[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
FEDERAL ELECTION REFORM
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, MAY 10, 2001
__________
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COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION
BOB NEY, Chairman
VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan STENY H. HOYER, Maryland,
JOHN L. MICA, Florida Ranking Minority Member
JOHN LINDER, Georgia CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California JIM DAVIS, Florida
THOMAS M. REYNOLDS, New York
Professional Staff
Paul Vinovich, Staff Director
Bill Cable, Minority Staff Director
FEDERAL ELECTION REFORM
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THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2001
House of Representatives,
Committee on House Administration,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 4:49 p.m., in Room
1310, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Robert W. Ney
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Ney, Mica, Reynolds, Hoyer, and
Davis.
Staff present: Roman Buhler, Counsel; Paul Vinovich,
Counsel; Jeff Janas, Professional Staff; Chet Kalis,
Professional Staff; Luke Nichter, Staff Assistant; Sara Salupo,
Staff Assistant; Bob Bean, Minority Staff Director; Keith
Abouchar, Professional Staff; Matt Pinkus, Professional Staff;
and Cynthia Patton, Professional Staff.
The Chairman. The committee will come to order.
Today the Committee on House Administration is holding a
hearing on election reform issues. I would also like to advise
members of our audience here today that all cellular phones,
pagers, and other electronic equipment must be silenced to
prevent interruption at the hearing. Thank you in advance for
that.
Also, today's hearing is being broadcast on the Internet.
It is available on the committee's Web site at www.house.gov/
cha. Accordingly, the hearing will also be available on the Web
site. We want to welcome you to visit the site and tune into
the proceedings.
I have a brief opening statement. We have witnesses who
have traveled a long way, so I promise I will be brief. It is a
pleasure to be here today with the members of the committee.
I want to welcome you to the second in a series of election
reform hearings held by the Committee on House Administration.
At this hearing, the committee will hear testimony from working
election officials, those who actually administer the election
process.
At the committee's first hearing on April 25, we heard from
secretaries of state and representatives of national groups
interested in election reform.
Next week, the committee will hold an exposition and a
hearing in this room featuring vendors of voting equipment,
their technology, and their views on the election reform
process.
I want to mention these things just to show a brief
history, since we were officially given the task of having the
hearings on this, and I want to stress that--and a release is
being passed out as we speak, a joint release by our
distinguished member, Mr. Hoyer, the Ranking Member from
Maryland, announcing an agreement in substance to proceed on a
piece of legislation together on a bipartisan basis, welcoming
all members from both sides of the aisle, and it outlines a few
items in principle that we are looking at.
That does not mean that we have written a bill up. We have
ideas, and you are here today, and we want to hear from you.
But I believe and know that by announcing this today, we are
showing that we are completely serious about this.
This committee also produced--I think I am correct, the
first bipartisan House funding measure in 25-some years, as I
understand it, in a bipartisan manner that funds the
institution of the House. I believe that we can produce a bill
that Members on both sides of the aisle will like, and in that
make sure that the votes are counted.
As we come up to the 21st century, we stress local control.
That is why we appreciate your input.
I just want thank Mr. Hoyer and the members of this
committee, especially Mr. Hoyer, for working together. People
have said, well, you know, the issue really is not being talked
about every day. I believe that the average American expects
and demands and knows in their heart that we are going to do
something beyond technology. There are also training issues,
disenfranchisement issues, military voting, all those issues
that are out there.
I just want to let you know that this announcement, in my
opinion, is a major step and shows that we are heading in the
direction of producing election reform very soon.
With that, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. Hoyer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a statement, but
I want to make a comment on your announcement.
The tone of this committee is what I think President Bush
had in mind when he said he would be changing the tone. It is a
tone that is set by Chairman Ney. It is a positive tone that we
want to do something together.
There will be things on which we disagree, but on those
matters that we can agree, Chairman Ney has made it very clear
that he wants to move those matters forward so that we can make
progress and not simply yell and scream and posture with one
another.
Our witnesses--I think this is probably your first hearing
this year at the House Administration Committee, but I am sure
some of the members of the press and others, maybe the staff,
get tired of hearing Ney and Hoyer say that the other guy is a
good guy and doing good things. Somebody shook their heads in
the back of the room, yes, we are tired of hearing that.
But I think it bears repeating, because I think the
citizens ought to know that there is an opportunity and there
is the reality of positive cooperation on moving towards
something that is important for America. I think this is one of
them.
This is the second hearing that the House Administration
Committee has held on electoral reform in as many weeks. In a
real sense, today's hearing is a tutorial for this committee on
the nuts and bolts of election administration taught by the
people who know the subject best, State and local election
officials who do it for it a living, who are the professionals,
who are the most knowledgeable people in this Nation on this
issue.
Today's hearing thus continues the learning process we
began on April 25, during which we learned what State
secretaries, county officials, and State legislators are doing
right now.
John Herson, as you recall, Mr. Chairman, said there were
over 1,500 bills introduced around the country. This is an
issue that is receiving extraordinarily high attention at the
State level.
We have in this committee some 45 or 50 bills, and maybe
more now, dealing with either campaign finance reform or
election reform, or both, so there is a high level of interest
in this committee.
All of us on the committee listened last week and asked
hard questions, and we learned. We learned, for example, that
Federal assistance is welcomed by Republicans, by Democrats, by
State Legislatures, by secretaries of state; by essentially
everyone who testified.
We learned that States and counties want to partner with
the Federal Government to develop voluntary election codes. I
stress ``voluntary.'' That was clearly the theme throughout.
Historically, States and local subdivisions have run our
elections, but, just as well, they have run Federal elections
during that process without any compensation from the Federal
Government. As you know, the Constitution gives to the
Congress, and we have the jurisdiction over elections of
Federal officials, so we need to work in partnership.
We learned that the cost of running elections is both very
expensive and a low-budget priority, unfortunately, for most
State and county governments. That may have changed slightly,
but it has been a reality.
All of us on the committee will continue to learn. Next
week we will host a demonstration, as the Chairman has said, of
the latest voting technology, and learn what voting machine
experts have to say. I would hope future hearings will explore
such key issues as provisional ballots, registration practices,
and military and overseas voting, clearly very important issues
for us to deal with.
Make no mistake, Chairman Ney and I will use this knowledge
to craft, as he has just said, a bipartisan electoral reform
measure that recognizes the legitimate role Congress can play
in modernizing our democracy's infrastructure without
infringing on the rights of States and local communities.
Clearly, momentum for genuine electoral reform in my
opinion is picking up. There has been broad cynicism frankly,
in this town, that nothing would happen on this issue. I have
told people that I am optimistic, largely because of the
positive leadership displayed by our Chairman.
I want to say also that Roy Blunt, with whom the Chairman
and I have both talked and Speaker Hastert asked to head up an
effort, has also been very positive. I expect him to work with
us as well.
Since House Administration held its first hearing, the
Senate Governmental Affairs Committee has held two hearings on
this issue. Just this week, Senator McCain's Committee on
Commerce held its first hearing on this. The emerging lesson is
that electoral reform, for all its complexity, is not on the
back burner. There is a growing consensus that immediate steps
must be taken to update voting equipment, improve poll worker
and voter education, and develop voluntary codes and best
practices for election administration.
I am happy to say that all of these immediate steps can be
taken by House Administration under Chairman Ney's leadership.
I am confident they will be. Right now it is the States that
are leading the way. It is time for Congress to step up and
help them, in partnership, complete this task.
Just yesterday, Governor Jeb Bush signed into law Florida's
just-passed election reform bill. I am going to leave any
further discussion on that to my colleague, Jim Davis. But it
is a very significant step, and it comes as other States are
seriously engaged in electoral reform, such as Georgia, and as
my own chief election official from the State of Maryland,
Linda Lamone, former Assistant Attorney General of our State,
will I am sure set forth.
Among other strengths, Florida's new law will eliminate
punch cards and many other things. Again, I am going to leave
that to Jim Davis to discuss.
That is short-term, in some respects, electoral reform. We
also need long-term electoral reform. The Florida vote, Mr.
Chairman, as you saw, was extraordinarily bipartisan. There
were only two votes against it in the entire legislature; none
in the Senate, and only two in the House. That is an
extraordinary accomplishment and an important one. It is
powerful testimony that when government's executive and
legislative branches put politics and institutional prerogative
aside, they can do great things for the people they serve.
This House, as well as the U.S. Senate, can take
inspiration from that accomplishment. I would hope, Mr.
Chairman, that the White House, as Senator McCain asked and
observed the other day, the White House would respond to our
request and Senator McCain's request to set forth their
principles on where they think we ought to go.
Mr. Chairman, I had the opportunity of questioning Mitch
Daniels, the director of OMB, this morning as we heard his
budget. He indicated that the President thought this was an
important issue, one that needed to be addressed. He would look
forward to talking with us about resources to accomplish this
objective. So I thought that was very positive.
Again, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for your
leadership on this issue, and thank our witnesses for taking
the time to be with us so late in the day.
I want to thank the members of the press who are here. It
is now 5 o'clock on a Thursday afternoon. Most Members have
left town. I want to thank them for being here, because
obviously to the extent the people know what we are doing, they
can then communicate their desires and energy and their
expectations to the Members.
This is something we must do. I have referred to it as the
civil rights issue of the 107th Congress. I believe that. There
is no more fundamental right in a democracy than the right to
have one's voice heard in the decision-making process of our
Nation, of our States, and our local governments.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you. We have been joined by three
distinguished members, Mr. Reynolds of New York, Mr. Mica of
Florida, and Mr. Davis of Florida.
We appreciate your participation.
Any comments?
The Chairman. Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis. Mr. Chairman, I will be brief. The witnesses are
ready to testify.
I just want to briefly mention the Florida situation for
Mr. Reynolds and, I am sure, John Mica as well. Welcome, Pam
Iorio, my supervisor of elections from Tampa and president of
the State association, as well as our other distinguished
witnesses.
The Florida legislature indeed did pass a bill which
Governor Jeb Bush has expressed his intention to sign that has
as its top priority replacing the punch card machines. I think
it is fair to say there was an enormous temptation, I believe
on both sides, to play politics with this issue. We all
understand how that temptation, when it comes to election
reform, comes up.
But the legislature came through and adopted a bill, and
Pam Iorio will talk more about the bill today and how we can
help. I think one of the reasons it happened is that Floridians
did exactly what the Chairman just said. There was some polling
done, some conversations took place, and there was a high
percentage of Floridians that said to the legislature, you had
better fix this or else, and they came through.
I share your view, Mr. Chairman, that the rest of the
country expects us to step into the breach as well. I am very
encouraged about the news from you, Mr. Hoyer, about getting
ready to work on something.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Other comments? Mr. Mica?
Mr. Mica. Well, I don't know if I am pleased if the Florida
legislature has acted in such rapid fashion. I think a lot has
been made about some of our problems in Florida, and I think we
have heard that the solution, at least in the preliminary
hearings that we have heard here, the solution is very
expensive.
We had one state secretary testify it was, I think, $130
million. We spent $30 million, I believe, in our effort this
week. I think some of this is expensive window dressing.
What is funny is that they replaced it with--we are going
to get rid of the punch cards which have been some of the
problem. Other jurisdictions still have this. But what they are
replacing it with--I sat and watched for days the recounting
and the counts--they are replacing it with some of that other
equipment. And I saw countless ballots so simple to fill out,
all you had to do was take a pen and complete one line like
this, and I saw hundreds of ballots where people circled them,
x'd them, drew lines across them.
I would not take too much consolation in spending $30
million to get rid of part of the problem.
This is not the civil rights issue of our era. I think we
have long passed an era when anyone is denied a vote, at least
in Florida, that I have seen. I would strongly support
enforcement on Election Day to make certain that remains in
place, but I don't think that was the case, and it should not
be portrayed in that fashion.
