The U.S. Election Assistance Commission released a report earlier this month claiming there is “no consensus” on the existence or pervasiveness of voter fraud. That’s a rather curious conclusion, especially since the EAC earlier released a status report on the research it commissioned, which conveyed that “there is widespread but not unanimous agreement that there is little polling place fraud, or at least much less than is claimed, including voter impersonation, ‘dead’ voters, noncitizen voting, and felon voters.” Other findings from the earlier status report that don’t appear in the final version: “Most people believe that false registration forms have not resulted in polling place fraud…,” “On balance, more researchers find [polling place fraud] to be less of a problem than is commonly described in the political debate,” “There is much evidence, and as much concern, about structural forms of disenfranchisement as about intentional abuse of the system,” “Deceptive practices, e.g. targeted flyers and phone calls providing misinformation, were a major problem in 2004,” “Voter intimidation continues to be focused on minority communities….,” and “There was only one self-evident instance of a non-citizen registering to vote.”

So, what do you suppose might be going on here?

The two consultants hired by the EAC to conduct the voter fraud research are my Century Foundation colleague Tova Wang, who is a Democrat, and Republican lawyer Job Serebrov. They contractually can not discuss or release the work they did for the commission. I personally haven’t seen the report they submitted and have no personal knowledge about what’s in it. Currently, one of the two Democratic slots on the four-member commission is vacant. And one of the Republican commissioners will soon be replaced by a White House aide and former counsel to the Republican National Committee with no relevant experience. To think, politics might have something to do with this… For more detail, check out this analysis by People for the American Way.

Maybe the commission thinks the consultants’ research reached the wrong conclusions. If so, it should release their work and let the public judge. That would be far more honest than implying that the consultants were responsible for the mealy-mouthed – indeed, inaccurate – findings in the final product.