[Senate Hearing 107-1153]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 107-1153
ELECTION REFORM
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE,
SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 7, 2001
__________
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SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona, Chairman
TED STEVENS, Alaska ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, South Carolina
CONRAD BURNS, Montana DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii
TRENT LOTT, Mississippi JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West
KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas Virginia
OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas JOHN B. BREAUX, Louisiana
GORDON SMITH, Oregon BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota
PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois RON WYDEN, Oregon
JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada MAX CLELAND, Georgia
GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia BARBARA BOXER, California
JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina
JEAN CARNAHAN, Missouri
Mark Buse, Republican Staff Director
Martha P. Allbright, Republican General Counsel
Kevin D. Kayes, Democratic Staff Director
Moses Boyd, Democratic Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on March 7, 2001.................................... 1
Statement of Senator Allen....................................... 70
Statement of Senator Boxer....................................... 67
Prepared statement........................................... 67
Statement of Senator Burns....................................... 3
Prepared statement of Senator Carnahan....................... 62
Statement of Senator Cleland..................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 5
Statement of Senator Ensign...................................... 72
Statement of Senator Hollings.................................... 2
Prepared statement........................................... 2
Statement of Senator Kerry....................................... 12
Prepared statement........................................... 12
Statement of Senator McCain...................................... 1
Statement of Senator Smith....................................... 65
Statement of Senator Wyden....................................... 3
Witnesses
Bollinger, John C., Deputy Executive Director, Paralyzed Veterans
of America..................................................... 74
Prepared statement........................................... 76
Bradbury, Hon. Bill, Secretary of State, State of Oregon......... 28
Prepared statement........................................... 29
Conyers, Hon. John C., U.S. Representative from Michigan......... 13
Prepared statement........................................... 14
Cox, Hon. Cathy, Secretary of State, State of Georgia............ 32
Prepared Statement........................................... 34
Dodd, Hon. Christopher J., U.S. Senator From Connecticut......... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 10
Henderson, Wade, Executive Director, Leadership Conference on
Civil Rights................................................... 78
Prepared statement........................................... 81
Hutchinson, Hon. Asa, U.S. Representative from Arkansas.......... 25
Prepared statement........................................... 27
Meek, Hon. Carrie P., U.S. Representative from Florida........... 18
Prepared statement........................................... 23
O'Gara, Mary Jane, Board Member, AARP............................ 85
Prepared statement........................................... 87
Schumer, Hon. Charles E., U.S. Senator from New York............. 15
Thornburgh, Hon. Ron, Secretary of State, State of Kansas........ 53
Prepared statement........................................... 55
Yzaguirre, Raul, President, National Council of La Raza.......... 89
Prepared statement........................................... 91
Appendix
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. John McCain to:
John Bollinger............................................... 105
Bill Bradbury................................................ 99
Cathy Cox.................................................... 102
Mary Jane O'Gara............................................. 106
Ron Thornburgh............................................... 100
Raul Yzaguirre............................................... 107
ELECTION REFORM
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 2001
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m. in room
SR-253, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. John McCain,
Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN McCAIN,
U.S. SENATOR FROM ARIZONA
The Chairman. Good morning, As we begin to unravel the
consequences of the closest and most contested election in our
Nation's history, we need to keep in mind that our primary goal
should be restoring voters' confidence in the electoral
process. We can accomplish that goal only if we carefully and
thoroughly determine the lessons from this past November, and
ensure that every vote cast in this country is counted and
recorded as accurately as possible.
On February 15, Senator Hollings and I introduced the
American Voting Standards and Technology Act to address the
overwhelming number of precincts who reported serious flaws in
their local voting system. The shortcomings of our election
system are an unfortunate embarrassment to our democracy. Our
bill, S. 368, was written to directly confront the root cause
of these voting controversies, the actual voting machines, and
how they operate.
In the 2000 election, pre-scored punch card ballots were
used by one in three voters. These archaic votomatic machines,
engineered in the 1960's, continue to be employed throughout
the country, yet their ability to accurately record votes is
questionable. Even more egregious are the prescored ballot
cards that continue to be used even after the National
Institutes of Standards and Technology, NIST, recommended their
elimination in 1988.
Compounding the problems of prescored punch cards, numerous
studies reveal that throughout the country ballots cast by
African Americans were nullified at a much higher rate than
those of Caucasians. Our witnesses will offer similarly
disturbing statistics regarding the disenfranchisement of many
segments of our population, particularly Hispanic Americans,
elderly Americans, and Americans with disabilities.
How can we encourage young Americans to vote if they
believe their vote may not be counted? We must modernize our
voting machinery and improve our voting process without
barraging states and local governments with excessive rules and
regulations.
Senator Hollings and I do not profess to have all of the
solutions to solving this issue. We do, however, believe that
the states' voices need to be heard, as do the voices of many
civil rights groups who represent disenfranchised Americans.
Surely the 2000 election was not the first time in our Nation's
history when large segments of our population were
systematically shut out of the electoral process. We hope to
learn more today from the experiences of these interest groups.
I look forward to hearing from the witnesses.
Senator Hollings.
STATEMENT OF HON. ERNEST F. HOLLINGS,
U.S. SENATOR FROM SOUTH CAROLINA
Senator Hollings. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this
hearing. I welcome the distinguished witnesses. I will file my
full statement and just summarize by saying that back in 1978
the old Bureau of Standards found that the punch card systems,
the prescored punch cards like those used in Palm Beach were
flawed, faulty. That was almost 25 years ago. The study was
updated in 1988, and I think we need another updating. We also
need to see what we can do to help, working with the other
interested committees.
I take it the Rules Committee will be looking at the times
of voting and registration and so forth, but within the
technology sector I hope we can develop a standard here that
the states can all follow and fall in line and expedite the
cleaning up of these elections.
So, I thank the distinguished Chairman and the witnesses.
Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Senator Hollings follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Ernest F. Hollings,
U.S. Senator from South Carolina
Democracy--which provides that the power of government ultimately
rests with the people--unquestionably is the best form of government
that we know today. We, as Americans, pride ourselves on being the
world's number one adherents of this great principle. Indeed, it was
our enormous dedication to the creed of Democracy that led to the fight
for this nation's independence; to the establishment of our revered
constitution; to the right to vote without regard to property
qualification; to the right to vote without regard to race; and to the
right to vote without regard to gender. In other words, it is the
principle of democracy that has held our nation in tact for over two
centuries.
Nevertheless, for democracy to work effectively, not only must
citizens have the right to vote, the system must be constructed so that
their votes count. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. As this
past election revealed, there are regrettably human and mechanical
flaws in our voting systems. Last November and December stories of
overvotes, undervotes, and hanging chads flooded the media. Many voters
complained that confusing butterfly ballots led them to make unintended
choices, while others claimed they were denied the opportunity to vote
by being left off of the registration rolls or through intimidation.
Although many were stunned by these revelations, unfortunately,
these problems are not new. The fact is that we've had difficulties
using punch cards and other machine-readable ballots for more than 30
years. As the record shows, federal officials were made aware of these
issues as early as 1978, by a National Bureau of Standards study,
Science & Technology: Effective Use of Computing Technology in Vote-
Tallying. That study--and another in 1988--found difficulties in vote-
tallying stemming from management failures, technology failures, and
human operational failures. The 1978 report noted major difficulties in
several key metropolitan areas. One of the vital recommendations was
the elimination of the pre-scored punch card, similar to the kind used
in Palm Beach County's Votomatic machines.
Even though the 2000 presidential election leveled unprecedented
attention on Florida's problems, as I'm sure we will hear today,
Florida is not alone with respect to the prevalence of voting system
flaws. Today's witnesses will outline many of the same difficulties
evidenced in Florida. However, they will also highlight problems unique
to their states or constituents. The final picture that emerges will
undoubtedly be complex, requiring a multi-faceted solution.
Senator McCain and I have put forward one part of that solution--
the American Voting Standards and Technology Act. This legislation
would direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology,
``NIST'' to: (1) facilitate the development of voluntary standards
governing the performance of voting systems; (2) conduct a study of
factors impacting voter participation by individuals and groups; and
(3) implement a program making grants available to states and local
governments to aid in the updating of voting equipment and to conduct
voter educational programs.
Other Senators have their own bills which offer reforms such as
uniform poll closing times, same day registration, overseas military
voting reforms, and reaffirmation of the Voting Rights Act, among
others. Undoubtedly, this hearing is the first of many hearings that
the Senate will hold on this matter. Election reform is a complex
problem. Senator McCain and I realize that our American Voting
Standards and Technology Act is only one piece of the pie. In that
regard, we look forward to working with other Senators who are
examining other aspects of the electoral system.
In conclusion, I feel that I would be remiss if I did not say that
though we should move expeditiously on the issue of election reform, we
do not need to rush. In the coming weeks, the Senate is poised for a
debate on campaign finance reform. The Chairman has his proposal; I
have my Constitutional Amendment. We have already held numerous
hearings, meetings, and discussions on campaign finance reform. So,
let's keep our eyes on the prize and proceed with both efforts:
campaign finance reform immediately, and election reform as soon as
possible.
As noted, the right to vote is the most fundamental right bestowed
upon Americans by the U.S. Constitution. Sadly, there are millions of
Americans who lost faith in the guarantee and exercise of this
fundamental right due to the circumstances of the last election.
Senator McCain and I do not claim to know how to restore the American
people's faith in our voting systems. However, we do believe that
setting basic performance standards, helping election officials acquire
systems which meet those standards, and helping voters use those
systems will go a long way in ensuring more consistency and reliability
in our voting systems.
As I stated earlier, Democracy is the best form of government we
are familiar with today. However, we must work continuously to make it
work effectively. Indeed we must always strive to make our democracy
better. Unfortunately, I think maybe we have rested on our laurels, and
each of us is now hearing from our constituents that they are not happy
about it. I look forward to hearing from each of our witnesses on how
we can make our system better.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Hollings. Senator Burns,
do you have a brief comment?
STATEMENT OF HON. CONRAD BURNS,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MONTANA
Senator Burns. I have a brief comment. Thank you for
holding this hearing. I am already on another bill sponsored by
the principal cosponsor, by Senator McConnell. I am intent on
listening to the witnesses this morning. I guess one thing I
would look for in any part of this legislation is that unfunded
mandates, because counties pay for elections, and I being an
old county commissioner, elections cost a lot of money, and so
I am just going to be very, very particular about imposing
anything by the federal government on counties that--and
especially counties who have had a history of having no
problems, so thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Wyden.
STATEMENT OF HON. RON WYDEN,
U.S. SENATOR FROM OREGON
Senator Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am in strong
support of what you and Senator Hollings want to do. I think it
is very constructive, and I support it. I would make only two
comments this morning. The first is that this year more than 30
million Americans are going to file their taxes online, and
millions more are monitoring their retirement benefits online.
This Committee put together the electronic signatures bill,
and I would just hope that we do not give up on the idea of
online voting in this country. I hope that at a minimum we
would continue to experiment at the local level with different
kinds of approaches to ensure that there is no fraud. We know
that there is a digital divide, and that would have to be
addressed. However, I would hope that we could continue the
experiments on online voting, because with Americans using
modern technology in so many other areas, I do not think we
ought to give up.
Second, a bit of history with respect to vote by mail, and
I want to thank Senator Hollings and Senator McCain for
inviting my friend, Bill Bradbury, the Secretary of State for
Oregon, to testify here today. I am the Nation's first mail-in
United States Senator. I was elected in an all-mail vote, and
at the time----
The Chairman. We do not know how to take that.
[Laughter.]
Senator Hollings. What about the females?
[Laughter.]
Senator Wyden. I knew that that would generate some debate.
What was interesting about that election is that, at the time,
almost all the Democrats were against mail-in voting in Oregon,
because they thought it would hurt their base. The Republicans
supported mail-in voting because they thought it would help
their base. I was one who thought it was just a good idea and
said so. However, after I won the election there was an about-
face, and all the Democrats were for mail-in voting, and
Republicans said, oh my goodness, we have got to be worried
about fraud.
So what we ought to do is do what you, Mr. Chairman, and
you, Senator Hollings, are doing, which is work at this in a
bipartisan kind of way. I think we are going to see these
innovations make a real difference for this country. We have
seen it in Oregon with mail-in voting, and I do hope that in
spite of this newspaper headline today about online voting, we
will continue to fund those experiments. I thank you and look
forward to working with you and Senator Hollings.
The Chairman. I thank you. Senator Cleland, and by the way,
for whatever it is worth, my view is that, as you mentioned, it
is now legal to carry out a transaction, or a legal document,
over the Internet. It seems to me that over time we should be
able to make Internet voting secure.
STATEMENT OF HON. MAX CLELAND,
U.S. SENATOR FROM GEORGIA
Senator Cleland. Mr. Chairman, I have a question, and that
is, if someone is recalled after having been elected by mail,
do we just mark, return to sender?
[Laughter.]
Senator Cleland. I might say that the distinguished Senator
from Montana is a former county commissioner. I am a former
election official for 12 years in Georgia, and every year we
had problems with the punch card system. I am an author of
legislation to provide a knock-out punch to the punch card
system, not by putting a burden on counties, but by putting
some federal funds to a third of the precincts in America that
have that system, or are now afflicted with that system. The 18
counties in my own state which use the punch card system show
twice the undervote of the national average. Citizens in my
state are being disenfranchised because of the punch card
system, and I hope we can punch it out.
I would say also, we are honored to have my Secretary of
State from Georgia here today, Ms. Cathy Cox. She is on the
second panel, and we will have some other words to say about
that. I am on the wonderful legislation sponsored by Senator
Schumer, and Senator Brownback, and was there the day we kicked
it off. We have some wonderful people and some talent here
today, Mr. Chairman, we can hear from, and certainly we can
take action on this important issue before the next general
election.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Senator Cleland follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Max Cleland, U.S. Senator from Georgia
I want to thank Chairman McCain and Senator Hollings for holding
this hearing today on election reform. I appreciate their leadership on
this important issue. Mr. Chairman, we can all agree that last year's
election was one of the most unusual political events this country has
ever seen. As a former Secretary of State and chief elections official
in Georgia, I believe it was also a wake up call for reforming our
electoral process. I have reviewed the McCain-Hollings' American Voting
Standards Technology Act, which directs the National Institute on
Standards and Technology to develop voluntary standards for the voting
process, and provides grants to the states to rehabilitate voting
equipment and strengthen voter education. The McCain-Hollings bill
targets reform where help is needed and I am pleased to support it.
Today, I will introduce my own bill, the Make Every Vote Count Act,
to help states and localities modernize voting systems, promote
uniformity in voting equipment within states and require greater
standardization in assuring the voting rights of our military
personnel. My legislation creates a one-time, $1 billion federal block
grant for replacement of punchcard voting systems (which are used by 34
percent of the Nation's voters), lever machines (19 percent of voters),
and paper ballots (2 percent of voters) with a more advanced voting
system, such as optical scan or electronic systems. Because many errors
are caused by inadequate training of election workers or education of
voters in how to properly cast valid votes, and such errors are
especially likely when converting to a new system, the bill would allow
up to one-third of the grant funds to be used for those purposes.
Finally, the bill will assure the voting rights of out of state
military personnel by protecting their absentee ballots.
Today I have the pleasure of introducing Georgia's Secretary of
State, Cathy Cox, to the Committee. Secretary Cox has truly been one of
the national leaders who have risen to the challenge during the debate
on election reform. Her study of the Georgia elections, A Wake Up Call
for Reform and Change, highlights one of the most serious problems
experienced last November: the failure of outdated systems on which too
many of our citizens are forced to use in casting their ballots. The
error rates from November showed considerable variation between states,
depending on the type or types of voting system used in each state, and
within states, with voters residing in counties using 1960's ``punch
card ballot'' technology experiencing the highest errors. Cathy Cox has
come up with what I believe is an excellent solution for our state's
problems and I am very pleased that the Committee has called on her
expertise today.
The Make Every Vote Count Act--Summary
The legislation creates a one-time, $1 billion federal block grant
for replacement of punchcard voting systems (which are used by 34
percent of the Nation's voters), lever machines (19 percent of voters),
and paper ballots (2 percent of voters) with a more advanced voting
system, such as optical scan or electronic systems.
Because many errors are caused by inadequate training of election
workers or education of voters in how to properly cast valid votes, and
such errors are especially likely when converting to a new system, the
bill would allow up to one-third of the grant funds to be used for
those purposes.
Here's how the block grant would work----
1. Within 30 days of the bill's enactment, the Federal
Election Commission would disburse the $1 billion as block
grants to states under a pre-set formula which bases a state's
allocation on the state's share of the national total of all
lever machines, punchcard systems and paper ballots. (Section
2(d)(1) and (2) and Section 2(g)). (For purposes of the
formula, in order to make the paper ballot totals comparable to
the lever and punchcard machine totals the number of registered
voters in a district using paper ballots is divided by 200,
which is a rough estimate of the average number of voters per
machine in other systems.) Within that same 30-day time frame,
a state could opt-out of the grant program simply by notifying
the Commission. (Section 2(e)).
2. In order to provide for accountability without imposing a
significant federal administrative burden, and to stretch the
resources made available for voting modernization, the bill
would require that participating state and local governments
together supply 20 percent matching funds for the federal
grant. (Section 2(c)).
3. Within 60 days of receiving the federal block grant, a
participating state's chief election official would be required
to identify a single ``advanced voting system'' which
participating counties and municipalities within that state
would procure. This requirement is intended to provide a means
to move toward greater uniformity in voting systems within
states, which is the only way to insure that everyone's vote
within a given state is counted in the same way. (The desire to
promote uniformity is the primary reason why lever machines and
paper ballots--which have lower error rates than punchcard
systems but are even more antiquated--are also made eligible
for replacement.) (Section 2(b)(3)).
4. Within 90 days of receiving a federal grant, a
participating state's chief election official is required to
notify all eligible counties and municipalities of the grant's
availability and requirements. The state official is
subsequently required to ``expeditiously disburse'' the funds
to these local governments under a pre-set formula which bases
a local area's allocation on its share of the state's total of
all lever machines, punchcard systems and paper ballots.