Even if it passed by two votes, I still think it was, it
does not educate the elector, which is so important. As I said,
Thomas Jefferson--at our last hearing--he said it was the
cornerstone of democracy. So we will still continue to have
problems. But if it makes people feel good, I want to feel
good, too, and I am pleased that everybody else is feeling good
today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Mica.
Mr. Reynolds.
Mr. Reynolds. Mr. Chairman, I think both you and our
Ranking Member, Mr. Hoyer, have set the tone and the tenor and
goals of the House Administration Committee.
While I am new on this committee, I am an up-through-the-
ranks legislator that has watched town, county, and State
address election issues and fairness of elections in New York.
I very much look forward to the testimony today to talk
about what I call the front-line practitioners of fair
elections.
We have had the opportunity of hearing how the State wades
through those, from the secretaries of state and other forms of
election officials. We have the opportunity today to listen to
this committee hearing on our front line, and that might help
us find awareness of how practices differ in other parts of the
country, both good and bad, things I may be an expert on in New
York.
I think this will be a very important opportunity for us to
listen to the front-line message, where the Federal Government
might become more aware of what we should be doing in the
investment of solid elections across the country.
I thank both of you for setting the tenor and goals of what
this committee needs to do.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
With that, we will introduce the panel.
We have Doug Lewis, Director of the Elections Center; Conny
McCormack, Los Angeles County Registrar Recorder, County Clerk;
Connie Schmidt, Elections Commissioner, Johnson County, Kansas;
Carolyn Jackson, Administration of Elections, Hamilton County,
Tennessee; Pam Iorio, Supervisor of Elections, Hillsborough
County, Florida, President of the Florida State Association of
Supervisors of Elections.
We also have Linda Lamone, Administrator, Maryland State
Board of Elections.
I want to thank all of the witnesses for coming here to the
Capitol.
STATEMENTS OF DOUG LEWIS, DIRECTOR, THE ELECTION CENTER,
HOUSTON, TEXAS; PAM IORIO, SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS,
HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FLORIDA; CONNIE SCHMIDT, ELECTION
COMMISSIONER, JOHNSON COUNTY, KANSAS; CAROLYN JACKSON,
ADMINISTRATOR OF ELECTIONS, HAMILTON COUNTY ELECTION
COMMISSION, CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE; CONNY McCORMACK, REGISTRAR-
RECORDER/COUNTY CLERK, LOS ANGELES COUNTY; AND LINDA LAMONE,
ADMINISTRATOR, MARYLAND STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS
The Chairman. I will start with Mr. Lewis.
STATEMENT OF R. DOUG LEWIS
Mr. Lewis. Congressman, thank you.
Actually, quite frankly, I am extraordinarily pleased to
hear the tenor and the tone and the commitment that seems to be
yours in terms of trying to find the right solutions here.
Election 2000 was not really a crucifixion of Florida,
because it was an indication of what we have known are systemic
problems throughout elections in America for quite some time.
There was also some new information that we learned.
Certainly learning that voting systems allowed more voter
errors in some cases than others because new information to us,
and particularly in terms of the depth of that information. So
we are going to have to learn to do some things to make sure
that does not happen again.
Certainly, even though we have been inclined to know that
inexperienced voters apparently did not know how to vote, we
did not really know the depth of that until we saw this
election, so we are learning something there in terms of what
we are going to have to concentrate on.
I am going to direct my comments, because more often than
not I keep getting asked, what is it that we can do--meaning
you, the Congress--what is it that is necessary to be done at a
Federal level in terms of elections in America, and how do we
do that?
The Election Center has a National Task Force on Elections
Reform that had 37 State and local election administrators on
it, and will be presenting its information sometime next month,
that covers basically 30 subject matter areas with 80 specific
recommendations.
I am not going to try to prerelease that today, because it
is more detailed than you are going to be able to withstand
today or and have interest in, and we have other folks that
need to be heard, too.
Let me say, though, that there are some areas in which all
of us, I think, in this elections community welcome your input
and your support and your Federal dollars.
Certainly when it comes to voting equipment, I am not going
to defend the punch cards any longer. I have done that because
part of what they were attacked about was incorrect.
Let me try to make some statements. So you all know, voting
systems do not count votes inaccurately. That is a myth that
developed in this election and that the news media did not get
straight until almost recently.
Voters make more errors on certain types of voting systems,
but voting systems are tested to make sure that they have an
accuracy of counting votes to 1 vote within 1 million votes; so
that you understand, there is a distinct difference here.
Having said that, you know, it is not enough for us to then
just say that we can ignore voter error, because we cannot. But
the truth is, we have not tracked any of the data that is
related to that, either at the local level or at the State
level or at the Federal level.
Without having that kind of data in terms of how many
overvotes are cast, how many undervotes are cast, and to then
establish a benchmark norm, and for us to know what is it then
that deviates from the norm so we can bring information to you
and say, folks, we obviously recognize we have a problem and we
are going to go after it and fix these problems, so we are
going to have to start tracking that.
In terms of database, the disconnects between voters and
the voting systems showed us--the voter registration systems
thought they registered at DMV or Social Services or wherever,
and that information did not get translated and sent to the
elections community, we have to fix that problem. We know we
have to fix that problem.
But that is not an easy solution, because actually the NVRA
sets up nobody in charge. It gives us new agencies to handle
this and makes them responsible for having voter registration,
but then does not make them accountable to an election official
anywhere for whether they deliver that data appropriately or
not.
So whether we ever get charged with that or with the
responsibility for that, we are going to find a way to make
sure that disconnection does not happen in the future.
Certainly the most important part of all of this, let me
say to you, voting systems today are better than they were 7
years ago because of the Federal voting system standards.
Voting systems are better today than they were 3 years ago
because of the Federal voting systems standards.
We need your involvement and your commitment to put that in
law and to give that to the OEA as its responsibility with
earmarked funds. You see in my testimony where I have kind of
estimated what that will cost you.
We need the operational practice standards as the component
part of that, so that we know what to do in terms of specific
types of voting systems; what is good practice, what is not
good practice; what is it you must do every time, what is it
you should do, and what becomes good practice. We need that.
We know that those standards are probably going to take
us--if we threw a lot of money and talent at it, we could maybe
do it in 2, 2\1/2\ years; but more likely it will take us 4
years to actually develop those to where they become good
standards. You see kind of what I estimate that would cost to
do that.
Voting systems research is what I just talked about. We
need to gather data. In fact, the Federal Election Commissioner
of the Office of Election Administration--I don't care if it is
housed with FEC, as long as it is with the OEA, but certainly
they need to be the ones who know what voting systems are in
America.
We actually gave a Federal grant to them, to a private
company, to do that. The private company then took the data,
and it sells the data to this day, because we cannot keep that
because we do not have staff or funds assigned to that project.
Certainly we need that.
So it is not just over- and under-votes that we track, but
it is also when problems occur with those systems, so we know
what those problems are and can tell others in the country, and
so we can also not have to rely on the vendors when one of
these people wants to buy a system; that they know who else in
the country has that system, so they can find out what the
foibles and flaws and support levels and so on are with it.
We certainly need a new elections class of mail. NVRA said
we were going to get first-class mail service at third-class
rates, which the Postal Service said, ``No, that is not exactly
what it said. Congress knew that it did not exactly word it
correctly, and therefore we are not going to give that to
you.''
Not only that, then it sets up so many restrictions that
most of our people, it turns out, after really trying to apply
it, cannot use it.
We are saying to you, we need a new level of first-class
mail called ``elections mail'' that then gives us 50 percent of
whatever the current first-class rates are. Then there are a
whole lot more complicated things that I won't go into here.
But in order to make sure that the Postal Service
understands that we are going to follow that all the way
through, we have a whole series of recommendations on that.
That is probably going to cost us in the order of $100 million
a year in order to fund that, because the Postal Service does
not want to subsidize it, obviously, out of their budget. We
would not expect them to.
But at the same time, it will help us then with all those
NVRA mandated mailings to actually be able to pay for them; and
not only with those, but then in terms of voter education
programs, of sample ballots, voter pamphlets, voter information
of where the polling place is, or even how to vote, sending out
instructional materials on how to vote and how to use a voting
system. It is important that we have this kind of subsidy.
I will not then go into all the State issues, but let me
wrap up with some things that we think need to be done.
Obviously, the States are going to have to define what
constitutes a vote. Voter intent is not a standard, and it
became hugely clear that in Florida, the absence of knowing
what constituted a vote before they started the counting
process is what screwed up the process.
It was not that these folks are--particularly Pam and those
Florida folks, not that they were not going to try, but Pam had
her definition of it, and Jane Carol had her definition of it,
and Teresa Lapore had her definition of it, and when the
lawyers descended upon them, none of them liked any of those
definitions, so they all kept trying to make up their own
definition of what constituted the vote.
I don't blame the campaigns for that. That is what they
have to do in that situation.
In terms of uniform poll closing hours, please do not do
that to us. It does not solve a problem. It is a solution with
no problem. The truth is that the networks, the news networks,
take and use manufactured news. They get out there and they
take that, based on the sampling of people who have voted, and
then report that as if that were actual votes.
It is the networks that ought not to be let off the hook
here, but they are the ones who are behind the Uniform Poll
Closing Act, so we can have a very complicated act to try to
follow that really still does not solve the problem. So do not
give us that, please.
Certainly weekend, 3-day holiday voting, we are willing to
buy into holiday voting if you all want to attempt it. Most of
us think it is going to end up meaning a 4-day weekend, and
that we will have more trouble getting poll workers, rather
than less.
But if you all want to try that and want to try a national
holiday on that, at least it frees up polling places for us so
that we have those. Maybe it will free up some additional
Election Day workers, particularly if we can pick up Federal
Government, State government, and local government employees
and roll them in as poll workers, and maybe we can improve the
situation with poll workers.
I could go on. Internet voting is the other one. I am
surprised how often we continue to hear very responsible people
who continue to say, oh, yes, we ought to have Internet voting.
I even listened to Donna Brazil on C-Span the other day talking
about how we ought to have Internet voting.
Folks, look, we have had the best technological mind in
America say it is not safe and secure and cannot be used as a
technology yet. Despite the fact that Bell Telephone--I
remember 30 years ago when Bell Labs went out there and told
all of us that we were going to be voting on the new invention
they had, a touch tone telephone. And 30 years later, we are
not doing it.
We may be able to make Internet voting yet, and hopefully
most of us want to be able to make it work, but only if we can
do it safely and securely. That is my testimony. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
We will move on to Pam Iorio.
STATEMENT OF PAM IORIO
Ms. Iorio. Thank you, Chairman Ney, and Members of
Congress. I appreciate this opportunity to address the House
Administration Committee.
My name is Pam Iorio. I am serving my third term as the
supervisor of elections in Hillsborough County, Florida. I am
also the president of the Florida State Association of
Supervisors of Elections.
The closeness of the Presidential election of 2000
highlighted the frailties of many aspects of our election
system. In Florida, our election infrastructure was revealed as
a hodge-podge of voting systems, ranging from the paper ballot
to lever machines to punch cards to optical scan.
The voting system used by almost every major urban county
in the State was based on 1970s technology, and that led to a
large number of errors made by voters on Election Day that
effectively negated thousands of votes.
During the past Presidential election in Florida, a race
won by 537 votes, there were 105,000 votes for President that
were discarded because the voter voted for more than one
candidate for President. This is called overvoting.
The number of overvotes varied dramatically according to
the voting system used by each county. The number was higher in
punch card and central count optical scan counties, and lower
in precinct-based optical scan counties.
Some analysts look at the combined over- and undervote when
judging the performance of voting systems. An undervote is when
a voter skips a race altogether. This is usually a conscious
decision on the part of the voter, but can be attributed to
ballot design or unfamiliarity with a particular type of
technology.
