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Nothing would have changed at all. Singapore could have had the best commander in the world but it would have fallen inevitably. That is because Singapore did not fall on 15 February 1942, nor even the 8th when Singapore was invaded. Rather, it fell on 8 December 1941 - the day Japan invaded Malaya. Malaya critically lacked everything it needed for a strong defence: tanks, anti-tank guns, air support, naval support, skilled officers, experienced and well trained troops and coordinated strategy. Much of this has been blamed on Britain’s Singapore strategy but a better description would be the partial abandonment of Britain’s Singapore strategy.What was the Singapore strategy?East Asia before World War 2. British colonies in red, Dutch in pink, American in purple and French in dark green.The basis of the Singapore strategy first came in 1919 when former First Sea Lord, Admiral John Jellicoe, visited the British Empire in the Far East to advise on defence in the region. The Far East was considered absolutely crucial for the British Empire as it consisted of a vast amount of important colonies, including India, two Dominions and the resource rich Malaya. It was during this visit that Jellicoe suggested building a naval base in Singapore. With the end of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1922 and the growing threat of Japan in the 20s and 30s, the incentive to do so increased steadily.The purpose of a naval base in Singapore was to allow the stationing of a large fleet permanently in the Far East. There were no dry docks that could repair capital ships east of Malta and with the Washington Naval Treaty limiting the world navies to their ageing and high maintenance WW1 battleships, the need for repair facilities in the Far East became crucial. As to why Singapore was specifically chosen, it had several benefits. Firstly, it was far away from Japan which left it less vulnerable than Hong Kong to attack. Singapore also bordered the British colony, Malaya, which could hold Singapore’s northern flank. Singapore had great power projection as a fleet in Singapore could easily influence events in the Malay Barrier and finally, Singapore held the entrance to the Indian Ocean in the Malacca Strait. The other main entrance into the Indian Ocean was through the Soenda Strait in between Sumatra and Java - a route which would always be threatened by a fleet in Singapore.The essence of the Singapore strategy was to wage an attritional war with Japan where the British Pacific Fleet would blockade Japan from long distance. With Japan having few natural resources, Japan would have to conquer the southeast Asian colonies to secure their own natural resources. These resources would be found in the Malay Barrier which the British Pacific Fleet would protect. If Japan tried to attack Malaya or Singapore, they would have to engage the British Pacific Fleet in the South China Sea. Here, the British would have advantages in short communications, local airfields and perhaps even support from the French and Americans from their respective colonies and thus likely win such a naval engagement. Even if the Japanese were able to land on the Malay Barrier, the British Pacific Fleet would always be there to threaten their communications. The Japanese would be unable to protect all their communications with escorts because the British Pacific Fleet would simply practice a fleet in being, only choosing to attack Japan’s most vulnerable communications. Japan would thus be paralysed to do anything. If Japan did nothing, they would be defeated by the British blockade. If they attacked, Britain would strike where they were weak.However, as it turned out, British victory would never be so simple. This is because of three main reasons:A changing situation in Europe.A renewed vision of the importance of the Middle East.Confused strategic decisions.A changing situation in EuropeThe most catastrophic event for the British war effort in World War 2 occurred in June 1940 when France surrendered. There were several repercussions from this event. Firstly, Germany got access to French naval bases. This allowed the German navy to bypass the dangerous English Channel or North Sea routes and instead send their U-boats through the Bay of Biscay which was much safer and allowed for greater range. The result was a much more dangerous threat in the Atlantic. British skies were also threatened by German aircraft operating from France. The French navy no longer covered the western Mediterranean and had to be replaced by a small capital ship force known as Force H. French Indochina was left vulnerable and was captured by Japan with minimal resistance.The impacts of these events were major:Most British capital ship production was suspended in order to build more escorts. Two Illustrious-class carriers, two King George V-class battleships and two Lion-class battleships. If it weren’t for these suspensions, the Royal Navy would likely have had the carrier Implacable commissioned by December 1941. The battleships Anson and Howe might also have been available.Naval and air resources could no longer be allocated to the Far East but were required in Europe. This became even more poignant as Britain suffered heavy losses in 1940 and 1941. Before December 1941, the Royal Navy had lost three capital ships and three fleet carriers. In December 1941, the Royal Navy only had one serviceable fleet carrier out of six - HMS Victorious who was serving in the Home Fleet.Malaya and Singapore were under threat from Japanese aircraft in Indochina. Thailand was also under threat by Japan. The deployment of a fleet at Singapore was now much more risky.A renewed vision of the importance of the Middle EastPerhaps the most crucial event that transformed the Singapore strategy was the new stressed importance of the Middle East. When the Singapore strategy was formed, little importance was placed on the Middle East. The only thing of importance was the Suez canal but in a war with Italy (the only likely threat to the Middle East), the Suez would be closed anyway. Because the Singapore strategy was utterly dependent on a large fleet and the British Isles also needed a sizeable fleet for defence, no naval resources could be spared for the Middle East. It would, effectively, be abandoned. Yet from 1939, more and more reasons were being explored by British strategists as to the importance of the Middle East. They found six main reasons:The denial of Iraqi oil to Germany. Before the war, Iraq produced 4.5 million metric tons of oil annually. While Britain could destroy the oil fields and pipelines, Germany could likely repair most of the equipment within a year and get approximately two to four million tons of oil a year out of it.Denial of Romanian and Soviet oil. Both the Soviet Union and Romania had unused merchant fleet capacity that could transport oil through the Black Sea to western Europe. If the Black Sea were not blockaded through the eastern Mediterranean, Germany could have imported an extra one million tons of oil from Romania and two millions tons from the Soviet Union each year.Between 1941–43, Germany’s oil receipt (production and imports) averaged around ten million tons annually. With Iraq and control of the Black Sea, Germany would get around five million tons annually, increasing the oil receipt by 50%. Of course, Germany went to war with the Soviet Union in June 1941 but British strategists were not aware of this in 1940 and early 1941 so preparations could not be made accordingly.3. Protection of Abadan refinery and the port city of Basra. The Abadan refinery produced 5.5 million tons of oil annually at the start of the war but had a lot of unused capacity and by 1945, produced 12.5 million tons annually. Most of this oil was transported to the eastern empire - the Middle East, India and Australia - and usually through the port city of Basra in Iraq which if lost, would make it increasingly difficult to transport Iranian oil.Notice the critical lack of oil pipelines in Iran. Most transport of Middle Eastern oil was through merchant shipping in the Indian Ocean. Most of this merchant shipping went through Basra.4. Deterring Spain and Turkey from joining the Axis alliance. If Britain lost the Middle East and Mediterranean, Spain and Turkey might have joined the Axis. If Germany gained Spanish naval bases, this could be extremely costly for the British in the Battle of the Atlantic.5. Aid to the Soviet Union. As lend-lease supplies to the Soviet Union increased, the need for Basra and Iran increased. Iran also held the southern flank of the Soviet Union in the Caucasus.6. An offensive theatre against Germany. The Middle East was the only land campaign the British Empire was fighting against Germany in 1941. It was thus crucial to utilise the theatre to attrite Germany. By Autumn 1941, 16.5% of German front line aircraft were in the Middle East which could have potentially been used on the Eastern Front.Confused strategic decisionsSo how did the two aforementioned factors actually change the Singapore strategy? In the British Chiefs of Staff Committee, there were actually two groups. Those who prioritised the Middle East over the Far East which included Winston Churchill, Churchill’s chief staff officer, Hastings Ismay, and the Chief of the Air Staff, Charles Portal. The group which preferred the Far East included the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, John Dill, and the Chief of the Naval Staff, Dudley Pound.The differences of opinion, however, was not actually on how important the Far East was. Everyone agreed that India, Australia, New Zealand and the Indian Ocean communications that preserved