(Section 2(d)(3)). However, a local area is permitted to opt
out of the grant program simply by failing to notify the state
official of its acceptance within 30 days of the notification
of the grant's availability. (Section 2(f)(3)).
5. The grant would be used by eligible local recipients
(counties in most cases but municipalities in Maine,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Wisconsin) for
replacing lever machines, punchcard systems and paper ballots
with an ``advanced voting system'' designated by the state's
chief election official. Furthermore, in order to smooth the
transition, and to reduce error rates, the local area could
``flex'' at least one-third of its grant for training election
officials and educating voters about the new system and, once
all eligible systems are replaced, the locality could use any
remaining funds for these same purposes. (These ``flexed''
funds could also be used to defray any local costs associated
with implementing the military voting provisions of Section 3.)
(Section 2(b)(2)).
6. An ``advanced voting system'' is defined as one which
prevents overvotes, significantly reduces undervotes, provides
a permanent record of each vote (for possible recounts),
significantly reduces recount error in comparison to the
system(s) being replaced and ensures accessibility for disabled
voters. (Section 2(f)(1)).
7. Any block grant funds not used by localities (either
because they opt out of the program or because they do not need
the full grant amount) may be used by the state to enhance
voter participation (through a variety of approaches including
voter registration, training of election officials and
upgrading other voting equipment not otherwise provided for by
the bill) and to defray any state costs associated with
implementing the military voting provisions of Section 3.
(Section 2(b)(1)).
Section 3 of the bill is derived, verbatim, from Title VI of
Senator Daschle's bill, S. 17. These provisions require that, for
purposes of voting, no military member be deemed to have had a change
of domicile or residence solely because he or she had to be absent in
compliance with military orders. Furthermore, they provide that states
and localities must permit absentee voting by uniformed service members
in state and local elections, as is currently required only for federal
elections. (Section 3). As mentioned above, compliance costs associated
with this Section may be paid for out of the state and local grants
under Section 2. (These provisions are intended as preliminary steps to
redress problems in military voting, pending completion of a General
Accounting Office study of such problems requested by Senators Cleland,
Warner, Levin and Hutchinson.)
I would like to welcome our colleagues from the House and
the Senate. We would like to begin with Senator Dodd because of
his advanced age.
[Laughter.]
STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER J. DODD,
U.S. SENATOR FROM CONNECTICUT
Senator Dodd. I thought it was the white-headed caucus
here. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to be
before this Committee once again, and to be joined here at the
table by interested Members of the House and the Senate on this
subject matter, which I think you properly characterized. This
was a troublesome election, and it was not, in my view, just
located in one state. I think there are some serious problems
that have been festering for sometime Nation-wide that need to
be addressed. Some of them are technical, but some go beyond
technicalities. It is not just a question, in my view, of
crafting a better mouse trap here. We also need to recognize
that there are some underlying fundamental problems about
promoting elections in this country, educating people properly,
and making the process more available to more Americans.
So I am pleased to have a chance to appear before you this
morning to just share some thoughts about the integrity of our
election system, and offer some ideas of how we might reform
the process.
Last month, Mr. Chairman, the Senate Democratic Leader, Tom
Daschle, asked me to head up a working group among Democrats to
take a look at some ideas in this area. I am joined in that
endeavor with my colleague from New York, Senator Schumer,
among others. We are looking at a variety of proposals on how
we might improve the system.
What we have learned already, Mr. Chairman, is that this is
not a Democratic or Republican problem, it is an American
problem. And I would submit to you and Members of the Committee
that the solutions to these problems must be appropriately
nonpartisan if they are going to succeed at all.
The Senate Rules Committee on which I serve as the Ranking
Democrat will hold a series of hearings on election reform next
week, since the Rules Commitee is the proper jurisdiction. The
Rules Committee has jurisdiction over federal elections. There
are a number of Members of our Committee and of the Senate who
have introduced or cosponsored some very thoughtful pieces of
legislation, and we will hear from those members next Thursday.
Now, I am hopeful that we will act to report one or more
bills in the Senate rather shortly, or soon thereafter. I am
introducing some legislation, along with my good friend and
colleague from the House, John Conyers, which we will describe
briefly to you here this morning, and John will maybe follow
on, since it is a companion bill in the House.
We all know that there is a great deal of work to be done
in the 107th Congress. Obviously, the list is long, issues like
social security, prescription drugs, education, housing, jobs,
and campaign finance reform, which is coming up in a few days,
and is a critical one. But Mr. Chairman and Members of the
Committee, I would submit to you and Members of the Committee
this morning that none of these issues, as important as they
are, is more vital than the issue of ensuring that each and
every qualified American can freely and effectively exercise
his or her right to vote.
Now, why do I say that? Because the right to vote is the
cornerstone in our democracy. In the words of Thomas Paine, it
is the primary right by which the other rights are protected.
The struggle to secure that right for all Americans has been
long and painful. Our Nation's history of disenfranchisement is
lamentable. Thirty-six years ago, almost to the day, Mr.
Chairman, on March 15, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson, speaking
before a joint session of the Congress of the United States,
called for passage of what ultimately became the Voting Rights
Act.
On that evening, Mr. Chairman, he spoke plainly and very
forcefully to the American public. ``All Americans,'' he said,
``must have the right to vote, and we are going to give them
that right. All Americans must have the privileges of
citizenship, regardless of race, and they are going to have
those privileges of citizenship regardless of race.''
It is the sad message of this last election that the
privileges of citizenship have yet to be fully guaranteed to
all Americans, regardless of race, in my view. In the days
immediately following last November 7, I read a news article
about a young woman who had left her home early on Election Day
to cast her vote for the very first time in her life. She was
joined by her mother and father. She remarked at the excitement
and pride that she felt on that day that she would join her
parents to exercise this most sacred American right.
The woman and her family had planned to vote, and then
share a quiet family celebration on this special occasion for
her, but they never had that chance, Mr. Chairman. When she
arrived at the polling place, this young woman, who happened to
be an African American, was told that her name was not listed
among the rolls of registered voters, despite the fact that she
had gone through the process. She waited patiently for minutes,
then for hours, as overworked and undertrained poll workers
sought to verify that she was registered, but they never did,
Mr. Chairman. Told that she was not going to be able to vote
that day, this young woman left the polling place in tears.
Mr. Chairman, I respectfully suggest to you and to my
colleagues that the story of that young woman is a story we
should all take to heart. She was crying on November 7, not
just for herself but, I would suggest, for an election system
that failed her, and on some level failed our Nation as well.
If we do nothing else in the 107th Congress, it is my
fervent hope that we see to it that neither this young woman
nor anyone else like her again is denied that right to vote.
There are several things that I think we can be doing.
The next 2 weeks, as I mentioned, the Senate will take up
the issue of campaign finance reform and, Mr. Chairman, let me
say publicly once again what I have told you privately and said
over the years. I commend you and our colleague Russ Feingold
for your diligent and sincere efforts to make such reform a
reality in this country, but I would suggest that such a
measure is not an appropriate vehicle for debating election
reform. I know there will be those who may want to bring this
up. I care about this issue a lot, but I am concerned that we
might achieve neither, in effect, if we end up trying to link
these two.
Many of us would like to see strong, fair legislation that
limits the unhealthy influence of money in our electoral
system. I, for one, am hopeful that such legislation will pass
the Senate and House and be sent to the President's desk for
signature. But if we learned anything last November, it is that
it is not only money that threatens to diminish and deny the
voice of the average voter. Other forces are at work as well,
such as antiquated voting machines that fail to accurately
record voters' choices, ballots that confuse rather than
clarify, overcrowded polling places that require voters to have
the patience of Job, polling places that are inaccessible to
the disabled and to the blind, to language minorities,
inaccurate voter registration lists, and so-called ballot
security measures which have the effect, if not the intent, of
intimidating and discouraging voters.
During the past several years, Mr. Chairman, I have had the
privilege of working with the Ranking Member of the House
Judiciary Committee, Mr. Conyers, on legislation to address
these and similar shortcomings of our electoral system. Our
bill is premised on the idea that the problems of the 2000
election in Florida and elsewhere were not only technological
in nature.
Technology is wonderful, and there needs to be change here,
but this is not just about helping states and localities build
or buy better mouse traps, if you will. It is also about
addressing, with tough, meaningful standards that apply
throughout the country, other issues where our electoral system
is falling short, in voter registration, in recruitment and
training of poll workers, ensuring access for the disabled and
limited English speakers, and removing all barriers to voting,
including disincentives to working Americans, who often must
choose between their jobs and exercising their right to vote.
So allow me to make one final point, if I could, Mr.
Chairman, and that is, we must do all that we can to ensure
that we have the reform that is meaningful. We must not elevate
form over substance, nor can we rush to enact measures which
address only the technological glitches in the last election.
It is critically important that we work to enact the strongest
set of reforms possible.
These moments in history only come along rarely. It is
because of the events of last fall that we are meeting here and
we will meet in the Rules Committee. I would suggest without
the events of last November and December we probably would not
have addressed this issue. Despite the fact that these problems
have existed, but because they have occurred, we are meeting.
We are meeting here, we will meet in the Rules Committee, and
we must go beyond, in my view, just, as I say, coming up with
better technology here.
There are some deeper underlying problems to be addressed.
Mr. Chairman, for 200 years we have run elections with
volunteers. It is a wonderful commentary about our country. On
Election Day it is volunteers from Arizona to Connecticut
together, in thousands of polling places, who assist people to
cast ballots. But as we enter the 21st Century with over 100
million eligible voters in this country, more than 100 million
eligible voters, we need to get beyond just volunteerism, and
hoping somehow that elections are going to work well across the
country without making the kind of investments and setting some
national standards that I think will help us improve this
process immensely.
So when it comes to ensuring the right to vote, we should
not and must not settle for anything that is even close to
second best, or else we risk eroding public confidence in a
system which threatens to undermine our system of democracy.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the privilege of attending
today's hearing, and I look forward to working with you and
other members who are interested in this legislation, or
legislation like it. With that, I might want to turn, if it is
all right with my colleague from New York, to John Conyers just
for some brief comments. It is a similar bill. It is that all
right with you, John?
[The prepared statement of Senator Dodd follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Christopher J. Dodd,
U.S. Senator from Connecticut
Mr. Chairman, Senator Hollings, Members of the Committee: I
appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss an
issue that is of vital importance to the continued health of this
democracy--the integrity of our election system and the need for
election reform.
Last month, the Senate Democratic Leader, Tom Daschle, asked me to
lead a working group in our caucus on this same issue to both deepen
our understanding of and develop solutions to the problems that came to
light during the election of 2000.
What we have learned already is that this is not a Democratic or
Republican problem. It is an American problem. And I submit to you that
the solutions to these problems must be, appropriately, nonpartisan to
succeed.
The Senate Rules Committee, on which I serve as ranking member,
will begin a series of hearings on election reform next week.
As the committee with jurisdiction over federal elections, there
are a number of members of our committee and the Senate who have
introduced or cosponsored thoughtful election reform legislation, and
we will hear from those members, and others, next Thursday. I am
hopeful that we will act to report one or more bills to the Senate for
consideration.
We all know that there is a great deal of work to be done in the
107th Congress--on issues like social security, prescription medicines,
education, housing, and jobs.
But I submit to you that none of these issues--none of them--is
more vital than the issue of ensuring that each and every qualified
American can freely and effectively exercise his or her right to vote.
Why do I say that? Because the right to vote is the cornerstone
right in a democracy. In the words of Thomas Paine, it is ``the primary
right by which other rights are protected.''
The struggle to secure that right for all Americans has been long
and painful. Our nation's history of disenfranchisement is lamentable.
Thirty-six years ago next week, on March 15, 1965, President Lyndon
Johnson convened a joint session of Congress to call for passage of
what ultimately became the Voting Rights Act.
He spoke plainly and forcefully that evening. ``All Americans,'' he
said, ``must have the right to vote. And we are going to give them that
right. All Americans must have the privileges of citizenship regardless
of race. And they are going to have those privileges of citizenship
regardless of race.''
Yet the sad message of this last election is that the privileges of
citizenship have yet to be fully guaranteed to all Americans regardless
of race.
In the days immediately following last November the 7th, I read a
news article about a young woman. She left her home early on election
day morning to cast her vote for the very first time. She was joined by
her mother and father.
She remarked at the excitement and pride she felt that she could
join her parents to exercise this most sacred right.
The woman and her family had planned to vote and then share a quiet
celebration. But they never had the chance. When she arrived at her
polling place, this young woman--who happened to be of African-American
descent--was told that her name was not listed among the rolls of
registered voters.
She waited patiently--first for minutes, then for hours--as
overworked and undertrained poll workers sought to verify that she was
registered. But they never did. Told she would not be able to vote, the
young woman left the polling place in tears.
I respectfully suggest to my colleagues that the story of that
young lady is a story we should all take to heart. She was crying on
November the 7th not just for herself, but, I would suggest, for an
election system that failed her--and on some level failed the country.
If we do nothing else in this 107th Congress, it is my fervent hope
that we see to it that neither this young woman nor anyone like her is
ever again denied the right to vote.
In the next two weeks, the Senate will take up the issue of
campaign finance reform. I commend the chairman for his diligent and
sincere efforts to make such reform a reality. But I would suggest that
such a measure is not an appropriate vehicle for debating election
reform.
Many of us would like to see strong, fair legislation that limits
the unhealthy influence of money in our electoral system. I, for one,
am hopeful that such legislation will pass the Senate and House and be
sent to the President's desk for his signature.
But if we learned anything last November, it is that not only money
threatens to diminish and deny the voice of the average voter. Other
forces are at work, as well, such as:
antiquated voting machines that fail to accurately record
voters' choices;
ballots that confuse rather than clarify;
overcrowded polling places that require voters to have the
patience of Job;
polling places that are inaccessible to the disabled, the
blind and to language minorities;
inaccurate voter registration lists; and
so-called ``ballot security'' measures which have the
effect, if not the intent, of intimidating and discouraging
voters.
During the past several weeks, I have had the privilege of working
with the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. Conyers,
on legislation to address these and similar shortcomings of our
electoral system.
Our bill is premised on the idea that the problems of the 2000
elections in Florida and elsewhere were not only technological in
nature. This is not just about helping states and localities build--or
buy--better mouse traps, if you will.
It is also about addressing--with tough meaningful standards that
apply throughout the country--other issues where our electoral system
is falling short:
in voter registration;
in the recruitment and training of poll workers;
in ensuring access for the disabled and limited-English
speakers; and
in removing all barriers to voting, including disincentives
to working Americans who often must chose between their job and
exercising their right to vote.
Allow me to make one final point: we must do all we can to ensure
that we have reform that is meaningful. We must not elevate form over
substance. Nor can we rush to enact measures which address only the
technology glitches in the last election. It is critically important
that we work to enact the strongest set of reforms possible.
When it comes to ensuring the right to vote, we should not, and we
must not, settle for second-best measures--or else we risk eroding
public confidence in our system of elections which threatens to
undermine our system of democracy.
I thank you for the privilege of attending today's hearing. I look
forward to working with you to achieve bipartisan election reform.
The Chairman. We would be pleased to. May I say, Senator
Dodd, I agree with your view on not including electoral reform
in campaign finance reform, primarily because I think we have
just begun to investigate the problems, and just begun to come
up with some of the solutions. If there were some very easy,
quick fixes that could be included, that would be one thing.
But to think that by the end of March we would be able to
address the endemic and systemic problems with the electoral
system in America, is unrealistic. I think it would not give us
a clear understanding of the depth and significance of the
problem. I look forward not only to further participation by
this Committee, but primarily to the responsibilities of the
Rules Committee, in which you will obviously play a major role,
and we thank you.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN F. KERRY,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS
Senator Kerry. Mr. Chairman, I just want to ask unanimous
consent that an opening statement be placed in the record as if
read.
The Chairman. Without objection. Thank you, Senator Kerry.
[The prepared statement of Senator Kerry follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. John F. Kerry,
U.S. Senator from Massachusetts
Mr. Chairman, Senator Hollings, thank you for holding this hearing
today. It has been approximately four months since Americans cast their
vote for President, and for many, there remains a degree of uneasiness
about the whole process. Many Americans who voted or tried to vote feel
disenfranchised. They believe their votes didn't count and their voices
weren't heard.
We can be thankful that we are past the days of poll taxes,
literacy tests, and other discriminatory practices that kept voters
away from the polls. But if there is even an inadvertent flaw in the
design or administration of our voting systems that prevents Americans
from having their votes counted, it is our utmost responsibility to
ensure that we remedy the situation.
There is simply no excuse for the most technologically savvy nation
in the world to be using voting equipment that is 30 years old. And it
is disturbing, to say the least, that much of the oldest and least
reliable equipment is found in the poorest counties across the country.
Often, people of color make up the majority of the population in those
counties. None of us should ever again be in the position of having to
explain to urban, minority voters why a portion of their votes didn't
get counted, while their white suburban neighbors, using better
equipment, could rest assured that there were no voting irregularities
in their precincts that would have caused their votes to be discarded.
If we can't promise all of our citizens that their votes will count
equally, then all of the past work this nation has done to guarantee
the right to vote to women, people of color and the poor will have been
squandered.
That is why I am pleased you have gathered these witnesses for this
hearing today. Perhaps the silver lining to the problems that came to
light during the last election is that we in Congress are taking a
serious look at ways to fix the system and ensure that all Americans
who register to vote can vote, and that all Americans who do vote can
be sure their vote counts.
The first order of business for the federal government is to
provide states with at least a portion of the resources they will need
to overhaul their voting systems. State officials, from governors to
county supervisors, face competing demands for funds every day, as they
decide how to pay their teachers, pave their roads, and remove their
garbage. When it comes to paying for federal elections, buying the
newest, most reliable technology may be far down on their list of
priorities. That is why federal government must find a way to provide
at least a portion of the resources states will need to make
improvements that are necessary to assure the integrity of our
elections.
But legislation cannot simply stop with more money. Legislation
must ensure that states will have guidelines in place that will ensure
that voters who speak languages other than English can vote. It must
ensure that people with disabilities can vote. It must ensure that
people of color are not denied the right to vote.
