Wait, isn’t this an election year? The kind that will see voters stepping into booths and casting ballots, pulling levers and punching buttons? Bad timing then for the Election Assistance Commission to be completely leaderless. It’s the body that was created in the wake of the 2000 presidential election’s hanging-chad debacle and tasked with overseeing federal election standards. Not one of the body’s four commissioner seats is filled, and it looks like they’ll remain vacant for the foreseeable future. Adding to the leadership vacuum, the commission’s executive director left in November. Filling in has been general counsel Mark Robbins — although he has been nominated to another post and could leave the agency if confirmed.
Routine business in the lead-up to the elections hasn’t ground to a halt, exactly — there’s still a $16.2 million budget and a bunch of folks showing up to work. And before the commissioners turned out the lights, they passed rules delegating staff with day-to-day duties such as approving voting equipment. But without commissioners, the commission can’t rule on appeals, hold meetings or hearings, or approve new standards that were supposed to be finalized in 2010. And that seems to be just the way Republicans want it. Congressional Republicans have blasted the EAC, saying it has outlived its original purpose of doling out federal election-aid money to states. The House passed a bill to kill it entirely.
Full Article: No election commissioners? No problem. – The Washington Post.