them were more important than the Middle East. The difference in opinion came from whether Singapore was actually crucial to defend this. The former group did not believe so while the latter group believed Singapore was crucial.These men thus had to debate on where the resources of the British Empire should be prioritised. It is noteworthy that the issue was never a lack of resources but rather a lack of merchant shipping. Britain could not supply a large army in both the Middle East and Malaya simultaneously. Choices thus had to be made on which theatre would get shipping priority.Portal chose Europe. Aircraft were prioritised for Britain, the Middle East and Russia. Malaya was left with barely any aircraft and most of the aircraft there were of poor quality. The British hoped that Australia and America could make up for this shortfall but their aircraft production in 1941 fell way below expectations.Dill chose Europe. While Dill believed Malaya was more important than the Middle East, he was still paranoid that Germany would invade Britain. After Operation Barbarossa started, he expected the Soviet Union to fall by the end of 1941 and then Germany would launch an invasion of Britain in Spring 1942. Out of the 49 divisions of the British Empire in December 1941, the cream of the crop were in the UK: 21 mechanised British infantry divisions, two mechanised Canadian infantry divisions and six armoured divisions. Apart from the other infantry divisions, this left three armoured divisions which were stationed in the Middle East at Churchill’s insistence. If they weren’t in the Middle East, they’d probably be in Britain, not Malaya. Malaya was left with under equipped, under trained and poorly led forces. The 45th Indian Infantry Brigade, for example, had many troops with less than one year training and some of the troops were younger than 18. It also had second lieutenants leading companies rather than platoons. In the Battle of the Slim River, one Japanese tank company almost overran an entire British Indian division. Had they been equipped with more anti-tank guns, the result would have probably been quite different.The Admiralty, however, made some of the weirdest choices in regards to the Far East. Both Pound and Churchill agreed that a deterrent was needed which would be slowly reinforced to form a large fleet in the Far East. This fleet’s main priority was to protect the Indian Ocean communications. Both Churchill and Pound also agreed that the safest base to do this from would either be Trincomalee or Colombo, not Singapore. In the context of the Singapore strategy, Singapore was no longer as safe as originally planned. With a potential Japanese attack on Malaya, Japan would be able to seize airfields close to Singapore and attack any fleet stationed there. The greatest risk was deemed at 300 miles or closer which meant that the army and air forces in Malaya would need to be strong enough to protect the British Pacific Fleet. But they were clearly not. As such, the deterrent force - known initially as Force G but later Force Z - should have been deployed to Ceylon as an anti-raiding force but Pound wanted to stress the important of deterrence and thus deployed it to Singapore as a token of British investment in the Pacific. Clearly, it failed as a deterrent and two capital ships were lost for that lesson.But ultimately the loss of Prince of Wales and Repulse made no difference to the Pacific campaign. Even if they had survived, Singapore would eventually have fallen. Before the campaign had even started, Churchill had effectively given up on Singapore, only defending it for the political need to show Australia and America that Britain had not given up on the Far East entirely. And Churchill was right. Singapore was not crucial for the eastern empire. Australia and India held despite the loss of Singapore. The Singapore strategy at its core, was only possible in a standalone war between Britain and Japan, not a World War. In that sense, the fall of Singapore was inevitable and Arthur Percival being Subutai would probably not save it.Edit:Many people in the comments have delved further into Percival’s specific mistakes during the campaign. I agree with most of these harsh criticisms of him but this answer was never about Percival’s performance. If Percival was a better general, he might have held onto Singapore for much longer, perhaps inflicted more casualties onto the Japanese and bought more time for the Allies. However, even had he done so, Singapore’s situation would still be doomed in the long-term. Japan could reinforce their position in Malaya/Singapore much faster than the British who had to travel a long journey with vulnerable communications.Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival surrenders Singapore to Japan on 15 February 1942.Main sources:Andrew Boyd 2017 - Royal Navy in Eastern Waters 1935–1942Jeffrey R. Cox 2014 - Rising Sun, Falling SkiesAlan Warren 2002 - Singapore, 1942: Britain’s greatest defeatLouis Allen 1977 - Singapore 1941–1942

If anyone doubts Russia is benefiting from the Trump presidency, they just haven’t thought about it enough. Russia benefits from the Trump presidency in any number of ways—at least 20 by my count.They would also unquestionably benefit even more if the hubbub caused by their interference with the American presidential election on Trump’s behalf hadn’t cast such a spotlight on the issue, which has produced continuing revelations about their connections to high level Trump staffers, basically every few days for the entire Trump presidency.Before getting into how Russia benefits, it’s important that we’re all aware of two established facts:The 17 agencies of the U.S. Intelligence Community unanimously concluded with high confidence that Russia ran a significant operation to interfere with the U.S. presidential election.The FBI Director recently confirmed under oath that Donald Trump and his campaign/administration are under active FBI investigation for colluding with Russia in this plot to affect the election.Without further ado, here are 20 ways Russia benefits from the Trump presidency so far, and how they may in the future:A President of the United States they can more easily manipulate. This seems like a logical place to start. Mikhail Fishman, the editor-in-chief of the Moscow Times, a paper critical of Putin (which has been attacked more than once), explained the Kremlin thinks of Trump as “a stupid, unstrategic politician.”“Putin is so much more experienced than Trump. He has more than 15 years of global political experience. He knows how to do things, how to work the system. He makes plenty of mistakes, but he knows how to think and act. Trump is a total neophyte. He has no experience and doesn't understand how global politics operates. He displays his ignorance every single day.”[We don’t have the space for all the examples of that ignorance so I’ll just mention that during the campaign, Trump wasn’t even aware that Russia had already invaded Crimea. See: George Stephanopoulos awkwardly corrects Donald Trump when he says Putin 'is not going into Ukraine' or Trump says Putin is 'not going to go into Ukraine,' despite Crimea or Trump tries to clean up on Crimea]“Trump is a posturing performer, full of idiotic narcissism. He appears to be a disorganized fool, to be honest. Putin, on the other hand, is calculating, organized, and he plans everything.”These quotes came from an interview published in this article: What does Russia want from the Trump administration? A Russian journalist tries to explain. As the writer summarized, “Fishman’s point is clear enough: Putin sees in Trump an opportunity to manipulate US-Russia relations.”No further response to their attack upon the United States of America. Let’s not be confused by the language being used, Russia’s cyber attack on American elections means Russia attacked America. The Obama administration put together some sanctions just before leaving office, but do you think it should end there? If another country attacked America, would Trump let it go and deny it even happened? He’s notorious for criticizing anyone and everyone, including our closest allies, and he likes to call himself a “counter-puncher.” Is it likely he would’ve been satisfied by the Obama administration’s actions if it were any other country that attacked us?The Trump administration has basically dropped the matter. The only reason it ever gets discussed comes from outside the administration, from Congress and the press. The administration has not taken a single proactive step on the topic or shown any interest in reacting to the attack. Attacking America without any reaction from the new administration obviously benefits Russia.No response—not even condemnation—to their more recent attack on the United States. Wikileaks just dumped a huge trove of supposed CIA documents purportedly detailing all of their cyber-war capabilities. George W. Bush’s CIA and NSA director, Michael Hayden, agrees with what many have been saying for some time now, that Wikileaks is acting as an arm of Russia. Any other administration would, at minimum, condemn the release, and quite possibly respond in kind, now that it’s become increasingly clear it’s Russia behind it. Still, not a single critical word or action from the administration.Appointment of inexperienced Putin friend to lead the State Department. Rex Tillerson, long time friend and oil partner of Putin, opposed US sanctions on Russia and is possibly the best they could’ve hoped for—a Secretary of State with no particular education or experience in diplomacy or international relations apart from a career at the helm of an oil company, forging partnerships with Russia and other