We must never again read in the Washington Post statistics like
this:
``As many as one in three ballots in black sections of
Jacksonville . . . did not count in the presidential contest.
That was four times as many as in white precincts elsewhere in
mostly Republican Duval County.''
``In Miami-Dade County precincts where fewer than 30 percent
of the voters are black, about 3 percent of the ballots did not
register a vote for president. In precincts where more than 70
percent of the voters are African American, it was nearly 10
percent.''
``In many black precincts in Chicago, one of every six
ballots in the presidential election was thrown out, while
almost every vote was counted in some of the city's outer
suburbs.''
It is our responsibility to respond to shocking statistics like
these. It is our duty to act in a way that each and every one of our
citizens is ensured of his or her right to vote. We simply cannot do
anything less.
Thank you Mr. Chairman. I look forward to hearing from the
witnesses.
The Chairman. I welcome my friend and colleague from the
House. Congressman Conyers, welcome. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN C. CONYERS,
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM MICHIGAN
Mr. Conyers. Thank you very much, Senator McCain, Chairman,
and all my friends here at the table, and on the Committee, I
am delighted to just take a couple of minutes, and I know
Senator Schumer is due in Rules Committee, and I am due back
over in the House, and I do not need to--I will ask that my
statement be included in the record.
The Chairman. Without objection.
Mr. Conyers. And that leaves me only to say that Senator
Dodd has put his finger on what I think is going to lead us to
a very important conclusion here. Number 1, this has been an
ongoing problem. Voter reform has sadly been neglected by many
of us. The Florida spotlight may have brought it to our
attention, but this is a Nation-wide problem, and it is in that
spirit that I come over here.
The things that I am trying to do, and it is a fight
between time--we need to get reform quickly as we can, and we
need to get as many essential elements as we can, and what
Senator Dodd and I are working on in this concept of an Equal
Protection of Voting Rights Act, which will be before you
shortly, probably this week, is to (1) allow a voter to check
his vote before it is cast.
I know that I overvoted in the November 7 election, but it
came back out. You could not confuse that, because that was
built into the machine.
(2) To protect against overvoting and undervoting, (3) to
produce an auditable record so you can track what happened, and
(4) make it accessible to individuals with disabilities, or
language problems, so that they can participate, and finally,
to make provisional ballots understandable by not only the
people that vote but the people that work in the polling
processes.
We had areas in the country where there was provisional
balloting allowed, but the poll worker did not know anything
about it, so they could not do anything.
So that, in short, is what I am thinking is a good
beginning. It is a fundamental question. I know in the
Congressional Black Caucus there is no issue that is higher
than this, and Congresswoman Meek will go into perhaps more
detail, but I think that this examination of this question, and
that the Senate is taking it up first, I congratulate you,
because this is the first official hearing that we have had.
The Congressional Black Caucus has had a hearing, but this is,
to me, our Nation's first business.
I commend again my colleague from Connecticut and hope that
we can move this expeditiously, as you all have started over
here today. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Conyers follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. John C. Conyers,
U.S. Representative from Michigan
There is one word that describes the 2000 elections: a disaster.
Because of the razor thin margin of the Presidential election, flaws in
our electoral system--which have existed for a long time--were exposed
and our nation waited for weeks to find out the winner of the most
important election.
More than anything else, there is one critical thing to remember:
election reform is not just about machines. There is no doubt we need
to replace the machines. But there are many more flaws in our election
system.
Throughout the country, voters who committed no crime were
illegally purged from voting rolls as felons, voters faced police
roadblocks and other forms of intimidation, and voters with
disabilities were faced with voting conditions that denied them the
right to vote with privacy and independence that we take for granted.
Election reform is the first major civil rights issue of the 21st
Century.
In even more routine ways, voters are denied their right to vote.
In the 2000 elections, polling places were moved at the last minute
with no notice to voters, underpaid and undertrained election personnel
were incapable of explaining confusing ballots and registration forms
were not processed by state officials in a timely fashion. Voting
should not be difficult. Election reform should make it easier.
But, unlike natural disasters, on the fundamental issue of
protecting the right to vote, the federal government has done woefully
little to help the states.
Because the Supreme Court has indicated that these election
irregularities impact the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution, we must have national standards for all federal elections
and, in so doing, provide the states with a model of excellence.
Specifically, I believe--at a minimum--we should require that all
voting machines in federal elections:
allow a voter to check his vote before it is cast,
protect against overvoting and undervoting,
produce an auditable record,
be accessible to individuals with disabilities, language
minorities, and other individuals with special needs, including
the right to vote with privacy and independence.
In every federal election, any voter who believes she is wrongfully
being denied her right to vote must be permitted to cast a provisional
ballot, the ballot should be promptly investigated and, if appropriate,
counted.
In every federal election, a voter must receive a sample ballot,
instructions for casting the ballot and notification of their voting
rights.
Very shortly, Senator Dodd and I will introduce a bill that will do
just that, the ``Equal Protection of Voting Rights Act.''
Representative Carrie Meek, who is with us today, is an original
cosponsor.
We have to help the states get there. It will be costly. I believe
it will cost billions of dollars to upgrade election machinery and
educate voters.
But we shouldn't shrink away from making this investment in our
democracy. It is about the legitimacy of our elections. And, while it
may cost billions to do it right, this week we are talking about a tax
cut that costs at least 200 times more.
We need complete election reform, election reform that addresses
voting rights issues. And the clock is ticking. The next federal
elections are 20 months away. We must get started.
I applaud this Committee and Chairman McCain for taking this
important first step by holding the first bipartisan Congressional
hearing on this issue.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Congressman Conyers. We
appreciate you taking the time from your schedule to come over
and be with us today.
Senator Schumer.
STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES E. SCHUMER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW YORK
Senator Schumer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. We know that you and Senator Dodd both have
to leave us, and if you do not want to listen to Senator
Schumer----
[Laughter.]
Senator Schumer. I am used to that, Mr. Chairman.
[Laughter.]
Senator Schumer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I very much
appreciate your holding these hearings so quickly, and I want
to thank you and Senator Hollings, as well as the whole
Committee, for your leadership on this issue, as this Committee
leads on so many others, and I want to thank Senator Dodd and
Congressman Conyers, my good friends, for their strong
involvement in this issue, and for the issues they hold near
and dear.
Now, Mr. Chairman, my view is that this issue does demand
our close and sustained attention, and that is why having these
Committee hearings so early is so important. I now it is an
issue you deeply care about, as I do, and many fellow Americans
do, and it goes to the very nub of our entire existence as
America, which runs through the blood of all of us.
I thought Justice Hugo Black sort of summed it up well when
he said that, ``no right is more precious in a free country
than that of having a voice in the election of those who make
the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live.'' Other
rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote
is undermined, and yet our last election demonstrated that this
precious fundamental building-block right now rests
precariously on a foundation of rusting equipment, avoidable
human error, and official neglect.
Last week, Governor Jeb Bush's Task Force on Election
Reform in Florida released its final report. The report
demonstrated that punch card machines in some county races had
error rates so high that nearly 10 percent of the voters failed
to have their votes recorded, 10 percent. That is an incredible
number in a democracy. Most of our elections, or many, are
decided by margins of less than 10 percent.
We are not just talking about elections like in Florida
that were that narrow. Now, Florida is not alone. It is not a
Florida problem. It is an American problem. In my own State of
New York lever machines have a low error rate, but they are so
old that they frequently break down, leaving long lines of
fuming and frustrated voters, because we do not have a computer
system in New York for punch cards, and because these old,
clunky voting machines take so long.
People wait in line for half-an-hour or 45 minutes after
coming home from work to get to the desk, they are told their
card is at another desk, then they have to go back and wait in
line again, and nothing is more frustrating and disheartening
to walk inside a polling place on Election Day and see
dispirited citizens who waited in line for a long time and then
have to go home because the kids are there, because they have
to get to their second job, unable to vote.
I voted for the first time in 1969, and I used the same
type of old broken-down machine that I voted with this year.
There has been no change in my state. Now, just because we are
the world's oldest democracy does not mean we have to use the
world's oldest voting technology.
The problem, though, does not end with machines, as I
mentioned--inadequately maintained registration lists, ballots
so poorly designed they would flunk a high school design
course, phone lines too jammed to confirm the registration
status of voters, and basic human error by poll workers and
voters alike. I do not know how many of your states are like
this. In mine, poll workers are paid little and trained less.
They are difficult to recruit and even harder to retain. We
have lots of polling places that are supposed to have four
people there from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., and you only have one,
because nobody wants to sit there all day for, I think it is
$25. I will get the right number and just insert it in the
record.
And many who are our poll workers do not bother to attend
the minimal training, and they are allowed to work anyway
because the precincts are so desperate to have them, and so is
it any wonder that they tell voters they are not registered
when they are, or that they cannot change a spoiled ballot when
they can?
Voters, of course, themselves are poorly informed. Far too
many wake up on Election Day without knowing where to go, what
the ballot looks like, how to use the machines, or what to do
if they have questions. As one of Governor Bush's task force
remarked, Florida is far from alone in this. ``The state spends
$30 million annually to instruct people on how to buy lottery
tickets, but allocates nothing for state-wide voter education
programs.''
Mr. Chairman, as you presciently recognized, there has to
be a better way. Shortly after the election, Senator Brownback
and I came together. We were both concerned about it. We talked
about it a week after the election and put together a
bipartisan election reform bill consisting of a study of the
problems and a grant program to help states make needed
changes. I am proud to say, Mr. Chairman, that you have
graciously cosponsored that bill and Senator Cleland of Georgia
and his Secretary of State, who will testify later, have been
leaders on this issue and are also working with us on
legislation. We were able to all work together, Democrats and
Republican alike, because fixing the machinery of our democracy
is not a partisan matter. It is a matter of basic civic
responsibility far deeper than party or political gain. I think
if anyone should try to make this a partisan issue, it is going
to kill it. We do not want that. This is too important to allow
that to happen, and so we have now refined the bill and
reintroduced it this Congress with broader support from
Democrats and Republicans.
Our bill, called FEMA, the Federal Election Modification
Act, creates an independent blue-ribbon panel to study the way
we vote and make recommendations on better voting machines,
expanded mail-in voting, voting on the Internet and other new
ideas. The commission will recommend how to make sure the polls
are accessible to everyone, including disabled voters and
people overseas in our armed forces, and how we can guarantee
that the lists at polling sites include all registered voters,
and no one is mistakenly turned away.
To make it easier for people to work and care for their
families, the commission will explore whether to expand the
days or hours when we vote, and whether to have an Election Day
holiday, as many other countries do.
It will also consider how best to educate voters in the use
of election equipment and other aspects of voting. Indeed, the
counties that took the trouble and spent the money to educate
voters about the voting experience, about voting, have
experienced far lower error rates and far greater voter
satisfaction.
Finally, the commission will consider how the federal
government on an ongoing basis can best help states and
counties administer elections.
The purpose here is simple. We are not telling any state or
locality what to do. We believe, our bill believes that the
Constitution keeps that right with them, certainly at state and
local elections, and probably even at federal elections.
On the other hand, we are not just going to throw money at
the problem. Rather, we have this commission outline the best
system or systems It can be a few, because voting in rural
Idaho is quite different than voting in downtown Chicago, and
then provide some matching dollars as an incentive, because the
fundamental problem here is not that localities do not want to
update voting reform--I think in all but nine states it is the
counties and towns and villages, the local area that determines
voting--but rather, that they do not have the dollars, and when
they sit down, the town commissioners or the county board, and
they look at the need to make the schools better and the roads
better and so many other responsibilities, voting comes at the
bottom of the list.
Well, that is where we can help, because there is a
national interest and a national responsibility if not
national, certainly not national control, to do this, so every
year for 5 years we will offer the states up to $500 million to
buy new equipment, train poll workers, educate voters and
implement other changes recommended by the commission.
It is a lot of money, but it is not even close to what the
experts say is needed to update us, and if you believe that
voting is a basic right, that money is well, well spent.
As I said, we recognize the constitutional prerogatives
here. The bill does not force anything on the states and
counties, but lets them choose what aspect of their systems
they want to reform, and make the funds available. It has
gotten broad support from Democratic and Republican county and
state officials. You will hear from some of them later,
including the Secretaries of State of Georgia and of Kansas,
one a Democrat, one a Republican, and it has gotten the support
of many different groups, many of them nonpartisan, who care
about voting.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I want to echo the words of
President Bush in his State of the Union Address when he called
for fair and balanced election reform. We believe we have
answered the President's call in our bipartisan bill, as you
have in yours, Mr. Chairman, and it is important for all of us
to redouble our efforts and keep the attention of this body
focused on repairing the nuts and bolts at the heart of our
self-government.
Election reform with this hearing begins to move along
briskly, not conflict with campaign finance reform. If someone
offered my own bill on the floor with an amendment to campaign
finance reform, I would reluctantly vote against it, because I
think that would bollux things up for both issues, but rather,
to move it quickly and alongside campaign finance reform so we
can get both done.
It is important, in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, for us to
redouble our efforts and keep the attention of this body
focused on repairing the nuts and bolts at the heart of our
self-government. Holding these hearings is exactly the right
way to begin, so I thank you again for convening them, and look
forward to the important reform that you will begin to build
here today.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Schumer.
Congresswoman Meek, welcome.
STATEMENT OF HON. CARRIE P. MEEK,
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM FLORIDA
Ms. Meek. Thank you, Chairman McCain. We owe you a debt of
gratitude for having called this hearing. We have not had a
hearing on Capitol Hill, with the exception of the
Congressional Black Caucus, and so we want to thank you for
that, and I admired you when you ran for President, I admire
you even more now.
I want to thank the Members of the Commerce Committee for
being here today. I will submit my entire testimony for the
record.
The Chairman. Without objection.
Ms. Meek. I will talk about a few issues here, but I think
because of all the other testimony you have heard I want to try
and focus in a little bit more on some of the problems that I
experienced in Florida, and show you the emphases that are
there for reform in the electoral process.
I agree that there is a strong need for campaign reform. I
have always been a supporter of that. I am even a stronger
supporter for electoral reform, in that we do need this with
all deliberate speed because of the problems the entire country
has faced with both of these issues.
I represent Florida's 17th Congressional District, and I
have a pin on me today that says, Remember Florida, because
Florida did show what has happened in this country. Even though
it has happened all over the country, this last election
brought forth a vivid example of the needs to reform this
system.
I am here to express some of the outrage and exasperation
of my constituents in Miami and in the State of Florida over
the failure of government to do more about electoral reform. I
want to call to your attention that members of my race have
died because of this issue. They died because they deserve the
right to vote, and there were many who tried to stop them. That
is why it is so important that we focus on this part of it.
Florida has spent a lot of money on gambling and the
lottery and other issues, did not spend enough on this
particular issue. The issue before us I think is not who won or
lost the last presidential election. That issue is settled. The
issue before us is that every qualified voter who wanted to
vote had an equal opportunity to do so.
Now, some folks do not think that every qualified voter
should vote, because they do not feel that every voter is
qualified, or that everyone who wants to vote is qualified.
That is untrue. Not every voter had the opportunity to vote in
this last election. That is the crucial thing that Congress
must face.
African American voting rights were diluted in this
election. Whether by design, or whatever, they were diluted.
the voter confidence of African Americans has been severely
impacted by this last election. There were many people who
failed to vote in prior elections because first of all they did
not feel that they received any benefits from voting.
Now that votes have been cast, and many of their votes were
not counted, they feel even worse. We were far more likely to
have their votes invalidated, black voters were, and other
voters, because a greater percentage of African American voters
lived in counties that used outmoded punch cards, and I want to
show this chart to you that showed that in the districts, that
few African American voters lived in counties with more than
precinct optical scanning systems, a technology that prevents
voter error by requiring voters to correct mistakes before
their ballots can be cast.
This is an important point to show that that is why there
was a disparity in black votes not being counted. More Florida
voters--the first chart shows that 73 percent of African
American voters lived in counties using these unreliable,
outmoded, error-prone punch cards. These are facts. This is not
based with emotion. I am merely presenting today the facts,
which you must face. No matter how many hearings you have, you
cannot get away from these facts. They will be there.
Only 59 percent of white voters lived in punch card
counties. A lower percentage of blacks live in counties with
much more accurate optical scanners at each precinct that give
voters a chance to fix errors in their ballots.
The second chart shows that a significantly greater
percentage of black voters had their ballots discarded in the
November 7 election. The chart will show 16 percent of the
ballots cast by black voters were discarded in counties using
central optical scanning systems, compared to only 5 percent of
ballots cast by white voters.
Eleven percent of ballots cast by black voters, Mr.
Chairman, were discounted in counties using punch cards
compared to only 4 percent of ballots cast by white voters.
Is this entering the race card in this discussion? Yes, it
is, because of the facts, that facts do not lie. the facts show
that this was done 3 percent of ballots cast by black voters
were discarded in counties using precinct optical scanning
systems, the most modern technology, compared to only 1 percent
of ballots cast by white voters.
More black voters than white voters had their ballots
discarded regardless of the type of voting machine used, but as
indicated, the black discard rate drops dramatically when
precinct optical scanning systems are used.
Simply put, the third chart shows punch card ballots cheat
voters, and they are much more likely to cheat African American
voters. Voters in punch card counties were nearly three times
as likely to have their ballots rejected as those in optical
scanning counties.
Mr. Chairman, I could go on and on with these data. These
data prove the fact that African American voters were not only
cheated, but they had their basic voting rights, for which many
of them died, overlooked. I believe that we have come to these
serious electoral problems because of a systematic failure of
government to provide efficient services for the electorate,
not only for African American voters but for others as well.
While many of these problems came from inadequate voting
machines, many others occurred because government did not do
enough, and did not seem to care enough to get it right. Hardly
any counties encourage voting. As a matter of fact, they
discourage it. In Florida we tried to have early voting,
because we knew in the African American community the next day
after the vote the first thing the media was going to say that
African Americans failed to vote, or they did not come out to
vote. You have seen those charts--I know I have seen them--
showing a disproportionate number of African Americans who did
not go out to vote for one reason or the other.
