Dear Rep. Cummings:I represent Catherine Engelbrecht and True the Vote. We are shocked at your comments on “The Ed Show” of MSNBC, which you either know not to be true or have done nothing to assure their accuracy. We had higher hopes for you as an otherwise respected Member of Congress.

You said on MSNBC that we had “gone silent” in terms of a response to your requests. As you well know, we responded to your request for information when you wrote us the first letter, which was filled with inaccuracies and innuendo. Catherine Engelbrecht offered to travel to meet you in Washington D.C. to explain the actual activities of True the Vote and dispel the misinformation you and your staff had recited in your letter. Instead of agreeing to a meeting, you demanded more and different information—information which would be near impossible to directly gather. True the Vote has been organizing and doing its work for all of 2012, and yet you demand information from us—without any right or authority to do so—in the time most calculated to keep us from our task of reducing voter fraud.

You have accused our organization of committing a crime, of acting in an illegal manner and acting so as to reduce the opportunity of minorities to vote. You have said that our poll watchers illegally cause problems at polling places, all with the desire to cause people to get out of line and not vote. You have said that we have targeted the elderly. Each and every one of these allegations is categorically false, has no basis in truth, and is not anything about which you are capable of substantiating with anything other than a conjured allegation of some individual seeking to distort reality. This defamation per se is shameful. Without so much as the common courtesy to meet with Ms. Engelbrecht, where you could have quickly learned how off track your allegations are and have been, you instead go on national television and call this group names and cast them in the most unflattering light possible.

A statesman looks for truth, seeks justice and acts in the common good without consideration of fealty to personal interest or party. A statesman would accept the invitation to meet with Catherine Engelbrecht and learn first hand what True the Vote actually does and how they do it. The offer still stands for her to meet with you.

If you choose to meet with her, you will most surely be compelled to retract the comments you have made, and we would hope that MSNBC would give you the same opportunity for setting the record straight as they gave you for the time spent in casting misinformation. If you choose not to meet with her, a retraction of your comments is still necessary, and we will insist on nothing less.