==PHILIP STARK ET AL V. UNITED STATES ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION== Fighting capture of election regulators by voting machine manufacturers.'
Philip Stark, a federally appointed advisor to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (“EAC"), and Free Speech For People filed a federal lawsuit against the EAC. The lawsuit alleges that the EAC violated the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (“HAVA”), and the Federal Advisory Committee Act ("FACA") by unlawfully holding private meetings with voting machine vendors to discuss proposed federal voting system standards after the closure of the public notice and comment period. These meetings resulted in the EAC revising the federal voting system standards to weaken voting system security requirements, to the benefit of voting system manufacturers. The material revisions were released mere days before the Commission voted to approve the standards, without proper notice and comment procedure required by law. The lawsuit seeks to establish that the meetings between the EAC and voting machine manufacturers violated federal law. It seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, asking the court to hold unlawful and to set aside those provisions in the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (“WSG”) 2.0 that were negotiated directly with voting machine manufacturers in an unlawful, nonpublic, proceeding. This lawsuit seeks to ensure that the WSG 2.0 contains only those provisions that were established through lawful procedures, pursuant to the principles of transparency and open government. https://freespeechforpeople.org/philip-stark-et-al-v-united-states-election-assistance-commission/
