Executive Order 13799: Election Integrity

What the Executive Order says

Exective Order (EO) 13799 is entitled "Establishment of Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity."  It has 7 sections.  This Executive Order establishes a commission to look at the election process "to promote fair and honest Federal elections".

Section 1

This section is simply a statement that the commission is established.

Section 2

This section defines the membership of the commission.  It is chaired by the Vice President.  up to an additional 15 members can be added to the commission by appointed of the President.  Essentially anyone whomsoever is deemed appropriate by the President can be appointed.

Section 3

This section defines the mission of the commission and there are three aspects relating to the areas of voter registration and the voting process for Federal elections.  The report to be submitted to the President is advisory and as such any and all recommendations made by the commission can be ignored without any justification.  The three aspects to be considered include what the rules are which "enhance the American people's confidence in the integrity of the voting process"; what rules undermine that confidence; and what vulnerabilities there are in the registration and voting systems that could lead to fraudulent registration and voting.

Section 4

This section defines 4 terms: improper voter registration; improper voting; fraudulent voter registration; and fraudulent voting.

Section 5

This states that the commission shall hold public meetings and will be staffed, although it does not state out of what budget, but likely it is to be inferred that it is the budget of the Executive Office of the President.

Section 6

This section states that the commission will be disbanded 30 days after the submission of the report.

Section 7

This section includes the usual legal fine print to ensure that the EO is constitutional.

My Commentary

As many readers know, the whole idea of this commission was spawned from the debacle of some early morning tweeting about how 3-5 million fraudulent or improper votes were cast and this was the only reason the President lost the national popular vote in the November 2016 Presidential election despite willing a  majority of electoral college votes.  No known evidence has ever been put forward that would substantiate that such a large number of fraudulent or improper votes were cast.  There have been proven isolated cases, but to the best of my knowledge these total less than 100 votes across the nation.
Months ago, there had been discussion of the establishment of this kind of commission and in fact, the Vice President had been named as the chair some time ago.  This EO is only making the entire exercise official.  There have been sporadic press reports on the non-progress of the investigation.  It is assumed that there will now actually be some activity on the subject.
There is a balance that needs to be achieved between making voter identification sufficiently rigorous to prevent fraud and preventing citizens who are entitled to vote from doing so.  One option is to have adequate government records of people, especially poor and indigent people who often do not obtain or keep any kind of identification documents.  This tends towards intrusion when attempting to be as inclusive as possible.  The other option is a policy where if the voter does not possess certain kinds of official documents, they are unable to exercise their right to vote.  This can be crafted to target, in a political way, certain populations either for enhancement or for suppression.  Any form of ID that is acceptable also has to be evaluated for the possibility of fraud.
Each state administers their voting system differently and the votes for Federal elections are implemented by each state.  Changes to voter laws may be impossible to do at the Federal level.
An opportunity is presented to this commission which is to review the voting processes in each state and to gather best practices that best balance between verification and empowerment to vote.  Conversely, it can be cynically supposed that the commission will look for ways that successfully impede the ability to vote of certain demographics in the populations.  It will be determined by whether the focus is on the Republic or the Republicans.