Gonzalez Denounces Efforts to Abolish the Election Assistance Commission

Press Release

Congressman Charles A. Gonzalez (TX -- 20), Ranking Member of the House Administration's Subcommittee on Elections, released the following statement today denouncing Republican efforts to abolish the Election Assistance Commission. The bill, The Election Support Consolidation and Efficiency Act (H.R. 672), is being debated in the House tonight and will be voted on tomorrow:

"Bexar County will save as much as $100,000 thanks to just one of the presentations that EAC makes available," said Rep. Gonzalez. "This is just one example of the value this agency has brought to the 8,000 election jurisdictions across the country. Few federal agencies can match EAC's record of empowering state and local governments and it would be a mistake to attack EAC and risk disenfranchising American voters."

The Election Assistance Commission was created by Congress and signed into law by President Bush in 2002 in response to the fiasco of the 2000 presidential election, in which perhaps millions of Americans were denied the right to vote or had their ballots not counted by voting machines that failed to accurately record voters' choices.

By terminating the EAC, responsibilities for inspecting and certifying voting machines would be moved back to the Federal Election Commission, which oversaw them in 2000. The majority of EAC's other functions, including producing voting materials in half a dozen languages and sharing best practices from election officials across the country, would cease to exist.

Source