President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to dissolve the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity and asked the Department of Homeland Security to continue investigations into 2016 voter fraud claims, Politico reported Wednesday.
Trump said in a statement various states have declined to provide the voter fraud commission with information that can support its inquiries and thus the president decided to disband the group to mitigate legal battles that cost taxpayers’ money.
The commission requested for data which included citizens’ criminal records and partial Social Security numbers but faced backlash from state officials who where skeptical about the storage and security of such personal information.
The panel, which includes Vice President Mike Pence as the chairman, only met twice including once in the White House complex in July and during at a New Hampshire college in September.
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, vice chairman of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, noted he believes officers from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency will begin to oversee the commission’s tasks.
“It’s a shifting in tactics from having the investigation be done by a federal commission to having it be done by a federal agency… The agency has a greater ability to move quickly to get the investigation done,” said Kobach.