In the Florida 2000 Presidential election, the combined
under- and overvote differed among voting systems. Punch card
counties had a 3.93 percent rate; central count optical scan
had a 5.68 percent rate; the one county that utilized the paper
ballot had a 6.32 percent rate; and the lowest rate was the
precinct-based optical scan at .83 percent.
Thus, we can see that the type of voting system used had an
effect on the number of votes that were counted for President
in each county.
Now, last week the Florida legislature passed the most
sweeping election reform in Florida history. The focus of that
reform was on change in voting technology.
The new law decertifies the use of punch card systems and
any other voting system that is not precinct-based. The law
specifically states that a county must use an electronic or
electromechanical precinct count tabulation voting system; and
further, that the voting system at the precinct must be set up
to reject a ballot and provide the elector an opportunity to
correct the ballot where the elector has overvoted a race.
Many States are debating whether they too should discard
their punch cards and other older technologies. The lesson from
the November election is that election technology and
investment in that technology must at least keep pace with the
technological advances in other aspects of our lives.
When it comes to the administration of elections, the
Nation should utilize the very best technology. We must not
stand still, and we must move forward and bring about positive
change.
Many counties across the Nation cannot change technologies
because of the expense. The Florida legislature recognized this
in their Election Reform Act by allocating grants to counties
to help pay for the transition to new technology. Counties with
populations of less than 75,000 will receive $7,500 per
precinct, and larger counties will receive $3,750 per precinct.
This is an appropriate distribution of funds, since many
small counties in Florida have a very limited tax base and
cannot possibly afford funds for new equipment. However, many
of the larger urban counties across the Nation will be looking
at a paperless direct recording system, and those systems cost
sometimes four times as much as precinct-based optical scan.
For example, in my county, we can move to precinct-based
optical scan for $3 million, but a move to touch screen would
cost at least $12 million.
Large urban counties in Florida such as Hillsborough,
Broward, Orange, Duvall, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach have large
infrastructure needs. It is difficult for local governments to
allocate funds for expensive direct recording systems.
Yet a paperless balloting system makes since for large
urban centers. We have here today the election official from
Los Angeles County, 4.1 million voters, and the requirement to
produce a ballot in seven different languages; a supervisor in
Miami-Dade, 1 million voters and ballots in three different
languages. Printing paper ballots for these large jurisdictions
is cumbersome, inefficient, and very expensive.
So what is the role of the Federal Government in helping
counties move to new technology? Perhaps we should first ask
what has been the historic role of the Federal Government in
the elections process.
We know that the Federal Government involves itself in the
election process to ensure fairness to all citizens, to level
the playing field for all voters.
The 1965 Voting Rights Act, for example, told States they
could not enact a poll tax or literacy test as a prerequisite
for voting. There the Federal Government recognized an
inequity: that some voters were being treated differently than
others.
The passage of the National Voter Registration Act in 1993
was another milestone piece of legislation. It mandated a
uniform method of registration across the country so citizens
everywhere would have equal access to the registration process.
Today the issue is one of difference in technology that
creates an unequal playing field for voters. A voter in Florida
in 2002 will have an opportunity to correct an error before his
or her vote is actually counted. A voter in Illinois, still
using the punch card system, will not be afforded that same
opportunity.
A county with a strong tax base will be able to afford the
very best technology that eliminates the overvote. A county
with a poor tax base is stuck with technology of the 1970s.
Is this fair to the voters of our country? Does not the
Federal Government have a role to play to ensure that all
citizens of this Nation, regardless of the economic
circumstances of their particular county, have the right to the
best voting technology?
The Voting Improvement Act that is before your committee
today represents the involvement of the Federal Government in
ensuring that all voters across this Nation have access to
better, more advanced election technology.
The threshold for election technology in all 3,155 counties
across this Nation should be precinct-based systems that can
alert the voter that he or she has made an error, and gives the
voter an opportunity to correct the error.
The current figure in the bill of $6,000 per precinct is a
good start, but again large urban counties will need a greater
funding level to help them move to the more advanced direct
voting devices.
I believe that ultimately the Presidential election of 2000
will be about how we as a National responded to the problems
and challenges we faced. Florida has responded well to the
challenges of November. We identified the problems, crafted and
passed legislation, and formed a funding partnership between
State and local governments. We have striven for a model
election system.
The question today is how will the Federal Government
respond to the problems of the past election? Will the Federal
Government play a role in bringing technological equity to all
voters?
The problems revealed through this election process gives
us an opportunity to do what Americans do best: bring about
positive change. Through the work of Federal, State, and local
governments, it can be the lasting legacy of this past
election.
Thank you very much for this opportunity to address your
committee today.
The Chairman. Thank you for your testimony.
Next will be Connie Schmidt.
STATEMENT OF CONNIE SCHMIDT
Ms. Schmidt. Chairman Ney, distinguished members of the
Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you
to discuss election reform issues.
My name is Connie Schmidt, and I serve as the election
commissioner of Johnson County, Kansas. We are located in the
greater Kansas City metropolitan area.
Our county has a history of growth in population and
leadership in voting systems. In 1987 we were one of the first
in the country to purchase direct record electronic voting
equipment. Today, population growth, advances in voting
technology, and changes in our State laws affecting elections
have brought our county to another decision on the purchase of
touch screen voting computers.
Our county, like others throughout the country, is not
immune to voting disasters. The high voter turnout of the 1992
Presidential election created very long lines at polling places
throughout the country. Johnson County also experienced a 27
percent increase in voter registration in the 3-month period
prior to that election. That translated to extremely long lines
at our polls in November, 1992 with a record 89 percent voter
turnout. Many of our voters waited in line for 3 or more hours
to cast their votes.
The Secretary of State's Office in Kansas and the State
legislature recognized the importance of making voting
convenient and accessible, and in 1995 they approved an early
advanced voting law which actually provides for ``no-excuse''
voting, in person or by mail.
Advanced voting is extremely popular in Johnson County. In
the 1996 and again in the 2000 Presidential election, our
advanced votes represented over 35 percent of the total votes
cast in our county. We had minimal lines at the precinct voting
locations on Election Day, and most importantly to us, the
voters were pleased that they had an option of casting their
ballots at their convenience.
Kansas law also provides for provisional ballots to be cast
by voters. No voter is turned away on Election Day. Every
provisional ballot is researched individually between Election
Day and the canvass of the election, with a recommendation to
count or not count based on State law.
As a member of the Election Center's Election Reform Task
Force, I have had the privilege of participating with my
colleagues in an honest evaluation of the election process,
including exactly how well we do our jobs.
I must tell you that election administrators are the most
dedicated and committed group of individuals you will ever
meet. We are perfectionists and control freaks, and we are
proud of it. We are the gatekeepers of democracy, and we are
committed to excellence, the highest level of integrity, and,
most importantly, to open and impartial elections.
We take great pride in the public's confidence and trust in
our ability to do our jobs, and we are deeply saddened that the
aftermath of the November 2000 election has eroded some of that
trust. We can rebuild voter confidence, and we believe that it
has to start at the grassroots level.
To local government, elections are an unfunded mandate.
This means that election administrators are always vying for
funding against libraries, roads and bridges, Meals on Wheels,
and park and recreation activities, all items that impact
residents on a daily basis.
Elections are at the bottom of the funding list because
they are perceived as only a once- or twice-a year activity.
Any effort to replace aging voting equipment is a very, very
hard sell. To say that we all need additional dollars is a
given, but to say that we all need the same type of voting
equipment is not.
For example, Kansas has 21 counties that vote on hand-
counted paper ballots, and it works; 81 counties vote on
optical scan paper ballots; and 3 large counties cast their
ballots on electronic voting machines.
This diversity in Kansas exists throughout the entire
country. What works for one county does not necessarily work
for all. The reality is that there are flaws in the system, and
the media magnified them during the November 2000 election.
If we as election administrators could live in a perfect
world, the voter registration records would be accurate,
complete, and always up to date. But the reality is that the
voter files are inflated due to mandatory compliance with the
NVRA.
In a perfect world, there would be an abundance of
accessible voting locations, but the reality is that it is
difficult to find those locations, and often not possible to
find accessible ones.
In the perfect world, elections would be easy to program
and the voting equipment would always work, but the reality is
that elections are complicated and machines break down.
In the perfect world, there would always be an abundant
pool of trained election workers to choose from for every
Election Day, but the reality is that approximately 98 percent
of our election workers are senior citizens, and the pool is
not being replenished.
In the perfect world, budget dollars would be available to
educate the voters, purchase new voting equipment, and increase
election workers' salaries, but again, the reality is that
elections are an unfunded mandate.
In the perfect world, the voters would research candidates
and issues prior to Election Day, and everyone would celebrate
democracy by casting their vote. But as we all know, the
reality is that voter participation is declining, particularly
among 18- and 24-year-olds.
In the perfect world, election administrators would have
access to an election resource library of best practices, but
the reality is that that does not exist, and it will require
Federal funding.
In the perfect world, election administrators would receive
mandatory federally funded training on Federal and State
election procedures, but the reality is that while the Election
Center has an excellent certification program, many election
administrators cannot afford to attend.
In the perfect world, there would be uniform, voluntary
voting system standards and operating procedures maintained by
election administrators at the State and local level. But the
reality is the Office of Election Administration of the FEC is
seriously underfunded. Voting system standards are not up to
date, operational standards do not exist, and there is no
clearinghouse for reporting problems with voting systems.
In the perfect world, there would be clear rules to
determine voter intent within each State. But the reality is
that voter intent standards do not exist in all States.
With Federal funding, it is possible to address many of
these issues. We must join together collectively, at the local,
State, and Federal level to share resources and to find
creative and innovative solutions.
In our county, we have implemented several election worker
recruitment programs involving civic organizations, corporate
business owners, and 16- and 17-year-old high school students.
Since 1998, we have recruited a total of 506 election
workers through those programs. In late 1999, again in response
to a lack of funding for voter outreach activities, our office
recruited citizen leaders, including high school students and
college students, to create a nonpartisan, nonprofit Promote
the Vote Foundation.
In election 2000, over 13,000 students participated in
programs sponsored by that Foundation. Many similar programs
are ongoing in other communities, and they are all focused on
increasing voter eduction and participation.
So we are asking for Federal funding for voting equipment
and centralized voter registration software for election
administrator certification training programs and for
sufficient funding of the Office of Election Administration to
develop and maintain those uniform voluntary voting system
standards.
As election administrators we believe that nurturing and
protecting democracy is a team effort, a community-wide,
statewide, and nationwide team effort. We ask that you join
with us as we work to improve the administration of elections
in America and to rebuild voter confidence.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today.
The Chairman. Thank you for testifying.
Next, Carolyn Jackson.
STATEMENT OF CAROLYN JACKSON
Ms. Jackson. Chairman Ney and other members of the
Committee, it is an honor to be asked to appear before you to
present my views from the local level of election
administration.
I have been an election official since 1982. I will attempt
in the time allotted to present to you a brief analysis of the
problems and needs on the local level.
It is a dreadful feeling to know that you are expected to
produce flawless elections with equipment that is antiquated
and no longer serviceable. A better understanding of the
requirements and needs from election officials would enhance
the final product.
The publicity from the November election has caused a level
of interest from all walks of life, which can be beneficial in
that the attention received has resulted in a long overdue
dialogue among all levels of government and voters of our great
country.
It is my hope this dialogue will produce a final product
that will ensure quality equipment and a means of communication
to the voters we serve. The voters deserve and expect education
and the assurance their vote is counted on Election Day,
whether it be early, absentee, or on the regular Election Day.
Voters should accept the responsibility of maintaining an
accurate and up-to-date voter registration and change of
address. This process can be stressed through voter education,
which may require additional funding from sources that normally
do not understand the importance of voter education nor the
process itself.
There are mandates from the Federal and State levels that
have caused additional financial burdens on the election
commissions that are already underfunded, such as the postage
rates we must endure in implementing the NVRA.
