States Senator Christopher A. Coons United States Senator Margaret Wood Hassan United States Senator Richard Blumenthal i United States Senator Wt bid/Le Tom Udall United States Senator Edward J. 1&ng a United States Senator United ates Senator Al Franken United States Senator VA. Chris Van Hollen United States Senator WM Mon Whitehouse United States Senator Thomas R. Carper Ron Wyden United States Senator United States Senator