Re-Post: Bush's EAC (falsely?) implies Shelley's guilt. Why now?

[Stevepol]

VotersUnite.org provides an article about the charges against Shelley which caused his resignation. Sounds like mostly carelessness (accounting due to the pressure he was under) and over-exuberance in trying to fight the political power of the machines (using money for Dem purposes or seemingly Dem purposes). I wonder how much of a role politics played in the federal decision. This is a re-post and I've added some of the very enlightening responses from the original posting.

Here's the link:

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/134...

[Stevepol]

1. Deconstruction of a propaganda piece

This is a re-post of Einsteinia's extremely enlightening response to my earlier posting.

Einsteinia:

Why must we wait for another 60 days until we know thumbs up or down on the EAC findings? Why is this reported now? Is this a politically motivated scheme to send a chill to uppity Secretaries of States across the nation who dare not comply with the HAVA deadlines or decertify partisan voting equipment? Paranoid? Look at the current political situation and ask yourself whether due diligence under these circumstances should include looking behind doors. So, let's look at the timing, and ask: Why now? Right now when Secretaries of States are at a critical decision-making juncture with the Diebold equipment proving easily corruptible and HAVA deadlines looming. Why did they wait this long for their decision and announce it now, with the fine print reading that they'll let us know the true thumbs-up or down on Shelley in 60 days. 60 days will be a date AFTER the HAVA deadlines. They've had all this time and have already conducted their investigations, but they can't tell us anything except to send innuendo that things for our former Secretary of State look baaaaaaad!

Please read the whole article at: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/134...

Deconstruction of Audit finds $3.8 million in election funds improperly spent

JENNIFER COLEMAN

Associated Press

SACRAMENTO -More than $3.8 million in federal election money was spent improperly or without required documentation by former Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, federal auditors said in a report released Wednesday.

First, to gain some perspective: $3.8 million out of $180 million is 2 percent. Second, notice the “OR” clause above. Let’s just say all but $2,000 in question fell into the required better paperwork category, and you’ll get why this is a very misleading newsflash. I refer to it as a newsflash, because lacks any news of substance. It is primarily a rehash of old news and merely invokes a dark prediction about what may come -- it suggests a new audit hearing was held but bases its findings largely on the previous CA hearing, and then offers no verdict.

The audit, commissioned by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission,

The “EAC,” which is the arm of the “Help America Vendor’s Act” which is charged with coming up with protocols and guidelines. The EAC has itself been tardy or non-compliant with the majority of its edicts. It is a council of four political appointees: 2 are republican and 2 are DINOS. Earlier this year, the Chair resigned in disgust because it had no funding. See: http://www.whoscounting.net/EAC.htm

confirms an earlier state audit of Shelley's handling of money given to California under the Help America Vote Act. It examined spending through 2004.

The foundation of this newsflash is the findings of an earlier audit, which at most showed a minor appearance of impropriety, as confirmed by the auditor’s office upon my telephone call inquiry to follow up with questions I had after having attended the audit hearing and after carefully reading through the audit report.

Auditors said about $3 million in spending lacked documentation, such as paying salaries for people who didn't submit time sheets, or was improperly awarded to consultants through no-bid contracts.

Paperwork problem: Shelley has admitted that he was overwhelmed with the barrage of new HAVA requirements and tried to delegate it to others, which obviously backfired.

The audit, conducted by the Department of the Interior's inspector general, another US government entity purged of “dissenters” also found another $777,502 was improperly spent on salaries, promotional memorabilia and other items that were unrelated to the Help America Vote Act.

Hmmmm, voter education pamphlets informing voters that if they lacked confidence in their paperless voting systems that they could request a paper ballot or provisional ballot, which had a picture of Shelley on the back. Why don’t do something productive like investigate our President for hiring political shills?

Congress passed the act in 2002 after the problems with voting machines and access to polling places that surfaced during the 2000 presidential election.