Hopefully, out of this current crisis you will take time to
pursue the concerns surrounding the NVRA. Again, it has been an
honor to be among the local officials given the opportunity to
present some of our concerns.
The Chairman. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Next, Conny McCormack.
STATEMENT OF CONNY McCORMACK
Ms. McCormack. Congressman, it is definitely an honor to be
here today to give you testimony on this very important topic
of election reform.
This is my 20th year as an elections administrator in this
country. I started in Dallas, Texas, where I was election
administrator for 6 years, and then moved to San Diego,
California; and now for the past 5 years, I have been the head
of elections of Los Angeles.
Los Angeles has the largest voter base in the country. We
have 4.1 million registered voters and 5,000 voting precincts.
Last November, we voted a record high 2,770,000 voters, which
was more ballots cast in our county and counted in my office
than in 41 of the 50 states.
Indeed, we had more absentee ballots in my country than
were cast in eight of the States. We have 520,000 absentee by
mail ballots.
For a Presidential election, the logistics are similar to a
military deployment. We hire 25,131 poll workers. As we said,
we deal with over 500,000 absentee ballots. Some days we have
35,000 applications a day. We turn them around in a one-day
turnaround time. Clearly this takes hundreds of additional
staff to do that.
We have been on the same voting system in Los Angeles
County. I would like to think it was a 1970s system, Pam. It is
a 1960s system, the punch card voting system, because we
started it in Los Angeles in 1968. I can tell you, to this
moment we are a long way away from getting rid of it, because
we have no money. To do it is something we would love to do.
We started on this process in conjunction with the November
election, before what happened in November. Starting in
October, we instituted a pilot program of the DRE, touch screen
voting in Los Angeles. It was a huge success. Out of the 2.7
million voters, we had 27,963 of our voters, including myself,
who cast their ballot on a DRE system during the early voting
period at one of the nine locations we set up around the
county, where any one of our 4.1 million voters could have gone
to any of these locations and cast their ballot.
To do this was a huge technology challenge, because the
first thing that happened when they walked in was to have to
qualify that voter and then set up which ballot they were going
to get on the DRE. Because we have 17 congressional
representatives in our county, and many assembly and water
boards, we had 263 different types of ballots, depending on
which one, what area you lived in--in seven languages--and we
had to count them into one of the 5,000 precincts.
When you multiply 5,000 times 263 times 7, each one of our
DREs had 9 million combinations in them and were activated
within 4 seconds of pulling up the correct ballot for that
voter.
It was a huge success to the voter. Ninety-nine percent of
them filled out a survey and said they loved it so much better
than punch cards. Not a single overvote can be cast, and not a
single one was cast because you cannot overvote on a DRE
system.
This was not the case with our punch card system, where we
had a half a percent of our voters in the precincts vote for
more than one candidate for President. I have to believe that
was inadvertent. That was 13,000 people who lost their vote. We
had a 2.2 percent undervote.
There is a natural undervote for President. We had a .5
percent undervote on the DRE, as did Riverside County, which is
all DRE. So it is probably about a half a percent of the people
who did not want to vote or were confused, or were just in the
middle of indecision, like the rest of the country on who to
vote for.
So take away that half percent, that means we have 1.7
percent of the people who probably did not mean to undervote
and could not understand the system. That was another 61,000
people.
So taken together, these are a lot of people who did not
have their votes counted that would have if we did not have a
1960s-based system.
Ms. McCormack [continuing]. Additionally, the DRE system
that we put in place for the pilot program allowed blind and
visually impaired voters to vote without assistance, and this
was a huge success. We partnered with the Braille Institute and
the Center for the Partially Sighted at their own expense,
since we have no money to do this.
They mailed out to 8,000 of their own members a brochure
that we developed with them, letting the blind know that they
could go to one of these nine locations and vote without
assistance. We had hundreds of voters, many accompanied only by
Seeing Eye dogs, come into our sites to vote for the first time
in their lives without anyone helping them, and it was a
wonderful experience.
Similarly, for people who use a different language, whose
first language is not English--and we are very diverse in Los
Angeles, propositions on the ballot are complex, they are hard
to understand in English--and we had hundreds of our voters
choose one of the seven languages, and we are very, very
pleased that they were able to understand the ballot in a much
better way than in the past.
None of these are available on punch card. We cannot do
this type of work with a punch card system. We have a
translation of the punch card ballot, which is cumbersome and
is very costly, so clearly we would like to move into a more
modern voting system.
So what are the obstacles to doing that? Well, the obstacle
is, one--and all of you know what it is--we don't have
sufficient funding, and our pilot project only cost us $70,000
to institute it. But for us to go countywide on a modern DRE
voting system in Los Angeles County would cost, initial
purchase of $100 million. We don't have $100 million, and as
Pam Iorio mentioned, the op-scan system does not work in Los
Angeles, and part of my testimony explains why that doesn't
work with seven languages. And replacing one piece of paper
with another paper ballot, we would be spending millions of
dollars on ballots every election, and it would just be
inappropriate, and we would need another building to store them
in. So that isn't going to work.
Our election last November, with a 7-cents-a-ballot-card,
the cheapest system you can have--we only spent a half a
million dollars on ballot cards. It was a very low cost. Our
election costs us $20.4 million to put on. We had old, fully
depreciated voting equipment; it still cost us $20.4 million.
There were water districts on the ballot. There were cities
on the ballot, and each one of the people who were on the
ballot in jurisdictions paid their proportional share, with the
very noted exception of the Federal Government. We listed the
President, the Vice President, Senators and U.S.
Representatives, and for that, we did not get a dime.
Each of these other jurisdictions cannot afford to pay for
their share of the ballot, but they do. I do think it is time
the Federal Government paid their fair share to be on a ballot,
which they are on for every election.
We also have tremendous unfunded mandates. Out of our $20.4
million for the election, $2 million of that was for compliance
with the Voting Rights Act and to produce the ballot in the
seven languages and the translations and the oral assistance at
the polls, again, an unfunded mandate that we would like to see
some dollars come to us.
But how are we going to get this money? Our local
government, currently our county board of supervisors, is very
much interested in converting, but they don't have the money,
and our health department has a $184 million deficit right now.
We will remain frustratingly elusive that the top 10 priorities
of government, that voting is always the 11th. We forever are
relegated to the 11th on the top 10.
In our State government, we have bills right now. We are
hoping to get money, but if we weren't spending an additional
$54 million a day on the spot market to buy electricity, we
would probably be getting the $300 million that our speaker of
the state assembly wants to give us, but we have spent $5
billion since January that was unbudgeted on electricity with
no end in sight, and so the obscurity, at best, and oblivion,
at worst, that bill at the State level, we will not be seeing
the money.
I would like to echo, elections class of mail would
sincerely help us as a means to do this. And I would also like
to say that the Federal Government spends $30 million every
year to support democracy building overseas. We don't spend a
dime here. I do think that democracy here is worth at least
what it is worth to support the countries overseas that we
support in democracy building. I think it is time that we did
that.
The Census last year, the $100 million was spent by the
Federal Government on an advertising campaign. That was very
valuable, and it really helped in Los Angeles. We had a much
higher turnout of people filling out the Census. They
understood what it was for, and they understood the importance
of it. And a similar type of campaign at the national level to
advertise the process of voting, the deadlines, the voter
registration, how you actually vote, PSAs, how you touch the
screen or push a--punch a card would go a long way toward
making our process more effective.
I have many things else I would like to say, but I see I am
over my time. I am sure you have lots of questions, so I am
going to finish my testimony at this time.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Our last witness, Linda Lamone.
STATEMENT OF LINDA H. LAMONE
Ms. Lamone. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is an
honor to be here. If feel like the little sister to Conny, who
has only 2.7 million registered voters in Maryland. But in any
event, Maryland is in a very fortunate position, because we
started election reform some time ago.
We had a very close gubernatorial race in 1994, and the
emphasis has been on addressing some of the issues that were
raised as a result of that election. The governor and the
general assembly have directed us to create a total election
management system, which we have done. We are in the process of
finally implementing a statewide voter registration system. We
have rewritten all the software, created new software for all
of the processes that occur in the period of conducting an
election from defining the ballot to posting the election
results on the Web page, to developing campaign finance
reporting software and database for campaign expenditures and
contributions that is on a searchable Web--on the Web page on a
searchable database.
The last piece of the pie was approved by the Maryland
general assembly at this last session, this last winter, and
that is a uniform voting system that can accommodate
individuals with disabilities. We are not going to be
purchasing it; we will be leasing it. The State is going to be
providing half of the funding to this, and of course would
welcome Federal dollars to assist us in doing this. The
governor and the general assembly would like me to accomplish
this by the September election in 2002. We hope that we will be
able to meet that desire.
As I said, Maryland has been undergoing election reform now
for approximately 5 years. The general assembly completely
rewrote the election code in 1997. They have centralized
election administration in Maryland under the State board of
elections with me as its administrator. I am a nonpartisan,
appointed official. I am a public officer of the State board of
elections. There are five people appointed by the governor,
confirmed by the Senate, three of the majority party, two of
the minority party.
We have a very centralized authority in the State board
over the administration of elections. There is much greater
State funding in Maryland than, I think, in a lot of other
jurisdictions. All of the software development and most of the
new hardware that we have placed in the counties have been paid
for by the State. All the communications costs are paid by the
State of Maryland. The result is that we have very consistent
standards. We are very lucky.
We have one voter registration application for the State.
We have uniform procedures for virtually every process that the
local election boards have to follow, and I submitted some
testimony to the committee which outlines a lot of the things
that we have done in the last 5 years.
And I recognize that this is not particularly typical of
what goes on in many other States, nor may it be welcome, but
it is what Maryland decided to do, and it seems to be working
well for us.
You have heard a lot of suggestions for solutions. I will
not repeat them. I think we all agree with what has been said
here today, probably nationally. I would like to add two of my
own that haven't--one of which has not been mentioned today and
one that is sort of--we are implementing in Maryland for the
first time.
As you all know, our society is very mobile, and it is very
difficult for all of us to keep track of our registered voters.
We have no way of knowing whether or not people are registered
in two different States. There is no national database like
there is for commercial drivers licenses, so we have no way of
checking.
In Maryland, if you are convicted of a second infamous
crime, you are forever disenfranchised. I have no way of
knowing if people have been convicted of a crime in another
State, let alone if they have been sometimes convicted of two
crimes in Maryland, although we are working on that. It could
be a Federal conviction in one State and a State conviction in
Maryland, but still, unless the person affirmatively tells us
that he or she has had that second conviction, there is no way
of tracking the voters, is what I am saying; and the bottom
line is, we need some sort of identification number that we can
use to track voters. Even if it is within a State, it would
help us a long way to keeping our voter registration records
cleaner and track our voters and not have the motor voter
problems that we had in this last election. As I am sure you
have heard from other people, under motor voter, people would
go to the Motor Vehicle Administration, which is what we call
the agency in Maryland, to change their address. There are
signs all over the place, ``Register to vote here,'' ``Vote
here,'' ``Get your voter registration applciation here''--
change their address. And it has a block on there that says,
which is required by NVRA, ``Do you want this to be for voter
registration purposes as well?'' The voter checks it and thinks
that that changed their voter registration address as well.
They move to their new county, change their address, check
that little box. Then they go to the polls on Election Day
where they think they are supposed to go, and they are not on
the precinct register. And it caused--I know anecdotally--I
have heard from my colleagues around the country, it caused
tremendous problems on Election Day, and it was an
embarrassment to us, and it showed us the weaknesses in having
an outside agency, particularly as large as the Motor Vehicle
Administration with the number of changes of address and
license transactions that they handle, being responsible, in
essence, for voter registrations.
So be it. That is the way the law reads.
