Kentucky’s top election official is cheering a bipartisan resolution passed by the National Association of Secretaries of State, in what's widely viewed as a rebuke to the Trump White House.
Members of the association unanimously signed on to language reaffirming the constitutional right of states to administer local, state, and federal elections.
The move comes in response to a request for voter information by President Donald Trump’s Commission on Election Integrity, an initiative many Democrats view as a thinly-veiled attempt to bolster Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2016 presidential election.
Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes has been an outspoken opponent of the request, telling NBC News, "You don't have to be sitting in Pennsylvania Avenue to see that the reception that this commission has received nationally has been anything but welcoming. Kind of like a breeze off an outhouse."
More than 40 states have signaled they will not fully comply with the requests, while Kentucky is among the 10 states that have refused to honor the request at all. The commission argues the information is already publicly available. Grimes has countered that the administration asked for data to be transmitted through an unsecured website.
The secretary of state took that message to the U.S. Capitol Tuesday, joining senators in calling on the administration to "help states secure the vote, not suppress voters."
