Kentucky secretary of state: 'There's not enough bourbon here in Kentucky' to justify White House request for voter info
(Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Grimes.Screenshot via MSNBC)
Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Grimes sounded off on the voter-fraud commission in charge of investigating a claim by President Donald Trump that millions of illegal ballots were cast in the 2016 election.
Grimes appeared on MSNBC Friday, after her office rejected the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity's request for sensitive data on individual registered voters.
The information, according to a letter the commission's vice-chair Kris Kobach sent to all 50 states on Wednesday, would be placed in a national public database.
"There's not enough bourbon here in Kentucky to make this request seem sensible," Grimes said.
The Kentucky secretary of state said the information requested is something "no American in their right mind would hand over, let alone hand over to President Trump — someone who likes to tweet 140 characters at a time."
"Not on my watch are we gonna be turning over something that's left to the states to run — elections are left to our states under the 10th Amendment — to the federal government."
Grimes' comments follow an overwhelming response from at least two dozen US states that have also rejected Kobach's request. She also questioned the security of the website to which states were asked to upload sensitive voter data.
Voter advocates have roundly torched the commission's activities, which they called politically motivated. Others have said that mass collection of the information could threaten voter privacy at a time when the US is still reeling from Russia's meddling in the 2016 election.
"We haven't even covered the entire sham reason this commission was created," Grimes said, "and that's to try to find evidence to support a lie the president continues to perpetuate."
Watch Grimes' remarks below:
Kentucky SoS @AlisonForKY: Trump's voter fraud panel is a “sham … to find evidence to support a lie the president continues to perpetuate” pic.twitter.com/Fgi7qAeqEq
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