Documents released as a result of oversight hearings in the House have revealed that the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), the bipartisan body charged with implementing the Help America Vote Act, has rejected or altered research on voter fraud and intimidation and the impact of voter identification laws. This marks another instance in which the government has been accused of manipulating information. The details of the EAC controversy, described in an April 11 New York Times article, sparked prompt responses in the House and Senate, with several members writing to the EAC demanding an explanation and questioning whether partisan considerations have affected their decisions. On April 16, the EAC announced that it has asked its Inspector General to conduct an independent investigation into its research contracting procedures. In May and September of 2005, the EAC commissioned two reports, one on voter fraud and intimidation and one on voter identification requirements. In November 2006, when the reports had not been published, People for the American Way (PFAW) submitted a petition signed by 13,000 people seeking release of the report on voter fraud and intimidation. In December 2006, the EAC released the report, titled Election Crimes: An Initial Review and Recommendations for Further Study. It was promptly criticized in a PFAW analysis, which called the report a whitewash for ignoring key facts. In March, the EAC voted not to adopt the study on voter identification requirements, which was conducted by the Rutgers University's Eagleton Institute. The Eagleton report found that voter identification requirements and other laws intended to address fraud can reduce voter turnout, particularly among minorities. However, an EAC statement said since the report focused on one election year, it "was not sufficient to draw any conclusions." Also in March, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government held a hearing at which Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) asked the EAC for a copy of the draft voter fraud report submitted by the researchers, Tova Wang of the Century Foundation and Job Serebrov, an election law expert. In April, the subcommittee released the original draft report. In an April 11 press release, Hinchey and Subcommittee chair Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY) said, "Significant changes were made to the findings of outside experts before the final report was released….In hiding a draft report from the public that is significantly different from the final version, the EAC has created a lot more questions than it has answered while stunting debate on the issue." The New York Times article also was published on April 11. It noted several alterations from the original draft report to the final version released by the EAC. These include:

• the original report found little evidence of polling place fraud, while the final report said there is "a great deal of debate on the pervasiveness of fraud."
• the original report found "evidence of some continued outright intimidation and suppression" of voters, but the final report said voter suppression is also a topic of debate.
• the original report found "false registration forms have not resulted in polling place fraud", but the final version blamed nonprofit organizations, claiming "registration drives by nongovernmental organizations as a source of fraud."

An EAC statement released on April 11 responded to the news by saying the agency would examine its contracting and decision-making process on research and reports. On April 12, another New York Times article found that "Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew elections, according to court records and interviews." The publicity prompted Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Richard Durbin (D-IL) to write the EAC seeking answers to 20 questions on the process and decisions relating to the two reports. One question directly asked, "Did the commissioners or commission senior staff receive any outside communication or pressure to change or not release the entire draft report or portions of the draft language on the voter identification report?" A letter from Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) expressed alarm at "what appears to be an emerging pattern by the EAC to hold off on publicly releasing reports as well as modifying reports that are released." Citing the problems with the voter fraud and identification reports, she asked the EAC for copies of all versions of the pending, overdue report on absentee ballots and military and overseas voting. On April 16, the EAC asked its Inspector General to conduct an investigation. The announcement asked that the voter fraud and identification reports be specifically reviewed, and included copies of the letters from members of Congress. The EAC's problems appear not to be isolated incidents. Former EAC Commissioner Ray Martinez told the New York Times that while he was on the commission, he argued unsuccessfully that all reports, both drafts and final versions, should be made public. Unfortunately, this is not the first time the Bush administration has come under fire for manipulating information to make reports more consistent with current policy positions. Such manipulations have occurred in terrorism statistics, economic reports, and reports on polar bears. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) compiled a report, Politics And Science in the Bush Administration, documenting dozens of cases where the Bush administration altered scientific information to make it fit policy positions. For instance, in 2005, it was uncovered that a Council on Environmental Quality official, Philip Cooney, heavily edited several government climate change reports to downplay the reliability of the science and magnitude of the problem. In a recent House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing, Cooney acknowledged that some of his edits on the climate reports were made "to align these communications with the administration's stated policy."