Adams, Republican, former Department of Justice Civil Rights Division attorney Ken Blackwell, Republican, former Ohio Secretary of State and previously state Treasurer Matthew Dunlap, Democrat, Secretary of State of Maine Bill Gardner, Democrat, New Hampshire Secretary of State Alan Lamar King, Democrat, probate judge of Jefferson County, Alabama Connie Lawson, Republican, Secretary of State of Indiana Christy McCormick, Republican, Commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission Mark Rhodes, Democrat, Wood County, West Virginia county clerk Hans von Spakovsky, Republican, former member Federal Election Commission, Senior Legal Fellow, Heritage Foundation; Director, Public Interest Legal Foundation. Commission who left prior to disbandment Luis Borunda, Republican, Maryland deputy secretary of state, resigned July 3, 2017 (prior to the commission's first meeting, but after the controversial letter by Kris Kobach to election officials in the different states) David K. Dunn, Democrat, former Arkansas state representative, died October 17, 2017 Vice President Pence has been described as the titular head of the Commission on Voter Integrity with Kris Kobach, who also serves on the elections committee of the National Secretaries of States Association (NSOS), as its operational leader. According to the executive order, the commission can have up to sixteen members. Dunlap and Gardner, the two Democratic secretaries of state on the commission, said they hoped the commission would look into Russian interference in the 2016 election, but Kobach said he did not think that the commission's investigation would go in that direction. Unlike past presidential commissions on elections and voting (such as the Carter-Baker in 2001, Carter-Ford in 2004, and Bauer-Ginsburg in 2013), the leadership of the panel is not bipartisan and the makeup of the panel is not evenly split. Rather, Pence and Kobach, the chair and vice chair of the commission, are both Republicans, and Republicans hold a 7 to 5 (originally 8 to 5) advantage in membership for the commission as a whole. The ratio favoring the Republicans increased to 7 to 4 when David K. Dunn died in October 2017. Also in October 2017, two of the four Democrats on the commission, Dunlap and King, sent separate letters to commission staff complaining that they are not being kept informed of commission activities. Commission member Hans von Spakovsky, the director of the Heritage Foundation's Election Law Reform Initiative, is said to have promoted "the myth that Democratic voter fraud is common, and that it helps Democrats win elections" according to a magazine