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Ohio Secretary of State Responds to Dissolution of Trump's Election Fraud Commission

photo of John Husted
KAREN KASLER
/
STATEHOUSE NEWS BUREAU

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order disbanding the commission he created to investigate what he claimed were millions of fraudulent votes in the 2016 election. Ohio’s chief elections officer wasn’t a fan of the Election Integrity Commission to begin with.

Secretary of State Jon Husted has said voter fraud does exist in Ohio, but it’s rare. Husted said his office already does post-election investigations into claims of fraud and suppression, so in Ohio, a federal probe into fraud wasn’t necessary.

“If the president seems fine with that now, then all the better for all of us,” he said.

Husted says there was no need for the Election Integrity Commission in Ohio, though "I can’t speak for the 49 other states."

A White House statement blames many states for refusing to provide information to the commission. Husted sent a link of the publicly available Ohio database of voter information to the White House, but did not turn over data that isn’t public record in this state.

Karen is a lifelong Ohioan who has served as news director at WCBE-FM, assignment editor/overnight anchor at WBNS-TV, and afternoon drive anchor/assignment editor in WTAM-AM in Cleveland. In addition to her daily reporting for Ohio’s public radio stations, she’s reported for NPR, the BBC, ABC Radio News and other news outlets. She hosts and produces the Statehouse News Bureau’s weekly TV show “The State of Ohio”, which airs on PBS stations statewide. She’s also a frequent guest on WOSU TV’s “Columbus on the Record”, a regular panelist on “The Sound of Ideas” on ideastream in Cleveland, appeared on the inaugural edition of “Face the State” on WBNS-TV and occasionally reports for “PBS Newshour”. She’s often called to moderate debates, including the Columbus Metropolitan Club’s Issue 3/legal marijuana debate and its pre-primary mayoral debate, and the City Club of Cleveland’s US Senate debate in 2012.