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“I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.” -- Will Rogers (1879 - 1935), Saturday Review, Aug. 25, 1962
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WHO’S GUARDING THE GUARDS?
GLITCHES, HITCHES, ANOMALIES AND IRREGULARITIES
BLIND TRUST Examination of transparency and security in elections worldwide WHY? A rhetorical musing in search of rationale
ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION (EAC) Numbers, Numbers, Numbers... THERE MUST BE 50 WAYS TO STEAL ELECTIONS PAPER TRAIL OF TEARS Pros, Cons and Tricks with Paper Dozens of Suggestions and Links to get on board in the Election Reform Movement HATE MAIL CONTACT US
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The Election Assistance Commission, EAC, was established in October 2002, through HAVA (Help America Vote Act). The commission was created to develop national standards and oversee testing of election systems in Federal elections, but was paralyzed for years due to under funding by the Federal government. They had been promised $10 million, but in fact received only $1.2 million.... No Election System Left Behind.
HAVA itself was sponsored originally by Ohio Congressman Bob Ney (R) and Congressman Steny Hoyer (D) of Maryland. Two states that, ironically, were inarguably in need of some serious additional “voting help” this past November 2nd.
The White House was allotted a four month period within which to appoint its four new Election Assistance Commission members, or by February, 2003, in order to commence the testing and to have all systems ready and on line for the 2004 election. But instead there was stalling and foot dragging by the administration, which didn’t even get around to its nominations until October of 2003, which was one full year after the passage of HAVA. Those appointees were still not confirmed by Congress until January, 2004, also nearly a full year later than intended.
During this lengthy process, the Companies selling their electronic systems to the States were able to take advantage of the wide open window that the extra year or so afforded them— in which they could firm up multi-million dollar contracts, all the while escaping any real EAC oversight of their wares. Good for them-- bad for us.
Under HAVA law, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) played a prominent role in providing help to election officials who were implementing the new voting systems. However, just prior to our critical November 2004 elections, NIST was slapped with a 22 million dollar budget cut that left them scratching their collective heads and eventually hanging the “Closed for Business” sign in their metaphorical window.
NIST spokesman Mat Heyman announced in February 2004;
“We have terminated all our activities under the Help America Vote Act for lack of funding.”
Is this any way to Help America Vote?
Of the $3.86 Billion HAVA money, $2.3 Billion was designated to go towards voting systems (machines, ballots, registration, etc) and the remaining $1.5 Billion would go towards the tabulators.
Prior to 1990 there was no standardized testing or evaluation procedure for voting equipment in America. In that year, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) established standards and designated labs (Independent Testing Authorities—ITA’s) to evaluate and then certify election systems. NASED (National Association of State Election Directors) appointed the labs that would conduct the tests, but such tests are costly – anywhere from $25,000 to $250,000 per system—and because the Federal Government refused to pick up the tab for it....vendors were relegated to paying the labs to test their own equipment, creating a clear conflict of interest.
In 2003, tests conducted on the certification process found that the testers were missing significant chunks of important data. Entire critical sections of systems were not tested at all, nor even required to be. It was also discovered that, in many cases, after a system had been certified, vendors were going back in and reinstalling new, uncertified versions on the same equipment without disclosing it to the authorities. There was ostensibly no oversight to prevent this practice and no tracking that would lead to its discovery. Labs sign non-disclosure agreements with the vendors (Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia and others) insuring all test results will remain secret and are not for public consumption. In fact, it seems that almost nothing in our election systems remains that is for public consumption anymore.
EAC Gets a Chairman - De Forest “Buster” Soaries, Jr.
De Forest Soaries, Jr., nicknamed “Buster”, is also known in some circles as “Pastor” Soaries, Jr. He led the construction of his $17-25 Million dollar mega-church, The First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens, in New Jersey, which boasts a congregation of over 6,000 members, and where he has been Pastor since 1990. He also created the Faith-based Cisco Technology Academy.
