A federal judge ruled on Friday that President Trump’s voter fraud commission must give one of its Democratic members access to relevant documents in order to allow him to “fully participate” in the panel’s review.
In a 24-page opinion posted by Politico, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said that the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity appeared to keep one of its members, Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap (D), in the dark about its work.
“Plaintiff has a right, as a commissioner, to ‘fully participate’ in the proceedings of the Commission,” Kollar-Kotelly, an appointee of former President Clinton, wrote in the opinion.
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“In the Court’s view, his assertion that he will be unable to fully participate without the information contained in relevant documents that the Commission has not shared with the public has merit.”
Dunlap sued the commission last month, alleging that it had run afoul of a federal law requiring presidential advisory panels to be transparent and balanced in their efforts.
He alleged that the voter fraud commission had denied him access to key documents that would allow him to actively and effectively participate in the commission’s work, saying that the process had been shrouded in secrecy.
“Without transparency about the commission’s actions, how can you find out if a policy is being developed that may require you to have a Real ID-compliant driver’s license to vote?” Dunlap wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post late last month.
“Or whether you’ll have to prove American citizenship at the polls? How will you know about proposed changes to voter registration deadlines or new restrictions on absentee balloting?”
The commission has been the subject of controversy for months. It was created to investigate voter fraud, but critics have accused the panel’s work of being politically motivated and geared toward validating Trump’s widely debunked claim that he would have won the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election if not for widespread voter fraud.