corrupt governments. If you are Russia, what kind of SecState would you want? One with a pre-existing unusually friendly relationship with you, a history of opposing sanctions against you, and no education, experience, or expertise in government or foreign relations to speak of. They got their man. Even if Tillerson doesn’t do a thing to help Russia, that would be preferable to almost any other SecState they’ve faced or could expect to face as lack of action against their aggression on multiple fronts is a big win.Purging of the State Department’s most experienced people on Russia. One of the biggest American thorns in Russia’s side and checks on Russian aggression has been the State Department. This is who gets international cooperation in using America’s unparalleled “soft power” to build up alliances, block some of their hostile activities, and levy sanctions. Unlike Russia, the leaders of the US change frequently, so we are especially reliant on the expertise and institutional memory of our apolitical career civil servants at State. Along with the intelligence community, they’re the ones most likely to spot unseen Russian moves, understand hidden motives, and properly advise our top leaders so they can be effective, basically to prevent America from getting rolled by its counter-parts in Russia. We need this kind of expertise now more than ever with Russia’s years long crescendo of aggressive behavior reaching alarming heights, particularly since America’s new President, most of his White House staff, and Secretary of State, are all completely new to international relations.That’s why it’s pretty bad for America and beneficial to Russia when the Trump administration gets rid of our longest serving non-political employee at the State Department. And the second longest serving one. And the third… It’s actually a lot more than three highly experienced people, they’ve let a slew of them go. I’m not talking about “Obama people” but senior career professionals from the Foreign Service who have served under the past four, five, or in some cases, six presidents. Each person has decades of experience not easily replicated or replaced so there’s collectively centuries of experience walking out the door. That’s certainly not good for the USA, but it does benefit Russia when there’s a bunch of empty desks and newbies instead.[Given all that’s happening (or not happening) at State, it’s slightly less shocking that they went an unprecedented six and a half weeks without the “daily” press conference, or similarly that the new Secretary didn’t let the press corps join him on his first international trip, “breaking with decades of past practice.” Trump’s State Department Discovers That Press Briefings Aren’t Deadly]Slashing of the State Department’s budget. The initial Trump administration proposal would cut the State Dept budget by 37%. That kind of cut to the US’s envoys to the world and expertise at home would be devastating to our ability to project soft power abroad. A big cut in the U.S. State Department is good for Russia as it gives the U.S. fewer resources to push back on them with. You can’t slash their budget by 37% and think there wouldn’t be an effect. Most likely the cuts won’t be anything close to that (indeed, they’ve now revised it down to a still unthinkable 29%), at least not at first, but this is what the administration is pushing for. Even the military, who is getting a big budget boost, said this was an insanely bad idea.Not one word of criticism from the President of the United States. The U.S. is supposed to stand for freedom and speak out against tyranny and oppression. Throughout the campaign and administration Donald Trump has had very harsh words to say about congressmen, senators, judges, journalists, corporations, allies—basically everyone there is…except Vladimir Putin. It’s a deafening and noticeable silence from such a boisterous and pugnacious man, which speaks volumes. The U.S. has the loudest voice on the world stage and it seems clear it will no longer be using it to stand up to Russian misdeeds.Shortly before leaving office President Obama said of Putin, “This is somebody, the former head of the KGB, who is responsible for crushing democracy in Russia, muzzling the press, throwing political dissidents in jail, countering American efforts to expand freedom at every turn; is currently making decisions that’s leading to a slaughter in Syria.”When might we hear something like that from Trump? If the leader of the world’s most powerful country won’t stand up to Russia, who will? Trump is weak on Russia, and that is to their benefit.Not one word of criticism from the Secretary of State of the United States. In 2011, when Hillary Clinton was SecState, she said that Russia’s recent parliamentary elections were not free and fair (which the evidence shows they clearly were not). There were protests in Russia after the elections and Putin publicly blamed Clinton for it. Not having her in office means he no longer has to deal with someone unafraid to call him out on his dictatorial actions. We will see if the new Secreatry, Rex Tillerson, or his boss, Donald Trump, ever come close to being as critical of Putin’s tyranny as Hillary Clinton already has. So far we haven’t seen it. This is good for Russia (not the people, of course, but the current regime).Pro-Russia position in the Republican Party Platform regarding their invasion of Ukraine. At the RNC convention last summer when they were drawing up the party platform as they do before every election, they found that they had a freer hand than ever before. Unlike Romney and McCain who had their people moderate the platform so the hardliners of the party couldn’t go too far, Trump was completely hands off and let them do whatever they wanted with the platform—except when it came to its position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On that one issue, they got involved and had it softened (which they’ve been caught lying about repeatedly) to avoid any kind of pledge to give weapons to Ukraine. The watered-down language instead said the U.S. would provide “appropriate assistance.” Music to Russia’s ears.No real Russia policy is dangerous and may encourage major escalation in violence in Ukraine, the Baltics (NATO members), or even against the U.S. They’ve invaded neighbors, shot down airliners, bombed Syrian civilians and rebels backed by the US, cyber attacked America to influence our elections, likely published CIA secrets, defied an arms control treaty, harassed our diplomats, buzzed our ships—what’s next?They have elections of their own coming up in a couple years and that often means a ratcheting up of aggression. We need to get ahead of that. “In light of the dangers that the present Russian regime represents, however, what matters is deterrence, which always has a strong psychological element. Restraining the behavior of the Putin regime requires creating the impression in both word and deed that violations will meet with a serious response.” -National Review: Trump and Russia“The resignation of Michael Flynn, President Trump’s national security advisor, and the attendant stories about chaos and dysfunction in the White House, have highlighted the importance of personality and process in national security policymaking. But more important is the actual content of foreign policy — and it’s here that the Trump administration seems to be most seriously lacking. Unintentionally or not, the White House still appears to have no firm policy on the greatest threats facing the United States. In order of their priority they are: 1) Russia’s challenge to democracy in America and abroad…” -Foreign Policy magazine, Trump Needs a Russia Policy, or Putin Will Force One on Him”Supporting Russian propaganda: calling America’s election system rigged. One way to keep a corrupt dictator in power is to convince the people that there’s no such thing as a truly free and democratic government, that it’s all just as much a sham as theirs. Undermining western democracy and getting our own leaders to “confirm” that our system is rigged like theirs, plays right into their propaganda at home. When Russians accuse Putin of rigging elections, he couldn’t ask for a better set of ammunition than Trump has provided him.Putin wants to keep the Russian people cynically docile, overwhelmed by feelings of apathetic futility. Russians do protest and Russians do vote and Russians do try to speak out, but Putin jails and kills many that do, shuts down critical news outlets, rigs their elections, embezzles and allows his friends to as well, etc — getting the Russian people to believe there’s no such thing as a free country (so why even try?) makes it far easier to discourage opposition and keep his hold on power. Trump’s “rigged” narrative has been extremely beneficial to Putin in that regard.Supporting Russian propaganda: The President of the United States saying we’re just as bad as Putin when it comes to murder. When asked by Fox News Host Bill O’Reilly if Trump understood just how bad Putin is, calling him “a killer,” Trump said, “What, you think our country’s so innocent?” An unbelievable thing to hear from the President of the United States. [In March alone the lives of two Putin foes came to a violent end: the lawyer for a Russian whistleblower was thrown off the roof of his Moscow apartment and an outspoken former member of Russian parliament was gunned down in the street. See also: 10 critics of Vladimir Putin who wound up dead ]Fully unpacking Trump’s comment is beyond the scope of this post, but just as his “rigged” narrative is a lovely gift to Putin’s propaganda efforts, dismissing Putin’s actions as no worse than anything the U.S. does is a