The group's first action was to ask states for detailed voter data, including the names, addresses, birth dates, partial Social Security numbers, party affiliation, felon status and other data for every registered voter. But several states expressed concern over how such information might be used by the administration.
"I'm not going to risk sensitive information for 3.2 million Kentuckians getting in the wrong hands, into the public domain and possibly for the wrong reasons, to keep people away from the ballot box," Kentucky Democratic Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes told NPR's Ari Shapiro during an interview on All Things Considered in June.
It wasn't just Democrats who were resisting though. Mississippi Republican Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann said that when he received the data request from the commission, his response would be to tell them to "go jump in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi is a great State to launch from."
Ultimately, the panel only held two meetings and Democrats on the commission complained they weren't being kept up to date about the group's actions.
In an October letter to the commission's executive director, Maine Democratic Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap wrote that he had "received utterly no information or updates from Commission staff or leadership about ongoing active research, inquiries for research requests, documents for consideration during future meetings, or indeed any information about whether or not the Chair has plans on convening another meeting."
One of the just five Democratic members died in October as well, and a researcher for the commission was arrested on charges of possessing child pornography.