I’d also like to second Paul Gronke’s questions about the constitution of the Maryland committee. Paul noted that it is unclear that this commission has the capacity to really look at the academic research regarding the various areas they identified as being within the commission’s mission, and asked why none of the very capable academic scholars who have studied issues like early and absentee voting, registration, voter identification, and provisional voting, were included in this commission.

Here’s a quote from Paul’s evaluation of the commission:

It’s not clear what sort of academic research the commission will draw upon. The appointees seem well chosen, but the list mainly consists of lawyers and elections officials. Not sure why it doesn’t include, for instance, Jim Gimpel or Paul Herrnson of University of Maryland, both of are well-known and well-published scholars of election reform.

I had same questions when I saw the announcement of this commission.