But who wrote HAVA? 3 out of 4 are heavily implicated in the Abramoff scandal.

California has received about $180 million in federal money to upgrade voting equipment and procedures. Federal authorities froze another $170 million after questions arose about Shelley's spending, money that was released in June after Shelley had been replaced.

Yes, please note that above: It was the Feds who froze the money and caused the CA election officials a colossal headache--NOT Shelley. To date, our CA electon officials love to blame their problems on that darn Shelley. However, Shelley, too, had delayed money from being funneled directly into the gullets of partisan vendors when he finally realized that the activists were right--the machines were funky. Now, ironically, it is the CA election officials themselves who are begging Congress from the HAVA deadlines, because there are not yet any good options to purchase.

Shelley, a Democrat, denied wrongdoing but resigned in February after he was accused of mishandling the money, bending state hiring rules to reward political allies and accepting questionable campaign contributions.

Obviously Shelley was a fighter. But if you were in his shoes, could you continue the uphill battle with five government entities investigating you with no legal or financial assistance from the State? Be honest. Would you at some point feel despondent when your fellow democrats turn their backs on you --even when they were justified for fear they might get in the cross-hairs? Then, consider the personal toll on your family. Shelley resigned the day after his mother died. She had been quite healthy before this scandal, but succumbed to pneumonia in the midst of these stressful days. Here, Shelley, who had stood up on behalf of Californians against Diebold and boldly decertified much of their equipment, he who was the first Secty. of State with DRE equipment to mandate a paper trail, he who came up with 25 innovative safeguards until the paper trails could go into effect, and he who wanted to use some of the HAVA funds for poll worker college and voter education received no support, and in a bizarre moebius strip of logic, this is the No. 2 reason why people I speak to think he’s gulity: “If he weren’t gulity, people would have stood up for him.” And so what then, you might ask, is the No. 1 reason why people think he’s guility: Because if he weren’t, the papers would have written about it? Hmmmm, do you mean the same papers that have refused to cover the election integrity scandal from the very beginning? The same media that refused to even mention the GAO heavy indictment against electronic voting systems? Getting back to this point about the audit hearing, if you actually went to the Audit Hearing or read the audit report, you’d know that his big crime was NOT spending money on funky voting equipment. With that the feds froze his funds and caused a lot of grief for election officials who still have to meet the HAVA deadlines with their “use it or lose it” clause, as well as the fact that the DOJ promised a visit for the non-compliant

His successor, Republican Bruce McPherson, agreed with some of the audit's findings, but disputed the auditor's claim that about $2 million in no-bid consulting contracts were inappropriate.

McPherson obviously has some integrity.

Those contracts were cleared for no-bid awards by the state Department of General Services because of a tight deadline to bring California into compliance with the federal law, McPherson said in his response to the audit.

In addition, the office was facing unprecedented pressure from the combination of three elections - the first-ever recall election for a California governor in 2003, followed in 2004 by a presidential primary and a presidential general election, McPherson said.

The federal audit confirms the findings of the California Bureau of State Audits. A state audit in December 2004 found that federal money intended for voter outreach was used by Shelley to pay for consultants who attended partisan Democratic events and promoted Shelley's political achievements.

After an audit for an entire year there were six events, which came under scrutiny. These events were on the timeslips of outside consultants who sought to comply with the outreach component of HAVA. Two were for roundtables that were primarily attended by republicans and the others were for exclusively democrat events. The sum total of this was under $2,000 (and probably under $1,000).

That audit said Shelley poorly managed the money and failed to properly oversee his staff and consultants. It suggested 17 changes in how the secretary of state's office implements the Help America Vote Act.

This, too, is an over broad generalization that boils down to sloppy office management. On page 5 of the Audit report these are listed as the “Highlights” of all the errors. Please read the long, long list of six items and think about our republican party. If you're like me, you'll wonder, "Where's the meat?"

