R. Doug Lewis

R. Doug Lewis is executive director of the Election Center, which describes itself as "a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting, preserving, and improving democracy. Its members are government employees whose profession is to serve in voter registration and elections administration." 

In March 2006, Lewis was identified in the Congressional Quarterly as the executive director of the National Association of Election Officials. He is also listed as a member of the Advisory Board at electionline.org. 

Until recently, very little information has been available about Lewis's career prior to joining the Election Center. What little information was available from biographies sanctioned by Lewis appears to have been spun to talk up his extremely slim Democratic credentials (he worked for Democrat defector John Connally), and has neglected to mention his very solid Republican credentials (he was executive secretary of the Republican Party in Kansas, executive director and finance director of the Texas Republican Party, and ran the 1976 Gerald Ford reelection bid in Texas).

1966-1980
According to a short biography in The Report of the National Symposium on Presidential Selection, during this period, R. Doug Lewis:
 * "managed campaigns for Congress, U.S. Senate, governor, and the U.S. presidency"
 * "served as Executive Director of the Democratic Party in Kansas and Texas"
 * "worked as Regional Political Director in the DNC"
 * "served as Assistant to the President at the White House"
 * "managed political affairs for former Texas Governor John Connally"

However, this account appears to either misrepresent, or provide incomplete information about, key elements of Lewis's CV during this period:
 * 1973-1974: Executive secretary of the Kansas Republican party, according to articles in The Great Bend Tribune. This appears to contradict the biographical details given above.
 * 1976: Executive director of the Texas Republican Party. Again, this appears to completely contradict the biography given by the National Symposium on Presidential Selection.
 * 1976: Texas Chairman for President Gerald Ford's unsuccessful reelection campaign.
 * 1977: Finance director of the Texas Republican Party.

After 1980

 * 1980-1986: This period is noteworthy as Lewis appears to have disappeared entirely from public life. There is no mention of him in either the Nexis archive or the Google News archive.
 * 1986 - June 1993: Lewis ran a Texas used-computers business called Micro Trade Mart, Inc. (according to e-voting activist Bev Harris)
 * 1994: Lewis was appointed to his position at the Election Center.

Other Accomplishments
Lewis, "the director of a nonprofit organization of election officials", served as one of three members&mdash;along with State Auditor Marion Higa and Penelope Bonsall of the Federal Election Commission&mdash;of the 1998 Election Oversight Committee for the recount of the general election in Hawaii. 

According to a bio for Lewis published by the Center for Governmental Studies, University of Virginia Center for Government Studies, in regards to the 2001 "Presidential Selection: A Guide to Reform":
 * "Among his other accomplishments are the development of the first Code of Ethics for voter registrars and elections administrators, the establishment of the Joint Elections Officials Liaison committee (JEOLC), the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED), the National Association of County Recorders, elections officials, and Clerks (NACRC), the International Association of Clerks, Recorders, Election Officials, and Treasurers (IACREOT), and the International Institute of Municipal Clerks (IIMC). Lewis also established the National Postal Task Force, the National Task Force on Voting Accessibility, and the National Elections Reform Task Force to study and propose solutions to the problems of the 2000 Presidential election.


 * "Lewis serves as the director of the Voting Systems Program for NASED, where he is responsible for managing the qualifications, testing, and approval of voting equipment in America through independent test authorities, and sits as member of the national Voting Systems Board to develop and update the Federal Voting Systems Standards, and serves as a member of California's Internet Voting Advisory Committee."

In October 2002, Lewis was executive director of the National Association of Secretaries of State's election center. 

On September 9, 2003, Lewis, identified as executive director of CERA (Certified Elections Registration Administrator), gave testimony for U.S. Senate Hearings On Disasters and Special Elections, Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Constitution. 

A bio attached to a 2005 article written by Lewis identifies him as "R. Doug Lewis, CERA". 

R. Doug Lewis's defense of his qualifications to run the Election Center
Bev Harris wrote in her 2004 book Black Box Voting that, in a telephone conversation with her, Lewis defended his qualifications to run the Election Center as follows: "My background is that I owned a computer hardware and software business. I've never claimed to be an expert. That's the reason we have laboratories, nationally recognized laboratories."