What we have done in Maryland is, we are going to implement
what I call a ``once registered, always registered to vote''
process in Maryland. You get one driver's license when you move
to Maryland. You should not have to reregister to vote every
time you move within the State, as long as you remain a
qualified voter, and so we are working closely with the MVA. It
is going to be a paper process, probably for 6 months to a
year, but we are working very closely with them to make it a
paperless transaction so that their database will tell my
database that Linda Lamone has moved from one county to
another. Their record will be transferred, and I will be sent a
new voter notification card, which is what we call the
``notification of registration'' in Maryland. I am hoping that
that alleviates the problem.
The general assembly has also given me the ability to use
provisional ballots in the future. I am hoping that with this
new process of treating the State of Maryland, in essence, as a
one large jurisdiction for voter registration purposes, that
that will greatly reduce the need for provisional ballots down
the road.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Questions?
Mr. Davis. One of the issues that received a lot of
attention in Florida was the need to improve the database that
was the voter registry. When Secretary of State Katherine
Harris testified here, she talked about the fact that Florida
was moving out of the privatization model back to the clerk of
the court model in Florida and that it was going to cost a
significant sum.
Linda, I think you referred to some information--you
referred to some issues concerning the integrity of the
database or the registry of voters. And so I guess my first
question is, all of y'all have stated the case that you would
appreciate the Federal government funding some of the costs of
improving your voting equipment; and would you include the
database as part of that?
Mr. Lewis. Absolutely, yeah.
Ms. Lamone. We spent about $4.5 million developing our
statewide voter registration system on software development and
hardware for the county.
Mr. Lewis. North Carolina has at least that much money
invested in theirs. Some of the other States have spent that
much or more trying to get to that point, and so it is an
expensive proposition to get it to work.
And, secondly, we are probably going to have to find a way
to marry up to DMV, their database. They have funds, they have
resources; we don't. And their resources were 70 percent--if
you look at what the Federal Government says--the OEA says, 72
percent of all the transactions in voter files belong through
the DMV, and so that is certainly a place that we are going to
have to get closer.
Michigan and Kentucky already have made this a one-step
process so that it is not a two-step process, it is one
database. It is one transaction, not two transactions, and that
makes it a whole lot easier.
Mr. Davis. My second question pertains to whether you all
believe, on behalf of your own voters, as well as generally, we
can realistically expect many of the changes we have been
discussing to take place in time for the 2002 election. I know
in Florida that is the intention, as well as the intention to
begin building on some more, superior changes in time for the
2004 election. That will influence how compelling the case is
we can make to the appropriators in terms of funding this year.
And my second question related to 2002 is, if we do try to
appropriate some funds and we get that done by the fall or late
summer, is that soon enough for your planning purposes for
changes for 2002?
Ms. Jackson. May I address that?
Mr. Davis. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Jackson. Number one, I feel very strongly that until
the concept of an election is a Federal election, we are not
going to move too far. All elections are important, no matter
what level. If the money is going to be appropriated, then I
feel that it needs to be appropriated in time for us to produce
the type of elections in 19--I mean, in 2002 that we have to
produce. It doesn't need to be changed.
I will have elections in May of 2002, my county elections.
If I get no money from the Federal Government, there will just
be certain things that I will not be able to do. If the money
should come for the August or the November election--the
November election is the Federal election--I have got to change
my operation in midstream, and that is not good for the voters,
nor is it good for the election commission.
Our credibility has been stomped, and we are working hard
to bring it back up. I would almost rather that--if we can't
have the money late 2001 or early 2002, we not get it until
2003 in an off-year so that we begin the even years doing the
same thing that we started out doing.
Mr. Davis. If we can appropriate the funds and you know
they are coming by this fall, does that give you enough time to
use those funds to make the changes you need to make for the
2002----
Ms. Jackson. That should be ample time.
Ms. McCormack. I would like to make a comment on that.
First of all, we would need to know what kind of funding we are
talking about. Are we talking about matching grants that are
going to States and then counties apply? So there is a process.
Clearly, these processes take time, and indeed determining a
vendor and a contractor process takes time as well.
What I have proposed to my board of supervisors, that they
have not yet funded, is a $3 million expansion of our early
voting DRE project so that we could have 40 or 50 sites, during
the couple of weeks before the election up through the Saturday
and Sunday before the election, for early voting at 40 or 50
locations instead of just nine, which was a pilot project. We
know that we would have hundreds of thousands of people now
with this post-punch card environment, and nine locations is
insufficient. It was fine for 21,000. It won't work.
So I need to have some money, because my county won't even
give me the $3 million to do the expanded pilot project I am
working toward, because I have chosen a vendor for that. In
terms of a total county conversion, obviously that is
impossible in Los Angeles County. It would take a lot longer
just to do an RFP and a contract implementation. But I am not
the rest of the country, and the fact is, if there was money
coming through a grant process that we could all apply for, we
could start the process to get this thing happening, and that
is what we need to do.
We can't expect, obviously, all of California--and I would
like to reiterate, one size does not fit all. Some States may
either be more homogeneous and they can have a voting system.
Perhaps even in Florida it is possible to have a voting system
that works in every county, but in Los Angeles, we have to have
a DRE system. The paper scan system does not work, is my
testimony.
There is a whole section that I have attached. And Alpine
County in California has 771 voters, and I have 4 million with
seven languages.
So a one-size-fits-all solution is not the issue. We need
diversity and innovation. But if it were a grant application
process, I do think that counties would step forward to try to
start to modernize, and they would have an opportunity to do
that with matching funds. And we are hoping to get something
from the States as well.
So I certainly would hope that wouldn't be a reason--that
by 2002 if everybody in the country didn't have a new voting
system wouldn't be an impediment to moving forward as we
transition into this new process.
Thank you.
Mr. Davis. And, Ms. McCormack, do you believe that if we
did appropriate sufficient funds in the fall, that would allow
you enough time to implement some improvements for the 20----
Ms. McCormack. Absolutely, I want to move forward to the
2002 elections, even for the March primary in our county, in
our State, toward this expansion of the DRE project that I have
told my board I can do for $3 million for this initial--and at
this point, I don't have the $3 million, so----
Mr. Davis. And if the bill ultimately did end up with some
local or State match, do you fell like a substantial amount of
Federal dollars would give you the leverage----
Ms. McCormack. Yes.
Mr. Davis [continuing]. You need to----
Ms. McCormack. Yes. I absolutely do. Absolutely. Thank you.
Mr. Lewis. And Mr. Davis, one of the things I think you are
going to find in most jurisdictions is that they would be
reluctant, beyond about March of 2002, to have to take on the
task of implementing a new voting system.
Now, in terms of the other--other features of having better
voter education and better poll worker education, and in terms
of making sure that we train and make sure our people
understand to take care of voters rather than to have
confrontation with voters. I think we can do those kinds of
things, but most elections administrators are going to be very
uncomfortable trying to buy a brand-new voting system and
installing it in time for a statewide election. It makes you
very nervous to do that, because you don't know what you are
going to encounter on a new voting system. You know what you
have encountered on the old one.
With every voting system, you end up--you learn that there
is a work-around. I mean, none of it is perfect, and so you
have to figure out, what do your voters do to it and then what
does your staff do to it and, more importantly, what do the
poll workers do to it before the voter ever gets there. And so
you--you try to use those in small elections first, working
your way up gradually to the point that you then implement it
system-wide in a large election and hopefully not in a
presidential election.
Mr. Davis. Yes, ma'am?
Ms. McCormack. I just wanted to say, I don't think you are
saying that everybody has to completely convert to the new
voting system. If options were available for early voting, like
in California, where any voter could go early, which we had for
the first time last year, there would be an option for voters;
and I think that is what we are trying to offer here, some
options for the counties to move forward.
I don't think it would be--I hope it wouldn't be a
requirement for counties to fully implement a new voting
system. Frankly, there are vendor resource issues. There are
all kinds of contractual issues, that type of thing.
Mr. Davis. Mr. Chairman, one last question----
The Chairman. Sure.
Mr. Davis [continuing]. To Pam Iorio.
In your judgment, are some of the small- and medium-sized
counties in Florida going to need some Federal assistance in
order for the county to absorb the cost of the conversion for
the 2002 election?
Ms. Iorio. The governors task force that was formed in the
aftermath of the 2000 election estimated that the complete cost
to move each precinct to--precinct-based optical scan is about
$10,000 per precinct, including all costs, privacy booths,
everything. And so the $7,500 allocated per precinct by the
Florida Legislature is most of it, but I still think some of
the very small counties--well, all of the--the counties that
have to make that transition will still have some local monies
that will be needed to cover the cost.
Mr. Davis. Okay. Thank you.
The Chairman. Mr. Reynolds, any questions?
Mr. Reynolds, Ms. Schmidt, you cited that the National
Voting Registration Act was an example of legislation that, by
opposing uniformity, had a negative impact on some State and
local jurisdictions. I would be interested in your comment and
some of the other panel members' comments on that--that point,
if you might, my first question.
Ms. Schmidt. Certainly. I think in our county particularly,
we have a very difficult time in tracking voters, and I think
the--Linda from Maryland put it very well. We have a difficult
time in connecting with the DMV offices in order to keep our
list 100 percent accurate.
In the State of Kansas, we do not have a centralized day-
to-day voter system. We send our file on a quarterly basis to
the secretary of state's office to do a matching of our voters.
We have the need for having a little more instantaneous
information. Our voters in our county move very frequently. We
spend an enormous amount of our staff time doing nothing but
updating the voter records from moves.
Mr. Reynolds. Anyone else? No comment? Does anybody else on
the panel have a comment on the Voting Rights Act?
Mr. Lewis. On the Voting Rights Act or the----
Mr. Reynolds. I am sorry, Voter Registration.
Mr. Lewis. I think what most of us in the profession are
really looking at and saying is that we have responsibility for
some of the things in there, and yet no authority and certainly
no funding. And we don't mind having the responsibility as long
as you have the authority to go with the responsibility, so
that--I mean, it bothers us to be accused of not having good
voter lists when outside agencies may or may not actually
report the information that they have gathered to you.
And so we don't mind--the good feature of NVRA is that it
does indeed make more people eligible to vote and we are all
happy with that. We want people in the process.
What we are not happy with is that you get agencies that
you have no authority to go train or no authority to say, guys,
you are doing it wrong, or even, here is the attitude you ought
to have about it; that this really is an enabling process and
not something where you kind of tell folks that you don't care
whether they are there or not.
And so those are the real reasons that we have problems
with it, both money and no authority.
Ms. Iorio. I think the Congress made a, you know, conscious
decision in 1993, when they passed the National Voter
Registration Act, that there should be very few barriers,
institutional barriers, to the registration process and that
the voter--the registrant should put down very little
information on the form and that the process should be as open
and as easy as possible in order to increase voter
registration. That has occurred. We have dramatically increased
voter registration throughout this country.
Now, the flip side of it is that you have--it is the last
of the great honor systems, and you have errors that are going
to be made in a society where people just pick up a form and
fill it out, mail it in, or pick it up at a variety of State
and county agencies. So there is just a trade-off there; and as
a country, we just have to decide what we want. Do we want a
very restrictive registration system but one that is tightly
controlled and doesn't have many errors, or do we want one that
is very open and accessible with no barriers at all, but that
we have a particular error rate associated with it?
And I think we have already made that decision as a country
and a Congress and we are living with it, and we have improved
and dramatically increased voter registration because of it.
Ms. McCormack. I would just like to comment and reiterate
the comments of my colleagues that clearly in our county with
27 DMV offices of the 80 in the State and 5,000 records a week
coming to us from DMV on voter files, we do have a 50 percent
match of those that actually match up to our file because when
people register at the DMV, they don't have to have--they can
use a post office box. They don't have to have a residence. We
are not sure it is the same person.
There is all kinds of software issues about, is this the
same, you know, John Smith as the John Smith we think this
might be on the file?