big, sloppy, wet, open-mouthed kiss for Putin.Masha Gessen, a journalist who has lived both here in the U.S. and in Russia under Putin, wrote a book on Putin’s rise to power. In a New York Times piece she explained that Trump’s response to that question is actually a technique straight out of the dictator’s handbook, an old Soviet technique called “whataboutism,’ the trick of turning any argument against the opponent.” Gessen explains how Putin and allies have renewed the use of it since coming to power, “They seem convinced that the entire world is driven solely by greed and hunger for power, and only the Western democracies continue to insist, hypocritically, that their politics are based on values and principles.”If it isn’t obvious that Trump’s statement was extraordinary, consider that “no American politician in living memory has advanced the idea that the entire world, including the United States, was rotten to the core,” Gessen noted. Vladimir Putin probably sent Donald Trump flowers and a singing telgram after that interview.Reduced American credibility. Of course having a president who says our government is just as bad as Russia’s is not good for American credibility but consider how many wildly untrue statements Donald Trump has made, even after taking office. Hell, pick just about any week of his presidency and he made one or more outrageous statements that were just incredible—as in not credible, unbelievable, and ultimately debunked. Put aside the idiotic assertions about the crowd size at his inauguration and other unimportant topics, he actually accused both the preceding American president, and our closest ally, of breaking laws to wiretap him. Both charges were baseless and rejected by all parties as utterly false, but now what happens when there’s a crisis and he needs some credibility to get something important to national security done? Will anyone believe him? How much more convincing and proof will be needed to get allies or others from the international community on board with America’s goals and plan of action? This terrible degradation of the American president’s credibility only benefits adversaries like Russia and China.Removal of sanctions. This has not happened yet—it’s only been two months and obviously there’s a lot of heat on them right now—but they’ve already admitted it was “under consideration” in the first week of the administration.When Mikhail Fishman, the Russian newspaper editor quoted above (#1) was asked why Putin feared a Clinton presidency more than Trump’s, Fishman answered “Because he knew that would mean an extension of Obama's harsh orientation to Russia, perhaps even more aggressive than Obama. Putin has experienced some difficult years since his 2014 invasion of Crimea, but he didn't expect this level of isolation.” (source: A Russian newspaper editor explains how Putin made Trump his puppet)Combined with falling oil prices, the sanctions have been painful to Russia’s economy; their GDP is down 3.7% and their currency is about a third less valuable than it used to be (see: Russia's GDP falls 3.7% as sanctions and low oil price take effect and Prolonged Sanctions Rip Into Russian Economy, Causing Angst For Putin).Lifting the sanctions is a major objective for Russia, Secretary Tillerson opposed the sanctions in the first place (certainly all his old friends and associates at Exxon want them lifted), and the Trump administration was already publicly floating the possibility of lifting them in their first week.Russia certainly thinks it’s a distinct possibility. “We don’t exclude the lifting of the sanctions after Trump enters office,” said a senior Kremlin official at the top of their information warfare food chain (we’ll get into that later).If there wasn’t an insane amount of Russia related heat on them right now—their National Security Advisor already had to resign and the administration is being questioned by the press every day and actively investigated by Congress and the FBI—it might’ve already happened.Trump’s new Secretary of Commerce is quite close with Putin associates. Secretary Wilbur Ross has major dealings with Russian oligarch and Putin friend, Viktor Vekselberg, as his business partner for the past two years. Much hay was made of a relatively small donation Vekselberg had made to the Clinton foundation, but this is an actual close relationship and billion dollar business partnership, so it ought to be much more concerning.Wilbur Ross has also served on the board of a bank with a former KGB official close to Putin, a bank saved by Russian money. We don’t yet know how this will benefit Russia, but it’s not the least bit hard to imagine how it might. What if career professionals in the American government recommend imposing more sanctions on Russia in retaliation for their attacks on us, perhaps targeting Russian financial institutions and oligarchs? Do you think this member of Trump’s cabinet might hesitate or argue against actions that harm his friends and business partners? We don’t know yet, and from the outside we may never have the full picture, but having a sympathetic senior member of the administration is obviously to Russia’s benefit.Weakening NATO, one of Russia’s greatest objectives, is clearly happening. NATO is the most important and successful military alliance since World War II. It helped keep the Soviets in check and it’s helping keep the Russians in check. Its strength is completely dependent on the confidence its members and adversaries have in the certainty that an attack on any member will be defended by all members, particularly its strongest member. Mr. Trump has undermined the NATO alliance at multiple junctures. Not only has Trump called it obsolete, questioned its validity, criticized its members, snubbed our allies, etc — but now the administration is truly weakening it with more than just portentous statements and symbolic snubs (refusing to shake the German chancellor’s hand) but serious actions.SecState Rex Tillerson is skipping the annual meeting of all the foreign ministers (his counterparts) of the 28 NATO member countries. This is the meeting where the policy and strategy to counter Russian aggression is discussed at the highest levels. It sets the strategy for the coming year. It’s always important but quite a bit more important when there’s a new president and doubly so when that president has made numerous alarming statements that cast doubt on whether the US would live up to its commitments. It’s far more than a diplomatic snub, it’s confirmation that the administration cannot be counted on, and it’s a signal to Russia that the U.S. might not step in if they attacked a NATO member. It’s hard to adequately characterize the magnitude of the situation.By the way, what’s Tillerson doing instead? He’s meeting with Russia. That seems a little like standing up your wife on your anniversary to go see your alleged mistress instead…except, ya know, with potentially billions of lives at stake. I haven’t really done the issue justice, I strongly recommend you read this article: Why experts think Rex Tillerson skipping a NATO summit is "an unmitigated disaster" I wanted to quote half and paraphrase the other half, but it’s better if you just read it.As ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff put it, “We’ve already sent a terrible message to NATO. The only message frankly that has gotten through of this administration to NATO is not that we support you, not that we value you, not that we thank our NATO allies for coming to our assistance in Afghanistan and Iraq where NATO soldiers have stood by, fought by and died with our own troops, but rather pay up. That’s the only message we’ve delivered.”About Tillerson skipping the NATO meeting to meet with Russia, Schiff added, “I hope the reason he’s going to Moscow is to hand back the Special Order Friendship medal he got from Putin because after what the Russians have done to us over the course of the last year, that’s the only reason Tillerson ought to be going to Russia.” Aside from the damage to NATO, it’s hard not to wonder what other benefits Putin might be getting from his meeting with Tillerson.[Following some backlash, Trump has announced he will meet with NATO allies in May instead. Some damage is already done but time will tell what actually happens from here. It’s been an eventful couple months and who knows what lies ahead…]Europe moving closer to Russia and more distant from America. When America elects a leader who can’t be counted on, Europe hedges its bets and gets closer to Russia. This clearly hurts us and is to Russia’s benefit. There are far right candidates and political parties in Europe that see Trump has both an inspiration and compadre, as well as an excuse to establish stronger ties with Russia.Some favor lifting European sanctions on Russia, which weakens America’s hand when trying to disincentivize further aggression, since those sanctions were punishment for previous aggression. The less likely Putin is to be hurt by future aggression (such as invading Latvia—a NATO ally we’ve pledged to defend), the more willing he will be to take the risk and put the world on the brink of war. How did WWI start? It started when one country’s heir to the throne was assassinated by a terrorist group (supposedly funded by Russia, as it happens) and triggered a chain reaction of war declarations on both sides based on a web of entangling alliances. NATO is a 28 country all-for-one-and-one-for-all defensive pact that Putin might just want to test now that it’s approaching its nadir. He’s already invaded multiple other neighbors that used to be under Russian dominance and he’s also already staged troops at the Latvian border not long ago. The threat is serious.