Government can do better than this. They could have done
voter education prior to the election. They could have had
easier means of allowing people to vote. Minority communities
were particularly burdened with voting machines and equipment.
Ballot procedures were unclear and overly complicated. A
disproportionately large number of votes in African American
neighborhoods were disqualified.
Each of you has heard about Duvall County, where over
20,000 African American votes were not counted. It is not so
much as who won or lost, but of those who did not even have
their vote counted. In Miami-Dade County where I live, the
supervisor of elections was bitterly opposed to a manual
recount, so he refused to count. Therefore, many votes were not
counted.
Mr. Chairman, while it is important to detail the problems
that occurred in last year's election, it is more important
that you focus on what each of us has said today in terms of
solutions. There are many worthy proposals for federal
legislation. I appeal to you, do not slowly go through your
hearings so that we do not have some progress for the 2002
election. Not that you can correct it all by 2002, but the
least you can do is correct some of it, and I would say perhaps
to just throw out and ban the voting machines, the punch card
machines.
I am a cosponsor of the legislation that Representative
Conyers has offered in the House to create a commission and
procedures to study. We have quite a bit of data, Mr. Chairman,
already there. We have quite a few studies that have already
been done, and I encourage the Senate to do as many studies as
feasible, but do not study the problem to the extent that we do
not get solutions soon. I feel we need some legislation very
soon to eradicate the punch card machines, and also, in
requiring uniform voting standards, and that all voters use the
same type of equipment.
It was heartrendering, Mr. Chairman, to see new Americans
not having a chance to vote. In my district there are thousands
of Haitian American voters who were eager to vote, voting for
the first time in this newfound democracy of ours. They were
not allowed to vote because many of them did not have the
necessary identification. Many of them did not understand the
rules and regulations. There was no one there who was trained
in Creole to help them. Not only Haitians but Hispanics and
people of all walks of life were not able to do this because of
the language barrier.
I support the use of precinct-level technology that would
require voters to correct their mistakes before their ballot
could be tallied. I wish I could take some of you to my
district to see some of these old people, over 60 years of age,
who have never voted, dragging themselves to the polls, having
to stay in the polls 2 hours because they could vote, then when
they got up to the poll, someone said, your name is not on this
list. Why? We don't know. Can you call the local elections
office? We can try. They tried, and could never get through.
Imagine these elderly people being turned around who
deserved the right to vote and could not, because of the care
that government has for this fundamental right. We almost--we
need to do more to ensure that legally qualified voters are not
denied the right to vote. It is an outrage, Mr. Chairman, what
happened in Florida with the last election. The voting rolls
had been purged, and I say purged in quotation marks, because
some of the purging that was done was not the correct way to
purge. Many people who were legally qualified were not allowed
to vote. We must have some system, and I intend to file a bill.
You know how hard it is to get a bill through the Congress.
Sometimes it takes 5 years to get a bill through the Congress,
and so I am not ecstatic about all of these bills that are
coming up around here, but what I am looking for is some action
to be sure that we help the counties and we help the
municipalities to be able to afford some of the changes that we
know should be made. We do it for everything else, so there is
no reason why we cannot do it for this basic human right.
I will be offering legislation that will be heard, that
before any voter could be purged from the voting rolls they
will have an opportunity to be heard, to know why they have
been purged from the voting rolls. We need to tell people what
is wrong, and what is the offense that is alleged to have
disqualified them from voting, and give such prospective voters
a chance to show that the records used to disqualify them are
erroneous. That is just basic fairness.
We need to do a much better job, Mr. Chairman, educating
and training the voters. You would be surprised that--maybe you
have never been called, but I have been many times, people
asking me, how do we vote. They do not ask me who to vote for,
but they ask me, what happens when we get to the polls? It is
not as sophisticated as you think it is, and government is
doing very little to correct these errors.
We need to ensure that translators are available at the
polls to avoid a repeat of such massive disenfranchisement as
that which plagued the South Florida community. Precinct
election officials must be trained better, and they must have
sufficient computer and telephone access to voter lists that
they can quickly and accurately determine a person's
eligibility to vote.
Suffice it to say, Mr. Chairman, that we need more liberal
election laws that will encourage citizens to vote, such
election laws as same-day registration. You would be surprised
what a hard time--I served 12 years in the Florida Senate--what
a hard time we had even getting Florida to use motor voter
registration.
People feel that if you allow certain segments of the
electorate to be able to vote, that they will skew the election
in a certain way. I want to say to you, forget that. Think
about the basic tenets of our democracy that everyone should be
allowed to vote We should explore whether voting on weekends
would improve turnout, and whether this step would make it
easier to give all voters the time they need to make an
informed choice.
Mr. Chairman, I want to summarize this--I have submitted
the rest for the record--to say to you that there has been not
an intentional disparate treatment of African American voters,
but it has occurred, and we do need to quickly and summarily do
something about this problem. I cannot overemphasize this.
In late February, the St. Petersburg Times published a poll
of African American voters which reflect the African American
community's pervasive mistrust of the electoral process in
Florida. The poll showed that 84 percent of black voters in
Florida believe a greater portion of African Americas were
rejected or not counted than votes by Floridians of other
races. This was borne out by the statistics I have discussed
today. Forty percent of those voters cited a coordinated effort
by state government to make it more difficult for African
Americans. We have got to undergird voter confidence.
Yet, despite these deep-seated concerns, it seems to me,
and the people throughout Florida that I represent, and my
experience in Florida, the high-minded talk we so often hear
about the importance of voting rights is just pious platitudes
and lip service. We are exasperated because of our desperate
pleas about the disenfranchisement of our citizens and the
disqualifications of our ballots and the violations of our
election laws, and they were dismissed as irregularities. We
can no longer see these oversights as irregularities. We must
correct them.
I have been here before, Mr. Chairman, and talked about
this. We have prayed about this. It has to be corrected, and my
generation, like my parents and grandparents' generations,
struggled mightily against poll taxes that you had to pay
before they would let you vote, and literacy tests that
required African American and only African Americans to recite
whole sections of state constitutions, or answer very obscure
questions to the satisfaction of examiners. We have come a long
way since that time, but now is the time that government
recognizes its failure, reforms the electoral system so that
every legal, qualified person who wants to vote will get the
opportunity.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this hearing.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Meek follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Carrie P. Meek,
U.S. Representative from Florida
Good morning, Senator McCain, Senator Hollings, Members of the
Commerce Committee and fellow Members of Congress. Thank you for
convening this very important hearing. I will submit my longer
statement for the record and, because of time constraints, will focus
my presentation here on just a few issues.
I represent Florida's 17th Congressional District which covers
large portions of Miami-Dade County. My Congressional District runs
from the county line on the north to the cities of Homestead and
Florida City on the south. I'm here today to express the outrage and
exasperation of my constituents in Miami, Florida, over the failure of
our government and our electoral system in the 2000 Presidential
election and to share some of my thoughts as to how we can prevent such
a catastrophe from ever happening again.
The issue before us is not who won or should have won the 2000
Presidential election. That issue is settled. We have a new President.
Something far more crucial is at stake than who won the year 2000
Presidential election--the issue before us is whether every qualified
voter who wanted to vote had au equal opportunity to vote and to have
his or her vote counted. We know that they did not. Not every voter had
the same opportunity to vote. African American voting rights were
diluted in this election.
African American voters were far more likely to have their votes
invalidated than other voters because a greater percentage of African
American voters lived in counties that used defective, outmoded punch
card voting machines or central optical scanning systems. Few African
American voters lived in counties with modern precinct optical scanning
systems, a technology that prevents voter error by requiring voters to
correct mistakes before their ballots can be cast.
Consider the following charts.
The first chart shows that 73 percent of African American voters
lived in counties using unreliable, outmoded, error-prone punch cards,
while only 59 percent of white voters lived in punch card counties. A
lower percentage of blacks live in counties with much more accurate
optical scanners at each precinct that give voters a chance to fix
errors in their ballots.
The second chart shows that a significantly greater percentage of
black voters had their ballots discarded in the November 7th election.
Sixteen percent of ballots cast by black voters were discarded in
counties using central optical scanning systems compared to only 5
percent of ballots cast by white voters.
Eleven percent of ballots cast by black voters were discarded in
counties using punch cards compared to only 4 percent of ballots cast
by white voters.
Three percent of ballots cast by black voters were discarded in
counties using precinct optical scanning systems, the most modern
technology, compared to only 1 percent of ballots cast by white voters.
More black voters than white voters had their ballots discarded
regardless of the type of voting machine used, but, as indicated, the
black discard rate drops dramatically when precinct optical scanning
systems are used.
Simply put, as the third chart demonstrates: Punch Card Ballots
Cheat Voters and They Are Much More Likely to Cheat African American
Voters:
Voters in punch card counties were nearly three times as
likely to have their ballots rejected as those in ``optical
scanning'' counties.
Eighty-eight percent of the 51 Florida precincts where more
than 20 percent of the ballots were rejected used punch cards.
Seventy-eight percent of the 336 Florida precincts where
more than 10 percent of the ballots were rejected used punch
cards.
Overall ballot rejection rate for the 43 Florida counties
using optical scanning technology was 1.4 percent.
Overall ballot rejection rate for the 24 Florida counties
using punch cards was 3.9 percent.
(Source: December 2, 2000 Miami Herald)
I believe that we came to have these serious electoral problems
because of a systematic failure of government to provide efficient
services for the electorate. While many of the problems arose from
inadequate voting machines, many others occurred because government did
not do enough and did not seem to care enough to get it right. Minority
communities were particularly burdened with voting machines and
equipment of the oldest vintage and the poorest quality. Ballot
procedures were unclear and overly complicated. A disproportionately
large number of votes cast in African American neighborhoods were
disqualified.
Mr. Chairman, while it's important to detail the problems that
occurred in last year's election, it is even more important to focus on
solutions. There are many worthy proposals for federal legislation. I
will discuss just a few of them.
I am a co-sponsor of the legislation that Representative Conyers is
offering in the House to create a Commission on Voting Rights and
Procedures to study and make recommendations regarding election
technology and voting and election administration. This bill also would
establish a grant program for states and localities to improve the
administration of elections. I believe that Senator Dodd is the sponsor
of this bill in the Senate. It's an excellent bill and I commend it to
you.
I believe that we need federal legislation to eliminate punch card
voting. The Voting Improvement Act sponsored by Congressman Steny Hoyer
and David Price would provide the funding required to eliminate punch
cards. Further, legislation should require uniform voting standards,
and that all voters use the same quality of equipment. We should fund
the nationwide deployment of technology that would prevent over-votes
and other types of ballot errors. I support the use of precinct-level
technology that would require voters to correct their mistakes before
their ballot could be tallied.
We also must do much more to ensure that legally qualified voters
are not denied the right to vote. It's an outrage that, last November,
legally qualified voters were falsely accused of being felons and
denied the right to vote because the State of Florida relied upon
inaccurate data from a private contractor.
I will be offering legislation to require that voters receive
notice and an opportunity to be heard before any voter could be purged
from the voting rolls. We need to tell people what the offense is that
is alleged to disqualify them from voting and give such prospective
voters a chance to show that the records used to disqualify them are
erroneous. That's just basic fairness.
We need to do a much better job of educating and training voters,
especially first-time voters. We need to ensure that translators are
available at the polls to avoid a repeat of such massive
disenfranchisement as that which plagued the South Florida Haitian
American community. Precinct election officials must be trained better
and they must have sufficient computer and telephone access to voter
lists that they can quickly and accurately determine a person's
eligibility to vote.
We should explore whether voting on weekends would improve turnout
and whether this step would make it easier to give all voters the time
they need to make an informed choice once they enter the voting booth.
We also should consider making provisional voting uniformly available
so that a voter would never be turned away from the polls because a
question existed that could not then be resolved concerning that
voter's right to vote.
While there are many other legislative proposals worth considering,
I submit that there is simple standard to use in evaluating the various
electoral reform proposals. We should ask the question:
Will adoption of this proposal make it more likely that each of our
voters receives an equal opportunity to vote and to have his or her
vote counted? Whenever the answer to this question is yes, the bill
being examined deserves the most serious consideration.
Mr. Chairman, I cannot overemphasize the depth of the African
American community's concern about the electoral process in Florida. In
late February, the St. Petersburg Times published a poll of African
American Florida voters which reflects the African American community's
pervasive mistrust of the electoral process in Florida.
The poll showed that 84 percent of black voters in Florida believe
a greater portion of African Americans were rejected or not counted
than votes by Floridians of other races, a fact borne out by the
statistics I have discussed. Forty percent of those voters cited a
``coordinated effort by state government to make it more difficult for
African Americans to vote'' as the reason that more African American
voters had their votes rejected more often, a greater percentage than
those who blamed faulty voting machines or voter error.
Yet despite these deep-seated concerns, it seems to me and the
people that I represent that, after our experience in Florida, the
high-minded talk we so often hear about the importance of voting rights
is just platitudes and lip service.
We are outraged because African American voters in Florida did
everything they were supposed to do--we studied the issues, we did our
civic duty and went to the polls, and we voted--and yet massive numbers
of our votes were not counted, and in the end, our opinions and
decisions did not count.
We are exasperated because our serious, desperate pleas about the
disenfranchisement of our citizens, and the disqualification of our
ballots, and the violations of our election laws were ignored, delayed,
denied and dismissed as mere ``irregularities'' and, in many cases,
trivialized or reduced to jokes.
African American voters feel like we have been here before, for
this country has a long history of keeping us from voting. In my own
case, I am 74 years old. My grandfather was a slave, who had no rights
at all. I grew up in a Southern town, Tallahassee, Florida. My father
used to take me into the State Capitol Building on Inauguration Day--
the one day every four years that African Americans were welcomed in
that public building.
Within my lifetime, every conceivable effort was made to keep
African Americans from voting, and to keep our votes from counting.
My generation, like my parent's and grandparent's generations,
struggled mightily against poll taxes that you had to pay before they
would let you vote; and ``literacy'' tests that required African
Americans--and only African Americans--to recite whole sections of
state constitutions or answer obscure questions to the satisfaction of
examiners who could never be satisfied.
African Americans are alive today who were denied the right to vote
in ``white only'' primaries; and who had to search for polling places
that were moved with no notice in the black community, or moved so far
that it was hard to get to them. I remember the intimidation of being
greeted at the polls by disdainful and unhelpful poll workers, or even
police officers at the doors.
African Americans today remember when the district lines for cities
and counties and legislative districts were gerrymandered and drawn to
exclude our neighborhoods or to dilute our vote. We remember how
registration records would ``disappear'' when we showed up to vote and
how the law, administrative procedures and the ``official discretion''
of public officials were used to postpone and delay our attempts to
assert our rights.
The Voting Rights Act was supposed to change all of that, and
government was supposed to be protection, helpful and on the side of
equality and inclusion. In the case of Florida, government has failed
miserably.
It is clear that the phrase ``voting rights'' is a mere platitude
to many of our justices and government officials. One local official
was even ignorant enough to opine that it was ``not anyone's fault if
they couldn't understand the directions on the ballot.''
My message today is this:
It is a failure of government and our electoral system when any
legally qualified person who wants to vote is denied the opportunity to
do so.
It is a failure of government and our electoral system when courts,
the laws, and government officials do not do everything possible to
insure that every vote is counted and that the final count is correct.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to the Committee's
questions.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Meek. We
appreciate your time and effort and energy on behalf of this
very important issue.
Our old friend and very patient friend, Congressman Asa
Hutchinson. Thank you for being here.
STATEMENT OF HON. ASA HUTCHINSON,
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM ARKANSAS
Mr. Hutchinson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am grateful for
the opportunity to testify and thankful for this Committee's
hearing. I do agree with much of what has been said previously,
and I will try not to simply reiterate that, but I do believe I
can make some points that will add to the discussion.
This issue, I would agree, is one that crosses party lines,
and certainly geography, and it is appropriate that it be
addressed in a bipartisan way. I think it is appropriate to
recognize also that I think it is within the constitutional
framework that this be given consideration at the federal
level. Like Senator Cleland, I have served both as a state and
county election commissioner in Arkansas, so I am well
acquainted with some of the challenges we face on Election Day
across the country.
Arkansas, my state, has made great strides in the past few
years. Let me just share a few things. Sixty-five percent of
our 75 counties now use optical scan machines. That is
compared, of course, to the national average of 27 percent.
Furthermore, only 9 percent of Arkansas counties still use
punch card systems, compared to a national average of 36
percent.
Unfortunately, as evidenced by the last election, Arkansas'
modernization efforts seem to have been the exception rather
than the rule. During the Florida recount, I was struck by the
comments of a foreign journalist who was asked about his view
of the Florida recount. He did not express frustration at the
length of the delay in determining the outcome of the election,
but he simply expressed amazement that the oldest and strongest
democracy in the world had not made the necessary investments
in the essential tools of democracy--modern election equipment.
And, if we were embarrassed about anything, I think that
certainly is a cause to be embarrassed, and I think this
journalist hit upon a key point, namely, that to keep our
system strong and vibrant, we have to give it a booster shot in
the arm.
I do not think it is a time to point fingers or question
motives, or simply to ignore the problems we have observed in
Florida. I do want to say, I thought the spirit of the
testimony today was very appropriate. It was addressing the
problem and not engaging in finger-pointing.
As with many other members, I went to Florida and observed
the recount there, and as I went there and observed the recount
I was struck by one thing, and that is that there were good
people there with a very sincere desire to make the system
work. But, they were working with a flawed system that made
their jobs almost impossible. It is early in the legislative
session, but we must remember that 2002 is only 20 months away.
In regards to the election, Congress must take immediate steps
to provide assistance to the states to help modernize our
election equipment.
The federal government approach should be this, in my
judgment: we should be a financial partner with the states, not
necessarily a senior partner, but a financial partner. We
should allow flexibility, and I do not believe that we have to
set mandatory rules for all of the states. They studied it.
They know their system. They know what they are capable of in
the states.
