Link at the Washington Post. As we enter the next round of budget cuts or taxes, it is becoming more likely that the EAC and FEC will need to merge duties to save money. However, Democrats argued to the supercommittee that certain EAC duties should not be merged into the FEC because they are “increasingly deadlocked and incapacitated.” Now, there may be some reasons not to disband the EAC; however, this isn’t one of them. In fact, many observers would note that the EAC would be the agency that is unnecessarily partisan, discriminatory, deadlocked, and now chronically incapacitated (due to a lack of quorum). Last time I checked, the FEC had a full compliment of commissioners. Increasingly, the EAC is becoming the “deserted agency” as NASS has repeatedly called for an end to its mission and now FVAP is overtly lobbying to wrestle away the EAC survey of overseas and military voters. The EAC was established by the 2002 Help America Vote Act as an independent, bipartisan commission tasked with establishing election reform guidelines and handing out federal money to states to help them meet those rules and buy new voting machines. Those tasks have largely been completed, House Administration Republicans say, and the EAC spends far too much on staff and overhead to complete the work it has left. Committee Democrats strongly disagree with the majority’s recommendation, arguing that closing the EAC would shift its responsibilities — including certifying voting machines — to what they call “the increasingly deadlocked and incapacitated” Federal Election Commission.