From 1999 to 2002, Republican De Forest “Buster” Soaries Jr. served as the New Jersey Secretary of State, appointed by former Governor Christine Todd Whitman. At the end of his term, in 2002, he ran for a seat in the House of Representative and was defeated by none other than—Congressman and election integrity champion, Rush Holt
In 2003 President Bush appointed Soaries to be Public Director of the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York, perhaps unaware or forgetting we still desperately needed an appointed Election Assistance Commission before the 2004 election.
Then finally, in March 2004, President Bush appoints De Forest to be Chairman of the newly formed EAC. Over one month later the Chairman was still working out of makeshift offices, had no secretary / assistant and with a skeletal staff of four. Per Soaries, “We had no email, we had no business cards, and we had no stationery...” He nearly resigned in frustration.
De Forest voiced his complaints in July 2004: “I came to Washington in January to work on this historic Commission with three of the finest people I have ever met. Soon after our arrival, we realized that we were facing significant institutional and personal challenges. We have been asked to work with almost no budget. We have been asked to plan with little staff. We have been required to function under very difficult conditions.”
Heralded as America’s new election watchdog, DeForest Soaries would have surely had more bite had someone had only let the dog out of the kennel in time to actually oversee the historic Presidential election of 2004....
Soaries was originally one of those supporting the no-rush-to-implement-standards-in-voting-equipment movement, ensuring that the corporations had ample time to negotiate and close their lucrative deals before any tests or safeguards were in place to assess the systems’ accuracy.
Soaries spent his November 2, 2004, Election Day in the sunny state of Florida.
It was his pre-election query to Tommy Ridge about a possible election postponement in the event of a surprise terrorist attack that stirred up considerable controversy, garnering him a load of ink and providing endless talk show fodder.
In April of 2005, a little over a year into his term, Soaries abruptly decided to resign from his post – partly in an effort to “spend more time with his family,” and partly due to a lack of support for federal election reform from Congress and the administration—saying the government has not shown enough commitment to election reform. "All four of us had to work without staff, without offices, without resources. I don't think our sense of personal obligation has been matched by a corresponding sense of commitment to real reform from the federal government," he said.
Soaries tells MSNBC’s Chris Matthews in an interview, "Election reform is not a matter of great urgency in Congress among Democrats or Republicans." Prompting me to inquire --Did we already give out the Understatement of the Year Award? If not – here is a meretricious candidate to receive it.
Serving as a key commission member with DeForest on the EAC is another familiar face, conservative Republican Paul DeGregorio, who also holds the title of Executive VP of the IFES (International Foundation for Election Systems) A bulk of the funding for the IFES comes from the NED (National Endowment for Democracy)—an organization that boasts its goal is “to promote democracy overseas”. Part of that promotion, from one the four sectors of the NED, was focused heavily on aid to the Contras in Nicaragua. But I digress into yet another sea of acronyms.
DeGregorio may seem familiar because in 2000, he helped George Bush to win Florida, by rushing to Broward to help “supervise” (read: “disrupt; halt”) the recount effort, which no doubt contributed to his earning the NASS 2004 Freedom Award from the National Association of Secretaries of State. I guess you could argue he did help free up a lot of time for Al Gore. Additionally, you may recognize his name because he was the Assistant to the former Attorney General John Ashcroft. In his work for IFES, DeGregorio oversaw elections in 18 countries, including Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and China.
Lookout-- It’s Grandma and Grandpa!
Just two months before the November 2004 elections, the EAC put out a curious preemptive press release in USA Today stating that the real problems they anticipated occurring at the polls in November, would not be from a terrorist attack or from malfunctioning electronic equipment.....but rather from confusion and mistakes made by aging poll workers--- The elderly were suddenly cast as the real threat to our democracy.
Tell them what YOU think
On June 24, 2005, the EAC released Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) for public comment. These guidelines represent an update to the HAVA 2002 standards. If adopted, they become effective in October 2006. The guidelines would be “Voluntary” yet at the same time serve as the de facto national standard for voting technology. As of this writing, the EAC are seeking public feedback through September 21st, 2005 on their proposed standards guidelines.
See more at www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/blog
There are currently some rumblings on the Hill about dissolving the EAC entirely by 2006.
But then, who would oversee our election systems?
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