I do think we have to set some minimum standards. For
example, I think it is appropriate that, to accept federal
grant money to modernize election equipment, that recipients
provide access to the disabled. I think it is appropriate that
they assure us that they are providing systems in their state
that will meet the requirements of the Equal Protection Clause
of the United States Constitution. I think that we can provide
education for the voters. This education should appeal to the
responsibility of the voters as well as trying to teach them
how to use the election equipment. So, in furtherance of those
goals, I have introduced bipartisan legislation on the House
side, the Election Procedures Improvement Act, along with my
cosponsor, Alcee Hastings of Florida, which is a very simple
approach that would provide $1.5 billion to the states and
localities to help them purchase new voting equipment to
modernize their election procedures.
It is not heavy with mandates. It is great with
flexibility, but it is a minimum investment that we need to
make at the federal level to assist our states. That is not to
say that Congress should not engage in a more comprehensive
debate, as some of the proposals have suggested. I think there
is much more that can be done, much more that can be debated,
but I believe the grant program is the minimum amount that
should be accomplished.
There are many people that are looking at ways to improve
our election machinery, from the National Association of
Secretaries of State, to the League of Women Voters, and I
congratulate this Committee and its chairman for its interest
in election reform. I am hopeful that Congress will take this
opportunity to bring the tools of democracy up to the standards
of excellence that should be expected of the world's longest
surviving and strongest democracy.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hutchinson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Asa Hutchinson,
U.S. Representative from Arkansas
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before this
Committee today to discuss the need for election reform. This issue is
one which cuts across state and party lines, and it is very appropriate
that it be given serious consideration at the federal level.
I have served as both a state and county election commissioner in
Arkansas, and so I am well-acquainted with the challenges faced by
election officials across the country. Arkansas has made great strides
in the past few years, and 65 percent of the state's seventy-five
counties now use optical scan machines, compared to the national
average of 27 percent. Furthermore, only 9 percent of Arkansas counties
still use punch card systems, compared to a national average of 36
percent. Unfortunately, as evidenced by the recent presidential
election, Arkansas' modernization efforts seem to have been the
exception rather than the rule.
During the Florida recount, a foreign journalist was asked how his
country viewed the events occurring in the United States. I found his
comments particularly telling. He was not concerned about the
underlying health of our democracy; rather, he expressed amazement that
the oldest and strongest democracy in the world had not made the
necessary investments in the essential tools of democracy--modern
election equipment. This particular journalist hit on a key point that
I think many have missed because of the rancor that followed the
Presidential election--namely, that our underlying system of democracy
is, in fact, strong and vibrant. However, it needs a shot in the arm.
Whereas the response of some has been to point fingers, question
motives, or ignore the problems displayed in Florida altogether, I am
convinced that the most productive response to the 2000 election will
be for federal, state and local officials to take a view similar to
that of the foreign journalist--namely, that we have a strong system
which, at a minimum, needs some fine-tuning. In the short-term, we must
refrain from engaging in battles of rhetoric and work together, using
existing research and data, to identify the areas of greatest need and
take the necessary steps to prevent a repeat of last fall.
It is early in the legislative session. However, the 2002 mid-term
elections are only twenty months away. Congress must take immediate
steps to provide the shot in the arm our democracy needs, so that our
election systems will be ready for the scrutiny they will most
certainly face at that time. To that end, I have introduced bipartisan
legislation in the House to provide an immediate $1.5 billion in funds
to states and localities to help them purchase new voting equipment.
That is not to say that Congress should not also engage in more
comprehensive debate about how to address the more contentious issues
that surfaced in the 2000 election. The gentlemen from New York has
introduced a proposal in the Senate with that very purpose in mind. In
fact, scores of bills have been introduced since January that provide
for more rigorous study of the issue, and allow Congress to consider
more long-term solutions to the problems that surfaced in Florida and
elsewhere.
Groups like the National Association of Secretaries of State, the
Election Center, the League of Women Voters, the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People, and those represented here today
have already begun to examine these problems and formulate potential
solutions. Although I am disappointed that it took a presidential
election stalemate to bring this issue to the attention of the American
public and to us as policymakers, I am hopeful that Congress will take
this opportunity to bring the tools of democracy up to the standards of
excellence that should be expected of the world's longest surviving and
strongest democracy.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Congressman Hutchinson.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank you for
your support of campaign finance reform. I would call our
remaining panel. I appreciate the time you have spent with us
this morning.
I want to now ask our next panel, which is composed of the
Hon. Bill Bradbury, Secretary of State of the State of Oregon,
the Hon. Cathy Cox, Secretary of State of the State of Georgia,
the Hon. Ron Thornburgh, Secretary of State of the State of
Kansas, to please come forward.
I would like to thank our witnesses, who are responsible
for the very hard work involved in making elections happen, for
being here today. We would like to begin with you, Secretary of
State Bradbury, and your complete statements will obviously be
made a part of the record. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF HON. BILL BRADBURY,
SECRETARY OF STATE, STATE OF OREGON
Mr. Bradbury. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a great honor
to appear before the Committee, particularly before a Committee
where the two Senators from Oregon both serve, Senator Wyden
and Senator Smith.
As both of them know, back home the Division of Tourism
slogan is: ``Oregon, things look different here,'' and it seems
appropriate to begin my testimony with that phrase, since it
applies as much to our election system as it does to our
beautiful scenery. Oregon, as Senator Wyden said in his opening
remarks, is the only state in the Nation that votes entirely by
mail. No federal attempt to solve the very real problems of
last fall's election should attempt to impose a one-size-fits-
all solution on state and local governments. I would not seek
to impose vote-by-mail on another state, and I certainly would
fight any federal effort to take it away from Oregonians.
Oregon's 20-year history with vote by mail has proven time
and again that the system raises voter participation, it
decreases cost, and it increases the overall integrity of the
election system. It is also a system that a vast majority of
Oregonians love, having been adopted through ballot measure by
the voters in 1998 with nearly 70 percent of the voters
supporting it.
However, there are still some critical areas where we can
make improvements in our efforts to make sure that every vote
counts. We have all heard plenty of stories from across the
Nation about troubles with punch card voting, and Oregon is no
exception. In fact, Oregon's experience is an excellent example
of exactly why punch cards must be phased out.
Forty percent of Oregon's voters cast their votes with
punch cards, but punch cards are simply not voter-friendly in a
vote-by-mail environment. The punch card was designed to be
used in a polling place, with a punch card stylus, but Oregon's
punch card voters receive their ballots by mail, without an
enclosed stylus. For a voter sitting at a kitchen table,
holding a ballot book in one hand and a punch card in the
other, trying to figure out which hole corresponds to which
position, for which candidate or measure, can, in fact, be a
very difficult task.
There is strong bipartisan support in our state to
eliminate punch card ballots, and several legislators have
proposed bills that would do exactly that. The critical issue
for us is how to pay for the transition. Frankly, the budget in
Oregon is so tight this year that the speed with which we are
able to phase out punch cards depends on the amount of federal
assistance available. We estimate the cost of replacing punch
cards in Oregon to be about $2 million. If it takes $1 million
state dollars to replace punch cards, that would mean $1
million cut from higher education, K through 12 funding, or
health care, and that would be a very tough sell to make to
this legislature.
Now, I want to say that Oregon is prepared to step up to
the plate financially, but in order to move quickly enough so
that Oregonians will not be voting with punch cards again in
the next presidential election, we are going to need
significant federal assistance. Simply put, the higher the
federal match, the quicker we accomplish our mutual goal.
We also need to address election issues that go beyond the
mechanics of how ballots are cast. The 2000 general election
raised questions all over the country about election security
and the issue of equal access to the voting process. I am
certain that creating a centralized voter registration system
is just as essential as eliminating punch cards in order to
make real improvements to Oregon's elections. In fact, creating
a centralized voter registration system is my highest
legislative priority, and that has very strong bipartisan
support. Oregon's voter rolls are currently housed in 36
separate county data bases, with no real connection. A
centralized voter registration system would all but eliminate
the possibility of duplicate voting and significantly reduce
the possibility of voter fraud. It does, however, carry a $6
million price tag.
So I urge you, and I urge the Members of this Committee to
take a broad view in terms of improving the election system,
and I hope that the focus of this Committee will not just be on
how the votes of individual citizens have been recorded. I hope
that federal assistance will be available broadly to improve
states' abilities to meet the needs of their voters.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bradbury follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Bill Bradbury, Secretary of State,
State of Oregon
Back home, the Division of Tourism's slogan is ``Oregon: Things
look different here.'' It seems appropriate to begin my testimony with
that phrase, since it applies as much to our election system as it does
to our scenery.
As the 2000 presidential election clearly highlighted, there are
many different ways to record the will of the voters. Ensuring that
every state provides its citizens with an accessible, accurate and
secure election process needs to be one of our top priorities as a
nation, and I commend the Congress for your efforts to help make every
vote of every American count.
As Congress considers electoral reform, it is important for you to
remember that state and local officials conduct national elections. We
must retain the authority to do so in the manner that most suits our
electors.
In Oregon, that process is Vote-by-Mail. No federal attempt to
solve the very real problems of last fall's election should attempt to
impose a ``one size fits all'' solution on state and local governments.
National standards must recognize and appreciate local differences. I
would not seek to impose Vote-by-Mail on another state and will fight
any federal effort to take it away from Oregonians.
Oregon's history with Vote-by-Mail has proven time and again that
the system raises voter participation, decreases costs and increases
the overall integrity of the election process. It is also a system that
the vast majority of Oregonians love.
Over the past 19 years, Oregon has conducted hundreds of local and
several statewide Vote-by-Mail elections. In 1981, the Oregon
legislature approved a test of Vote-by-Mail for local elections. Vote-
by-Mail was made permanent in 1987, when a majority of counties used it
for local and special elections.
In January 1996, Oregon gained national attention by holding the
first statewide election completely by mail to fill a vacancy in a
federal office, electing Ron Wyden to the U.S. Senate.
By the May 1998 primary, 41 percent of registered voters in Oregon
were permanent absentee voters. Overall, the state posted a record low
turnout at 35 percent, with absentee ballots representing nearly two-
thirds of all ballots cast. Of those voters who requested absentee
ballots, 53 percent returned them. Only 22 percent of the remaining
registered voters who did not request absentee ballots actually voted.
Oregon thus became the first state to have more ballots cast by mail
than at the polls during a polling place election.
Hoping to improve access to the ballot and increase voter turnout,
supporters of expanding Vote-by-Mail to all elections submitted
signatures to qualify the issue for the 1998 General Election ballot.
In November of that year, Oregon voters approved the measure by a vote
of 757,204 to 334,201--nearly 70 percent in favor. Of all ballots cast
at the election, 58 percent were cast as absentee, leaving only 42
percent of the ballots cast at the polls.
In May 2000, I oversaw the first all Vote-by-Mail primary in
Oregon's history. A total of 900,000 Oregonians cast ballots in the
2000 primary, which was a 16 percent increase over the highest number
of votes ever cast in a polling place Primary Election. That high 2000
primary turnout reversed a steady twenty-year decline in the number of
Oregonians casting Primary Election ballots.
And on November 7, 2000, Oregon had yet another ``first'' in Vote-
by-Mail--we became the first state in the nation to conduct a
presidential election entirely by mail. Building on the success of the
May primary, I issued a challenge to all Oregonians to have the highest
voter turnout in the nation last fall--and we came close.
Eighty percent of registered voters cast ballots and we ranked
ninth in the nation in voter turnout. Of the eight states with higher
turnout, only two were larger in population than Oregon and both of
those states had same-day registration.
Our Vote-by-Mail system also provides excellent access for disabled
voters. Any voter who would have difficulty voting for any reason can
call a county election official to request assistance. The county
elections office sends a bipartisan team to the voter's home to provide
assistance at no expense to the voter. Marion County provides a tactile
ballot and all 36 counties provide both the ballot and the Voters'
Pamphlet on tape.
Oregon's Vote-by-Mail system is a positive model for other states
with high percentages of permanent absentee voters. For example in
Washington State, over half of the votes cast in the General Election
were cast by absentee ballot. Washington election officials essentially
have to run two separate election systems: one mail system for the half
of the population that votes absentee and a separate polling place
system for the other half. This means that Washington is paying for
both polling place employees and postage, which leads to expensive
elections.
The same was true in Oregon until we made the transition to all
Vote-by-Mail elections. The real triumph of our current election system
is that it answered the need so clearly voiced when voters
overwhelmingly approved the Vote-by-Mail measure in 1998. The result is
a process that is more accessible, produces higher voter turn out and
provides lower costs for its citizens.
I presume that this Committee will have an appreciation for
Oregon's Vote-by-Mail system, given that both Senators Wyden and Smith
serve on the Committee, but we need to make sure that Congress as a
whole is aware of the successes and differences of Oregon's voting
system as it considers future across-the-board reforms.
Let's be clear; although I am proud of the very positive steps we
have been able to take with elections in our state, there are still
critical areas where we can make improvements in our efforts to make
sure that every vote counts.
We've all heard plenty of stories from across the nation about
troubles with punch card voting, and Oregon is no exception. In fact,
Oregon's experience is an excellent example of exactly why punch cards
must be phased out.
Seven of Oregon's 36 counties still use punch cards. Three of
Oregon's four largest counties are included in the group, resulting in
over 40 percent of Oregon's voters casting their votes with punch
cards.
But punch cards are simply not voter friendly in a Vote-by-Mail
environment.
The punch card was designed to be used in a polling place with a
punch card stylus, but Oregon's punch card voters receive their ballots
by mail. For a voter sitting on the living room couch, holding a ballot
booklet in one hand and a punch card in the other, figuring out which
hole corresponds to which position for which candidate or measure can
be a very difficult task.
For example, a voter looks up Measure 86 in their ballot booklet.
They read that they have to find and punch number 87 on their ballot if
they want to vote ``no'' on Measure 86, or number 88 if they want to
vote ``yes.'' It can be very time-consuming to vote and even more so to
double-check for mistakes. If a voter does discover that they've
punched the wrong chad, they have to write to their election official
or travel to their county elections office to request a whole new punch
card ballot.
If our goal is to provide voters with an accessible, voter-friendly
election process, as it clearly is, punch cards just don't make sense
in Oregon.
We are one hundred percent committed to improving Oregon's election
system so that every voter in our state can be absolutely confident
that their vote will count the way they intended it to be counted.
There is strong bipartisan support in our state to eliminate punch card
ballots, and several legislators have proposed bills that would do
exactly that.
The issue in Oregon is not getting legislative support for phasing
out punch cards; we already have that. The critical issue is how to pay
for the transition. Although we appreciate Senator McCain's efforts to
provide federal matching funds for states to improve their voting
machinery, frankly the budget in Oregon is so tight this year that a
fifty-fifty match just won't get us there very quickly.
We estimate the cost of replacing punch cards in Oregon to be about
$2 million. The fiscal reality in Oregon this biennium is that spending
even $1 million on voting machinery to match a $1 million federal grant
would mean cutting $1 million from higher education, K-12 funding or
health care. That would be very tough to sell.
Oregon is prepared to step up to the plate financially, but the
speed with which we are able to eliminate punch cards is dependent upon
the size of the federal match.
In order to move quickly enough so that Oregonians won't be voting
with punch cards again in the next presidential election, we will need
more federal assistance than is currently proposed by this bill. After
the chaos we saw in Florida, I hope you would all agree that the
integrity of our election system is a cost well worth paying for.
We also need to address election issues that go beyond the
mechanics of how ballots are cast. The 2000 General Election raised
questions all over the country about election security and the issue of
equal access to the voting process.
A few Oregonians raised concerns after the General Election that
people had voted more than once in several counties. Although not one
case has been brought forward to support these allegations, it raises
the issue of voting security and voter confidence in the election
system.
Much of the focus of election reform has been on getting rid of
punch card ballots; I am certain that creating a centralized voter
registration system is just as essential in order to make real
improvements to Oregon's elections. In fact, creating a centralized
voter registration system is my highest legislative priority, with
strong bipartisan support.
Oregon's voter rolls are currently housed in 36 separate county
databases, with no real connection between them. We currently have no
easy or efficient way to check for overlap between these databases.
Connecting the county voter databases into a statewide voter
registration file would dramatically improve our ability to check for
duplicate registrations and to update registrations. When a voter
registers at a new address in a new county, a county election official
would be able to do a real-time search of the entire state's voter
registration system to find out quickly and easily if the voter was
already registered somewhere else.
A centralized voter registration system would thus give Oregon
among the cleanest voting rolls in the country. It would create the
possibility to all but eliminate duplicate voting. It would
significantly reduce the possibility of voter fraud. And the end result
would be a real increase in voters' confidence in their election
process. It does, however, carry a $6 million price tag.
I appreciate the allocation of block grants for voter education in
Senator McCain's bill. We currently do not have funds available for
public service announcements or public education campaigns to reach
voters with information about when they have to be registered or when
their ballots have to be in the mail. Being able to provide these
services would help us make sure that every eligible voter has the
opportunity to cast their vote.
I sincerely hope that the Congress and state legislatures alike
will be able to use this period of heightened public attention to the
election process as an opportunity to make some significant and much-
needed changes to the election system.
I urge you to take a broad view in terms of improving the election
system, and I hope that the focus of this Committee will not just be on
how the votes of individual citizens have been recorded. I hope that
federal assistance will be available broadly to improve states'
abilities to meet the needs of their voters. I believe that it is
essential that money be available not just for vote-casting equipment
but for improvements to the whole range of processes and procedures
that affect the integrity of our elections.
As Oregon's Chief Elections Officer, I believe that I have to do
all I can to ensure that every step of the electoral process, beginning
with registration and ending with the counting of ballots, is fair and
friendly to every voter.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. Secretary Cox, welcome.
STATEMENT OF HON. CATHY COX,
SECRETARY OF STATE, STATE OF GEORGIA
Ms. Cox. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to discuss election
reform with you, and allow me to say thanks to my good friend
from Georgia, Senator Max Cleland, who served our state with
great distinction as a former Secretary of State. I know that
Senator Cleland, Mr. Chairman, and many of you are working to
find innovative solutions to the problems of outdated and
inaccurate election systems. I believe you have my full written
testimony and, rest assured, I will be much briefer this
morning and, of course, I am happy to respond to your
questions.
In the 2000 general election in Georgia, we had many of the
same problems that received so much attention in Florida.
