Maryland Deputy Secretary of State Luis E. Borunda has resigned from the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, The Baltimore Sun reports. Borunda informed Governor Larry Hogan, a fellow Republican, of his decision on Monday.
Hogan spokesman Doug Mayer told the Sun that Borunda joined the 15-member bipartisan commission “on his own” and had not been appointed by Hogan. “He informed our office he has resigned from the commission,”Hogan said.
The commission was created by executive order of President Donald Trump in May after he asserted he would have won the popular vote in November’s election if there had not been instances of voter fraud.
Last week the commission asked the 50 state secretaries of state to provide voter information including names and voter registration, but not how people voted. More than half of the states have said they will not comply with Trump’s requests.
Borunda’s appointment to the panel drew questions when it was announced because he has no background in elections, the Sun reported at the time. In addition, the Maryland secretary of state’s office does not oversee that state’s election process.
Meanwhile, Maine’s secretary of state also refused to comply with a request from Trump’s voter fraud commission to turn over information on its voters, making it the latest in a string of states to deny the request.
In a letter to Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is the vice chairman of Trump’s commission, Matthew Dunlap cites a Maine statute that prevents the state from sharing the information requested by the commission because its request stated that “any documents that are submitted to the full Commission will also be made available to the public”.
“As a matter of law, that conflicts with state statute, what states that ‘information contained electronically in the central voter registration system and any informations for reports generated by the system are confidential. It is not possible for my office to comply with the request and also comply with the law,”Dunlap wrote.
Dunlap, who serves on Trump’s voter fraud commission, is the latest state official to refuse the commission’s request for voter information, which includes names, political affiliation, voting history and the last four digits of the Social Security numbers of all registered voters.
Be the first to comment