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Trump Scraps Commission Investigating His Claim Of Widespread Voter Fraud
Swarajya Staff
Jan 04, 2018, 02:43 PM | Updated 02:42 PM IST
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In the wake of the 2016 United States (US) presidential election, Donald Trump kept making the claim that millions of people had voted illegally at the polls. This claim had come under investigation by the presidential commission, which had come into action in May last year through an executive order. Now, ABC News has reported that the commission has been dissolved.
According to the White House press release, the catalyst for the dissolution of the commission was many states’ refusal to supply information required for the enquiry.
The ABC News report quoted an official statement: “Rather than engage in endless legal battles at taxpayer expense, today I signed an executive order to dissolve the Commission.”
Trump had claimed widespread voter fraud to try and explain his election rival Hillary Clinton’s popular vote victory by a margin of three million votes.
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, 2016
Experts in the academia and election officials have maintained that there was no evidence of voter fraud in the 2016 presidential race. They do not deny that it happens, but just that it is very rare and at individual polling booths.
The White House has said that despite the dissolution of the commission, the Department of Homeland Security will continue to review the claim and decide on the next steps.
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