Perhaps most importantly, our undervote rate, the difference
between the ballots cast and the votes recorded in the
presidential race, was 3.5 percent. That number was well above
Florida's undervote percentage, and the rate for the Nation as
a whole.
The Chairman. What does that translate to in terms of
numbers of votes?
Ms. Cox. About 94,000 votes in Georgia. Since November we
have spent a great deal of time analyzing Georgia's undervote,
especially the variations that occurred from county to county
and from precinct to precinct. Much of the report I attached to
my written testimony focuses on this area. That report offers
interesting insight into a whole range of issues, but let me
focus on just one of those this morning, and that is the
undervote performance of opti-scan systems as compared to the
infamous punch card.
Although opti-scan systems offer satisfactory performance
in some counties, in many other locations optical scan
undervote rates are extremely high, well above the averages of
more antiquated systems.
The Chairman. Could I ask you to pause for a minute? Can
you put that over on the other side? There is a camera that is
blocking the view.
Thank you. Please proceed.
Ms. Cox. In fact, in 21 opti-scan counties in Georgia there
were undervote rates of 5 percent or higher, and one county in
Georgia even had an undervote rate of 15 percent using the
opti-scan system.
In addition to our overall analysis of all Georgia
counties, we were interested in the differences in undervoting
that exist by race, so we studied presidential undervote
percentages in 92 predominantly black precincts, and compared
those to predominantly white precincts in the same county. We
found that across the board undervotes are higher in
predominantly black precincts than in white precincts in the
same county, and we call this difference the undervote gap.
The bigger surprise, however, is that the undervote gap was
higher--that is right, higher in counties that used opti-scan
systems than in counties that used the punch card. I have
attached for your reference a copy of our analysis that
provides specific county-by-county detail on these findings.
In punch card counties in Georgia, this undervote gap was
3.7 percent between black and white precincts. In counties that
employed opti-scan, the undervote gap was 5.4 percent, and you
see on this chart the red letter W represents the white
precincts using opti-scan, the blue letter B's represent the
black precincts using opti-scan, and you see we have got a
number of black precincts that exceed 8 percent in error rates,
many of those well above 10 percent in error rates.
So the undervote gap between blacks and whites is nearly 2
percentage points higher in opti-scan counties. The reasonable
question one would ask when presented with these findings is
why? Why are voters in predominantly African American precincts
more likely to cast an undervoted ballot, and why is this
variation even greater in opti-scan precincts than in punch
card precincts, and simply, we do not know the answer to that
today.
Anecdotally, we know the types of errors voters can make on
opti-scan systems. We have seen many times when voters place a
check mark or an X rather than blackening in a circle, and the
optical reader will not read that vote.
Sometimes, voters trying extra hard to make sure their vote
is counted will both blacken a circle and write in the same
candidate's name on the write-in line, thus creating to the
counting machine what appears to be a duplicate vote or an
overvote which is not counted at all.
But whatever the cause of the disparity, we believe the
data makes a compelling argument that further deployment of
opti-scan systems in Georgia would be bad public policy, and
could even be considered a decision that disenfranchises
minority voters. Clearly, our findings cry out for more
analysis of this racial disparity in the use of voting
equipment, and so I applaud the emphasis in your legislation,
Mr. Chairman, mandating a formal study of these types of
issues.
So much of the focus coming out of Florida was on the
shortcomings of the punch card system, and those shortcomings
are undeniable, but in Georgia we now believe that replacing
punch cards with opti-scan would be the electoral equivalent of
jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
The data shows that some populations are far too likely to
cast an incomplete or a voided ballot when using opti-scan
systems. We believe that electronic equipment systems that are
flexible, accurate, that prevent overvoting and other mistakes,
and that feature a separate audit trail, offer the best option
for improving the reliability of our election systems. I am
hopeful that the Congress will help provide the resources to
assist us in achieving our goal.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to share my
perspective on this very important issue.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Cox follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Cathy Cox, Secretary of State,
State of Georgia
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to present testimony for your consideration as you address
the critically important issue of election reform. I am grateful to be
asked to offer some insight into our experience in Georgia as we search
for new solutions to make elections more accurate and more convenient
for all of our citizens.
Let me also say Mr. Chairman that I applaud your efforts, and that
of the ranking member Senator Hollings, in introducing S.368, which
would provide us with valuable national consensus standards in voting
equipment, authorize a study of voter participation and emerging
technology, and, perhaps most importantly, create grants to states to
improve voting methods.
It's a good bill. As you know, there are a number of other
legislative proposals before the Congress that address these issues,
both in the House and the Senate. But I believe your focus on
standards, and your call to study the impact of income, minority status
and other demographic variables on effective participation in the
election process, are particularly desirable features. I hope they will
be included in the final product that is enacted at the conclusion of
this process.
I should also commend my good friend from Georgia and a Member of
this Committee, who by the way also served with great distinction
before me as our Secretary of State, Senator Max Cleland, for his
aggressive work to find innovative solutions to the problems of
outdated and inaccurate election systems. I know that he and Senator
Brownback are also preparing important legislation that addresses this
issue.
As Georgia's chief elections officer, it's been interesting to
watch the reaction of other election officials, from both the state and
local level, to the unprecedented and very dramatic events in Florida
in the days following the November 2000 election. It seems to me that
the response of most of my colleagues in the elections field falls into
one of two groups.
The first group, and I am happy to say it seems to be the much
smaller one, can be characterized with one word--and that word is
denial.
From them you may hear the following:
``What happened in Florida couldn't happen here.''
``The media has blown this out of proportion.''
``Some voters just make mistakes. There's nothing you can do
about it.''
``If people just followed directions, none of these problems
would occur.''
``Very few elections are that close anyway. So a few errors
here and there don't really matter.''
``New technology can get you into trouble. It's better to stick
with what we already have.''
Or Finally:
``We've always known no election is perfect. Get over it. All
of this controversy will die down in a few months.''
Now, the other group of election officials, and I certainly put
myself among their number, had a very different reaction when we looked
at what happened in Florida. Describing that group, it reminds me of
the ambitious understudy anxiously awaiting her big chance on the
Broadway stage. One day she gets the call that she'll have to step into
the leading role. Yes, she's a little bit sorry that the star got sick,
but she is also really, really glad to finally stand in the spotlight
and get the full attention of the crowd.
As an election official who has been concerned for many years about
the problem of antiquated and inaccurate voting and vote counting
systems, I sympathize with Secretary of State Harris and the good
people of Florida. I'm sorry for their misfortune. But I am also
thrilled that national attention is now focused on this serious
problem. And I want to make sure we make the most of our big chance.
Mr. Chairman, comparing ourselves to Florida and the problems that
occurred there in the design of ballots and the counting and recounting
of votes, I can only come to one conclusion.
There, but for the grace of God, go I.
Because the truth is, if the presidential margin had been razor
thin in Georgia, and if our election systems had undergone the same
microscopic scrutiny that Florida endured, we would have fared no
better. And perhaps we would have fared even worse.
Like Florida, we have several different voting systems. Some are
merely outdated. Some are true antiques tracing their origins to Thomas
Edison and the 19th Century.
Like Florida, we had thousands and thousands of ballots that
registered no vote in the presidential race, what we call undervotes.
Nearly 94,000 voters that went to the polls in November either did not
vote for president, made a mistake that voided their ballot, or did not
have their vote counted by a machine.
That is an undervote percentage of 3.5 percent--a number that
compares unfavorably with Florida, which had an undervote rate of 2.9
percent--and the overall national rate that has been reported at 1.9
percent.
Like Florida, we had wide variations in undervote rates from county
to county. Some counties showed very low undervote totals--one half of
one percent or below. Others showed high--very disturbingly high--
undervote rates of 15 percent. When more than one in ten ballots
register no choice in the most important race, it doesn't take an
election expert to know that something is seriously wrong with the
system.
Like Florida, we had hanging chads, dimpled chads, pregnant chads
and other unpleasant features of the punch card system. In fact nearly
1.2 million voters in seventeen Georgia counties, including several of
our largest metropolitan counties, use the punch card.
Have we known that chads present a problem? Well, consider this. In
Fulton County, our largest county that still uses the punch card
system, county employees long ago gave the counting equipment a
nickname. They call it the ``confetti machine.'' And that's because
when ballots are fed into it, hundreds of chads fly into the air as the
counting goes on.
Like Florida, we had recounts. And although our Georgia statute
calls for machine recounts only, unless a court orders a hand recount,
it was evident from the examination of ballots that many voters made
inadvertent errors as they made their electoral choice.
Like Florida, we had voters turned away from the polls who had been
properly registered. And we had far too many poll workers who were
uninformed or poorly trained.
Like Florida, we had problems with the ballot itself. In one opti-
scan county, the wrong markers were issued and officials had to
scramble to recreate all the ballots that night when none of them could
be counted in the machine. In another, the opti-scan ballots got damp,
because it was a rainy day, and couldn't be read by their counting
machine. And when the county called us, we gave them the advice we
always give. Go get some hair dryers and blow dry the ballots. If the
consequences were not so great, it would be funny.
And so we know very well that, yes, it could happen in Georgia. And
the odds are that sometime, perhaps sometime very soon, it WILL happen
in my home state unless steps are taken now to upgrade our equipment
and procedures.
In the weeks following the November election, our office prepared a
report for the Governor and Members of the General Assembly entitled
The 2000 Election: A Wake-Up Call for Reform and Change. Based on new
data analysis and the views, suggestions and complaints of hundreds of
Georgians, from average citizens to party leaders to local elected
officials, we took a ``warts and all'' look at the weaknesses in the
current system and proposed a number of improvements to address these
concerns. Our legislation, which would implement most of the reforms we
believe are needed, is currently working its way through the Georgia
General Assembly.
We have proposed a number of mostly administrative changes to
shorten the ballot, speed up the counting of absentees, modify our
Primary Election date to boost turnout, and other relatively minor
changes.
We also have proposed, as we have in the past, a system of early
voting to help reduce the confusion and long lines we experience at the
precincts in high turnout elections.
But most importantly, we have recommended that Georgia begin now
down the path towards a uniform electronic statewide voting system,
with the goal of full implementation by November 2004.
We have secured funding in our current midyear budget to move
forward with a pilot program, to be deployed in municipal elections
this year, to field test different electronic voting systems. We
believe this is particularly important since today, not one Georgia
county or city uses electronic voting equipment. And we have called for
a bipartisan commission to help us evaluate the successes and
shortcomings of various equipment types, and identify the precise
equipment we believe will be best for Georgia.
Our legislation also requires, for the very first time in the
history of our state, that my office, rather than county governments,
provide the necessary funding to acquire new uniform electronic
equipment. As you know, Mr. Chairman, the acquisition and maintenance
of election equipment has, throughout the nation, traditionally been
the responsibility of local government. We want uniformity--we think it
is critical both for policy and legal reasons. And yet it is simply not
feasible or advisable for the state to mandate the purchase of
equipment but play no role in its acquisition. Many counties in Georgia
have not invested in election equipment in 40 years or more. They lack
the budgetary wherewithal to make major new technology investments.
If we want to modernize elections and election equipment, the state
and federal government are going to have to provide the resources. And
yes, we believe funding and support from the federal government is
critical. I can tell you from my conversations with state leaders and
their review of the great demands already placed on our state budget,
we will not reach our goal of modernized election systems by 2004
without significant federal grant support.
I would suggest to you that this is not simply a case where
counties and states are asking you for federal money to solve a local
problem. No, I believe there is a compelling national interest in
assuring that every county and state in the nation has the capacity to
insure fair and accurate outcomes in every race on the ballot--
including the race for President. If we take nothing else from
Florida's experience, it should be the recognition that these local
decisions on equipment and procedures can have a dramatic impact on
national affairs.
New public opinion data seems to bear this out. According to a
recent CBS News poll, 65 percent of respondents said elections require
``fundamental changes'' or should be ``completely rebuilt.'' A Gallup
poll found that 67 percent favored ``a complete overhaul'' or ``major
reforms.'' And just last week, the Miami Herald reported their new poll
of Floridians that showed 69 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of
Republicans support Secretary of State Katherine Harris' proposal to
shift to a new uniform method of touch screen voting, even though it
has an eye-popping price tag of 200 million dollars.
In my discussions with Georgia citizens--young and old, male and
female, black and white and brown--in every corner of the state, I hear
the same views. People think this is a problem we should fix. And they
think we should fix it now.
I am reminded of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's favorite quote,
which comes from the 19th Century French politician Alexandre Auguste
Ledru-Rollin, ``There go my people. I must find out where they are
going so that I can lead them.''
The rationale for investing in new, more accurate voting technology
is not simply its popularity or even that it is good public policy.
There is a compelling legal argument as well. Stanford Law School Dean
Kathleen Sullivan's analysis is right on target:
``The Supreme Court has just handed an invitation to lawyers
across the country to bring an avalanche of lawsuits claiming
that existing systems that count people's vote differently and
with different rates of error in different counties violates
the equal protection clause of the U. S. Constitution. If the
107th Congress does not make it a top priority to fix this, and
fix it quickly, we are going to see `litigation city' in 2002
and 2004. This is something that really ought not be postponed
and studied to death, it ought to be acted upon and acted upon
quickly.''
Mr. Chairman, I can report to you that ``litigation city'' to use
Dean Sullivan's words, is already rising up in Georgia. This January,
the Governor, the State Election Board and I were sued by the ACLU,
representing African-American plaintiffs, claiming that Georgia's
election systems are fatally flawed, that voting equipment of all types
has high error rates, and that minority citizens are disproportionately
affected by these shortcomings. The suit seeks to enjoin the State of
Georgia from conducting any further elections using our current voting
technology.
The Attorney General's office on behalf of the state has answered
that suit, which is now in federal district court. While I cannot
predict, nor can anyone, the outcome of this case, it goes without
saying that if the court finds that the plaintiff's claims have merit,
the state faces the prospect of expensive, and perhaps immediate,
court-imposed modifications to our election systems. And so I believe
this litigation lends increased urgency to our efforts to upgrade
systems in a carefully planned but expeditious manner.
Since November we have spent a great deal of time analyzing
Georgia's undervote, especially the variations that occur from county
to county and from precinct to precinct. Much of the report I
referenced earlier focuses on this area. Four voting systems are
currently employed in Georgia: punch card, lever machine, opti-scan and
paper ballot. Allow me to share with you some of our most important
findings:
There are exceedingly large variations in undervote rates
between counties, and even among counties that employ the same
voting technology. Punch card counties in general have the
highest undervote rates, followed by lever machines and then
optical scan systems.
Although optical scan systems, the ``newest'' technology
used in Georgia, offer satisfactory performance in some
counties, in many other locations optical scan undervote rates
are extremely high--well above the averages for more antiquated
systems. In fact, 21 counties that use optical scan technology
had undervote rates of five percent or higher, including three
counties that recorded rates of 9, 10 and 15 percent
respectively. And the mean average (the average of all the
county percentages) of optical scan county undervotes is nearly
identical to the now disparaged punch card systems.
While complete data is not available, the numbers we have
suggest that overvotes, or duplicate votes (where the voter
accidentally makes more than one choice in a single contest, or
perhaps where the machine improperly reads a duplicate vote
that was not in fact made) represent a very substantial
majority of the variance between ballots cast and votes
recorded. Some observers suggest that undervotes in the
presidential race simply reflect the conscious decision of
voters to skip that race and make other choices later down the
ballot. Our data strongly suggests otherwise. In the 13 Georgia
counties that compute duplicate votes (or overvotes) as a
separate category, these inadvertent duplicate selections
constituted 61.5 percent of the total undervote. Therefore, the
first priority of any new technology we consider should be a
feature that simply does not permit the elector to overvote.
After completion of our report to the Governor and the General
Assembly, we were asked by the leader of Georgia's Black Caucus to
analyze more specifically the undervote variations that exist by race.
And so we began to study undervote (in the presidential race)
percentages in precincts that had black registration percentages of 80
percent or more, and compared those to predominately white precincts in
the same county.
We found that, across the board, undervotes are higher in
predominately black precincts than in predominately white precincts in
the same county. For purposes of our analysis, we have called this the
``undervote gap.'' But what is of greatest interest, and we think most
significant as we consider equipment options, is that this undervote
gap was higher, that's right, higher, in counties that utilized opti-
scan systems than in counties that use the punch card. I have attached,
for your reference, a copy of our analysis that provides specific,
county-by-county detail on these findings.
In this study we looked at 92 precincts with voter registration
that is 80 percent or more African-American. And we compared those
predominately black precincts to an equal number of predominately white
precincts in the same counties.
In punch card counties, the undervote in white precincts averaged
4.4 percent, while the undervote in black precincts averaged 8.1
percent, for a difference of 3.7 percent--what we are calling the
``undervote gap.''
In counties that employ opti-scan, the undervote in predominately
white precincts averaged 2.2 percent, while the undervote in
predominately black precincts averaged 7.6 percent, for an undervote
gap of 5.4 percent.
I should point out that this higher undervote gap for opti-scan
exists whether we look at counties individually or in aggregate.
However we slice the numbers, in opti-scan counties, there is a greater
gap in undervoting by blacks as compared to whites than there is in
counties that use the punch card.
The reasonable question one would ask when presented with these
findings is ``Why?'' Why are voters in predominately African-American
precincts more likely to cast an undervoted ballot, and why is this
even more likely to occur in opti-scan precincts than in punch card
precincts?
We simply do not know the answer. Anecdotally, we have observed the
kinds of errors voters make on opti-scan ballots in precincts of all
demographic profiles. Sometimes voters place a check mark or an ``X''
rather than blackening the circle. Sometimes voters circle the name of
the candidate rather than blackening the circle or completing an arrow.
(Some systems require a blackened circle, others require voters to draw
a line which completes an arrow adjacent to the candidate's name.)
Sometimes voters, trying hard to make sure their vote is counted, both
blacken a circle by their candidate's name AND write-in their
candidate's name, thus creating what appears to the counting machine to
be a duplicate vote, or overvote.
Let me acknowledge that this is data from one state only, and that
we have not yet been able to complete an exhaustive analysis of
undervote performance in each of the nearly 2,800 precincts in Georgia.
