Voting commission plagued by problems

Foot-dragging?
Allegations of foot-dragging and whitewashing most notably concerned reports commissioned by the agency on two contentious issues: election tampering and requiring photo ID at the polls.

Commissioners created trouble for themselves by holding on to drafts for months, and by extensively rewriting one without the permission of the authors, according to testimony from election advocates before members of the House Appropriations Committee.

The evaluation of election fraud, by the Century Foundation think tank and an Arkansas attorney, found little evidence of voter impersonation or of felons trying to illegally cast ballots. The commission rewrote the report's findings to say "there is a great deal of debate over the pervasiveness of fraud."

The second report, a Rutgers University study, urged caution when requiring photo ID at the polls. The survey found that states imposing strict identification regulations experienced turnout rates nearly 5 percent lower than jurisdictions with less restrictive laws.

Democratic members of Congress and election advocates harshly criticized the agency over those delays and revisions, saying they undermined public faith in both the commission and election reform.

'We were deliberative'
Commissioners countered they were doing their best under difficult circumstances.

"I am not at all surprised that my former agency was perhaps slow in delivering some of those products," said Ray Martinez, a Democratic appointee who served for 2 1/2 years before resigning for personal reasons in 2006. "But we were deliberative. We were contemplative."

A yearlong investigation by agency Inspector General Curtis Crider followed.

In findings recently released, Crider said he found no "improper reasons" or "political motivations" behind the revisions. However, he criticized the way in which commission members handled the study, calling it poorly conceived and managed.

Commissioners acknowledge there have been mistakes on the bumpy road to voting reform, but say they were honest blunders.

"Have we done everything perfect? No, we haven't," said Donetta Davidson, a Republican who previously served as Colorado's secretary of state. She was sworn in two years ago to replace Soaries.

After the fraud report dustup, the commission posted more than 40,000 internal documents on its Web site. Criticized by Congress members as well as the agency's inspector general for lacking procedural rules and operating behind closed doors with little transparency, commission staff now post Web casts of agency meetings and copies of research reports.

"It takes time to get things right," Davidson said.

Some obligations met
Despite its woes, commissioners have been able to meet some obligations, including establishing voting guidelines, though voluntary, for election jurisdictions, and teaching election officials how to distribute "provisional" ballots — paper ballots considered the antidote to Florida's punch-card, "hanging chad" design debacle.

"A lot of people can't fully appreciate what it's like," said Gracia Hillman, the only original commissioner still with the agency. A Democrat and former president of the League of Women Voters, Hillman was nominated by Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who would later become the first female speaker of the House.

"We were not only established in response to a crisis, we also have a rotating, two-year deadline to help local officials with elections," said Hillman. "The federal government is just not kind toward quick turnarounds."

Soaries, who has no regrets about quitting, nonetheless sympathizes with current members and the obstacles they still face.

"I feel so sorry for them," he said. "They are victims of the way the agency started. They're still playing catch-up. It's a shame. What they're supposed to be doing is critical to the functioning of democracy."

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