Election Assistance Comm. was completely zeroed out in the appropriations!

[Up2Late]

(This is the latest 2004 Election Interview from the Rolling Stone section call National Affairs Daily. This is related to the RFK Jr. article. I also posted this at this link: <http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2665256&mesg_id=2665256> )

6/6/06, 3:29 pm EST

2004 Election Interview: The Rev. DeForest Soaries

Republican DeForest Soaries served as the first chair of the federal Election Assistance Commission, set up in the wake of the Florida fiasco of 2000 to oversee ongoing reform of American voting. The agency was constantly underfunded: “We really had to put together a federal agency with spit,” Soaries says, “when that agency was supposed to bring about reforms in voting for federal elections.”The EAC was supposed to ensure that the billions in federal funds spent on new voting technology was spent wisely: “There are legitimate questions in circulation about the integrity of electronic voting,” he says, “and the reality is that no one really knows the answers. Because we don’t have enough research, and the research budget that was authorized by the Congress for the EAC to get to the bottom of these issues was completely zeroed out in the appropriations. The EAC itself was only authorized through last year. So what serious person would accept an appointment to a federal agency that’s no longer authorized?”

Soaries resigned a year ago in disgust, calling the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress uncommitted to improving America’s sorry election apparatus. This May, National Affairs Daily talked with Soaries, who is speaking out after a year of self-imposed silence.

ROLLING STONE: What led you to resign?

DeForest Soaries: It wasn’t until I worked in Washington on an issue as generic as this that I realized how pitiful and perhaps how hopeless Washington really is. For God’s sake…if any issue should be the catalyst for bipartisan cooperation, this is the issue: voting.

It was probably the worst experience of my life. I found that there is very little interest in Washington for true election reform. That neither the White House nor either house of the Congress seems to be as committed to guaranteeing democratic participation in this country as we seem to be in other countries. It’s an embarrassment that we don’t have a broad enough consensus among political leaders that true reform should take place. I could count the members of Congress on one hand that took these issues seriously....

(more at link)

<http://rollingstone.com/nationalaffairs>

(Also, if you scroll down past this article, you will find a Howard Dean interview from yesterday too.)

[BeFree]

1. Hey Manjoo

Now this is a cause worthy of your valiant efforts, eh?

Naw, instead he attacks the first leader to show up calling for reform. Manjoo is a traitor to the cause.

[Up2Late]

2. kick n/t

:kick:

[Up2Late]

3. Link update: Voting Reform: Without It, the Next Election Is Also Doomed

Kick to Update link and OP headline.

This is THE issue folks, If we don't care about this one, we might as well pack it in.

<http://www.rollingstone.com/nationalaffairs/?p=176>