Elections observer will oversee changes
By Bill Lambrecht
St. Louis Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau
01/08/2005

WASHINGTON - Paul DeGregorio began Election Day watching Bronx voters manipulate creaky, levered machines that had been around since Franklin Roosevelt was president.

Then he traveled to New Jersey to gauge the value of bilingual polling in heavily Hispanic precincts. Next, it was on to Chicago, where he joined a phalanx of lawyers assembled to sort through snafus in provisional voting.

The sun had set by the time DeGregorio landed in St. Louis, where he sped from the airport to the 22nd Ward to learn why some 200 people were still standing in line to vote, then watched the counting of votes in St. Louis County and later at a marathon session back in the city. He arrived at his home in Creve Coeur at 4 a.m.

All of that added up to nearly 24 straight hours of election monitoring for DeGregorio, who was elevated last week to vice-chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

His job as the No. 2 person at the nation's new election watchdog agency will put DeGregorio at the center of election reform during a time of epochal transition in how many Americans vote. In Missouri alone, 65 percent of voters will see new voting equipment in 2006; in Illinois, about 60 percent.

"I want to make sure that every person in the country, regardless of their philosophy or their interests, has the opportunity to participate in the election process and confidence that their vote has been counted accurately," he said.

Those words might sound a tad Pollyannaish given the vagaries of democracy and the irregularities in recent elections. But those who know DeGregorio say he has an uncommon passion for the nuts and bolts of voting.

Since his days as director of elections in St. Louis County, DeGregorio, 52, has assisted elections in more than 20 countries and advised countless election officials around the United States. He may be headed to Iraq shortly for that monumental election.

One year ago, President George W. Bush appointed DeGregorio, a Republican, to a two-year term on the commission, which pays a salary of $140,000. He commutes weekly to Washington to work, typically catching a 6:50 a.m. flight on Monday and returning home Friday evening.

Congress established the four-member commission in the 2002 Help America Vote Act in response to the 2000 presidential election debacle in Florida. Never before has the federal government involved itself so broadly in elections.

Few voters have heard of the commission, but 7,000 election officials around the county know all about it. Thus far, it has distributed $2.4 billion in federal funds for election reform, including $61 million to Missouri and $45 million to Illinois. (Illinois is in line to receive another $98 million.)

The commission's profile likely will grow when it publishes a report to Congress this month evaluating the 2004 election and holds hearings around the country.

It is easy to find pockets of voters, especially in Ohio, who believe that systematic vote suppression, and perhaps fraud, played a role in Bush's victory over Democratic challenger John Kerry.

Last week, Michigan Rep. John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, issued a report alleging "numerous, serious election irregularities" in Ohio.

The Rev. Bill Moss of Columbus, who is suing to overturn the Ohio results, recalled in Washington last week that he had to wait in line to vote for nearly four hours because of a shortage of voting machines in predominately African-American precincts. Many went home without casting their votes, he said.

"Never have we experienced anything like we experienced on Election Day 2004," said Moss, a five-time school board member who led a contingent of Ohioans to the Capitol last week.

But Congress, after a rare formal challenge by Democrats and an emotion-charged two-hour debate, ratified the Electoral College tally from Ohio and around the country.

DeGregorio agrees with that outcome, saying he has seen "no discrepancies or problems that call into question the fact that President Bush carried Ohio."

As for the long waits at some polling places, he remarked: "I have seen people in Nigeria wait three or four hours in 105-degree temperature in the hot sun. They don't complain and they are pleased to participate in a presidential election."

Still, he says, it is inexcusable for any U.S. voters to have to wait more than an hour to vote and that his commission intends in one of its hearings in Ohio to hear about misallocation of voting machines and allegations that many people were disenfranchised.

Joking with Putin

DeGregorio's views about the privileges of voting have been shaped in lands where democracy was fragile or new.

Before his present job, DeGregorio spent eight years with the International Foundation for Election Systems, first as a consultant and later chief operating officer of the nonpartisan organization devoted to promoting democracy.

In his Washington office, he keeps a rifle bullet that he picked up on the street near a polling place in 1997 in Albania, where snipers kept people from voting and, in one precinct, murdered every poll worker.

He recalls illiterate voters in rural Cambodia aligning with political parties identified only by chickens and animal symbols, a far cry from the information overload in the United States, with touch-screen voting machines fast becoming vogue.

DeGregorio has traveled to Russia on election matters on 14 occasions, none more memorable than in 2002 when he had a private meeting with Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin.

Putin had stuck around to hear a speech from DeGregorio, during which the St. Louisan noted that he, Putin, and the federation's election chief all were 50 years old. Putin inquired how DeGregorio happened to know the Russians' ages.

"It was the CIA," DeGregorio joked, bringing a smile to Putin.

In truth, DeGregorio knew the election chief and recalled Putin's age from seeing it behind his name on ballots, a Russian requirement.

Minding details

That brand of wit and DeGregorio's self-effacing style work well on a small commission where decisions can only be reached by bipartisan agreement.

For a reception last week attended by members of Congress and White House aides, DeGregorio brought salami from his cousin's market on the Hill and cookies made by his wife, Kerry, an aide to Rep. Todd Akin, R-Town and Country.

DeForest "Buster" Soaries, whose term as chairman of the commission ended last week,

said DeGregorio displays an attention to details and brings a wider experience in the mechanics of elections than the other commission members.

That experience will come into play as the commission pushes for reforms that Congress intended by the 2008 elections. The commission has no rule-making authority, but its capacity to shine the light on abuses and make recommendations will shape voting in America for decades.

In one key mission, DeGregorio and his colleagues will be leaping into the debate over whether paper records should be required in computerized voting to guard against machines producing false vote totals, accidentally or otherwise.

DeGregorio hasn't come down on either side in the debate. He insists that the commission will consult a wide variety of experts. Ushering in the era of computerized voting, he said, "is a major responsibility on our shoulders and we take it seriously."