[Some articles about “little Trumps” and would-be leaders in Europe wanting to move closer to Russia: Trump: The View From Europe, French Election Hints at a European Shift Toward Russia, Why France's Marine Le Pen Is Doubling Down on Russia Support, In France, ‘Independence’ Means Closer to Russia (WSJ pay wall), Citizens for Europe, Populismus und die Folgen: Die Donald Trumps sind überall - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Wirtschaft]Who does it benefit for Europe to have a widening rift with America? Who would benefit from Europe seeking closer ties with Russia? That’s right, it’s Comrade Putin!Weakening the EU. Trump has made many anti-EU comments, gleeful about Brexit and predicting/encouraging others to do the same. He and his chief strategy advisor, Steve Bannon, think the world (or at least the US) is better off with no multilateral cornerstone alliances like NATO or EU. They prefer only bilateral agreements. Sometimes they’ve walked back these kinds of statements, only to repeat them or make similar ones later, sending at best mixed messages. Trump has even explicitly said that he considers our relationship and level of trust with EU/NATO countries no different than the Russia relationship.As the Washington Post helpfully explains, this “president is the first American leader since World War II not to support European integration. The European Union has long been considered to be in the U.S. interest, since it created a unified market for U.S. businesses, provided a bulwark against communism during the Cold War and helped quell the bloody slaughter that cost U.S. lives, among others, in the first half of the 20th century. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the European Union expanded eastward into formerly communist nations, a development that leaders there say helped bring rule of law and stability as they modernized their economies.” European leaders shocked as Trump slams NATO and E.U., raising fears of transatlantic splitIf you’re Putin, would you prefer opposition by unified adversaries or something less? Cracks in US-Europe solidarity and weakening of the European Union are the stuff of Putin’s dreams.Pride at Home and Respect Internationally. A top Russian military officer and Kremlin advisor spoke at a Russian convention early last year, well before the US election or any hacking was exposed, and openly said that they now have capabilities that will allow them to deal with the U.S. on equal terms, hinting at something big on the horizon. He said that we’re not in 2016 (it was when he said it), we’re in 1948, the year before Russia revealed it too had an atomic bomb to rival the U.S. as equally powerful. The translation was literally that in 1949 “everything changed and they started talking to us on an equal footing.”If it wasn’t clear enough, he went ahead and spelled it out as much as he could, short of mentioning a date, time, and target, “I’m warning you: We are at the verge of having ‘something’ in the information arena, which will allow us to talk to the Americans as equals.” The cyber advisor made it clear that once Russia “becomes strong, it will dictate to the Western partners [the United States and its allies] from the position of power.” Russia’s radical new strategy for information warfareThey are now putting a much larger fraction of their military efforts into information warfare. In fact, quite ominously, he said that for information warfare to be effective, it can’t just be employed during wartime, it must be deployed during peace time as well. The fact that one of their top military officers openly said this is extremely scary, but it speaks to the fact that they are proud of this capability and pride is a major motivation and benefit they receive from using it. They’ve now used it successfully and the Trump administration is their evidence of it (whether or not their operation was why he won).They’ve put the world on notice. One of the questions in the recent House Intelligence Committee hearing asked FBI Director Comey why the Russians didn’t try to cover their tracks better, why they seemed to have acted in the loudest possible way so it was clear that the hacking was done by them.Comey’s response: “I think part, their number one mission is to undermine the credibility of our entire democracy enterprise of this nation. And so, it might be that they wanted us to help them by telling people what they were doing. Their loudness in a way would be counting on us to amplify it by telling the American people what we saw and freaking people out about how the Russians might be undermining our elections successfully.” They’re proud of it. They want everyone in the world to know they are once again a major power in the world, a force to be reckoned with, not some regional power but a world power that should not be trifled with.The loss of stature they’ve suffered since the end of the Cold War is very embarrassing to Russians and this is their new way to balance the scales, to proudly exert influence and compete with the western powers on equal terms (and for far less money than conventional military buildup requires). The very existence of the Trump presidency is proof to them that they are powerful forces to be feared and taken seriously, which they obviously consider beneficial.Other untold benefits we’re still discovering, since we just learned Trump’s campaign chairman was essentially on Putin’s payroll. New information is coming out every week. We recently learned that Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was paid $10 Million/year by one of Vladimir Putin’s closest friends, specifically to influence American policy at the highest levels, for the benefit of Putin (Paul Manafort’s plan to ‘greatly benefit Putin government’). The administration has tried to say Manafort played a “limited role” in the campaign. That’s true if by limited they mean he only ran the campaign for a while, not the entire time. He replaced the guy that left after being arrested for assaulting a reporter (Corey Lewandowski) and was brought in to bring order to the very chaotic, unprofessionally run campaign, which he somewhat did, hard to believe as that may be, and Trump’s polling went up noticeably after he took over. He ran the campaign until he had to resign following some other mid-campaign Russia revelations. Also of note, he owns an apartment in Trump Tower.We can stop at 20 major benefits Russia gets from a Trump presidency, that’s a nice round number.Any two of these would’ve made this whole enterprise worth it, but all of them and potentially more? It’s expected they’re going to do a lot more “information warfare” going forward. European democracies with upcoming elections are worried they’ll pull the same thing there. The FBI Director recently said he expects Russia will try to meddle in future American elections again, too. We simply can’t fully comprehend the total benefit Russia gets from a Trump presidency. It has already gotten plenty, is still getting plenty, and looks likely to get more well into the future.To sum up, the ultimate goal of Russia is to strengthen itself and to weaken and undermine the West as much as possible, by diminishing its leadership, credibility, unity, and resolve, and especially its institutions and alliances. Russia certainly got their money’s worth with Donald J. Trump.

Original question:What is the goal of Trump's voter fraud task force?The presidential election integrity commission was established by executive order in May to investigate Trump’s claims of rampant voter fraud. As this item starts to occupy more and more headlines - I find it all very confusing, what is the goal and are they going about it the right way?The main goals, based on the past and present behavior and actions of Trump, seem to be:Voter intimidation.Voter suppression & voter restriction.Disenfranchising Voters.To ice his bruised ego (he lost the popular vote).Examples that back up the above goals I listed:Intimidation:Trump asked his base to be “election observers”: [1]Go down to certain areas and watch and study and make sure other people don’t come in and vote five times……The only way they can beat it in my opinion, and I mean this 100 percent, is if in certain sections of the state they cheat, okay? So I hope you people can sort of not just vote on the 8th — go around and look and watch other polling places and make sure that it’s 100 percent fine.Trump’s campaign website also added a “sign up” page for “election observers”:Appeal to motive in the below tweet:Numerous states are refusing to give information to the very distinguished VOTER FRAUD PANEL. What are they trying to hide?— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2017Voter Suppression & Restriction: [2]Voter purges:The letter doesn’t ask whether states are complying with the parts of the law that expand opportunities to register. Instead it focuses on the sections related to maintaining the lists. That’s a prelude to voter purging.Usually the Justice Department would ask only a single state for data if it had evidence the state wasn’t complying with Motor-Voter. But a blanket request to every state covered under that law is virtually unprecedented...These parallel efforts show us exactly how the Trump administration will undertake its enormous voter suppression campaign: through voter purges. The voter rolls are the key. Registration is one of the main gateways to political participation. It is the difference between a small base of voters pursuing a narrow agenda and an electorate that looks like America.Will affect minority voters disproportionately:Here’s how the government will use voters’ data. It will create a national database to try to find things like double-voters. But the commission won’t be able to tell two people with the same name and birthday apart. Such errors will hit communities of color the hardest. Census data shows that minorities are overrepresented in 85 of the 100 most common last names.Purging voters is part of a larger malicious pattern that states have employed across the country. Georgia and Ohio are being sued for carrying out early versions of what we can expect from the Trump administration.Disenfranchising Voters: [3]The Voter Commission’s data request resulted in some people withdrawing their voter registration:Three thousand, three hundred and ninety-four Coloradans have withdrawn their voter registrations as of July 13, following the Trump administration’s request for voter data as part of the Commission on Election Integrity. An additional 182 citizens in the state have filed as confidential voters.Several other states have reported a similar uptick in citizens moving to keep their information out of the federal government’s hands.Bruised Ego:Trump cannot accept that he lost the popular vote:In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016Quick look at “voter fraud” claims: [4]The 1960 presidential election:…reports of deceased and other unregistered voters in largely African American districts in Illinois or cases of malfeasance throughout Texas were believed to have rigged John F. Kennedy’s victory over Richard Nixon.Former Attorney General John Ashcroft:Formed the “Ballot Access and Voting Integrity Initiative” under George W. Bush’s presidencyDespite his coordination of the U.S. attorney offices with local election officials, only 24 people were convicted of improper or illegal voting and 14 non-citizens were found to be illegally voting in federal elections between 2002 and 2005.Claims of Voter Fraud in New Jersey:There were reports in 2004 that 4,755 deceased voters cast ballots in New Jersey. After careful comparison between voter rolls and death records, there were no official accounts of voter fraud.Claims of voter fraud in New York:In New York in both 2002 and 2004, 2,600 deceased voters allegedly voted, only to be removed from the register after an investigation revealed clerical errors and not malfeasance.Paranoia over “voter fraud” leads to voter suppression.North Carolina:Supreme Court rejected an appeal to reinstate North Carolina’s stringent voter identification laws that were found to discriminate against African Americans “with almost surgical precision.”Within days following this ruling, the court also found that two of North Carolina’s congressional redistricting maps resulted from unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. The decision—even supported by the more conservative Justice Clarence Thomas—found that African Americans were unfairly packed in two concentrated black districts, thereby minimizing their political influence in major elections.Wisconsin:Wisconsin’s efforts mirrored those in North Carolina where advocates purported that nearly 300,000 people lacked the proper ID to participate in the 2016 presidential election, even after parts of the state’s law were deemed unconstitutional upon appeal.Florida:In Florida, 1.5 million people were disenfranchised by a law that disqualifies ex-felons from voting, resulting in one in every four African American residents unable to vote in 2016.The 10 members in Trump’s “Commission on Election Integrity”:The above chart is based on information from a Washington Post article. [5]Mike Pence said that the “Commission on Election Integrity” will: [6]…Initiate a full evaluation of voting rolls in the country and the overall integrity of our voting system in the wake of this past election.Closer look into Kris Kobach:On November 9th, 2016, Kobach emailed a Trump transition team member about amending the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA): [7] [8]Kobach wants to amend the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). Passed in 1993, the NVRA aims to increase voter registration: Its provisions include requiring that motor vehicle and public assistance agencies provide voter registration opportunities, and allows for registration by mail.“Interstate Crosscheck System”: [9]The “Interstate Crosscheck System” is faulty at stopping voter fraud and is conducted by Kansas election authorities:States participating in the program, known as the Interstate Crosscheck System, send their voter registration files to Kansas…Each participating state receives back a list of their voter registrations that match the first name, last name and date of birth of a voter in another state. Crosscheck provides some guidelines for purging voter registrations from the rolls.The “Interstate Crosscheck Program” is inherently flawed:In theory, the program is supposed to detect possible cases of people voting in multiple locations. But academics and states that use the program have found that its results are overrun with false positives, creating a high risk of disenfranchising legal voters…For every one illegitimate vote, “Interstate Crosscheck Program” would eliminate 200 legitimate votes:A statistical analysis of the program published earlier this year by researchers at Stanford, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania and Microsoft, for instance, found that Crosscheck “would eliminate about 200 registrations used to cast legitimate votes for every one registration used to cast a double vote.”Why the “Interstate Crosscheck Program” gets it so wrong:Factors for “matches” - birthdays and names:Crosscheck bases its “matches” primarily on just two factors: people's first and last names and their birth date. But in a country of 139 million voters, you're guaranteed to have tens of thousands of individuals who share both names and birthdays.For instance, in a 2007 paper, elections experts Michael McDonald and Justin Levitt examined voter files from New Jersey's 2014 elections. In those elections, the most common names — William Smith, Maria Rodriguez, etc. — showed up hundreds of times, reflecting their prevalence in the general population.Shared birthdays are even more common — statistically speaking if you have a group of just 23 people, there's a greater than 50 percent chance that at least two of them will share the same birthday.At 180 people, according to McDonald and Levitt, there's a 50 percent chance that two of them will share the same birth date — month, day and year.So if you have 282 William Smiths, as in New Jersey's voter rolls in 2004, you'd expect four of them to share the exact same birthday. Those four William Smiths would be flagged as potentially fraudulent voters by Kobach's Crosscheck system.Disorganized Voter files:…Voter files are notoriously messy and often incomplete. Among the 3.6 million New Jersey voters McDonnell and Levitt analyzed, for instance, nearly 1 million were missing a birth date completely. Ten thousand were listed with a birth date of Jan. 1, 1753, and another 20,000 listed as Jan. 1, 1800 — likely placeholder values that were never updated.Multiply those figures up to the national level, and you can see how a system that naively matches names and birth dates is going to return a lot of noise — and very, very little in the way of people actually trying to game the voting system.There's no question that incomplete voter data is a problem. But comparing incomplete data sets against each other isn't likely to solve that problem.Data on someone registering and voting in two states:Boiling it all down, out of the 240,000 paired registrations that Crosscheck sent to Iowa, there were only six cases where it appeared that the same person registered and voted in two different states.In other words, well over 99 percent of the 'matches' sent to Iowa were unlikely to have anything to do with even attempted voter fraud.Incidentally, that's in line with Kobach's prosecution record on Crosscheck cases: a grand total of nine successful convictions so far, “mostly older Republican males,” according to local media reports.Crosscheck’s “User Guide”:…Crosscheck's user guide recommends purging older voter registrations when the name and partial Social Security number match the name and SSN of a more recent registration.…Harvard, Stanford, University of Pennsylvania and Microsoft team estimate that following this guideline would result in 200 deletions of legitimate voter registrations for each real-world case of double voting it prevented.Kobach loves the “Interstate Crosscheck Program” and wants to take it to a national level - that’s concerning:Kobach's championing of Crosscheck is one reason many voting rights advocates are concerned that President Trump's voter fraud commission may be a vehicle for recommending mass voter purges……In his opening remarks before the election commission he said the Crosscheck program “illustrates how a successful multi-state effort can be in enhancing the integrity of our elections and in keeping our voter rolls accurate. I'm confident that this commission will be equally successful on the national level.”…If the system is primarily a vehicle for false positives, why bother using it at all?