Lawyers’ Committee’s Greenbaum Testifies about EAC

by Jon Greebaum

Today, I gave critical testimony in front of the Committee on House Administration about the Election Assistance Commission’s suppression of two important election-related reports.

My testimony detailed the extent to which individuals at the Department of Justice went to suppress these reports for partisan-political gain. I also detailed many of the deficiencies within the EAC that have hindered its ability to provide appropriate apolitical, uniform guidance to the states and tens of thousands of local election officials.

I concluded by saying:

…increased transparency and professionalism should quell what seems to be increased politicization at the EAC. As I discussed above, partisan policy positions – over emphasizing the degree of polling place voter fraud while under playing the degree of voter intimidation and discounting evidence of the discriminatory impact of identification procedures – trumped social science research in the conclusions reached by the Commission on critical research assignments. Moreover, the recent appointment to the EAC of a partisan election attorney with no election administration experience further call into question the EAC’s commitment to non-partisanship. Though partisans recommend appointments to the EAC and the appointments are made by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, for the short history of the EAC most of the Commissioners had been professional election administrators or had worked on nonpartisan election efforts. That tradition should continue.

Despite the failure to live up to the promise that Congress envisioned for the EAC, there is time to turn the EAC around and put it to work on behalf of all eligible American voters. I do, however, caution this committee from looking elsewhere for the solutions that the EAC was designed to accomplish. While the EAC needs to professionalize in order to be effective as an agency, it is a worthwhile experiment that, with some key reforms, can be an integral part of improving election administration across the country. After these necessary reforms are implemented, either by the Commission itself or by the Congress, the EAC should receive vigorous support.

Read the entire testimony here.

Find out more about the EAC in our Playing Politics with Voters' Rights section.