Trump fraud panel never saw S.C. voter data

Just days after the Buzz highlighted the saga of South Carolina’s voter data and President Donald Trump’s voter fraud panel as one of the wilder political stories of 2017, the presidential commission shut its doors.

The White House said Wednesday the commission would cease operations after several states refused to turn over voter information to the panel, including South Carolina.

In July, state election officials said S.C. law didn’t allow them to release the information out of state. However, state GOP chairman Drew McKissick said he would give the information to the panel.

Both political parties routinely collect the state’s voter lists after each election to do future outreach, so party officials had the information available. But, while the S.C. GOP offered to turn the voter list over to Trump’s commission, it never heard back before the commission folded, Buzz’s source says.

Even before it closed, the commission quickly ground to a halt under the weight of legal challenges and dissension among its members about its activities.

The commission originally was established to combat voter fraud after Trump claimed, without evidence, that 3 million people voted illegally in the 2016 election.