President Donald Trump is launching a commission to review alleged voter fraud, and he has tapped Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to help lead the group.
Trump signed an executive order Thursday for the commission on election integrity that will examine voter fraud and voter suppression.
In an interview Kobach said talks of the commission have been in the works for months.
"We'll be looking at forms of election irregularities and trying to gather evidence from both the federal government resources and from the various states," Kobach said.
Kobach has stood by Trump's claims that millions of people voted illegally in November.
He has some stiff opposition to his new position.
"It's really disturbing that now is the focus of this commission, and it's even more disturbing that Secretary Kris Kobach has been named to it," said Micah W. Kubic, Ph.D., executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas.
This appointment comes as Kobach prepares to hand over documents he gave Trump days after the election.
The documents are linked to an ACLU lawsuit over a Kansas law, requiring new voters to provide proof of citizenship when registering.
A judge ordered Kobach to turn over the documents to the court by Friday.
"He is the nation's leading traveling evangelist for voter suppression," Kubic said. "Everywhere he goes those laws that he gets passed are stopped or struck down by courts of legislature because it's clearly illegal, unconstitutional and frankly hostile to the values that we share as Americans."
Kobach said it's too early to judge the commission.
"That's the whole purpose of this commission to see what evidence there is and see how large of a problem there is. The commission will analyze the facts and the data available and go where the facts lead," Kobach said.
He adds that this won't impact his work as Kansas secretary of state.
