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Trump's 'Voter Fraud' Investigation Is Actually Happening

He's expected to sign an executive order Thursday setting up a commission that will look into the non-issue.
Drew Schwartz
Brooklyn, US
Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead via the White House Flickr

After falsely claiming for months that he

lost the popular vote because of rampant voter fraud

, President Donald Trump will sign an executive order Thursday to investigate the issue, the

Los Angeles Times

reports

.

Trump's assertion that more than 3 million people voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election has repeatedly been discredited, and leading Republicans have said they've moved past the subject. Still, he's decided to set up the "Presidential Commission on Election Integrity," reportedly to be helmed by Vice President Mike Pence with Kansas secretary of state Kris Kobach serving as vice chair. Legislators on both sides of the aisle are slated to participate, ABC News reports.

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Trump will ask the commission to look into alleged voter fraud in the 2016 elections and to examine "systemic issues that have been raised over many years in terms of the integrity of the elections," an administration official told ABC News. Though the White House hasn't released a copy of the executive order, it will apparently call for investigating voter suppression as well—presumably an effort to coax Democrats into engaging in the process.

Trump has repeatedly promised to investigate voter fraud, claiming that a large number of people are registered to vote in two states or "are illegal," among other accusations.

But voting specialists and researchers who studied the 2016 elections say Trump lacks basis for the allegations.

"The evidence for fraud has been thin," Michael P. McDonald, an elections specialist at the University of Florida, told the LA Times. "It's a rhetorical point that Republicans have been using to advocate for restrictive voting laws."

Meanwhile, members of the president's inner circle—including chief strategist Steve Bannon and Trump's daughter Tiffany—are reportedly registered to vote in more than one state. So there's that.

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