Should we just expect every single one of President Donald Trump’s initiatives to be rolled out in the most bumbling, inept and self-defeating way possible?

The latest example: Trump’s Election Integrity Commission, which emerged just long enough to badly miscalculate its mandate, issue an ill-fated initial communication, and essentially declare itself a non-starter by virtue of widespread, state-level opposition.

Last week the group — which is charged with investigating the president’s false claims that millions of people voted illegally last November — sent a sweeping request out to 50 states, asking for information that includes names, driver’s license numbers, dates of birth, voting histories, party identifications and partial Social Security numbers. The administration also requested that the states turn over any evidence of voter fraud, convictions for election-related crimes and recommendations for preventing voter intimidation within the next two weeks.

Not surprisingly many states — including Pennsylvania — have taken a dim view of both the commission and its mission. At last count 29 were refusing to comply partially or entirely with the administration’s requests.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, who on Friday lambasted the group’s efforts as a “systematic effort to suppress the vote,” has partially refused to participate. The commission can go buy a publicly available list of voter information for $20, Wolf says, but that list doesn’t include much of the sensitive personal information the commission is apparently looking for.

Wolf is correct in refusing to turn over voters’ sensitive information on a whim, which is exactly what this commission is. Study after study has found that voter fraud is exceedingly rare, and in-person voter fraud (the likes of which Trump has repeatedly claimed helped Hillary Clinton win the popular vote last November) is essentially nonexistent.

Even if the evidence on voter fraud were less overwhelming and conclusive, we would find it difficult to countenance such a massive release of voters’ personal information to the federal government. The privacy and security concerns surrounding how the information would be kept and used are simply too great, and the idea of a federal database tracking or analyzing voting histories is distasteful and wrong.

What Americans do in the voting booth is their own business, and it is the duty of the states, not the federal government, to police and run elections. There’s no evidence that states are failing at this task. And Kansas secretary of state Kris Kobach, who is leading the Trump commission, has himself been one of the leading voices against federal meddling in the state-based election system. Where is Kobach’s principled federalism now?

The bottom line is that widespread voter fraud is a myth. Unless the president stops tilting at windmills and brings his focus to bear on driving the agenda which got him elected, his power and influence will be as well.