Subject: Re: [EL] Who will miss the EAC?
From: Rob Richie
Date: 12/18/2010, 7:38 AM
To: Paul Gronke
CC: Election Law <election-law@mailman.lls.edu>

Thanks for this message, Paul. I had exactly the same reaction to Rick's aside.

It would seem that we need to distinguish between the EAC as it's been, the EAC as it could have been and the EAC as could be with fine-tuning of its mandate. For example, systematic pre-election transparency for plans and post-election accountability for results seems to be nearly entirely missing from American election administration. The thousands of jurisdictions making independent decisions about rules and processes that affect election for our highest offices (a number of jurisdiction I understand to be around 12,000, although I've yet to see a definitive list), can still come up with lousy ballot designs, have poor polling place location plans and have inadequate training and staffing for pollworkers without any process where those designs and plans are put out systematically for public review in a timely way and without any post-election process of seeing what worked and what didn't.

That alone would seem like a good mission for an EAC -- even if it couldn't mandate standards, as would of course make sense if we really wanted to secure the right to vote, it at least could be a vehicle to encourage more transparency and accountability. If not an EAC, do its critics have any other suggestions? What states do the best job with pre-election transparency of plans and post-election assessments to be able to determine where improvements are necessary?

Rob Richie, FairVote


On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 10:05 PM, Paul Gronke <paul.gronke@gmail.com> wrote:
I've expressed frustrations at times with the EAC, and from a purely intellectual perspective, wondered whether the agency was designed to fail.  (I remember in a conference at Brooking/AEI a few years ago, we had a spirited discussion with Tom Mann and Norm Ornstein about the early years of the Federal Election Commission and how it compared to the EAC.  I still wonder whether the authors of HAVA had failure in mind)

However, I can't echo Rick's sentiments that no one would miss the agency.  American election administration has improved dramatically since 2000, and Federal requirements for the use of HAVA funds, administered by the EAC, should receive a lot of credit.  Perhaps the agency would not be missed when HAVA funds run out, but let's not understate the impact of HAVA and the agency's role in administering and overseeing these funds.

I'd be interested in hearing others' opinions about the Voluntary Voting Systems Guidelines, but the impression that the VVSG, while slow, has provided a set of regulatory guidelines and technical specifications that has helped guide the states when adopting new election technology.  It would surely be missed if the VVSG was no longer updated, and states and local jurisdictions were once again completely on their own.  This seems particularly important in a period when the election technology industry is in a state of great uncertainty.

Finally, from my own perch as a political scientist, it would be a tremendous loss if the Election Administration and Election Day Survey, which has finally stabilized and is being used to great advantage by advocates, analysts, and increasingly academics, were to disappear.  Yes, there have been serious bumps in the road in developing and administering this instrument, but recall prior to the EAC's survey, there was no single source for information on a wide array of information about the performance and administration of American elections.  I would hate to go backwards and once again have 50 states and 10,000 jurisdictions reporting information with different details, using different terms, and with differing levels of accuracy.

I would hope that Congress would continue to fund this instrument regardless of what happens to the EAC.

---
Paul Gronke                Ph:  503-517-7393
                                      Fax: 734-661-0801

Director, Early Voting Information Center
Professor, Reed College
3203 SE Woodstock Blvd.
Portland OR 97202

EVIC: http://earlyvoting.net



On Dec 17, 2010, at 3:38 PM, Rick Hasen wrote:

> Will the EAC Disappear?
>
> Could be.
>
> Follow up question: who will notice?
> Posted by Rick Hasen at 01:28 PM
> Allison Hayward Makes a Campaign Finance Cartoon
>
> Here.
> Posted by Rick Hasen at 12:58 PM
>

---
Paul Gronke                Ph:  503-517-7393
                                      Fax: 734-661-0801

Professor, Reed College
Director, Early Voting Information Center 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd.
Portland OR 97202

EVIC: http://earlyvoting.net




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