…the naming of Kobach to President Trump's voter fraud commission ensures that Crosscheck will continue to have a role in the spotlight this year. And if the Republican Party has its way, Crosscheck will expand — the 2016 GOP party platform called for “every state to join the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program to keep voter rolls accurate and to prevent people from voting in more than one state in the same election.”Kris Kobach sent a letter to all 50 states (June 28th, 2016), requesting information on voters: [10]This letter asked for: [11]The information requested includes the names, addresses, birthdates, political party (if recorded), last four digits of the voter's Social Security Number and which elections the voter has participated in since 2006, for every registered voter in the country.It would seem that Kobach desires to use “Interstate Crosscheck System” on all the information sent in regarding the information he requested.The ACLU said this about the request from Kobach:As a part of Donald Trump’s Election Integrity Commission, Kris Kobach sent letters across the country, asking state representatives for details on every registered voter in the country. This is an unprecedented government request for information on American voters, including names, addresses, birthdates, political affiliation, last four digits of Social Security numbers, and voting history.Here is a chart from the ACLU regarding where each state stands on these requests:After Kobach’s letter, there are currently seven federal lawsuits that have been filed in July (2017) against Trump’s “Commission on Election Integrity”: [12]The NAACP Legal Defense Fund filed a lawsuit on July 18th, 2017. The lawsuit alleged that the “Commission on Election Integrity”: [13]“was formed with the intent to discriminate against voters of color in violation of the Constitution…to reaffirm President Trump’s false allegations of millions of ‘illegal’ votesto provide a basis for actions that will target African-American and Latino voters…rather than objectively analyze an issue of national significance.”It went on further, saying:“Statements by President Trump, his spokespersons and surrogates…as well as the work of the Commission as described by its co-chairs, are grounded on the false premise that Black and Latino voters are more likely to perpetrate voter fraud…”The suit points to the below evidence:Trump’s repeated lies that “millions of illegals” voted in the electionPence repeating Trump’s claim/defending it [14]Kobach repeating Trump’s claim: [15]“I think the president-elect is absolutely correct when he says the number of illegal votes cast exceeds the popular vote margin between him and Hillary Clinton at this point.”Hans von Spakovsky’s ties to the “Public Interest Legal Foundation”The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a lawsuit against the Commission on July 3, 2017, alleging that: [16]“the Commission’s demand for detailed voter histories also violates millions of Americans’ constitutional right to privacy.”The “Commission on Election Integrity” asked states to stop sending voter information until this lawsuit was resolved [17]The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit on July 10th, 2017, alleging that the Commission was not following proper transparency laws: [18]The lawsuit charges the commission with failing to comply with the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which is designed to ensure public accountability of all advisory committees.The ACLU said that the Commission was not making any of the topics discussed available to the publicThree days later, the White House had a page added to its website which contained some documents regarding the meetings [19]The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law filed a lawsuit similar to the ACLU’s on July 10th, 2017, citing the Commission’s failure to comply with transparency laws [20]The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law also filed a Hatch Act Complaint against Kobach, saying that he improperly used his role on the Commission to promote his upcoming run for Governor in Kansas [21]The Florida ACLU filed a lawsuit on July 10th, 2017 (separate from the other ACLU lawsuit) against the Commission, alleging that the collection efforts were: [22]“…an unjustified invasion of privacy not authorized under the Constitution and laws of the United States or the individual states.”Public Citizen filed a lawsuit on July 10, 2017, similar to the lawsuit from ACLU Florida, alleging that the Commission: [23]“collection and dissemination of [voter] information violates the Privacy Act, which prohibits the collection, use, maintenance or distribution of any ‘record describing how any individual exercises rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.’ ”Public Citizen is requesting a temporary restraining order on the Commission’s request regarding voter informationCommon Cause also filed a lawsuit regarding Privacy Act violations on July 14, 2017, against the Commission: [24]“Common Cause asks the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to order the commission, [the Department of Homeland Security], and [the Social Security Administration] to stop seeking and using the voter history and party affiliation of voters, and return any such data it has already obtained from any state.”How Kobach’s request could be unconstitutional: [25]Kobach’s goal seems to be collecting personal information on people to put in a national voter file [26]The files would collect information not limited to:NameAddressPolitical party affiliationVoting HistorySome states include even more information: [27]Date of birthTelephone numbersEmail addressesInformation about minors (some states “pre-register” minors so that they can automatically vote when they turn 18)“Publicly Available” is not a cut and dry definition: [28]In some states, voter files are widely accessible, but not to everyoneSome states restrict “why” one can have access to voter filesFor example, Texas prohibits access to voter information used for commercial profitsVoter information is sometimes limited to: [29]Political partiesCandidatesNonprofitsAny state that have these types of restrictions are automatically breaking their own laws by sending information to back to KobachNo one knows what the Commission’s security protocols will be (or if they even have any)Asking for this information via email is suspectMakes it appear that the Commission has no security protocolsAnd/or doesn’t care about securityNo one knows exactly what the Commission will do with the infoWhat laws could this data request be breaking? Here are some of them: [30]The Privacy Act:We’ve long had privacy and security concerns about government recordkeeping in this country. Back in 1974, Congress passed the Privacy Act, regulating how federal government entities keep records. There are a number of substantive requirements for a body like the Kobach commission. Those actually include specific limits on data that Kobach has asked for, like voting history and party affiliation.The Paperwork Reduction Law:The Paperwork Reduction Act, a law with a longstanding pedigree (if an uninspiring name), governs agencies that want to issue potentially burdensome information requests. The statute covers requests that are mandatory or voluntary, aimed at individuals or organizations. The guiding idea behind the PRA is simple: before the federal government enlists individuals, companies, organizations, or state governments into potentially burdensome fact-finding, it should have a good justification and a well thought out plan.Procedural requirements found within the PRA:PRA requires federal agencies to satisfy procedural requirements designed to ensure a deliberative approach informed by the people who will feel the effects of federal action. Much of it is basic stuff. Before sending out an information request to more than ten people, a federal agency must articulate a justification for doing so. It must weigh any potential benefits to the government against the burdens that its requests will impose on recipients. It must have a plan for conducting the request and managing the information it receives. Perhaps most importantly, it must engage the public through two rounds of detailed public notification, coupled with opportunities for the public to weigh in. Only then may the agency seek final approval from the White House’s budget office, which oversees compliance with the PRA, to go forward.The election commission didn’t do any of those things. It simply ignored the statute’s requirements. In other words, its request to every Secretary of State in the country violated federal law.…In other words, the Commission’s failure to adhere to the PRA isn’t a matter of mere technical non-compliance; it flouted a legal framework whose provisions would have offered a safeguard against a misguided, and potentially quite harmful, national fishing expedition for voter data.