While cloaked as an effort to protect the integrity of our elections, President Trump's voter fraud commission will be anything but. The cloak hiding its real mission is thin; indeed, it will no doubt serve as a tool to further real and serious Republican attacks on American voting rights and leave eligible voters disenfranchised.

For months, the President has falsely claimed that millions of illegal votes are cast in our elections. With zero evidence and none provided since, he boldly called into question the honorable work thousands of Americans do to conduct our free and fair elections.

My mission as Kentucky's chief election official has been to tear down barriers to the ballot box, not to erect them. That should be the mission of every American election administrator. This sham voter fraud commission will hamper that mission.

If the President truly wishes to protect American elections, he should finally admit what our intelligence community accepts as fact: Russia and perhaps other foreign powers attempted to influence our presidential election. If the President wants to investigate "voter fraud", let it begin there.