By Eliza Newlin Carney, NationalJournal.com
© National Journal Group Inc.
Monday, April 23, 2007

Under pressure from Capitol Hill, the Election Assistance Commission has asked its inspector general to review the EAC's controversial way of doing business.

	Caught up in a larger controversy over the Bush administration's overaggressive pursuit of supposed voter fraud, the EAC has emerged as an agency with serious problems.
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It's an important first step toward repairing the embattled agency's damaged reputation, but it probably won't be enough. Caught up in a larger controversy over the Bush administration's overaggressive pursuit of supposed voter fraud, the EAC has emerged as an agency with serious problems.

In the wake of reports that the agency scuttled and even distorted two major research studies, several members of both the House and Senate have called the agency on the carpet. Senate Rules and Administration chairman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has scheduled an oversight hearing on the EAC for June 13.

This month, Feinstein and Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., wrote the EAC to demand answers to a detailed list of questions involving two separate commission studies, one on voter fraud [PDF] and one on voter identification requirements. They cited "troubling news reports" that in both cases, the EAC may have altered or delayed important research findings for political purposes.

Reps. Maurice Hinchey and José Serrano, both New York Democrats, along with Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., also have written to the EAC to demand explanations. Lofgren was so concerned about how the EAC is handling research contracts that she asked the commission to immediately deliver two overdue reports to her office, one on military overseas voting and one on absentee ballots.

"There has to be a closer examination of how the Election Assistance Commission has been operating," said Hinchey in an interview. The EAC's operations and budget will be on the table when Congress re-examines the 2002 Help America Vote Act in coming months, Hinchey said.

The creation of the EAC -- which is charged with advising and doling out federal money to states, certifying voting equipment and acting as an information clearinghouse -- was a centerpiece of the HAVA. Yet problems at the EAC, along with the questionable security of touch-screen voting machines, are "glaring examples" of how the HAVA "is actually impeding the electoral process here," Hinchey declared.

The fight over EAC research has broad implications. Disputes over voter fraud are at the heart of the ongoing scandal involving Justice Department firings of U.S. Attorneys. Several were allegedly dismissed for failing to prosecute voter fraud aggressively enough. Yet expert research to date has found little evidence that voter fraud is actually much of a problem.

"Proven voter fraud, statistically, happens about as often as death by lightning strike," wrote two lawyers for New York University's Brennan Center for Justice, in a recent Washington Post op-ed.

Yet administration officials have portrayed voter fraud as a huge and growing problem, and state legislators have cited it to justify a slew of newly-enacted laws that ban voting without an ID. The EAC could have advanced the debate with some definitive research. Instead, the commission hired experts to conduct a voter fraud study - then proceeded to rewrite their findings.

The draft report submitted to the EAC stated that "there is widespread but not unanimous agreement that there is little polling place fraud," and also concluded that "election fraud is negligible." (The draft's findings were first reported in the New York Times.) But the EAC's final report, ominously titled "Election Crimes," stated that "there is no consensus on the pervasiveness of voter fraud and voter intimidation."

Similarly, commission research on the impact of voter ID laws could have informed state laws and even a recent Supreme Court case, but the EAC failed to release it in time. A Rutgers University study on the impact of voter ID laws was completed by the summer of 2006, according to the Brennan Center, but the EAC suppressed it until lawmakers demanded its release. Among other findings, the Rutgers study concluded that ID requirements can depress turnout, particularly among minority, elderly or urban voters.

"I think [EAC commissioners] were compromising based on political considerations," said Brennan Center lawyer Wendy Weiser. Weiser faulted the EAC for lacking transparency, accountability and clear protocols for decision making.

"We know that improvements need to be made," acknowledged EAC chair Donetta Davidson. As a brand-new agency that opened its doors in 2004, she noted, the EAC has had a steep learning curve. It's also been hampered by staff and budget shortfalls, exacerbated by a 23-person staff cap imposed when Republicans controlled Congress. Democrats in charge of Capitol Hill lifted that cap in February, and the staff size is now up to 25.

Congress shares some of the blame for the EAC's troubles. The agency initially received only $2 million of the $10 million annual budget it was promised, and took months to get off the ground. The EAC's operating budget now tops $11 million, but it's still not enough for an effective federal agency. The EAC needs to prove it can impartially steward those tax dollars. Its first step should be to respond promptly and candidly to questions from Capitol Hill.

-- Eliza Newlin Carney is a NationalJournal.com contributing editor and writer for National Journal and Government Executive. Her e-mail address is ecarney@nationaljournal.com.

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