Is HAVA Being Abused?

Is HAVA Being Abused?
The 1990 Voting System Standards are Certainly Outdated. Are They Illegal, Too?
by John Gideon and Ellen Theisen (pdf)

Section 222(e) of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) provides that the 2002 Voting System Standards adopted by the Federal Election Commission are deemed to be adopted by the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) as the first set of voluntary voting system guidelines adopted under HAVA.

HAVA was enacted on October 29, 2002. So why has the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) continued to use the 1990 standards as the basis for qualifying some voting systems AFTER federal law declared the 2002 standards to be the official guidelines?

Before HAVA, NASED was in charge of the qualification process. HAVA gave the EAC responsibility for administering the qualification process, but since the Administration was nearly 10 months late appointing the commission members, the qualification process remained in the hands of NASED, and little changed.

In this process, voting systems are tested by Independent Testing Authorities (ITA) against federal Voting System Standards (VSS). Once the system passed the testing, NASED reviewed the report from the ITA and if all was in order, NASED assigned the system an official ID# indicating that it met the federal standards. State election officials consider NASED-qualification an important factor when they are certifying systems for use in the state, and in some states, qualification is required by law.

So, when we saw a news article referencing a rule that requires all voting systems to meet the 2002 standards after January 2005, we were surprised. We contacted Brian Hancock, the ITA Secretariat appointed by the EAC, and asked him about it. In response, he wrote that, "NASED has incorporated testing to the 2002 VSS in several stages since these Standards were implemented. The attached NASED advisories explain this process."

>>snip<<
http://www.votersunite.org/info/hava-abuse1.asp

EAC Executive Director Selected

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x372481

John, what's the publishing date on your piece?

Publishing date is today. We just finished it this morning. We have another article ready to roll out mid-week in regards to corporate control of the alphabet soup of organizations: NASS, NASED, EAC, etc.

As always.

Now, the question is....what is the penalty for violating the law?

In the course of meeting with our state legislature here in Tennessee, we had one prominent Republican legislator suggest that we needed to convene a citizens advisory panel to help direct voting system decisions. Then when I met with the Tennessee Disability Coalition (TDC) Director about VVPB and MRMR issues (who agreed that the disabled don't just want easier access to vote, they also want their votes counted properly too), I learned that there ALREADY was a HAVA citizens advisory group which had not been convened for over 10 months by our statewide Coordinator of Elections.

We suggested having the members of the HAVA citizens advisory committee call its own meetings. Today, when I got home, here is the message I received from the TDC Director:

"(Our TDC Board Chairman) reported back from his meeting with Riley Darnell (the Tennessee Secretary of State). Riley has agreed to have the HAVA committee meet and to let the committee elect a chair that can call meetings and work directly with (the statewide Coordinator of Elections). (The TDC Board Chair) is going to get with (the Coordinator) right away to get a committee meeting set up."

We need to do everything possible to make HAVA work for us, including forging alliances with the disabled AND making HAVA citizens advisory committees have their own power base and independence, rather than simply rubber-stamping what the Coordinator of Elections wants to have happen. We feel real good about this latest step, as well as getting an invitation to meet with the statewide members of the TN Disability Voters group in the next three weeks.

Wonderful.

Monday, May 23, 2005

Tom Wilkey to serve as EAC executive director

Last week the Election Assistance Commission announced that Tom Wilkey will be the federal agency's executive director. According to a story in New York's Newsday, Wilkey will be paid $131,400 per year and begins his four year term on June 20th.

Mr. Wilkey has long been involved with election institutions such as the Election Center and NASED, the National Association of State Election Directors. Up until recently, these two institutions were responsible for overseeing federal testing of voting equipment, often in a nontransparent manner, much to the disappointment of election verification activists. Hopefully in his new role Mr. Wilkey will be more responsive to the public's need for accountability and transparency in voting systems and voting system qualification.

According to the Newsday article, Mr Wilkey also has "served as executive director of New York's state board from 1992-2003 and has worked in election administration for 34 years, starting his career in Buffalo as an elections clerk for Erie County."
(# 3:51 PM)

http://www.cvf.org/news/blog/2005_05_01_blogarchive.html#111688867477251325