[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 4034 Introduced in Senate (IS)]








109th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                S. 4034

 To amend title 18 of the United States Code to prohibit certain types 
                           of vote tampering.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                           September 29, 2006

Mr. Reid (for himself and Mrs. Clinton) introduced the following bill; 
  which was read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To amend title 18 of the United States Code to prohibit certain types 
                           of vote tampering.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Voter Suppression, Ballot Hacking, 
and Election Fraud Prevention Act''.

SEC. 2. PROHIBITION ON VOTE TAMPERING.

    (a) In General.--Chapter 29 of title 18, United States Code, is 
amended by adding at the end the following:
``Sec. 612. Vote tampering
    ``(a) In General.--Whoever knowingly and willfully interferes with, 
affects, attempts to interfere with, or attempts to affect an election 
of a candidate or a ballot initiative by tampering with a voting 
system, discarding ballots, or altering a vote shall be fined under 
this title or imprisoned for not more than 20 years, or both.
    ``(b) Application.--This section applies only to elections 
described in, and candidates described in, section 11(e)(2) of the 
Voting Rights Act of 1965 (42 U.S.C. 1973i(e)(2)).
    ``(c) Civil Action.--Any individual whose right to vote is 
interfered with by reason of a violation of this section may bring a 
civil action in Federal court against the violator and recover damages 
not to exceed $10,000.
    ``(d) Definition.--In this section, the terms `vote' and `voting' 
have the meanings given the terms in section 14(c) of the Voting Rights 
Act of 1965 (42 U.S.C. 1973l(c)).''.
    (b) Chapter Analysis.--The chapter analysis for chapter 29 of title 
18, United States Code, is amended by inserting after the item for 
section 612 the following:

``612. Vote tampering.''.
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