Office of the
Secretary of State
Help America Vote Act of 2002

Presentation by

Elaine M. Howle
California State Auditor

January 10, 2005

Audit Highlights -page 5

1The Office of the Secretary of State’s (office) insufficient planning and poor management practices hampered its efforts to implement the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) provisions promptly.

2 The office’s disregard for proper controls and its poor oversight of staff and consultants led to questionable uses of HAVA funds.

3 The office avoided competitive bidding for many HAVA purchases paid with HAVA funds by improperly using a Department of General Services exemption from competitive bidding and by not following the State’s procurement policies.

4 The office bypassed the Legislature's spending approval authority when it executed consultant contracts and then charged the associated costs to its HAVA administration accounts.

5 The office failed to disburse HAVA funds to counties for the replacement of outdated voting machines within the time frames outlined in its grant application package and county agreements.

6 The State’s chief elections office lacks a policy that strictly prohibits partisan activities.


McPherson told auditors his office has complied with most of those recommendations and is working to implement the rest.

A spokesman for Shelley said many of the changes recommended by the state auditor were started by Shelley.

"As the current administration points out, the office of Secretary of State Kevin Shelley was overburdened by a cyclone of unprecedented and historic forces," said Shelley's spokesman, Sam Singer. "This audit is reflective of the difficult circumstances the Shelley administration faced."

Too bad most people won’t have read down this far nor will they have any context to understand it.
State Sen. Dave Cox, who requested the state audit, said the federal report released Wednesday indicates that Shelley tried to politicize his office.

Let me guess, Sen. Dave Cox is partisan--from the opposing party?

"Todays audit by the EAC shows that while he was secretary of state, Mr. Shelley and his operatives ignored clear policies in order to hire political operatives," Cox, R-Fair Oaks, said in a statement. "They improperly used taxpayer dollars for questionable and improper purchases of self-promotional items and other materials."

Look who is telling us this--this political entity, which even the very conservative Doug Chapin of Electionline.org said was “ad hoc tribunal without real legal authority" to perform and trial of Shelley, Could they be just a bit more specific today as to what they deemed self-promotional items. Could it again be a picture of the Secretary of State on a voter education pamphlet? Is this partisan appointed committee trying to lecture democrats on political propaganda at the taxpayer’s expense?

The Election Assistance Commission will review the federal audit and issue a final report to the state within 60 days, commission spokeswoman Jeannie Layson said. She said it is premature to speculate about possible remedies or penalties.

Why the delay? Could it be because there are no findings, but it’s politically expedient to send this newsflash today to put a chill on any other uppity Secretaries of States who might be thinking of delaying their compliance with the end of the year HAVA deadlines. Or even more politically opportune to scare Secretaries of States who might be emboldened by the recent Diebold hack tests to try to spend their HAVA Jonas for anything other than their funky election equipment?

In the campaign finance probe surrounding Shelley, San Francisco real estate agent Julie Lee is facing eight felony charges that she laundered a state grant for a community center into Shelley's 2002 campaign. Lee has pleaded not guilty.

Very important in a propaganda piece to invoke unrelated stories to cast a suspicious pall over this man’s credibility. Never mind that Attorney General Lockyer exonerated Shelley from any wrongdoing in this case. And for heaven’s sakes, do NOT mention the fact that Shelley was the first in the Secretary of State with paperless voting equipment to mandate paper trails. Do not mention that he boldly decertified Diebold. To mention those facts might not seem “fair and balanced.”

Singer said Shelley remains "quite active in both business and politics" and has not been questioned in the Lee case.

Good limp statement to conclude with--IF you’ve decided you want to perpetuate the deliberate misinformation about Kevin Shelley. And in my opinion this propaganda tactic is the only scandal of described in this article.

[Stevepol]

2. Oops, they forgot about the "sexual harassment complaint" that he "lost"

This is a re-post of a comment from Peace Patriot

(--that was never filed!)