But we believe the data we have makes a compelling argument that
further deployment of opti-scan systems would be bad policy, and could
perhaps even be considered a decision that disenfranchises minority
voters.
Clearly, our findings cry out for more study of this racial
disparity in the use of voting equipment--and for that reason
especially, I applaud the emphasis in S.368 on a formal study of these
types of issues.
Mr. Chairman, as you are aware, so much of the focus coming out of
Florida was on the shortcomings of the punch card system. And those
shortcomings are undeniable. In fact, a top priority of our statewide
electronic voting initiative is to replace punch card systems first.
But for Georgia, at least, we believe the data shows that replacing
punch card with opti-scan would be the electoral equivalent of jumping
from the frying pan into the fire. In addition to the operational
shortcomings of opti-scan we already know about--high costs of ballot
printing, potential errors from using the wrong marker, potential
problems with moisture and other environmental conditions, the ease of
making innocent mistakes that ultimately void a vote--it seems clear
that some populations are far too likely to cast an incomplete or
voided ballot when using the opti-scan system.
For us, this analysis reconfirms our belief that old systems--
whether punch card, lever machine or opti-scan--should be replaced with
current generation electronic equipment that minimizes the opportunity
for the voter to make a mistake--and that has other clear advantages as
well.
I believe this is a critical priority as we look to modernize our
election systems. One of the most disturbing comments I have heard is
the claim that every undervote is the choice or the fault of a poorly
informed voter. Rather than blaming the citizens who pay our salaries
and whose tax dollars buy the equipment we select, I believe every
election official at every level of government should place maximum
emphasis on identifying and acquiring equipment that is convenient,
intuitive, easy to use and that reduces to an absolute minimum the
opportunity for voter error.
Let's not forget that voting is not an act we perform every day or
every week. The most conscientious of us may only vote once every year
or two. And so the equipment we provide to voters should not require a
detailed instruction manual in order to be utilized properly. And it
should easily accommodate the needs of those with limited English
proficiency, those who are visually-impaired and disabled, and other
special needs populations.
Mr. Chairman, that's why I am particularly supportive of the
provisions of your bill that would authorize the National Institute of
Standards and Technology to study these very issues. To my knowledge,
very little if any extensive analysis has been performed on the voter-
ballot interface, including an evaluation of how equipment is used by
different populations.
In Georgia, we believe that electronic equipment--systems that are
flexible, accurate, that prevent overvoting and that feature a paper
audit trail to provide an additional level of accuracy in case of a
recount--offer by far the best options for improving the reliability of
our election systems. We are hopeful that the Congress will help
provide the resources to assist us in achieving our goal.
Mr. Chairman, our election systems are broken. The American people
expect us to step up and fix them--and fix them fast. Nothing is more
important to the health of our democratic institutions than assuring
that elections are fair to all and accurate in their outcomes. I am
absolutely convinced that, applying our best thinking and adequate
resources to the problem, we can fulfill this critical responsibility
to the people we serve.
Thank you for the opportunity to share my perspective on this
important issue.
______
Study of Georgia Presidential Race Undervote, Performance by Equipment
Type and Race for the November 7th 2000 General Election (March 2001)
Summary of Findings
In this study we analyzed 92 precincts in 11 Georgia counties
distributed throughout the state with voter registration that is 80
percent or more African-American. We compared those predominately black
precincts to an equal number of predominately white precincts in the
same counties.
This analysis involved computing the difference between the number
of ballots cast and the number of votes recorded in the presidential
race--what is known as the ``undervote.''
We found that, across the board, undervotes are higher in
predominately black precincts than in predominately white precincts in
the same county. For purposes of our analysis, we have called this the
``undervote gap.''
In punch card counties, the undervote in white precincts averaged
4.4 percent, while the undervote in black precincts averaged 8.1
percent, for a difference, or undervote gap, of 3.7 percent.
In counties that employ opti-scan, the undervote in predominately
white precincts averaged 2.2 percent, while the undervote in
predominately black precincts averaged 7.6 percent, for an undervote
gap of 5.4 percent.
Thus, the undervote gap between whites and blacks is significantly
higher in optiscan counties than in punch card counties.
This higher undervote gap for opti-scan exists whether we look at
counties individually or in aggregate. However we slice the numbers, in
opti-scan counties, there is a greater differential in undervoting by
blacks as compared to whites than there is in counties that use the
punch card.
These findings suggest that further deployment of optical scan
systems could serve to increase the gap between white and black
undervoting.
______
______
The 2000 Election: A Wake-Up Call For Reform and Change, Report to the
Governor and Members of the General Assembly (January, 2001)
Executive Summary
For weeks following the November 7th, 2000 election, our nation was
gripped by the unfolding drama of the Florida recount. Those
extraordinary events and intense media and public scrutiny of the
process caused millions of Americans to wonder: Are elections in my
state any more accurate? Can I be sure my vote was counted? Why is
election equipment so antiquated? Would a close race in my community
throw the process into chaos? Isn't there a better way to cast and
count votes? What do we need to do to increase the accuracy and
integrity of elections?
The Florida experience should serve as a wake-up call for election
officials throughout the nation--including Georgia. Could Florida's
problems just as easily have been Georgia's problems? The answer is
unquestionably yes. Like Florida, we have several different voting
technologies. Like Florida, counties in Georgia have different methods
of counting votes, with differing levels of accuracy. Like Florida,
tens of thousands of voters cast ballots that did not register a choice
in the presidential race. In fact, the percentage of ballots in Georgia
that showed no presidential choice (what we call ``undervotes'') was
actually higher here than in Florida. And in some counties, more than
one in ten ballots registered undervotes.
Election officials have known for years that much of our equipment
is antiquated, that sufficient investment in new technology has not
been secured, and that different systems can lead to differing levels
of accuracy. But, few others outside the world of elections management
focused on the problem. And little, if any, political consensus existed
to adopt--and pay for--the reforms needed to make our election systems
more modern, more user-friendly and more accurate.
The Florida experience can be a catalyst for reform and change. And
so we believe the time has come for a thorough accounting of Georgia's
registration and election systems--their strengths and weaknesses. That
is the rationale behind this report.
To compile the report, we studied data from the November election
and analyzed current statutes and procedures. Even more importantly, we
sought out and reviewed the criticisms and suggestions of hundreds of
interested Georgia citizens, election officials, civic groups and
participants in the political process. Concerns about the accuracy of
voting equipment and the integrity of election outcomes are by no means
the only issues they raised. Many were frustrated by long lines at the
polls, confusing procedures, broken equipment, problems with
registration and host of other issues we have compiled in this report.
We recognize there is not an easy prescription for every problem.
Elections are complex events with a host of players and interests. But,
we believe there are reasonable, practical and affordable solutions
that can dramatically improve the performance of Georgia election
systems, provide our citizens with more convenience and offer Georgians
more assurance that their votes will be accurately counted.
Among our recommendations:
Adopt Statewide Uniform Electronic Voting Initiative:
Authorize, fund and deploy by 2004 a Statewide Uniform
Electronic Voting Initiative (SUEVI) to create a single method
of voting consistent in every county in the state. We believe
new electronic systems offer the best option for error-free,
user-friendly voting equipment.
Implement Early Voting: To enhance convenience and reduce
election day gridlock, implement Early Voting, joining 26 other
states that already have some form of early or open absentee
voting.
Move General Primary Date: To address declining Primary
turnout, move the General Primary from July to the third
Tuesday in August, a date more convenient for Georgia families.
Overhaul Voter Registration System: Upgrade the state's
voter registration database from the slow, unreliable,
inflexible, and expensive mainframe system to a flexible state-
of-the-art server-based system.
Pursue Poll Worker & Poll Location Alternatives: Seek new
alternatives to assist counties in securing new poll locations
and recruiting and training poll workers, both of which now are
in short supply.
Streamline Polling Place Procedures: Consider new procedures
to streamline paperwork procedures at the polls and move voters
more quickly through the voting process.
Consolidate Authority to Remove Deceased Voters from Rolls:
Provide the Secretary of State new authority to remove deceased
voters from the rolls and assure a more accurate voter roll,
responsibilities that currently lie solely with the counties.
Modernize Voter Information Resources: Utilize new
centralized technology solutions to offer citizens quicker,
easier means to locate their precinct and verify their voter
registration.
Reengineer ``Motor Voter'': Consider options to reengineer
the voter registration process at DPS driver's license
facilities to minimize errors and reduce confusion.
We hope you find the following report useful as we look for new
solutions to make Georgia registration and election processes the
finest in the nation.
Nothing is more important to the health of our democratic
institutions than assuring that elections are fair to all and accurate
in their outcomes. There is work to be done to fully achieve those
goals. We welcome your comments and suggestions as we undertake that
effort together.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Secretary Thornburgh, welcome.
STATEMENT OF HON. RON THORNBURGH, SECRETARY OF STATE, STATE OF
KANSAS
Mr. Thornburgh. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the
Committee. It is an honor to appear here today to discuss with
you the need for election reform in America.
Following last November's election, the Nation was quick to
appoint dozens of blue ribbon panels, task forces, and select
commissions to find ways to change the American system of
elections. In Kansas, we invited our election reform
commissioners to meet at the Capitol on the day of the
Electoral College meeting on December 18, and our basic
conclusion was that in the State of Kansas our system works.
There was a peaceful transition of power from administrations,
the constitution was preserved.
Although the process was flawed and there were errors and
problems, the basic system worked, so today before this body I
urge caution. The November election may not have been pretty,
the results may not have come quickly, but quick fixes and
convenience are not the measure of democracy. America's
confidence in our system has been badly shaken. More speeches,
commissions, and blue ribbon panels will not restore
confidence. Simply plugging in a few new machines around the
country will not restore confidence.
We have to take this opportunity to fundamentally improve
our electoral system. We must ensure that every American has
absolute and unobstructed access to the voting process. The
Supreme Court has told us to adopt adequate state-wide
standards for determining a legal vote and procedures to
implement them, and there must be opportunity for judicial
review of these issues as well. America needs uniform,
voluntary national standards for our voting equipment, voting
technology, and processes. America does not need the same
ballot or the same voting machine in every precinct in the
country.
State and local governments must continue to be in charge
of our election process. Just as our Electoral College system
reflects that individual states as sovereign bodies are
important, so should any reform we adopt respect the individual
conduct of elections within their borders. New technology is
needed in many areas in the country, but please understand,
what works for Los Angeles, California is not going to work for
Leoti, Kansas.
This is not a plea to place new technology in every
precinct in America. As former Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker
told me recently, Ron, the pencil on a string works very well
in Burdick, Kansas. Don't you change it. I tend to listen when
Senator Kassebaum Baker talks to me.
Funding for issues other than new technology is critical.
However, the hard reality is, state and local governments need
help funding the best systems to ensure safe, secure, and
accurate elections.
All too often, county governments have had to face a
difficult choice of replacing crumbling roads and bridges, or
trying to squeeze another election out of an antiquated system.
Also, with the recent Supreme Court decision regarding equal
protection, we know we must provide better and more training
for our voters, poll workers, and canvassers.
There are a number of instances given in the previous panel
of voters being denied the right to vote. I propose to you that
the law is already in place, for those voters should have been
given a provisional ballot and been allowed to vote, and then
the decision made later in the process as to whether or not
that vote should have been counted. The laws are in place
currently to handle that. We just need better education of our
polling place workers.
As with all issues in which technology plays an important
role, people still play a more important role, and that is why,
with all the talk about voting equipment and imperfect ballot
forms and hanging chads, the American public in general was
more outraged by the effects of exit polling and the news
media's premature prediction of winners, activities clearly
controlled by human judgment.
Therefore, we must focus the objective of our reform. Let
us recognize there is no access to the voting process if a
citizen encounters confusing voting procedures, if the citizen
is handed a poorly worded or formatted ballot, if they must use
unproven equipment or technology, or because of any barrier,
physical or otherwise, cannot negotiate the process, and
finally, they cast a vote the intention of which must be
divined by speculation or supposition.
The American voter will only be assured of the ability of
our system and the value of our democracy when they know their
vote cast at the polling place is accurately tabulated, or
accurately reflected in the final tabulation. We must do
everything we can to assure that our voter registration records
are up to date, complete, and accurate.
With some counties in our country currently recording
greater than 100 percent of their voting age population as
registered voters, how can we have confidence in our records as
they stand now? State and local governments need the ability to
keep our voting lists clean. Congress must fully fund section
8(h) of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, allowing
first-class handling of official election mail at the third-
class rate. This simple act will allow us to clean up badly
outdated voter registration records.
As the incoming president of the National Association of
Secretaries of state, let me be very clear. We know what
problems exist We know the issues, and we want to work with you
to be a part of the solution.
I find it amazing that today, 36 years after the passage of
the Voting Rights Act, we are still debating how to provide
every American equal access to our most precious right. this
time, it is up to you and me to get it right. We have the
chance to provide equal protection for all voters. We have the
chance to create uniform, voluntary standards for voting. We
have the chance to improve the reliability of our voter
registration records. But most importantly, we have the duty to
restore America's confidence.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Thornburgh follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Ron Thornburgh, Secretary of State,
State of Kansas
Thank you Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee for the
opportunity to appear today. My name is Ron Thornburgh; I am the Kansas
Secretary of State and President-elect of the National Association of
Secretaries of State. It is an honor to appear before you and discuss
the need for election reform in America.
Following last November's election the nation was quick to appoint
dozens of select commissions, blue ribbon panels and task forces to
change our American system of elections. In Kansas we invited our
election reform commissioners to a meeting at the capitol. We had the
benefit of congressmen and women, journalists, law school deans and
professors--and the United States Supreme Court decision. And our
conclusion was that the system works.
So today, before this body, I urge caution. Our system did provide
for the orderly transfer of power contemplated by our Constitution. The
November election may not have been pretty, and the results may not
have come quickly, but quick fixes and convenience are not the measure
of democracy.
Even though the system worked, America's confidence in our system
has been shaken. More speeches, commissions, and blue ribbon panels
will not restore confidence. Simply plugging in a few new machines
around the country will not restore confidence.
We have to take this opportunity to fundamentally improve our
electoral system. From the courthouse to the White House, now is the
time to act. The three most critical areas in need of reform are equal
protection, uniform voluntary standards, and voter registration.
Equal Protection
We must ensure that every American has absolute and unobstructed
access to the voting process. From the time of registration through the
final recount and contest of an election, we must provide equal
treatment for all.
The Supreme Court has said we must adopt adequate statewide
standards for determining what is a legal vote, and practicable
procedures to implement them. The court also mandates an opportunity
for orderly judicial review of any disputed matters that might arise
during the process. You and I alone, no matter how laudable our
motives, cannot sit in our offices and draft standards. There must be
discussion, debate, and court review.
Uniform Voluntary Standards
America needs uniform voluntary national standards for our voting
equipment, technologies, and processes. America does not need the same
ballot or voting machine in every precinct.
State and local governments must continue to be in charge of the
election process. Just as our Electoral College system reflects that
individual states--as corporate bodies--are important, so should any
reform we adopt respect the individual conduct of elections within
their borders. In our federal system, states count.
New technology is necessary in many areas of the country, but
understand:
What works for Los Angeles, California certainly won't work
for Leoti, Kansas. This is not a plea to place new technology
in every polling place in America. As Senator Nancy Kassebaum
Baker told me recently, ``The pencil on a string works very
well in Burdick, Kansas, Ron. Don't change it.''
Most technology in use today is exceedingly accurate and
secure . . . as long as the voters follow the rules. When every
voter clearly marks the box, completely darkens the oval, or
even completely dislodges the chad, the vote counting systems
in use today work very well. Our job, as election
administrators, is to insist upon the development and use of
vote-counting systems to determine true voter intent.
Funding for issues other than new technology is critical.
However, the hard reality is state and local governments need
help funding the best systems to ensure safe, secure and
accurate elections. All too often county government has had to
face the difficult choice of replacing crumbling roads and
bridges, or trying to squeeze another election out of an
antiquated system. Also, with the recent Supreme Court decision
regarding equal protection, we know we must provide better and
more training for voters, poll workers, and canvassing boards
to ensure logical, uniform and equal enforcement of election
law.
As with all issues in which technology plays an important role,
people still play a more important role.
Perhaps that is why, with all the talk about voting equipment,
imperfect ballot forms and hanging chads, the American public in
general was more outraged by the effects of exit polling and of news
media's prematurely predicting winners--activities clearly controlled,
by human judgment.
We must focus on the objective of our reform efforts. I say our
objective must be to ensure that every American has absolute and
unobstructed access to the voting process.
I suggest that the Supreme Court agrees with those who share this
view. Let us recognize that there is no access to the voting process if
a citizen:
encounters confusing voting procedures;
is handed a poorly worded or formatted ballot;
must use unproven equipment or technology;
is given bad predictions or apparent results before the
election is over any place in our country;
because of any barrier, physical or otherwise, cannot
negotiate the procedure; and finally
casts a vote, the intention of which must be divined by
speculation or supposition.
While creating standards, I urge everyone involved to dismantle any
barrier to the voting process, not just the ultimate barrier when the
voter's intention is wrongly determined.
These issues can only be addressed with a long-term commitment to
resolving our problems and rebuilding the public confidence in our
system. Confidence cannot be won with a few studies and position
papers. The American voter will only be assured of the ability of our
system and the value of our democracy when they know their vote cast at
the polling place is accurately reflected in the final tabulation.
Voter Registration
We must do everything we can to ensure our voter registration
records are accurate, complete, and up-to-date. With some counties
recording greater than 100 percent of their voting population as
registered voters, how can we have confidence in our records? When an
election official knows a potential voter does not live where our
records show, yet we cannot adjust the records, how can we have
confidence in our records?
Better maintenance of our voting records will do much to protect
the integrity of our electoral process. Until we can guarantee every
name on the list is accurate, we have work to do. State and local
governments need the ability to keep our voting lists clean. Current
law, in many cases, prevents such basic measures of protection.
Congress must fully fund section 8 (h) of the National Voter
Registration Act of 1993 allowing first class handling of official
election mail at the third class rate. This simple act, saving millions
of dollars nationwide, will also provide the opportunity to cleanup
badly outdated voter registration records.
In our next election, America must be assured we have done
everything possible to address the problems of our last election cycle.