…For state officials on the fence about whether to provide the data, the PRA should weigh significantly in their decisions. The Kobach letter was, after all, an unlawful request. State officials should pause long and hard before turning over such sensitive data – data that is foundational to the democratic process…And on top of all of that, the letter from Kobach also creates a major target for hackers: [31]Digital security experts say the commission’s request would centralize and lay bare a valuable cache of information that cyber criminals could use for identity theft scams — or that foreign spies could leverage for disinformation schemes.Quick facts on voter fraud:Justin Levitt, Loyola Law School professor, found: [32]2000 - 2014 = 35 cases of voter impersonation out of ~800 million ballots that were cast in primary, municipal, special, and other elections.News21 journalism looked into voter impersonation as well as people voting twice, vote buying, absentee fraud, etc from 2000 - 2012. [33]For voter impersonation: 10For other alleged fraud cases: 2,068~50% of those votes ended with acquittals or charges being droppedThe State Board of Elections in North Carolina found: [34]1 case of voter fraud out of 4.8 million votes in the 2016 General ElectionThere were 500 ineligible votesAlmost all of those 500 were people voting who genuinely thought they couldIn 2007, the NYT found that there were: [35]86 convictions of voter fraud from 2002–2007Quick background on voter ID laws (hint, its voter suppression): [36]Voter ID laws disproportionately affect minorities:These laws have a disproportionate effect on minorities, which is exactly what you would expect given that members of racial and ethnic minorities are less apt to have valid photo ID.States that do have strict voter ID laws tend to vote more conservative:Because minority voters tend to be Democrats, strict voter ID laws tilt the primary electorate dramatically.All else equal, when strict ID laws are instituted, the turnout gap between Republicans and Democrats in primary contests more than doubles from 4.3 points to 9.8 points.Likewise, the turnout gap between conservative and liberal voters more than doubles from 7.7 to 20.4 points.States that pass strict Voter ID laws tend to have GOP legislatures:By instituting strict voter ID laws, states can alter the electorate and shift outcomes toward those on the right:Where these laws are enacted, the influence of Democrats and liberals wanes and the power of Republicans grows.Strict ID laws are passed almost exclusively by Republican legislatures.Quick look at what States have Voter ID laws: [37]Some states seem energized by Trump’s voter fraud conspiracies, many pushing for more Voter ID laws in 2017:At least 99 bills to restrict access to the polls have been introduced (or have been carried over from previous sessions) in 31 states this year; that's already more than double the number last year, according to data compiled by the Brennan Center.Voter ID — requiring voters to prove who they are with identifying documents — is the most common requirement, but changes to the voter registration process, such as asking people to prove their U.S. citizenship, are a close second.Why obtaining a government issued ID tends to be more challenging for minority demographics, collectively as well as some of the reasons that these laws are discriminatory: [38]Cost:Obtaining ID Costs Money.Even if ID is offered for free, voters must incur numerous costs (such as paying for birth certificates) to apply for a government-issued ID.Underlying documents required to obtain ID cost money, a significant expense for lower-income Americans. The combined cost of document fees, travel expenses and waiting time are estimated to range from $75 to $175.Travel:The travel required is often a major burden on people with disabilities, the elderly, or those in rural areas without access to a car or public transportation.In Texas, some people in rural areas must travel approximately 170 miles to reach the nearest ID office.Voter ID laws are discriminatory:Minority voters disproportionately lack ID.Nationally, up to 25% of African-American citizens of voting age lack government-issued photo ID, compared to only 8% of whites.Some Voter ID laws exclude forms of ID in a discriminatory way:Texas:allows concealed weapons permits for voting, but does not accept student ID cards.North Carolina:Until its voter ID law was struck down, North Carolina prohibited public assistance IDs and state employee ID cards, which are disproportionately held by Black voters.Wisconsin:Until recently, Wisconsin permitted active duty military ID cards, but prohibited Veterans Affairs ID cards for voting.Enforcement of Voter ID laws shows a trend of discriminatory behavior:A Caltech/MIT study found that minority voters are more frequently questioned about ID than are white voters.Voter ID laws reduces the turnout of minority voters:Several studies, including a 2014 GAO study, have found that photo ID laws have a particularly depressive effect on turnout among racial minorities and other vulnerable groups, worsening the participation gap between voters of color and whites.The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a right wing group that is funded by corporations like Exxon Mobile and the Koch brothers, is the culprit behind most of the voter ID laws: [39]Lawmakers proposed 62 photo ID bills in 37 states in the 2011 and 2012 sessions, with multiple bills introduced in some states.Ten states have passed strict photo ID laws since 2008, though several may not be in effect in November because of legal challenges.…More than half of the 62 bills were sponsored by members or conference attendees of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a Washington, D.C.-based, tax-exempt organization.At ALEC’s annual conferences, legislators, nonprofits and corporations work together without direct public input to develop bills that promote smaller government…The group’s Public Safety and Elections Task Force at the 2009 Atlanta meeting approved the “Voter ID Act,” a photo ID bill modeled on Indiana and Georgia laws.…Arkansas state Rep. Dan Greenberg, Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce and Indiana state Rep. Bill Ruppel (three Republicans now out of office) led drafting and discussion of the Voter ID Act.Critics of photo voter ID laws…say voters without a driver’s license or the means (a birth certificate or Social Security card) to obtain free ID cards at a state motor vehicles office could be disenfranchised.They claim that ALEC pushed for photo ID laws because poor Americans without ID are likely to vote against conservative interestsThe White House asked for feedback on the “Election Integrity Commission” on the White House website, which didn’t go so well. For example: [40]There was a lot of swearing:People called out Kobach and Pence specifically:Others questioned the integrity of the Commission:There were comparisons to Big Brother:Others demanded that the commissioners explain themselves:And my personal favorite:So, in conclusion, Trump’s “Commission on Election Integrity” is a waste of taxpayer money. The goal of the Commission is to create a “solution” that is looking for problems that don’t exist as well as creating problems.Are they going about it the right way? No.The premise of this Commission is based on lies.How the Commission is going about collecting the information based on a false premise is wrong.The data the Commission is wanting is likely a violation of privacy laws.Footnotes[1] Trump Asks Supporters to Prevent ‘Rigged’ Election by Becoming ‘Observers’[2] Opinion | The Voter Purges Are Coming[3] Some voters unregistering after Trump administration's data requests[4] Trump’s election integrity commission needs to redress voter suppression, not fraud[5] Analysis | Here are the first 10 members of Trump’s voting commission[6] Trump's election commission meets as critics condemn president's 'biggest lie'[7] Kris Kobach Email [8] This Trump administration official wants to make it more difficult to vote[9] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/07/20/this-anti-voter-fraud-program-gets-it-wrong-over-99-of-the-time-the-gop-wants-to-take-it-nationwide/?utm_term=.b08bbbc38661[10] https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3881818/SOS-Letter.pdf[11] Election Integrity Commission - State Responses[12] Trump’s voter commission is now facing at least 7 federal lawsuits[13] http://www.naacpldf.org/files/about-us/EIC%20Complaint.pdf[14] Watch Mike Pence try to defend Trump’s false claim that ‘millions’ voted illegally[15] Kris Kobach agrees with Donald Trump that ‘millions’ voted illegally but offers no evidence[16] EPIC v. Presidential Election Commission[17] https://epic.org/privacy/litigation/voter/epic-v-commission/EPIC-v-Commission-government-filing-on-DOD-database.pdf[18] American Civil Liberties Union v. Donald Trump[19] Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity[20] Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law Files Lawsuit To Halt Commission Hearing for Failure to Comply With Federal Law | Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law[21] Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law Files Hatch Act Complaint Against Kris Kobach | Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law[22] https://www.aclufl.org/2017/07/10/coalition-of-voting-rights-leaders-and-florida-voters-sue-presidential-commission-over-request-for-voter-information/[23] https://www.citizen.org/media/press-releases/public-citizen-sues-trump-administration-prevent-government’s-collection-voter[24] http://www.commoncause.org/press/press-releases/PenceKobachLawsuit.html?referrer=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/07/18/trumps-voter-fraud-commission-is-now-facing-at-least-7-federal-lawsuits/?utm_term=.696f889ac706?referrer=http://www.denverpost.com/2017/07/18/trumps-voter-commission-facing-several-federal-lawsuits/[25] All Your Voter Data Are Belong To Us | Take Care[26] http://www.ncsl.org/Documents/Elections/The_Canvass_February_2016_66.pdf[27] Full List Facts and Info - Voter List Information[28] States - Voter List Information[29] ELECTION CODE CHAPTER 18. PROCEDURES FOR IDENTIFYING REGISTERED VOTERS[30] President Trump’s Election Commission Has Already Violated Federal Law | Take Care[31] Trump voter-fraud panel’s data request a gold mine for hackers, experts warn[32] Voter Turnout Data - United States Elections Project[33] A News21 2012 National Project[34] https://s3.amazonaws.com/dl.ncsbe.gov/sboe/Post-Election%20Audit%20Report_2016%20General%20Election/Post-Election_Audit_Report.pdf[35] In 5-Year Effort, Scant Evidence of Voter Fraud[36] Analysis | Do voter identification laws suppress minority voting? Yes. We did the research.[37] States push new voter requirements, fueled by Trump[38] Oppose Voter ID Legislation - Fact Sheet[39] Oppose Voter ID Legislation - Fact Sheet[40] https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/docs/comments-received-june-29-through-july-11-2017.pdf