If the EAC data on military voting is so important, why would Panetta’s DOD want to gut the agency?

Talk about kicking another agency when it’s down!  The DOD’s Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) has made a dedicated effort, including a concerted lobbying attempt in the Congress, to grab power over election-related data from the Election Assistance Commission (EAC).  During the debate on whether to eliminate the EAC for budgetary reasons, Congressional Democrats have repeatedly condemned the dissolution or dismemberment of the EAC, making the argument that the Commission still serves a valuable purpose, particularly with the collection of UOCAVA ballot and other election-related data from the states.  This data includes the actual census of absentee ballots sent, returned, and eventually (and hopefully) counted by state and county election officials.  

The Executive Branch is obviously not talking to the Legislative Branch.  DOD has clashed repeatedly with EAC staff and worked behind the scenes to Congress and election officials to undermine the EAC data, saying it paints too negative a picture. Now, the Panetta DOD is attempting to propagandize their “success” by highlighting another “rosy” DOD survey and wrest control of election data collection away from the EAC.  Indeed, the FVAP report directly questions the need for the data to be collected and analyzed by the EAC, a separate bipartisan agency created by the Congress and not reportable to the President.  

In its FVAP report to the Congress on Military and Overseas Civilians Absentee Voting, the DOD eschews the EAC data, collected directly from the states, and instead relies on survey responses from 12,000 military members and their spouses.  FVAP’s reports acknowledges that they have been criticized in the past over its small survey sample, but does nothing to correct that issue.  FVAP’s not only criticizes the EAC’s data, but it openly asserts that it wants to “obviate the continuation of a separate EAC report from the FVAP report.”  In other words, DOD wants to kill the EAC and take control of any non-DOD reports that would evaluate the effectiveness of its program.     

Nor are FVAP’s attacks on the EAC warranted especially given the signfiicant improvements made in collection since the 2008 election.  Despite having problems in 2004 and 2006, Congress has since referred to its election data as the “gold standard.”  It was relied upon by Senator Schumer and others to justify the MOVE Act.  

Yet, the EAC’s data paints an incredibly negative picture about FVAP and DOD’s efforts to comply with federal law.  Rather than take reasonable steps to address low military voting participation rates, FVAP would much rather spend a lot of money ($2.3 million for their most recent report – that is almost a $1 per military voters) to claim, “problem solved.”  FVAP has tried to paint a more positive picture of the situation by conducting its own flawed surveys to gloss over the continuing immense problems facing military voters.  While FVAP has made improvements in their surveys, the GAO still questions the underlying reliability of FVAP’s survey methodology.  As recently as 2011, GAO issued a report saying this about FVAP surveys on military voting: 

As part of recent improvements to its survey process, FVAP collaborated with survey professionals in another part of DOD to, among other things, re-word some survey questions and adjust sampling methods in an effort to improve the statistical validity and generalizability of the survey results.  Despite these improvements, concerns remain regarding the evaluative information resulting from the surveys. For example, even though the response rates for some of the surveys are low, FVAP does not conduct a non-response bias analysis that the guidance from the Office of Management and Budget has identified as a necessary step in determining whether survey findings are biased.”

DOD and FVAP’s actions are obvious:  They are now seeking to end the EAC’s collection of data from election officials, end any independent third party oversight, and eliminate the last remaining reason for the EAC’s full or partial continued existence.  To allow FVAP (the very same agency that is responsible for providing assistance to military voters) to wrest the collection of this data to its sole control would be tantamount to allowing the fox to guard the henhouse. 

At PoliticsPA and Philly.com, a discussion of protections against voter fraud.  

“A Pennsylvania Department of State analysis shows 99 percent of eligible voters currently have acceptable photo IDs,” she wrote, “and proposals under discussion will likely expand the list of photo IDs that can be used. PennDot will supply a free ID for those who need one, so the greatest possible cost to taxpayers is slightly more than $1 million, a small price to ensure the validity of each vote.”

At the link.  With over 120,000 active duty military personnel or 29% of the military never having received their requested absentee ballot to vote, this New York Daily News headline has to be the most misleading of the season. 

At JSOnline, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin sued the state Thursday in an attempt to block a new requirement that voters show photo identification at the polls.

The suit argues the state constitution allows the Legislature to exclude felons and the incompetent from voting, but cannot restrict others from voting. The new photo ID law creates a new class of people who cannot vote – those without ID – and thus violates the state constitution, the suit argues.

The case will be heard by Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess.

Republicans who control state government approved the photo ID requirement in May, after trying to do so for more than a decade. It is scheduled to take effect in February.

Republicans argue the measure would discourage voter fraud and give the public more faith in elections. Democrats counter that there are no cases of voter impersonation and that the law will make it harder for minorities and the elderly to vote.

At Politico, an astonishing 120,000 active duty military personnel never received their requested absentee ballots in the 2010 election, a new report shows.

This oversight meant that 29 percent of active duty military voters didn’t get their absentee ballot, up from 16 percent in 2008, according to the study by the Federal Voting Assistance Program.  

Palm Beach Post reports:

TALLAHASSEE — A federal judge in Miami has thrown out a lawsuit against Gov. Rick Scott and his administration over the state’s new elections laws.

U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore ruled that the ACLU, which filed the lawsuit, lacked standing to sue and that it’s too early to rule on whether the new law is unconstitutional.  Scott applauded the decision. “I have always been confident that our elections have been conducted fairly and meet every legal requirement. Today’s decision only confirms that opinion. As we draw nearer to nationally significant elections in 2012, I will continue to ensure the integrity and fairness of Florida elections,” Scott said in a statement.

and this:

Last week, Browning asked the Washington judges to expedite their review of the elections laws and challenged the constitutionality of the “preclearance” requirement.  If the ACLU continues to believe as we do that Florida’s 67 counties should implement election law at the same time, they should support our amended complaint in the federal district court in Washington, D.C., that the coverage formula subjecting five of the state’s counties to preclearance must be declared unconstitutional and removed from law,” Browning said in a statement issued after Moore’s Tuesday ruling.

At the Montgomery Advertiser, former Congressman Artur Davis offers his confession of using race to whip up opposition to voter ID and the fact that the fraud of reverse voter suppression has resulted in the changing the results of close elections.  Not such a myth is it?

“I’ve changed my mind on voter ID laws — I think Alabama did the right thing in passing one — and I wish I had gotten it right when I was in political office.

When I was a congressman, I took the path of least resistance on this subject for an African American politician. Without any evidence to back it up, I lapsed into the rhetoric of various partisans and activists who contend that requiring photo identification to vote is a suppression tactic aimed at thwarting black voter participation

The truth is that the most aggressive contemporary voter suppression in the African American community, at least in Alabama, is the wholesale manufacture of ballots, at the polls and absentee, in parts of the Black Belt.

Voting the names of the dead, and the nonexistent, and the too-mentally-impaired to function, cancels out the votes of citizens who are exercising their rights — that’s suppression by any light. If you doubt it exists, I don’t; I’ve heard the peddlers of these ballots brag about it, I’ve been asked to provide the funds for it, and I am confident it has changed at least a few close local election results.

The activities in Alabama are covered in detail in the book Injustice (link on <—– left of page). The Department of Justice turned a blind eye to this voter fraud.