PERSON: Hans von Spakovsky

Manager of Election Law Reform Initiative

Hans Anatol von Spakovsky (born March 11, 1959) is an American attorney and a former member of the Federal Election Commission (FEC). He is the manager of The Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative and a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. He is an advocate for stricter voting laws. He has been described as playing an influential role in making concern about voter fraud mainstream in the Republican Party.

He was nominated to the FEC by President George W. Bush on December 15, 2005, and appointed by recess appointment on January 4, 2006. However, von Spakovsky’s nomination was opposed by Senate Democrats, who argued that his oversight of voter laws was unacceptably partisan. Opposition to his nomination was bolstered by objections from career Justice Department staff, who accused von Spakovsky of politicizing his nominally non-partisan office to an unprecedented degree. While von Spakovsky and the Bush Administration denied the accusations of partisanship, the nomination was withdrawn on May 15, 2008.

Von Spakovsky subsequently joined the staff of The Heritage Foundation, a politically conservative think tank. On June 29, 2017, President Donald Trump named him as a member of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.

>> Wikipedia