We have met with all 27 of our offices. We have asked them,
and they did a better job in November than in the past,
although we still have thousands of people that thought they
had registered or did try to register at the DMV, and we didn't
get their records.
But to follow up with the paper on a more expeditious
fashion, these computer bumps also come to us usually about a
month late, which is obviously when voter registration
deadlines are now--in California, we used to have 29 days
before the election; our new law, in January, it is 15 days.
We are already a month behind on the NVRA records now. So
when we get these records through the State system, they are
going to be completely outdated, because there will be many
people who will have done the process, but--however, didn't
ever get through to us until way after the election.
These are just some of the challenges we have to deal with.
The provisional voting process does help, because we in
California, anyone who is sure they are registered and they
should be on the list--because I have to tell you, we make
administrative errors and get people on the wrong list--do have
an opportunity to vote. And then during our 28-day
certification process, we do clear those registrations.
So in that 28 days following the election in which,
statewide in California, we added a million extra votes into
the--10 percent of the votes were counted after Election Day,
some as many as 3 weeks after Election Day. We always count
them; it takes time.
So during this process, we are able to try to work out some
of these kinks. But there is no perfect process and whenever,
as Doug mentions, interagencies are involved in a process, it
is hard enough in my own office--I am also the recorder of
deeds in my office, and we do 10,000 property transfers a day,
and we are also--I am also the birth, death and marriage
commissioner, where our death files have----
Mr. Hoyer. You have too much to do.
Ms. McCormack. I do. I have 800 employees, and it is a
problem. Where--our death file computer system doesn't even
match up with our voter system, so we are doing a lot of
paperwork instead of computer bumps in my own office because of
software issues on different sides of the office.
So it is--those are all just challenges, though. I don't
think we should immediately say something is wrong with the
process because it is a little bit more difficult now to
administer it.
I think we can work through some of these problems. We are
working very hard with the State DMV to come up with a new form
that is more user friendly, like they have in many of the other
States. Ours is a process that is impossible for the DMV client
to understand. So I do think that we can work through some of
these, but perfection is never going to happen in the election
process.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. I understand that Pam
Iorio has an airplane to catch. So I wanted to mention that to
the members of the committee.
Ms. Iorio. Thank you. Thank you for having me here today.
The Chairman. I appreciate your time.
Mr. Hoyer. Could I just thank Ms. Iorio for being with us?
I found her testimony--I found the testimony of all the
witnesses to be outstanding and very, very helpful, and I
appreciate your observations.
I wanted to ask you some questions, but I will ask the
others. I don't want you to miss your plane.
Ms. Iorio. Thank you.
The Chairman. Mr. Reynolds, do you have any additional
follow-up questions?
Mr. Reynolds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess maybe two.
One, should we--when we look at the discussion of funding,
some in testimony referred to today as ``unfunded mandates,''
others on Federal elections that did not receive any Federal
dollars and yet we have imposed uniformity on a voter
registration program, are there conditions that the Congress
should place on the distribution of Federal money? And I am a--
kind of a local government guy, so I ask that very carefully as
I say it.
But as you are on the front line, and both State officials
have said, send money to the States, and hearing testimony
today that money is coming in to improve the system by the
Federal government, are there conditions? Should we require
voter ID at the time of election? Should we review some of our
voter registration on purging lists if people haven't voted, so
there is assistance in the flexibility of registering, that we
also don't have registrations all over the place?
I am curious your reaction to that question.
Ms. Jackson. As I stated in my testimony, I am hoping,
after this crisis with Florida and what we are going through
now, that we will go back--that you all will go back and look
at NVRA. There are--and it is one of my pet peeves, I have to
admit it. So I have been very careful in how I scrutinize it
and where I scrutinize it, so that I don't get in trouble.
But I think it is probably one of the--well, next to one of
the worst things that could have happened to the election
community. It was an opportunity for elected officials to come
up with an idea of, hey, this sounds good; we will get more
people registered. There were no local people involved, to my
knowledge, in working up this legislation, to get it ready.
As elected officials, that is your first concern, let's get
enough people registered to vote. Every one of you has done
massive registration drives prior to your election. So you like
the idea of DMV and all of these other agencies getting
involved. They are not election people. We can't go out there
and do what they do; we would be raising all kind of cain.
I have sat and watched the operation at the DMV office in
Chattanooga, and they have got it perfected so that you would
not think there would be any problems. But once that applicant
goes out the door, I don't know where that application goes,
because most of them do not come to us, and I think you have to
understand that in certain localities, there is a large influx
of people seeking a driver's license, and these people,
frankly, don't have the time to fool with it. But we get the
blame for it when that person doesn't get to vote.
And I am not there to deny people the right to vote. I wish
you would go back and look at it because it--it has created too
many problems. That is the deal.
The Chairman. Mr. Reynolds, additional questions? Thank
you.
Mr. Hoyer.
Mr. Hoyer. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, again, I want
to reiterate how appreciative I am of the testimony that has
been given by people who actually, obviously day-to-day, have
to run the election system and get registrants from the Motor
Vehicle Administration to the records at local precincts.
The anecdotal evidence of which Linda Lamone talked, I was
in a precinct--not my own precinct, but I traveled around
Election Day, was in there, and happened to see friends of mine
who had had this happen to them. They registered at motor
vehicles and were not on the rolls, and they were sent away.
And whether she got back or not, I don't know.
But in any event--I was going to ask Ms. Iorio, but let me
ask the rest of you: She stressed in her testimony, all the
experts I have heard agree, that if you are going to have an
accurate system, it has got to be precinct-based. Once you get
to central counting, you have lost the voter; the voter is
gone.
Secondly, you need to be able to have technology which
corrects--or at least notifies the voter that they have not
voted correctly.
Does everybody agree that those are two critical things
that we need to have?
Now, let me ask you, on the DREs, two questions. Obviously
it corrects you immediately. You can't, in effect--it is very
hard to misvote. You cannot vote, but you can't overvote.
Technically, you can't overvote, correct? To that extent, it is
like a lever machine. The lever machine has the advantage, you
can't overvote on a lever machine, assuming it is working
correctly.
Ms. McCormack. They are not all the same. I saw one that
has been certified recently in California that you could
actually be moving your hand down and inadvertently vote for
someone else, because the one I used and the one that I was
on--the style I was only familiar with is, in order to unvote
your choice, which lights up in a different color, you have to
go back and take it off. you know, you can't--you are trying to
hit something else.
You would have to go tell--maybe he didn't understand--ask
the poll worker, well, how come I want to change my mind and I
can't do it?
I think that is preferable to one that, as you move your
hand down the screen, if you inadvertently--but again those are
designed--and when you have your system panel on that, you will
see all of that.
I personally prefer the fact that once you have hit it, you
can't undo it unless you touch it again, but that is just a
personal preference. But in terms of the ones up until I saw
this one recently, I would have answered your question, yes, it
is impossible to overvote. But----
Mr. Hoyer. Actually, since it is----
Ms. McCormack. It is not really an overvote. You wouldn't
be overvoting; you would be taking off maybe the choice you
actually wanted. You wouldn't be overvoting if your hand went
down--and mine did when I was playing with this one, and I
didn't mean to do that. But all the ones, I believe, unless--
they certainly should; if we had the appropriate management
standards in place, which we are hoping to have the Federal
Government help us do, would let the voter review their ballot
at the end.
And we have that in our system, where there was a ``review
ballot'' button. You would go back and look, what did I do? And
that is similar to the precinct-based optical scan, which--none
of which, of course, you have in punch card or, by the way,
absentee.
We have to remember a lot of people are voting by mail, and
I think it is very important we design our instructions--and we
have completely changed ours to be very graphic and colorful--
so that people will have the best opportunity in that mail at
home not to make these errors; although, of course, if they do,
they don't have a piece of equipment to put it in to correct
it.
Mr. Hoyer. Let me ask you something on recounts. I would
like to hear your comments to this.
To the extent that you go to a paperless system, lever
machines are obviously a paper system, and the only recount on
a lever machine is to get the count off the back of the machine
again. If the tumbler didn't work, you will never know it,
because there is no way to check that.
On the DREs, am I correct--I don't understand the
technology. Well, I have never used it either.
Ms. McCormack. It is different. It is different than that.
Mr. Hoyer. How do you go back and----
Ms. McCormack. We had a recount.
Mr. Hoyer [continuing]. Recount? How do you do that?
Ms. McCormack. We have a recount after every election. We
had one in Malibu, six votes apart for a development issue. And
what's worse than a development issue in Malibu? So it was
ugly, but you know--the system prints out ballot images of--it
is not associated with the voter, so we did actually have--
obviously, out of our 21,000 ballots that were cast on DRE,
some of them were from Malibu, so we were able to print out the
ballot images.
Riverside County in California had a totally DRE system for
their election. It is the largest all-DRE election in the
country, with 700 precincts, and they had a recount in one of
their districts and had no problem. And the focus then became
the absentee, because the absentees aren't DRE. You don't mail
a DRE to a person, so the recount then ends up focusing on the
absentee ballot.
Mr. Hoyer. So is there, in effect, an image that you can go
back and----
Ms. McCormack. Yes, there is.
Mr. Lewis. Federal voting system standards require ballot
image retention. The one thing that makes some people nervous
is that the recount cannot possibly come out differently than
the machine printed it. I mean----
Ms. McCormack. That is a good thing.
Mr. Lewis. Yes, and that is a good thing. I mean, this is
where you get into that age-old argument about whether or not
we can wean ourselves from paper ballots; and those who are of
the philosophy that they cannot yet trust the full electronics
want the paper ballot. The rest of us, who are acquainted with
how good the electronic stuff is now, say, gee, let's go to
that, and then let's go through that. But that is--the Federal
voting system standards require ballot image retention
scrambled so that you cannot identify it to a voter.
Mr. Hoyer. Let me ask you about--Connie Schmidt made the
statement, ``No voter is turned away.'' I personally think that
is what we ought to have in every precinct in America, not by
mandate, but by practice, Federal standard advisory, though it
may be, and that you provide provisional ballots.
Now I would like to hear the comments of all of you,
particularly Ms. McCormack, on provisional ballots, which may
be a--at the level of voters--the numbers of voters you are
dealing with, an incredible problem for you. But I would like
to hear all of you--your comments on that, on provisional
ballots, because as you know, that is a major part of the
legislation that Senator Dodd and Congressman Conyers have put
in, and many others.
Ms. McCormack. Well, I am a major advocate of provisional
voting. I think it protects the election official. I think it
protects the poll worker who doesn't have to deal with turning
anyone away.
And mistakes happen. We get people on wrong poll lists,
people--they are registered. Now we have E-15, 15 days before
the election registration. We had 155,000 new registrations on
our deadline, E-29, last October. It took us 2 weeks to get
those on the list. If we are going to be getting them on the
list, I suppose a day or two before the election, clearly those
are not going to be on the list at the polls, those last-minute
ones. We do a FedEx overnight to our 5,000 polls. Some of the
poll workers say, oh, that is what that FedEx was--but let's
just don't go there with some of those anecdotal stories.
But the bottom line is, if the voter shows up and he or she
is not on the list, we certainly shouldn't penalize them if
there has been an administrative error.
We had 101,000 provisional ballots cast in our county. We
went through those in the 3\1/2\ weeks after the election, one
by one, as we have to, and determined whether or not the person
already had voted absentee, because many of them have mailed in
their absentee and said, oh, I mailed it yesterday on Monday.
Do you think it will get there? And we always advise them,
probably not with our post office.
So we check all the absentees first, and then if they did
not--if we counted their absentee, we don't count their
provisional. So it is a one-by-one analysis. We have counted
61,000 of these. It takes time.
One of the things I think that needs to be recognized is
that there are two things in elections that we all want. We
want speed and we want accuracy. Speed we get with unofficial
returns election night. Accuracy has to wait until all of these
processes are completed.
