Maryland joins states rejecting Trump’s request to turn over voter information

The US state of Maryland has joined other states in declining a request from US President Donald Trump to turn over voter information to the administration after the 2016 presidential election.

Linda Lamone, the Old Line State’s administrator of elections wrote a letter to the vice chair of Trump’s advisory commission on election integrity, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, to reject the request.

“Disclosure of some of the information encompassed by your request may be prohibited under State and/or federal law,” Lamone (pictured below) wrote. “Accordingly, I am denying your request.”

Trump’s election panel has been rejected by more than half the states in its effort to prove the president’s widely debunked claim that millions of illegal votes made him lose the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

The panel has been seeking the names, birthdays, the last four digits of Social Security numbers and voting history of all registered voters.

Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh also released a statement, calling the request “repugnant.”

“I find this request for the personal information of millions of Marylanders repugnant,” Frosh (pictured above) said. “It appears designed only to intimidate voters and to indulge President Trump’s fantasy that he won the popular vote. “

“Repeating incessantly a false story of expansive voter fraud, and then creating a commission to rule that narrative, does not make it any more true.”

The vice chair of President Trump’s commission on election integrity (pictured above) has hit back at states refusing to follow suit, asking “What are they trying to hide?”

“Frankly, if a state like Kentucky or California won’t provide available information, one has to ask the question, ‘Why not?’” Kobach said on June 30. “I mean, what are they trying to hide if they don’t want a presidential advisory commission to study their state voter rolls?”

Trump gained almost 2.9 million votes less that Clinton but managed to win the electoral vote to become the US president.

The 2016 race also made the former secretary of state the most popular candidate in US history.