Brennan Center Calls for Greater Transparency and Accountability of the EAC
By Brennan Center of New York University
April 17, 2007
Last week, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) announced that it will review its internal processes for releasing research and reports to the public and for awarding research contracts, and yesterday it asked its inspector general to review its procedures. We hope that these announcements signal the agency’s willingness to embrace greater transparency and public accountability—qualities that have been lacking from many of its operations to date.
The EAC’s announcements come on the heels of intense pressure from the Brennan Center and other advocates, members of Congress, and the media for the EAC to release two reports on important voting issues that the agency had commissioned from expert consultants with taxpayer dollars: a report on voter identification, and a report on voting fraud and voter intimidation. Despite the fact that both reports were completed by the summer of 2006, the EAC did not release the voter identification report until March 30, 2007, and it has never released the voting fraud and voter intimidation report (the latter report, however, was leaked to the New York Times last week). (The EAC did, however, produce its own report on election crimes based in part on the consultants’ research.) The Brennan Center had requested both reports in October 2006 under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), but the EAC denied our request and our subsequent appeal.
The Brennan Center has consistently denounced the EAC’s decision to suppress or delay the release of these expert reports. There is simply no legitimate reason for a public agency to withhold research on matters of public concern, particularly in this instance, when the research was commissioned with taxpayer dollars from established experts in the field pursuant to a statutory mandate that the agency make studies on election administration issues available to public. The duty to disclose is especially strong with respect to a public agency whose primary purpose is to serve as “a national clearinghouse and resource” on election administration information and procedures.
Worse yet, the EAC withheld these reports at a critical time when the issues addressed in the reports were the subjects of debate and decisions at all levels of government. During the period in which the reports were suppressed, the legislatures of more than half of the states considered and voted on bills to impose more restrictive voter ID requirements on citizens; a number of federal and state courts – including the United States Supreme Court – heard and decided lawsuits challenging restrictive voter ID laws; and the U.S. House of Representatives debated and passed a bill that would have imposed requirements on all voters. All of these debates and decisions took place without the benefit of the reports’ findings on the significant impact of voter ID laws in reducing voter turnout and the low prevalence of the kind of voter fraud targeted by ID laws.
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