A top federal election official who falsely claimed Democrats need “illegal citizens” to vote to win elections and publicly mused about committing voter fraud herself must rescind those statements or resign immediately, U.S. senators from Oregon and California demanded Tuesday.
Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff of California sent a letter to Christy McCormick, one of four members of the federal Election Assistance Commission, in response to her Oct. 29 appearance at a think tank closely aligned with President Donald Trump.
During the panel, McCormick said that Democrats needed “open borders, they need illegal citizens to increase their votes,” and said she considered casting ballots addressed to other people but that arrived at her California home.
“This is deeply dangerous to voters, our election system, and more broadly to our democracy,” the senators wrote in their letter. “EAC commissioners carry an extra level of responsibility when speaking about election administration, and if you stand by your public statements about widespread voter fraud without any evidence, we urge you to resign immediately.”
The Election Assistance Commission did not immediately respond to an inquiry from the Capital Chronicle.
The commission, established in 2002, is an independent agency with four bipartisan members appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. All four current commissioners were confirmed unanimously.
While states run elections, the commission accredits laboratories that test and certify voting systems and develops guidance for elections officials on nearly every aspect of election administration.
Voting by people who aren’t citizens or who are otherwise ineligible to vote is extremely rare, but Trump and his supporters have spread unsubstantiated claims about widespread election fraud since his first victory in 2016 and amplified those claims after he lost in 2020.
In Oregon, state officials have identified more than 1,800 people who were registered to vote in error despite not showing proof of citizenship during interactions at the state Driver and Motor Vehicle Services Division. Only 39 of those people voted in recent years, and the state has opted not to conduct criminal investigations because they were registered to vote through a clerical error and mailed ballots.
None of those ballots could have changed the outcome in any election, according to state officials, and it’s unclear how many of the 39 people who voted were citizens when they submitted their ballots.
Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read called for McCormick to resign within days of her comments, saying it’s “un-American to spread lies that sow fear and paranoia in the heart of our democracy.”
Read called for McCormick’s resignation during the recently ended federal government shutdown, when spokespeople were furloughed without access to their emails.