Why is Hans von Spakovsky so hell-bent on Jan. 1, ‘06 “HAVA compliance”?

The presidential nomination of “voting integrity” expert Hans von Spakovsky to the Federal Election Commission casts an ominous light on the Help America Vote Act pushed through Congress in October 2002.
As the Administration’s chief election counsel in the Department of Justice, Spakovsky has been advocating strict enforcement of the HAVA legislation, particularly of the requirement that all States be equipped with new uniform election technology, and that they create centralized, computerized statewide voter registration list for use in federal elections by January 1, 2006. States failing to meet the HAVA time tables will be sued by the Justice Department, Spakovsky warns. At a February 2005 meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of States, he announced that after the deadline, agency lawyers would pursue civil action against any state they believe is violating the law.
Meanwhile evidence has been piling up that the electronic voting systems hastily purchased across the country are riddled with security problems and prone to hacking. After a non-partisan Government Accounting Office report concluded that e-voting data could be altered surreptitiously, two Florida counties decertified their Diebold machines when a hacking test showed that their electronic memory cards could turn losers into winners without leaving any trace. The naïve trust placed by election officials across the country in such insecure and unverifiable technology is all the more shocking, in light of the fact that 2005 has been called “the worst year for breaches of computer security” by cyber-security experts.
The controversial Hans von Spakovsky nomination also draws attention to another peril of the HAVA legislation, the dangers lurking behind the creation of statewide voter databases. As Election Commissioner in Atlanta, Spakovsky designed the plan to remove felons from the election rolls that was used by ChoicePoint in Florida in the 2000 elections. The notorious statewide purge resulted in the mistaken disenfranchisement of thousands of mostly Democratic minority voters and was decisive in putting George W. Bush in the White House. As Greg Palast sums it up: “After all, one man’s overzealous purge is another man’s inauguration!” Spakovsky is also an ardent supporter of the controversial voter photo ID requirement and he supported the DeLay Texas redistricting against the objection of the Voting Rights experts in the Justice Department.
What will be the impact of the statewide computerization of voter registration lists pushed by HAVA compliance chief Spakovsky? The security and proprietary pitfalls of the electronic voting industry are repeated with the outsourcing of voter records to private, partisan database vendors. How many voting records could dissolve into cyberspace, or disappear in the black boxes of the database industry? Must we the voters wait until November ’06 to find out that our names are no longer on the rolls? Will Democrats in Congress continue to sit still until they have been unseated by the HAVA cyberscam?
Not only is the nomination of voter repression expert Hans von Spakovsky to the Federal Election Commission, where he would sit until April 30, 2011, an insult to voters. It is also one more indication that the election reform law disguised under the cushy name of “Help America Vote Act” was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

there's no link, it's googled together.

er ah counties--- really

ANd since many jurisdictions have bought equipment that is not HAVA compliant -- with HAVA finds--- where is said suit/s?

ANd actually since Section 401 of HAVA makes it a crime-non HAVA compliance-- that would be criminal action -- not civil.

"What will be the impact of the statewide computerization of voter registration lists pushed by HAVA compliance chief Spakovsky?" you ask.

My answer in two words: VOTER SUPPRESSION. That's what it's all about!

This guy goes, they need to defund the FEC just to get rid of him. It doesn't do any good anyway. That would make a real point, populate regulatory commissions with anti democracy tools and we'll defund them.

Wow! This needs to get out!

You hit the nail on the head autorank!
It's election cleansing, turned into a science. No more embarassingly long lines, no torn voter registration forms, no scare tactics. Electronic purging, efficient, clean and, above all, invisible.

what Deborah Bowen, SoS CA D-candidate says about secret voting software applies to voter databases too:
“The Help American Vote Act was intended to make it easier
for people to vote and to improve the accuracy of the vote
count....If ...there’s no guarantee those votes will be counted
accurately, California will have wasted millions of taxpayer
dollars and pulled the rug out from under our democracy in the process."
HAVA enforcement chief Spakovsky wants to put partisan SoS and private database companies who operate in secrecy in a position of total control over who is or isn't on the rolls.

Of all the shady dealings that happened in the 2000 Florida election, the so-called "felon" purge had to be the most corrupt, as well as the most costly. Thank you for posting this.

The title is momentous! Are they finally waking up and daring to speak out the truth?
Will 2006 be the year of the revival of electoral democracy?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2342098

I still don't believe that they would cover "controversial" election fraud stuff in their news section.