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House Democrats on Wednesday panned President Donald Trumps pledge to pursue a major investigation into alleged voter fraud, describing the presidents demand as insecure and saying the probe will only increase voter suppression.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she "felt sorry" for Trump and even prayed for him after learning of his calls for an investigation.

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For a person who is newly elected president of the United States to be so insecure ... to suggest and to undermine the integrity of our voting system, is really strange, she told reporters Wednesday during a news conference in the Capitol.

I frankly feel very sad about the president making this claim, she added. I felt sorry for him. I even prayed for him.

Trump took to Twitter on Wednesday morning to call for an investigation into voter fraud and irregularities in the voting rolls two days after he repeated his claim during a private meeting with Hill leaders, without evidence, that he only lost the popular vote because millions of people illegally voted for Hillary Clinton.

Pelosi confronted Trump during that meeting, telling him his claim was false.

Now, Democrats are shooting back. In an attempt to prove Trump wrong with their own investigation, a trio of House Democrats sent a letter to top law officials in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., calling for a list of any known cases of voting fraud during the election.

The thing that I worry about with this argument about voter fraud is it gives the Republicans and others another tool and another reason to justify to the public of denying people the right to vote, Rep. Elijah Cummings, ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said on MSNBC. Assistant House Minority Leader Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Rep. Bob Brady (D-Pa.), top Democrat on House Administration Committee, also signed the letter.

The president can join me and my staff, and we will show him that there is no voter fraud, Cummings continued. The thing I do want him to do, I want him to investigate, are all of the people who don't get the chance to vote, who have been denied the right to vote.

The claim has been debunked by numerous independent fact-checkers. Some Republicans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Sen. Lindsey Graham, agreed this week that there is no evidence to support it.

In general, voter fraud in American elections is rare, and widespread voter fraud is virtually nonexistent. While one 2012 Pew Research study found that some voter registration records were out of date because people had died or moved, the studys author, David Becker, has said that there is zero evidence that voter fraud resulted from them.

Still, in recent years, generally Republican-led state legislatures have cited fears of voter fraud to make a case for enacting new regulations around voting, like voter ID laws. Civil rights groups charge that those restrictions are discriminatory because they disproportionately affect minorities and young people who lack government-issued photo identification and also tend to vote for Democrats.

Liberals sounded the alarm on Wednesday that Trumps talk of voter fraud could be used to support more of those measures going forward.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, a progressive independent who challenged Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination last year, replied to Trumps tweet on Wednesday and charged that the president is telling Republicans to accelerate voter suppression, to make it harder for the poor, young, elderly and people of color to vote.

The great political crisis we face is not voter fraud, which barely exists. Its voter suppression and the denial of voting rights, he wrote. Our job is to fight back and do everything we can to protect American democracy from cowardly Republican governors and legislators.

David Axelrod, former chief strategist of Barack Obamas presidential campaigns, said on CNN: What I fear on this voter fraud stuff is that it becomes an impetus for those who want to further erode voter protections for people who legitimately want to vote and are facing a series of barriers.

If you want to investigate voting in this country, probably the most productive thing you can do is investigate that and try to ascertain whether these stringent new requirements in some states have, or more stringent new requirements, have kept some people from voting, he added.

Aidan Quigley contributed to this report.

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Democrats warn Trump's voter fraud investigation will increase voter suppression - Politico