Lewis's work for John B. Connally
Lewis's work for John B. Connally, a Democrat who defected to the Republicans, included running the John Connally Citizens Forum. According to the Washington Post in 1978, when Connally was contemplating a run for the Republican nomination,


 * This political action committee, based in Connally's hometown of Houston, has raised nearly $450,000 as far from board-room executives whose interests and other businesses [sic]. It is the Citizen Forum, with a staff of seven, that has financed Connally's travels to 39 states to speak on behalf of Republican candidates since the fall of last year... "It's [sic] gruelling schedule, especially since we took August off," says R. Doug Lewis, executive director of the Citizens Forum, referring to Connally's travels.

In another article from the same period, Lewis says of the $1 million Henry Kissinger raised in 1977-8 for Republican House and Senate candidates: "That ain't shabby". The same article says that by that time, Connally had himself "raised $1.2 million for Republican candidates". A later article quotes Lewis on FEC campaign spending limits:


 * "It's enormously important," said Connally consultant R. Doug Lewis. "If you guess wrong on the spending decision, you may guess wrong on the election."

The Micro Trade Mart years
A magazine article in 1989, from when Lewis was running a second-hand computer store in Texas, shows that he has some prior experience of dealing with public skepticism about computer technologies:


 * "There's something that nags at them about buying used, and they just don't know what it is," says R. Doug Lewis, president of Micro Trade Mart, a Houston-based seller of used PC equipment... [T]he Micro Trade Mart also offers a 30-day warranty on parts and labor and provides regular service for the used IBMs, Compaqs, Commodores, Ataris, and Apples that fill its 3,000-square-foot store.

According to the records of the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Micro Trade Mart, Inc. was registered on December 1st 1986, with R. Doug Lewis as the director.

SourceWatch resources

 * Bev Harris
 * Diebold Election Systems
 * Election Center
 * E-voting
 * E-voting PR
 * Gerald Ford
 * ITAA eVoting Industry Coalition DRAFT Plan

General

 * Official website for the Election Center.
 * Listing for Micro Trade Mart Inc. with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Click the "Officers and Directors Information" button to see Lewis's name.
 * Profile: R. Doug Lewis, Advisory Board, electionaline.org.
 * Testimony of R. Doug Lewis for Senate Government Affairs Committee May 9, 2001.
 * Testimony for U.S. Senate Hearings On Disasters and Special Elections, Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Constitution. Testimony of Mr. R. Doug Lewis, Executive Director, Certified Elections Registration Administrator (CERA), September 9, 2003.

Books and reports

 * Bev Harris and David Allen, "Black Box Voting - Ballot-tampering in the 21st Century, chapter 6", Talion Publishing, 2004, ISBN 192946245X. Contains an account of a telephone conversation between Harris and Lewis.
 * "To Assure Pride and Confidence in the Electoral Process. The Final Report of The National Commission on Federal Election Reform," The National Commission on Federal Election Reform, Century Foundation Press, July 1, 2001; Fourth Public Hearing: "The American and International Experience: Administrative Perspectives" with Christopher Thomas, Michigan Bureau of Elections; Ernest Hawkins, Registrar of Sacramento County (CA); and Doug Lewis, The Election Center, at Ford Library - Ann Arbor, Michigan, June 5, 2001. A short biography of Lewis is on page 67.