Look, what's going on here is that Shelley was the national leader of the campaign against Diebold and the LACK OF TRANSPARENCY in our election system in 2004. So, forces from the Dark Side got rid of him. Pure and simple. They were probably wiretapping him as a "terrorist," and maybe even had spies/operatives in his office and/or his campaign.

The EAC? These are the people who fucked up our election system so badly that our democracy may never recover. BUSH appointees. Give me a break.

The Democrats in California who cowered in fear (or corruption?) at this "black ops" campaign against an elected Democratic officeholder who DID NOTHING WRONG, and who had the courage to stand up to this goddamned junta and its election theft machinery, ought to be horsewhipped out of the Party.

They were a new and inexperienced leadership of the CA Senate/Assembly--all of the old guard having retired recently--but, with a 2 to 1 Dem edge in both houses, they damn well should not have let this happen.

But you only have to look at people like Connie McCormack, a supposed DEMOCRAT running elections in Los Angeles, who headed the foul county election officials' (the 17 deprived of Diebold) campaign against Shelley, and who is a Diebold and paperless voting advocate, and whose best friend Deborah Seiler was Diebold's chief salesperson in Calif, to realize just how much corruption this Bush/Delay/Dodd $4 billion HAVA boondoggle has caused.

As I said, our democracy may never recover from it. Shelley stood nearly alone against these Bush criminals--Diebold and its CEO and Ohio Bush/Cheney campaign chair, Wally O'Dell, spawn of the most corrupt Republican tyranny in the country--and they took him down. End of story.

[Stevepol]

3. Thanks. I read it. And I read this, too

This is a re-post from Wilms

snip

Of that total, they found more than $3.8 million in questionable spending: Just over $777,000 was spent inappropriately, and just over $3 million lacked supporting documentation.

"Generally, it's harder to resolve (inappropriate spending) versus unsupported costs, because rather than it just being a lack of documentation, there's some reason those costs shouldn't be incurred," said Chuck Wiebe, deputy regional audit manager for the Interior Department in Sacramento.

Auditors objected to $42,256 in legal fees to a law firm that exceeded the hours allowed under a contract. The firm also was hired to do $1,050 worth of speech writing that did not relate to voter education projects.

Auditors also said $308,388 was inappropriately spent on postage and promotional items like buttons and balloons for a 3.75 million-piece mailing of absentee voter applications Shelley wanted to conduct.

snip

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/12/22...


And this one, which around here can be as sacreligious as posting a Faux News link.


snip

Specific examples of questionable spending included:

* $224,632 for postage to mail absentee ballot applications, some of which apparently were sent to voters already registered as permanent absentee voters.

* $83,756 for T-shirts, buttons, balloons and other promotional items, memorabilia or souvenirs, which are not allowed under HAVA. The audit does not say what the items were intended to promote.

* $68,824 that was intended for voter education or poll worker training but instead was used to buy equipment, such as an envelope printer and mail-processing system.

* Equipment purchases in Los Angeles County involving 100 laptop computers and carrying cases, personal computers, monitors, printers, more than 4,500 cellphones, and an array of other electronic and audio equipment, including a pressure washer.

* $1.4 million arising from 34 contracts that do not appear to meet competitive bidding requirements.

* $42,256 in legal services exceeding a contractual limit, and $1,050 for paid legal services involving speechwriting.

Of the $3.8 million in questionable spending identified, McPherson agrees with the findings regarding $1.7 million and disputes those involving $2.14 million, according to the audit. The principal area of disagreement involves $1.9 million in consultant contracts that auditors say did not meet competitive bidding requirements or lacked adequate supporting documents.

snip

http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/14006614p-...


So it still looks to me as if a pile of stuff was pinned on Shelley, and some of it is sticking. (Like lots of investigations.)

When Shelley supporters post about him being railroaded, and I have to google to find out the rest of the story...I accept the poster is a Shelley supporter. That's fine.