In a county of our size and in our State, we are allowed
four weeks to finalize our certification of the vote. We added
182,000 ballots in during that 4 weeks. We felt comfortable
that it was accurate.
We do have recounts. I am not saying these is not an
occasional one that a provisional should have been counted and
wasn't, and you know, that is dealt with in a recount or vice
versa. Perfection, again, doesn't always happen, but it does
allow the person--I would have hated to think that maybe
100,000 people at our polls could have been turned away in our
county alone because they weren't on the list or because of
some problem, when 61,000 of those were valid, accurate ballots
to be cast.
I know it is difficult. I think States need to consider a
longer certification time between the unofficial returns and
certifying the official results. One week is inadequate, in my
opinion. You can certify an election in 1 week; I doubt if you
can certify an accurate election in 1 week. At least 2 weeks, I
think, is required.
But, again, that is a State's prerogative, and we are glad
that we have more time. But it is a major effort----
Mr. Hoyer. How much time do you have?
Ms. McCormack. We have 28 days in California. It really
takes us that. We work around the clock. We usually try to get
done by Thanksgiving; that is our goal. We like to be out of
there by Thanksgiving, which is about 3 weeks.
Mr. Hoyer. Did you want to comment?
Mr. Lewis. I just did a survey at the Election Center where
we surveyed the States and asked the States how many of them
had provisional ballots. We had 39 responses as of the day
before yesterday. Nineteen of the States do not offer--out of
that first 39 that responded, 19 of them do not have a
provisional ballot.
Mr. Hoyer. The figure I have is that 17 States have
provisional ballot provisions.
Mr. Lewis. And so what we end up with is--of course some of
those States are same-day-registration States. So a provisional
ballot wouldn't be necessary----
Mr. Hoyer. The same-day-ballot States are in addition to
that, as I----
Mr. Lewis. And North Dakota has no voter registration. So
theirs--and then a handful of the States have a process that is
easier, in their minds, than provisional ballots because all
they do is require the voter to swear an affidavit and say that
they live there, and then they will go ahead and count their
ballot in that election. If it turns out that they were--didn't
live where they said they lived, then there is no getting that
vote back. But--so we have a handful of States that have that
provision and don't want provisional ballots because
provisional ballots, in that case, would be more restrictive.
But if we can find a way to define provisional ballots to
include these other aspects, then we probably can--I mean, I
think most of us in the elections business, we want voters to
feel welcome in this process, and we want the idea of a
provisional ballot--even though it is an administrative
nightmare on the back end, you know, you want it, because you
want that voter to feel good about the process.
Mr. Hoyer. Did anybody else want to comment on that?
Ms. Schmidt.
Ms. Schmidt. I understand that the provisional ballot in
our county, it is very successful. We--in every election, we
actually end up registering people who were not registered. Our
provisional ballot envelope is actually a voter registration
application that we have them fill out. So if they are not a
registered voter there, they are then a registered voter for
future elections, so it is all very positive.
Ms. McCormack. And for those that we don't count, even
though we don't have to by law, I send a notification to each
one of them. I don't say, your vote didn't count; I say, there
has been some problem with your registration, we would like to
get you back on the files.
So we are actually following up and trying to make sure
that we don't have this perpetual provisional person who thinks
that once they have voted provisional they are going to be on
the list. Because if they weren't registered, or we can't find
any record of a registration, or if they were one of these DMV
folks that were dropped out of the ozone, which happens, at
least it won's happen to them the next time.
Mr. Hoyer. Okay. Good.
Mr. Chairman, I don't know what your time frame--I know you
have been--okay.
Let me ask you something, Ms. McCormack. You recently had a
mayoral race.
Ms. McCormack. We still are having a mayoral race. We are
in a runoff between the top two June 5th. It is going to be
very close, and it is all punch card.
Mr. Hoyer. So my question is premature. I was going to ask
you about your experience November to, now May, but April, as
to whether or not, as a result of any actions you may have
taken between November and today, that the punch card system
seems to in the primary be more accurate in any way.
Ms. McCormack. We did a ``got chad'' campaign, a takeoff of
the ``got milk'' campaign. We publicized a really nice poster,
``got chad,'' and put it on every ballot box so that when
people were beginning to put their ballot into the box, they
saw this colorful picture of go to the back of your ballot and
take off your chad.
Our poll workers were chad freaks. All of a sudden now they
all were asking every voter, ``check for chad,'' ``check for
chad.'' And we still had chad. We had less chad than we have
ever had before. Less chad doesn't mean no chad, but----
Mr. Hoyer. It is a strange language we have all learned.
Ms. McCormack. And I have been around for 20 years in all-
punch-card counties, and I always liked it better when only
about 20 people in the country knew what ``chad'' meant, except
that it was a country in Africa or a man's name. But we are not
there anymore.
So now we are working very hard on education. Clearly it
helped a little bit. If it is close, which it may be on June
5th--it looks like it is going to be very close--we will be, I
am sure, having recounts and ballot intent determinations.
Mr. Hoyer. Mr. Lewis, as you know, you have been working
with our office of the legislation that we have prepared. Your
body is included on our advisory board.
By the way, since we have had these hearings, since ESL
testified, we have had them included, I think, the governors
were included, but some of the other organizations were not,
that we think ought to be included.
But what kind of advice would you offer in terms of the
Congress acting now, and what ought to be included now, and
what, perhaps, could be done down the line? You obviously in
your testimony would----
Mr. Lewis. I think we--certainly if you are going to
provide funds for voting systems, don't restrict it to only
voting systems, please. And certainly I see--I think in your
particular legislation, you are providing funds for counties to
get rid of precinct--I mean, punch card systems, and that is
fine. I don't think any of us want to get into the position of
trying to defend punch card systems.
But the real truth is that we have got some other parts of
this process that are equally important, and in fact, probably
far more important than voting systems. Voting systems are
certainly the largest part of the expense, but voter education
has got to be every bit as important as this. Certainly
election official education has got to be every bit as
important as this. Poll worker education has got to be every
bit as important as any of these other things.
And so if you all are going to start directing some funds
immediately and you want those to get into the stream
immediately and you want to see some impacts immediately in
2002, it is unlikely to be on the voting system side in 2002.
It is more likely to be on the infrastructure side, to be on
the systemic problems that we know have existed not only in
this election, but in previous elections; and certainly became,
you know, absolutely common knowledge in the election process
in Florida.
So we need the funds to get that process really rolling,
and as long as you all give us the flexibility to allow those
funds to be applied in ways that we know will improve the
system and make the system work better, and so that it is more
responsive to the voters and that it allows the voter to get
more involved in this and to be more satisfied as a result of
the process, that is where the money needs to be. And so that
is where you get started.
Statewide databases are going to take a while to develop,
and so they can come--I mean, the money needs to be there to
encourage folks to do that, but it doesn't have to be
instantaneous. But certainly these things that are voter-
centered and systemic problem-centered need to be immediate if
you are going to begin to have any impact with it, because some
of it we are not going to be able to do without the funds.
I mean, we are not going to be able to have good voter
education programs without some funding of that. We are not
going to be able to have good poll worker training--I mean,
additional poll worker training or, hopefully, even better poll
workers, being able to recruit a higher caliber and more supply
of poll workers, unless we have some ability to do that.
And certainly in terms of getting these folks educated, the
Election Center trains 600 to 1,000 of them every year, and
that is not enough. The one consistent thing that I hear from
almost all jurisdictions, including some of the ones that are
wealthier here, is that they can't afford to send many of their
people to training. It is because their county commissioners
don't want them to leave the State's borders, in some cases,
the county's borders, because it costs money.
So those are--I think this is that we need and we can get
into and have ready in 2002 if you will allow us to do those
things now. Voting systems are probably going to come in 2003,
2005, 2007, 2009 because, quite frankly, if we--if you guys
gave us $58 billion tomorrow, it would take a while for all of
those jurisdictions to be able to absorb that, get a voting
system, and get the companies to be able to train them on that
voting system. Because it is a small----
Mr. Hoyer. Thank you for those observations.
As you probably know, in the legislation that I put in--and
I don't expect that to move, because Mr. Ney and I, I think,
will come up with a piece of legislation that Mr. Ney will
sponsor and I will cosponsor. But the legislation that we put
in, we have $150 million in there for all the items you have
just mentioned--actually, $140 million, with $10 million set
aside for research.
Mr. Lewis. For research?
Mr. Hoyer. For research on--because there is really no
RDT&E money. There is a lot of money for research, development,
test and evaluation at the Defense Department, but on this
issue, there is no research money. And because the marketplace
is so slow, you buy something in 1960 and you have still got it
in 2000. There is not much incentive for manufacturers to come
up with new technology.
Mr. Lewis. Absolutely.
Mr. Hoyer. So we want to spur technology. So 140 million--
and that figure, Mr. Chairman, may have to be substantially
larger, because as you--particularly if Ms. McCormack is going
to do DREs.
We have keyed the $437 billion, that is $6,000 a precinct,
on the theory that--I think Pam Iorio gave the full cost of
everything, but the machines--the county machines themselves
cost about $5,700. So we put $6,000 times 72,000 precincts
which use the punch cards and that was the figure to get rid of
the punch cards.
However, obviously there is a need for, as you point out,
voter education; and election official education, we know, is a
critical component. And I want to say that I have served on the
Treasury Postal Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee
for 18 years and have gone from a time when we had over a
billion dollars, Mr. Chairman, in what is called revenue
forgone. That is money that we pay the postal department for
revenue that they forgo, because they give special rates. We
included newspapers, da, da, da. We have gone down now where we
are very, very limited to the blind and some other limited
costs.
But I think the proposal that a number of you have put in
here with respect to the--and we have referenced in the Motor
Vehicle Registration Act, but we did not implement it, the
preferential mail rate. There is no excuse for us charging
first-class rates for sample ballots to be sent out or
education to voters to be sent out, because the cost simply--I
live in--or used to live in a fairly rich county, Prince
Georges County just down the road. It is a relatively wealthy--
we live between Rockefeller and Gates. So we are not--Fairfax
County and Montgomery County, so we are not perceived as rich,
but the bottom line is, we are a pretty wealthy county.
We couldn't send out, Mr. Chairman, 2 years ago, a sample
ballot, because they didn't have a--Linda, you remember that;
we didn't have enough money. And we ought to do something about
that, and that ought to be included.
Again, we could go on till, I think, probably 12 o'clock
tonight and learn from you folks, because you are on the front
line. You really do know what is happening and what is real. I
hope that you will dedicate the next 30, 60 days, not full-
time--you have got a mayoral election, things of that nature--
but to working with us, all of us, to come up with both short-
term and long-term ways in which we can partner together. Not
that we can tell you how to do things, but how we can together
come up with standards, not mandatory standards but standards--
you obviously have all talked about the Office of Education
Administration. They have done some very good work. They are
underfunded.
We can--I want to, frankly, move them out so we have a
focus on that--on elections as opposed to campaign finance and
elections. The chairman and I both agree that they are
obviously related, but they are not the same issue.
And so I hope that we can work closely with all of you and
with your colleagues in coming up with legislation which will
make a partnership that we can--and here is the phrase I use,
so that we can have elections in the United States of America
as good as the rest of the world thought we had.
Ms. McCormack. Or that we have helped fund with the rest of
the world.
Mr. Hoyer. Yeah. I understand that. The $30 million, I
think a year, has been very well spent.
Ms. McCormack. I am not saying it is not well spent. I am a
total advocate.
Mr. Hoyer. Your point is well taken that if we can spend it
in other countries, we ought to spend it here in a geometric--
geometrically multiplied way.
Mr. Lewis. And the point is, in 225 years of this
democracy, the Federal Government has not put one dime into the
cost of elections. That has been borne entirely by the local
jurisdictions, and it is about time you all contribute to this
process.