Print and broadcast media

 * "Unknown article title", The Great Bend Tribune, July 27, 1973. Google's snippet text makes clear that Lewis was executive secretary of the Kansas Republican party at the time.
 * "Unknown article title", The Great Bend Tribune, May 29, 1974.
 * "Unknown article title", The Great Bend Tribune, June 21, 1974.
 * "Unknown article title", The Chronicle Telegram (Elyria, Ohio), February 18, 1976. Mentions role as executive director of Texas GOP.
 * "Unknown article title", The Coshocton Tribune, November 7, 1976.
 * "Unknown article title", The News (Port Arthur, Texas), November 7, 1976.
 * "Unknown article title", News Journal (Mansfield, Ohio), October 1, 1977. Mentions role as finance director of Texas GOP.
 * Bill Curry, "Republicans are feasting on Super K", Washington Post, August 27, 1978. Payment req'd.
 * Bill Curry, "Connally: The Not-Yet Candidate on the Trail", Washington Post, October 19, 1978. Payment req'd.
 * Fred Barbash and Bill Curry, "Campaign '80: In FEC Maze, Auditors Supplant 'Fat Cats'", Washington Post, June 14, 1979. Payment req'd.
 * Deborah Asbrand, "Secondhand PCs: such a deal!", PC-Computing, May 1989. Available via NEXIS.
 * "Lt. governor should oversee vote, report says," Honolulu Star-Bulletin, April 1, 1999.
 * Transcript: Newsroom, CNN, November 7, 2000. Scroll down to near end.
 * Mark Halperin, Elizabeth Wilner, and Marc Ambinder, "About Nothing, About Everything," The Note/ABC News, October 23, 2002.
 * Farhad Manjoo, "Hacking Democracy," Salon, February 20, 2003. See page 3.

Blogs, webforum postings, and other alternative media

 * Bev Harris, "The Georgia/Diebold Voting Machines Interviews," Scoop (New Zealand), February 17, 2003. See Interview with R. Doug Lewis, February 12, 2003.
 * Bev Harris, "RIGHT NOW: DUers are reeling in a big fish&mdash;NEW RESEARCH," Democratic Underground Forum, June 6, 2003. (via the WaybackMachine).
 * Bev Harris, "Who is this mystery man? What is he hiding?" Democratic Underground Forum, June 6, 2003.
 * Bev Harris, "The Election Center and R. Doug Lewis," Scoop (New Zealand), August 11, 2003.
 * C.D. Sludge, "Sludge Report #157: The ITAA, The Election Center, & Doug Lewis.", Scoop, August 23, 2003.
 * Jim March, "A Deconstruction of a Doug Lewis / Election Center. Review of the Potential for Electronic Vote Fraud," Equal Rights for CCW (equalccw.com), September 23, 2003.
 * Jim Hightower, Who's Counting Our Vote? Bushite corporate bosses," Hightower Lowdown, October 2003; also posted by VoteAmericaVote.com.
 * Max Blumenthal, "The Voting Machine Jackpot," AlterNet (VotersUnite.org), August 26, 2004.
 * Rick Sincere, "Carter, Baker Start Election Mischief Commission," Rick Sincere News and Thoughts, March 25, 2005.
 * John Gideon, "Corporate Control of the Election Process," www.VotersUnite.Org and www.VoteTrustUSA.Org, June 15, 2005. Lewis not named, but see: "The Elections Center Teaches Ethics but Shows None"
 * Rick Sincere, "Don't Be Cruel," Rick Sincere News and Thoughts, August 30, 2005.
 * "Current Investigations," WheresThePaper.org, September 2005.
 * "Who is R. Doug Lewis?", New Yorkers for Verified Voting (www.nyvv.org), October 8, 2005.
 * Steven C. Clemons, "Idaho & Utah Stand Strong in Support for Weakened Bush Presidency," The Washington Note, November 25, 2005: "The privately held Election Center undertook the task of organizing and training local elections officials under the guidance of former used computer parts salesman R. Doug Lewis."
 * "'The Election Center': The Fox Guarding the Hen House: Read about the Election Center Ethics Conflict, Money Trail, and Bad Ideas & Influence," N.C. Coalition for Verified Voting, January 15, 2006 (update).
 * Jesse Stanchak, "Secretaries of State Urge Their Own to Be Apolitical," Congressional Quarterly (available at http://www.cqpolitics.com) (Election Administration Research Center, March 21, 2006.
 * "The 2006 Elections: Are We Ready?" American Enterprise Institute-Brookings Institution Election Reform Project, September 22, 2006. Includes transcript, video, and Lewis Power-Point links.

Google News archive searches
Articles matching:
 * "R. Doug Lewis" before 1995.
 * "doug lewis" kansas republican before 1995.
 * "doug lewis" texas republican before 1995.
 * connally "doug lewis" before 1995.