I have little doubt there are those who salivated over Shelley demise, perhaps went out of their way to find some trouble and whip it up, perhaps, as I've wondered, even infiltrated his admin. to trip him up. But I'm merely speculating.

And if all that, apart from the infiltration theory, is true, AND Shelley screwed up, them he still screwed up. That the bad guys are lovin' it, or that Shelley opposed Diebold doesn't make it ok.

And if there's an argument that 2% is ok, I haven't heard it, but I'm open.

If anything, I'm sore at Shelley for leaving the position vulnerable.

[papau]

5. Auditors are not Judge and Jury- I turned back audit crap(via SEC)for many

years - meaning final signed off SEC filings did not have the "blue book" accusations because those accusations were opinion and not fact, and just wrong.

I line up with those that believe Shelley is being railroaded with media help.

When someone can tell me that the US Gov spends as per instructed in each bill that is passed by Congress, we can get into state allocations within spending categories.

Likewise when a manager does not have the right to waive a minor contract disbute (like $1050 for writing a summary that was not mentioned in the RFP), let me know.

[Wilms]

6. I didn't understand what you meant with ""blue book" accusations".

Could you explain that for me, and why you think he's being railroaded, and why would someone(s) want to do that to him. Is it Diebold?, the Repubs?, or Dems that were threatened by Shelley (perhaps, as a gubernatorial contestant)? :shrug:

I figure a lot of spending is done out of line, but I have no perspective on the disputed amounts and common, if out of compliance, practice.

In your last paragraph, you refer to a "manager" waiving $1050. I'm not following that, either. Please explain, and contrast with, for instance, the $42,256 mentioned.

What I've been unable to do is to have a discussion about the more serious accusations that haven't been explained. I'm sure plenty was piled on. But cherry-picking those items easiest to dismiss is the beginning, not the end, of considering the matters impartially. And I want to consider the matter impartially. But I might not be in the right forum for that.

-on edit-

I admit, whatever Shelley did, THIS ought to be investigated.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5721720

[papau]

7. When the CFO of an organization has an audit done, the initial report is

discussed with the auditors and items that they intend to claim are in error are explained to the auditors one more time but this time at the level of the CFO.

The outside the audit folks (inside audit staff or outside audit firm) then report to the Board of Directors (often the audit committee of the Board) via a blue covered report that in my years was refered to as the blue book. In that book would be a discussion of any "errors" that the auditors still felt both existed and were material.

The Board and the auditors and the CFO would then discuss at a board meeting what would be sent to the SEC if it was a report that the SEC must see. The auditors could agree to rewrite the Blue book if at this point they saw the light, or the Board could accept the blue book with the "errors" found becoming notes to the report, or the auditors could quit or be dismissed. When the board accepted the Blue book report, any "errors" discussed in that report were very serious, and the ASAP corrections/explanations etc. made life interesting for the CFO, and all departments involved.

The reason changes could expected between the initial auditors report and the final blue book was that FASB rules are not bright line, and opinion can differ, as well as legal opinions.

I do not know why anyone gets dumped on - power plays are a game we play to amuse ourselves. There could be a point to the attack, or it could be someone just feeling their oats.

I also do not know the law in CA and the State Gov organization. However when contracts were reviewed in my past life , changes to the contract were not uncommon, disputes as to whether or not proper procedure was followed were not uncommon, and amounts paid being excessive or to folks where there was a conflict of interest alleged were also discussed. Since most places do not do cash accounting, there is always a difference between what is put through the books as transactions, and what is recorded as the the assets and liabilities (one excerise I was involved with in a Fortune 50 insurance company came up with $1.28 as the difference in a $100 million dollars of transactions - and that small amount was not considered "material"). Materiality is usually expressed as a percentage of some benchmark like the years profits or or total surplus or capital or revenue.

A contract is managed by someone. That person always has a limited ability to change the contract. So agreeing to pay for a summary for $1040 when such a writing was not requested in the RFB is not a big deal. Likewise legal fees going over by $42,256 because the hours estimated in the RFB forgot some 200 hours that were needed and that were later approved by the manager is not a big deal.

