The newly minted vice chairman of the commission that will be looking into voter fraud in the U.S. says the group will also examine voter "suppression" as well as other irregularities.

Kansas secretary of state Kris Kobach, who was named vice chairman of the  "Advisory Commission on Election Integrity," made it clear that the commission would take an expansive view of issues concerning elections in America.

Washington Times:

"In addition to focusing on voter fraud and election irregularities, the commission will also be looking at claims of voter suppression, claims that certain laws suppress turnout, things like that," Mr. Kobach said on CNN. "So, we'll be looking at evidence of all of these questions."

Mr. Kobach, as secretary of state in Kansas, pushed the state's proof-of-citizenship requirement to try and prevent illegal immigrants from voting in his state.

The president signed the executive order last week to launch the "Advisory Commission on Election Integrity." Vice President Mike Pence will serve at the panel's chairman.

Mr. Kobach said the group has two goals.

"There's really two goals. One goal is to, for the first time, to have a nationwide fact-finding effort to see what evidence there is of voter fraud across the country," he said. "The other half is, if there is agreement among the commissioners that this system works pretty well or that system seems to have some flaws, the commission may say, well we recommend states try this, or don't do that. If there's a recommendation for federal legislation, that might come up, too."

Mr. Kobach said the goal was to help states find better ways to execute their own elections, and not create additional federal laws unless the commission felt that recommendation was necessary.

The problem in the past with investigating voter fraud claims is that each state has its own rules and procedures to ensure that only eligible voters cast ballots.  Problems with registration rolls in many states have been well documented, including dead people carried on the rolls years after they're gone, voters who have moved and are eligible to vote in two states, and the enormous problem of false or fake voter registrations.  The commission should be able to see these problems from a national perspective and judge how much of a problem voter fraud actually is.

But by its very nature, voter fraud is hard to detect.  You can't judge how big the problem is by the number of prosecutions, as liberals are wont to do.  If there are organized efforts to commit voter fraud, it stands to reason that there are organized efforts to cover it up.  That will be a major challenge for the commission.

If the commission investigates claims by Democrats that voter ID laws lead to voter "suppression," it should be able to put those claims to rest once and for all.  There's also a good chance that the commission will be able to determine the scope of the illegal alien vote. 

Commission chairman Vice President Mike Pence has a huge task ahead of him.  But discovering the extent, if any, of election fraud is well worth the effort.