The Chairman. One comment I wanted to make on that. Members
asked me--and I kept saying for the--for the systems to go to
touch-screens or the--maybe an option of seven or eight
different pieces of equipment. That is why we are having an
expo in here. So I am not saying you have to have a touch-
screen system, but let's say that we all find that there are
nine or ten devices out there that are good, plus the training
money. And people said to me, well, how much is that going to
cost?
The Chairman. It is about $5 billion, with a B, dollars.
Now, I have not been here a whole long time, but I know
that we have spent $500,000 to study cows burping. If we can do
that, then I don't think we should be scared at the $5 billion
with a B for democracy. People have given a higher price than
that with their lives. The figure of the $5 billion at the end
of the day I don't think is something that is going to----
Mr. Lewis. It is the cost of freedom. That is all it is.
The Chairman. Most of the questions have been answered. I
don't want to hold you all here any longer. I have just a
thought on Federal holiday.
Mr. Lewis, I know your statement on that--I have one
thought that says that you have a Federal holiday and if you
have a long weekend, your end result might be you go out of
town. That is a possibility.
So I just wondered--and anybody else--are you of the same
opinion of Mr. Lewis, or of a different opinion about voter
turnout?
Ms. Lamone. It would potentially free up election judges,
but it probably more likely would free up polling places. All
of the jurisdictions are constantly looking for accessible
polling places.
I think one of the things that I plan to ask my Maryland
General Assembly to do is to give some sort of incentive to the
State workers, like the day off with pay, if they serve as
election judges. We have got to get a younger pool of people
working, and we are fortunate in Maryland because we only have
two elections every 2 years. We do not have a lot of elections
in between.
But giving State workers a day off with pay if they serve
as election judges or some other----
The Chairman. What about the voter turnout? I know it is
speculation on your part, but what about voter turnout? Does it
help or hurt it?
Ms. Lamone. Doug may be in a better position to answer.
Mr. Ney. I don't think Doug is for that.
Mr. Lewis. We are for experimenting with it. I think we
ought to experiment with it and maybe even sunset it, so it
lasts a certain period of time; and if it is not working, then
we kill it. If it is working, then we continue with it.
The truth is that all the things we have ever attempted to
increase voter turnout and all the reasons we were ever told
that things would increase voter turnout, the only thing that
has ever done that is mail elections, M-A-I-L elections. That
is the only thing that so far has worked. All the rest of them
have not increased voter turnout.
The Chairman. The other question I had was about just a
little elaboration on the problems with uniform poll closing,
because Mr. Tauzin the Committee on Energy and Commerce
obviously has had some opinions on that, and some other things.
We cannot tell the press that you cannot report early. We
can ask them to cooperate. But what about uniform poll closing?
And anybody else on the panel. What about that, where you
structure the hours from the West Coast to the East Coast?
Ms. Lamone. It would increase the number of hours that the
polls would be open and, therefore, stressing the poll worker
situation even more. That is one of my major concerns about it.
I don't know what my fellow panelists say.
Mr. Lewis. Yes.
Ms. Jackson. My concern would be the poll workers, unless
we got the money and the resources of other election employees
to work on Election Day.
As far as the media is concerned, it is just another arm
out there controlling the election process, if that makes any
sense.
The Chairman. It does.
Ms. Jackson. I feel very strongly about all these people
being involved and having all the solutions.
The Chairman. Whether it is intentional or unintentional,
it is a control factor that comes in that way.
One other thing I wanted to ask, actually, Ms. McCormack, I
had heard this stated, that Los Angeles was happy with the
punch cards. But I am gathering from your testimony, it is not
that L.A. is happy with them as much as you have them until you
can get something else, the money to do something else. Is that
a correct assessment?
Ms. McCormack. I think it is a fine line we walk to keep
people confident that their vote is going to count. We are
going to be punch cards for the foreseeable future. We want
people to feel like and understand the system and use it to the
best that they can. I think now in a way this crisis has
everyone focused a little more on how to use it more
appropriately.
So we are trying to not have a crisis of confidence and a
problem where we have a backlash, that voters do not want to
vote because they think their ballots do not count, anyway. But
at the same time, up to in 1999 in California, when DREs were
certified, there was really not a good alternative for me to go
to. There has not really been for 33 years something else we
could go to.
Now we have identified something that we really do feel
would meet our needs into the foreseeable future and be better
for all voters, not just some voters, but the cost is so
expensive and prohibitive--and with matching grants, hopefully,
hopefully some money from the Federal, some money from the
States, and I would think that even the locals would have to
feel some obligation to put in some money towards it.
The Chairman. I think if the money--if there is money
coming from here and there is a match, I still think that is an
incentive for the local districts.
Ms. McCormack. I totally believe that. I think an incentive
would be there.
The Chairman. You have a recount coming.
Ms. McCormack. Let's hope we don't have a recount. I have
an election in 3 weeks.
The Chairman. I am glad I am actually supporting this
issue. On Tuesday in my hometown of St. Clairsville, Ohio, on
the school levy, there were 1,888 votes for it and 1,888 votes
against it. I did vote. But we are going to back through that
and count those. Those are punch cards so I am waiting for
dimples and pregnancies on the ballot, for something to come
up, and there might be a controversy of what was the correct
vote. So we are going through that on the recount.
Ms. McCormack. It sounds like fun. I have had several tie
votes in my county, as well. They are never fun.
The Chairman. I have one comment. I want to comment on,
first of all, this wonderful testimony by everybody involved.
We do want to stress here about local involvement and local
voice on this issue. We can't put this together across the
Nation unless we have the input and some type of feeling by
locals--and you are about as local as you can get--that there
is an involvement in the process and also a sympathy and an
understanding out of the Congress of your needs and what you
need to do to carry out the election process.
In Carolyn Jackson's testimony, there was a wonderful
statement there about a long-overdue dialogue. That is what I
think, by your presence here today, is helping us with that;
and by the committee working towards this, it does bring the
dialogue up. It keeps the subject fresh and keeps the interest
of people towards the Congress, expecting, again, something to
be done.
I just wanted to really commend all of you on your
testimony. It was very good.
Mr. Hoyer. Mr. Chairman, one of the things that we did not
get to, and it is pretty late, we don't want to get into it
now, is the issue of overseas voting and military voting. That
is obviously of great concern to us. When we send people
overseas, we want to ensure the fact that they have the right
to veto.
If you have any comments on that that you might want to
submit to us as issues that you find in your jurisdiction, I
think we would like to have that, both civilian absentees and
military absentees.
Secondly, I would like to make an observation that all of
you have talked about, and we know that in every jurisdiction
getting enough people to administer elections is tough. It
really seems to me that we ought to, in a cooperative way, make
this a program in which college students all over America
really ought to participate. That would be a tremendous
positive education.
I will tell you, in my area, and I represent an urban
county, Prince Georges County, right here, 800,000 plus people,
I hardly ever saw partisanship or, as a matter of fact, I never
saw partisanship. There were Democratic judges, Republican
judges. You could not tell the difference, except that they had
a sign on. None of them had anything to do with politics in the
sense that they were there to try do what all of you have said,
make sure that this election process ran correctly.
It seems to me if we got a lot of young college kids
involved, young college adults involved in this process in
every college and university in America, A, it would provide a
tremendous number of people; and, B, it would provide a
tremendous education for these young people on how democracy
works.
I want to make a comment. I don't always agree with George
Will, but he wrote a column that I agreed with 100 percent. It
had to do with the Internet voting. In effect, he said, I am
not for Internet voting because I believe that electing a
president or a governor or mayor, a State legislator, a city
councilperson, is a communitarian process. While we understand
that there have to be absentees because everybody cannot get
there, but coming together and voting is such a sacred
participatory part of our democracy, it seems to me, that it is
a thing that I--I like to see people in line. I don't like to
see them in line for a long time.
The first time I ran for the State senate in 1966, people
did not get out of the polling place until after 1 a.m. Why?
There were 19 candidates in my district running for the State
senate and a commensurate number of house of delegates members,
a tremendous ballot. But they stayed there in line and waited.
By the way, Mr. Chairman, I think that--when I heard in
some polling places in America people were in line and 8
o'clock or 7 o'clock came and they were told they could not
vote, I think that is illegal, and it ought to be illegal. If
you are in line----
Mr. Lewis. I did a poll on this one, too, of the States,
because I wanted to find out if there was any State in the
Union that had a rule or a law that says, if you are in line at
poll closing time that you can't vote. No State sent in that
they had such a rule.
Mr. Hoyer. You heard the stories that I heard about people
being told, it is 8 o'clock, polls are closed, you have to go
home.
Mr. Lewis. Here is what I think most of them were, were
people who tried to join the line after the poll closing time,
which cannot be done.
Mr. Hoyer. I agree with that. The polls close at 8 o'clock,
and if you are in the line, it is like the checkout line: The
last cart can go through, but after that no more carts in the
line.
In any event, I appreciate the testimony. I hope, Mr.
Chairman, that one of the things we do, maybe not in
legislation, but we try to get together with the colleges and
universities and make this a national program.
We talk about a lot of the programs that President Clinton
had, President Bush had in terms of voluntary participation.
This would be a tremendous educational effort that would
provide a tremendous service to the country as well.
Thank you for your testimony.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Davis had to leave, but he wanted this letter included
in the record.
The Chairman. Without objection.
Talking about the community effort, there was talk here, at
one time, I understand, before I got in the Congress, about the
fact that you could vote from maybe your home or something, but
you need to be here to come together again.
I remember that long line. In 1966, I was in third grade,
and I was with my father standing in line, and it was a long
line, voting for----
Mr. Hoyer. We went a long time before we had a vicious
attack.
Mr. Reynolds. Mr. Chairman, in deference to the ranking
member, you look older than that.
The Chairman. I have said many times----
Mr. Hoyer. God bless you, Mr. Reynolds.
The Chairman. I have said many times at public events that
Mr. Hoyer has held up a lot better than me. Actually, I was in
the seventh grade.
If there is no further business----
Ms. Jackson. Mr. Chairman?
The Chairman. Mrs. Jackson.
Ms. Jackson. I would hope, because this has been so
beneficial, that if you continue to have these hearings and
come up with a committee that could include some local people,
I think it would be very beneficial to the process.
Mr. Hoyer. Ms. Jackson--if I might, Mr. Chairman--you heard
me talking to Mr. Lewis.
In our legislation that I put in, that--by the way, I want
you to know, before I put the legislation in, I sat down with
the Chairman in his office, and we went over it. At that point
in time, under his leadership, we were negotiating with a
bipartisan group; and unfortunately that did not work, so we
discussed this.
We want to make sure that we have, in whatever commission
or group that we have at the Federal level, that we have
included on that--we have you included on it. We have the two
members appointed by the National Association of County
Recorders, Election Administrators, and Clerks already in the
legislation, because we understand--I understand, and I think
everybody on this committee understands, this is not our
responsibility or expertise, administering elections, it is
yours.
On the other hand, Mr. Lewis makes a very powerful point,
with which all of you obviously agree, and which Florida and
the 37 days that we were mesmerized by what was going to happen
in Florida, pointed out very clearly that what you do affects
everybody in the Nation and all of us who have a Federal
responsibility under the Constitution for Federal elections.
But we know that whatever we set up darned well better have
your input on a regular, ongoing, legislated basis or we are
not going to do it as well as we could.
So I appreciate your observation. I want you to know we are
going to do that.
The Chairman. I ask unanimous consent that witnesses be
allowed to submit their statements for the record and for those
statements to be entered into the appropriate place in the
record.
Without objection, the material will be so entered.
I ask unanimous consent that staff be authorized to make
technical and conforming changes on all matters considered by
the committee in today's hearing.
Without objection, so ordered.
Having completed our business for the day and for this
hearing on election reform, the committee is adjourned.
Thank you for your participation.
[Whereupon, at 7:10 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]