It appears Shelley WAS investigated, and any problems or illegal activity by those under him was not of his making. Like any good CFO, Shelley appears to note that just the fact that there were problems implies lack of business or audit or accounting controls (even if there were bad folks, you are supposed to be supercop and to in effect prevent bad deeds - and to catch evil well before any outside audit), and Shelley therefore fell on his sword for the good of the organization. Of course one rarely has the money to review transaction procedures for weakness, so the CFO firing is the cheap solution.


My read of the write-ups to date have me believing Shelley did NOTHING wrong, and that the audit was called for political purposes, and that the media is running with it for political reasons.

Using an audit to attack is not uncommon, and Diebold and black box voting were the visible areas that the GOP might have found Shelley worthy of attack via audit.

But nothing can be proved.

We are left with the only fact we have - namely "Shelley did nothing wrong" per the latest reports - and we move on to next question, please.

Anything more than that is playing in the Bush/Rove smear machine playground.

[Wilms]

8. Thanks for the discussion.

It's been difficult getting this story vetted on this board, without being treated poorly for posing a question. So I appreciate.

I read a DailyKOs post months ago. I think the poster's name was Paul. Sounded like he worked for Shelley. He said the books were a problem and that Shelley had repeatedly told staff to turn material in, I guess, so it could be sorted out. The poster said the staff in question never complied. He also explained Shelley's temper in terms of a guy who is demanding top notch work from his staff. Those two snips described a situation lacking control.

Perhaps those staff were the managers to which you referred. Perhaps, too, the "recommended controls" are controls Shelley began to implement realizing there was a problem.

So rather than Shelley being crooked, as some my want others to think, he merely screwed up (as CEO/CFO of the Office), and people went out of their way to hang him over it. Shelley, playing "the buck stops here" part, gracefully resigns, only to be described in print as resigning in disgrace. Is that what you're saying?

Are you saying that resigning is appropriate? More to the point, would it have been inappropriate to not "fall on the sword" assuming this analysis of events?

[papau]

10. Yes I am saying the scene played out as it usually does, and falling on

his sword is expected - and indeed folks putting out "resigned in disgrace" is pretty standard as the CFO always has "friends" that want that message out there.

Glad I could help!

:-)

[Stevepol]

4. Regarding the "campaign finance probe issue"

This is a re-post from Amaryllis which answers questions posed in the previous post

As far as this quote from the linked article "In the campaign finance probe surrounding Shelley, San Francisco real estate agent Julie Lee is facing eight felony charges that she laundered a state grant for a community center into Shelley's 2002 campaign. Lee has pleaded not guilty."

Interesting the way they report this, insinuating that Shelley may be guilty here, and they DON'T bother to mention that CA A.G. Lockyear found him "innocent of any wrongdoing" in this case. This really makes me wonder how much of the rest of the article presents "facts" in such a manner as to imply guilt when there is none.

See this:
http://www.abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=News&id=29...

Subject: Attorney General Bill Lockyer's comments re: Kevin Shelley and the Julie Lee case that appeared on ABC's local affiliate in San Francisco KGO Channel 7, on April 8, 2005, when Ms. Lee made her first court appearance in the State case:

"State Attorney General Bill Lockyer says he's cleared Shelley of any wrongdoing in the Julie Lee matter. We caught up with Lockyer at a luncheon this afternoon in Berkeley.

Bill Lockyer, (D) California Attorney General: 'Kevin Shelley was not a participant in this crime. He is absolutely innocent of any personal involvement in the crimes that Julie Lee committed.'

Lockyer says even though Shelley's campaign got money from Julie Lee, he played no role in the crime."

[furrball]

9. Bingo! Finally, I hope people

are beginning to realize how the corporate media are co-conspirators in disinformation.

And once they start their bulldozers in one direction--it's really hard for the truth to get unburied.