Federal, state and local governments want to provide the best voting
systems in the world.
As President-elect of the National Association of Secretaries of
State, let me state, we know what problems exists, we know the issues,
and we want to work with you to be a part of the solution.
I find it amazing today, thirty-six years after the passage of the
Voting Rights Act, we are still debating how to provide every American
equal access to our most precious right. This time it is up to you and
me to get it right.
We have the chance to provide equal protection for all voters.
We have the chance to create uniform voluntary standards for
voting.
We have the chance to improve the reliability of voter registration
records.
We have the duty to restore America's confidence.
The Chairman. Thank you, Secretary Thornburgh.
Secretary Bradbury, is there anything that sets your vote-
by-mail system apart from the absentee balloting systems used
by other states?
Mr. Bradbury. There is a dramatic difference. If you
compare Oregon's vote-by-mail system with what we saw in the
State of Washington last fall, you get a clear picture of the
difference. There is an increasing use of absentee ballots,
which are basically vote-by-mail, in the State of Washington
and a number of other states, but they have a very different
system for counting them than we use for vote-by-mail. You get
a much quicker count of the votes in a vote-by-mail state than
you get in a state that has half their votes coming at the
polling place and half their votes being cast by absentee.
The Chairman. Secretary Cox, Secretary Thornburgh mentioned
the need to improve voter registration records. What role does
voter registration play in your plans to modernize the system?
Ms. Cox. Well, fortunately, in Georgia I think we are ahead
of the game. When Senator Cleland served as our Secretary of
State and Georgia adopted the standards for the Federal Motor
Voter Act, we were one of the first states to centralize our
voter registration system and put together a state-wide
computer system so that the Secretary of State's office now
maintains all of our voter registration lists.
That has allowed us to weed out duplicates, to send
information to the counties monthly to eliminate the names of
deceased people and convicted felons, to prevent duplicate
registrations when someone moves an address, so it is the heart
of the election system, and I think it is imperative that all
states have a good system so that they can prevent
duplications, but fortunately for Georgia, we are there.
The Chairman. You mentioned in your opening statement that
there was a greater undervote gap in counties that have
employed opti-scan machines rather than punch cards. That sort
of flies in the face of conventional wisdom. Do you have any
explanations for your findings?
Ms. Cox. It was a surprise to us, Mr. Chairman, when we
began to look at these numbers. I think part of the problem has
to do with the ease for a voter to make a mistake on an opti-
scan system. A person with a Ph.D can pull their own pen out of
their pocket and mark the ballot, and the opti-scan reader may
not detect that type of ink or lead, and the vote does not get
cast.
We saw and heard from a lot of counties where voters put a
check mark or an X on that circle, so that if you looked at
that ballot you could certainly tell the intent of the voter,
but we do not have a manual count law, so if the machine does
not read it, it is just out.
I suppose because punch cards have been used for a longer
period of time in Georgia than opti-scans, that we do have
voters who are more familiar with the punch card systems, and
it does have its efficiencies, buy we obviously are seeing
major problems with voter mistakes on the optical scan.
The Chairman. I think your statement emphasizes the
complexities and the difficulties in addressing the problems of
the undervotes. I think it is necessary that through working
with the Secretaries of State, we conduct a very in-depth study
of this problem, so that the fixes we implement are effective,
and we do not act too rashly.
Did you calculate the undervote gap in counties using lever
machines or paper ballots?
Ms. Cox. We only have two counties that use paper ballots,
so we really did not analyze those. We looked at it somewhat in
lever machines, but we had data we were not sure was 100
percent reliable so we did not fully calculate that. We saw
some lever machine counties that had an undervote rate of over
10 percent, some that were almost close to zero, and all I can
speculate is that we had some faulty lever machines out there
where wheels were simply not turning, and you have no audit
trail to go back and be able to recount or reevaluate those
ballots, so we did not see on the whole scale a wide variance
between lever machines as well.
The Chairman. Secretary Thornburgh, what is the State of
Kansas doing to address the voter registration problems you
mentioned, such as those counties whose voter registration is
greater than 100 percent of the population?
Mr. Thornburgh. Well, let me clarify, Mr. Chairman. I am
proud to say no counties in Kansas have a greater voter
registration than 100 percent. There are, however, some in the
Nation that are doing so.
We are trying to comply with the National Motor Voter Act
of 1993 as best we can. One of the greatest difficulties that
we have is counties being able to fund the mailing, the
verification mailing that proves that a voter lives where they
say they live, and many counties are cutting that as a means of
cutting cost within county government, so if we were to provide
federal funding, I think we would try to do very basically what
Georgia has done and centralize the voter registration process,
or the voter registration maintenance process so that we could
do a lot of the cleanup through the national change of address
program as well as others.
The Chairman. In your testimony, you stated that the
American election system worked this past November. Do you
stand by that statement?
Mr. Thornburgh. Yes, sir. If I may fully explain----
The Chairman. Even in light of the disturbing studies that
have surfaced detailing the disenfranchisement of millions of
Americans, you still believe that to be true?
Mr. Thornburgh. I would submit the process was flawed and
that there were errors made both in judgment and in the way the
technical process worked, and there were Americans
disenfranchised. However, I would also submit that our
Constitution was preserved, that the Electoral College system
as designed by our founders did work, that the basic process
that allowed for the peaceful transition from one
administration to the next was allowed to happen. That is what
I mean by the basic system worked. However, the process has
been flawed, and those are the issues we need to address.
The Chairman. Senator Wyden.
Senator Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and we are very
pleased that Bill Bradbury is here, and I will have some
questions for him about vote by mail in a moment.
It was reported over the weekend that perhaps 40 million
Americans are going to file their tax returns online this year,
and I, for one, am not ready to throw in the towel on this
question of online voting. I would be interested in hearing
from all of you, as Secretaries of State, what kind of
experiments you would like us to try out so as to keep moving
this ball down the field, recognizing that clearly it is going
to take some more work to get there? Do any of you have some
ideas on the kind of experiments you would like to see done in
this area?
Mr. Bradbury. Mr. Chair, Senator Wyden, it is good to see
you. I share your enthusiasm for including in our election
system online voting. I think it is important that we not move
to solely online voting, because that would be very
discriminatory to a lot of people who are not computer savvy. I
think that there are issues that really are going to need to be
dealt with first at a national level, or even an international
level, in terms of hackers' access to election systems. If
there is a way to create a system that cannot be severely
hacked, I think we are moving in the right direction.
There are obviously things that we need to do before we
have online voting, such as a centralized voter registration
system. But there is a much larger question of how we track
ballots, how we ensure that hackers cannot disrupt the election
system in implementing online voting, so I would like to see
some testing in that area.
Mr. Thornburgh. If I may, Senator, I would like to add, one
of the areas that we need to address very quickly in our
country is the issue of military voting. One of the greatest
trends that was most disturbing in the last election was the
threat of denying our military men and women the opportunity to
have their votes cast and counted, and so as we look for
opportunities to provide online voting, I certainly think our
military men and women serving overseas may be a great
opportunity to do so.
However, I understand one of the greatest issues we have to
address with online voting is that it is vastly different from
a commercial transaction, and that a commercial transaction we
are allowed to know both ends of the transaction, where with a
vote, I have to know that it is you sitting at that PC casting
a vote, and I have to know how you voted so I can tabulate that
vote, but I cannot know how you voted, to protect the integrity
and the privacy of your vote, and until we can resolve that
catch 22, I think we have to move very cautiously in online
voting.
Senator Wyden. Let us do this. Unless Ms. Cox wants to add
something, I would like the Secretaries of State to get this
Committee your ideas for some experiments, some additional
experiments on online voting. I just do not want to see us give
up at this point. A country that has shown again and again we
can lead ought to be able, with this level of technological
expertise, to develop secure online voting. Today, right now,
there are millions of citizens who monitor their retirement
benefits online. Let us not just give up. We need the expertise
at the state level.
I have a question for you, Mr. Bradbury. I think Oregonians
like you strongly support a vote by mail, but there are
concerns, and you addressed several of them. Senator Smith and
I were concerned about what happened in his home county,
Umatilla, this year, where thousands of voters had difficulty
deciphering the ballots. You made some very good suggestions
about what to do about that, but we also know that this year
Oregon was one of the last states to verify its ballot count. I
had a lot of folks asking me why that was, and I think it would
be helpful for the record for you to state why.
Mr. Bradbury. I think the first thing you have to
understand about the presidential election in Oregon is that it
was exceptionally close. There was a margin of 6,000 votes
between Al Gore and George Bush. Additionally, there are no
exit polls in Oregon because people are not exiting from any
place but the mail box, so there are no exit polls the networks
could use. The fact is we had more votes counted in Oregon by
Friday after the election than we had seen at that time in
previous polling place elections. It was just so close that we
did not know who had won, until we got certified results.
Senator Wyden. Ms. Cox, I believe you and the Secretaries
of State are now in support of a uniform poll closing statute.
Ms. Cox. I do not know that we have actually--our
resolution did not actually adopt an endorsement for that, but
everyone is very interested in it, and thinks it is an idea
definitely worth considering.
Senator Wyden. I am in support of this and have a lot of
history with this issue. Several times in the eighties and
nineties, I was able to get the major presidential candidates,
their campaigns, to not make any statement until after the
polls closed; Nonetheless, what we found again and again is
that exit polls undermine the value of these projects, and it
seems to me with the explosion of new media, that even with a
uniform poll closing law you are going to continue,
particularly in the West, to have a lot of Americans know a
great deal about the results of the election before the polls
close. What would you do about that?
Ms. Cox. Well, I think that is one of those issues that is
going to have to be dealt with primarily by the media
themselves. I can tell you from personal experience in
discussing the idea of a uniform closing time with different
groups in Georgia, I see across-the-board support for it, even
if it meant closing at 9 p.m. in Georgia so that you would
close a little earlier on the West Coast. I think that
Georgians, the Georgians I have discussed it with, think that
is a very worthwhile idea.
Senator Wyden. Do either of you want to add to that?
Mr. Thornburgh. I may add very briefly there has been
discussion with the National Association of Secretaries of
State, and we are greatly concerned about the decline in voter
turn-out in the West because of early projections, and I think
we have moved in the area of media projections from actually
reporting results on the East Coast to reporting projections
and exit polling, and I think there is a vast difference
between those, and if nothing else, we can negotiate with the
media to at least talk about real results rather than
projections.
There is a 20 to 25-year history of the National
Association of Secretaries of State negotiating with the
national broadcasting entities and it has been met with less
success than we had hoped for.
Senator Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Burns.
Senator Burns. I just have one question. In Montana we have
six counties that use punch, none that use a lever any more, 12
who use paper, and Mr. Thornburgh, don't laugh at Leoti,
because I shift a lot of cattle to Tribune, and I am pretty
familiar with that country out there--I think you are too. The
Smiths out there are good friends--and the rest all use opti-
scan, which is about 80 percent of the voting people in Montana
use that, and we have little or no complaints.
I have one question. Given the experience in Florida, when
a manual count was reordered and we observed on television
these folks on hanging chads and ones that were pregnant and
ones that were not pregnant, and all the different terms that
they used, you said that your problem with the opti-scan,
sometimes they were checked, Ms. Cox, and sometimes they put an
X. Should a visual or manual recount be ordered? How would
those X's and checks be counted?
Ms. Cox. Well, I think that is the central problem raised
by the United States Supreme Court's opinion, that Florida had
no standard for what counted and what did not count. Georgia
does not either, other than in Georgia you can only get a
manual count by court order. You have got to prove there was
some flaw, or some problem that should call for a manual count.
But truthfully it sets up a scenario where you do have
votes that are voided, when clearly anyone looking at it could
easily determine the voter's intent, and we have a matter of
court law that says you are supposed to determine a voter's
intent, but yet we cannot manually count them.
Senator Burns. Should a court order be issued? Now, you are
the Secretary of State. How would you count that ballot that
had a check or an X?
Ms. Cox. Well, I certainly think the human intellect is
generally superior to the machine intellect, and if a person
can easily look at that ballot and determine without any
question how the voter intended to vote, then I believe that
vote should count, but we have set up a mechanism, because of
growing populations, that we have depended on machinery that we
now understand has great deficiencies.
Senator Burns. The reason I ask that question, I think that
was the crux of the stories out of Florida. It was not given,
whether anybody was denied access to the polling places or the
procedure in which they used--even the ballot that they said
confused people, the butterfly ballot, second-graders got
through it all right, so I would imagine everybody else could.
I still think we still have some responsibility to the
voter to be informed on how the ballot operates and what they
want to do, but I was interested in your testimony that in the
optics, and they did not fill in the circle, they used that,
how would you count them if a court order, they had to be
manually counted? I think that is the crux of this hearing, and
the crux of the problems we have in our voting system.
I thank you for that, and I appreciate it, and thank you,
Mr. Chairman. That is the only question I have.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Cleland.
Senator Cleland. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. May I
just say before I get started that I would like to enter into
the record the statement of Senator Jean Carnahan, who had
another committee meeting, with no objection.
The Chairman. Without objection.
[The prepared statement of Senator Carnahan follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Jean Carnahan, U.S. Senator from Missouri
Thank you Senator McCain and Senator Hollings for convening these
hearing on this most important subject.
Voting is a fundamental right of Americans, and one of the
cornerstones of our nation's democracy.
In the 1964 decision Reynolds v. Sims, Chief Justice Earl Warren
wrote, ``The right to vote freely for the candidate of one's choice is
of the essence of a democratic society, and any restrictions on that
right strike at the heart of representative government.''
It is as true today as it was then. Yet, as we learned in November,
our democracy remains a work in progress.
We are all familiar with what happened in Florida:
Outdated voting machines and confusing ballots;
Too few poll workers with too little training.
Voters who ruined their ballots and were denied
replacements.
Reports of voter intimidation and police checkpoints set up
near voting precincts.
We saw what could go wrong in Florida. But the truth is, it could
have happened anywhere.
So we should take this rare opportunity, when the public is focused
on election issues, to strengthen our democracy. Our voting procedures
and equipment need to be brought into the 21st century.
Our Secretary of State, Matt Blunt, has created a special
commission to lead Missouri's election reform effort. But we need
national leadership as well.
The Constitution calls for a decentralized system that puts states
in charge of elections. But the federal government can do more to
encourage and empower states to improve the voting process.
As we move forward, I ask that we look closely at critical issues,
including:
Implementing uniform statewide standards;
Upgrading current election systems and technology;
Increasing voter education;
Improving voter access and procedures for disabled voters;
and
Protecting the voting rights of our nation's military
personnel.
This is not a partisan issue. Many of the proposals from
Republicans and Democrats are very similar. We can agree on the need
for experts to study the problems and recommend solutions. We can agree
on increased funding for state and local governments to modernize
voting equipment. And I am optimistic that we can find even more common
ground.
We need to approach this issue thoughtfully but expeditiously. A
study should inform our actions, not delay our actions.
Our goal is not just to fix voting machines, but to restore faith
in our democratic system. Because ultimately, our democracy depends on
public confidence in our elections. If we want a healthy democracy--an
example for all the world--we must act together in the spirit of
bipartisanship to ensure that the mistakes of the past are not
repeated.
I thank my colleagues, and I have a number of questions for the
Secretaries of State who are here today.
Senator Cleland. Mr. Chairman, I might say that a lot of my
preconceived notions about technology solving our problems have
just been exploded today. It crashed and burned. Not only is
Thomas Edison's basic lever system of voting, invented in 1900,
looking better and better, but the paper ballot is looking
better and better. It may be that we are tackling the ultimate
question here, is technology and the implementation of
technology doing us a favor, or are we being rendered a
disservice?
Additionally, if you look at that map which my staff has
assembled, we have the most incredible crazy quilt pattern of
voting technology, or the lack thereof, throughout America.
May I say that I have reviewed the McCain-Hollings American
Voting Standards Technology Act, which directs the National
Institute on Standards and Technology to develop voluntary
standards for the voting process and provides grants for the
states to rehabilitate voting equipment and strengthen voter
education. There is no question about the need for this, and I
am proud to be a cosponsor of this legislation, Mr. Chairman.
Today, I would like to introduce my own bill, the Make
Every Vote Count Act, to help states and localities modernize
voting systems, promote uniformity in voting systems within
states, and require greater standardization in voting rights
for our military personnel. I am on the Armed Services
Committee, and certainly we ought to make sure that those who
fight to defend the ballot ought to have total access to it.
My legislation creates a federal block grant for
replacement of the punch card voting system. If you look at the
map, some 34 percent of all the precincts in America use the
punch card system. About 19 percent of precincts use the lever
system, again, invented by Thomas Edison in 1900, and about 2
percent use the paper ballots. The real question is, how are we
able to use technology today to help our voting system?
I was actually shocked by my dear friend Cathy Cox, who is
the distinguished Secretary of State in Georgia, who stated
that under certain circumstances with minority populations in
Georgia, the opti-scan equipment is not a plus, but a minus. My
understanding is, if you do not have a majority of minority
citizens using that equipment, it actually tends to be a plus.
There are certain counties like Wynett and Cobb that have a low
undercount rate vis-a-vis larger counties like Fulton and Kalb
that have the punch card system which has a higher undercount
rate.
So, I am sensing that there is no real silver bullet here
which is one reason I am introducing this legislation. We want
to allow, as Mr. Hutchinson said from the House, flexibility at
the state level, but states, I think our panelists have agreed,
need some federal funds to get on with the business of squaring
away our voting equipment.
I just want to say again that Ms. Cathy Cox has done a
benchmark piece of work here not only for Georgia but for our
Nation. Her study of the Georgia elections, a wake-up call for
reform and change, highlights the most serious problems
experienced last November. We have got to move on from a failed
system where certain citizens, up to 10 to 15 percent in my own
state, based on the voting equipment they were using, were
actually being denied the right to have their vote count.
And, of course, I do believe personally it is time to
provide a knock-out punch to the punch card system. I will say
that Senator Schumer probably hit it on the head that the
oldest democracy in the world does not need to constantly
depend on the oldest voting equipment in the world to exercise
that democratic right.
Ms. Cox, tell me now, where are we? I thought that the
punch card ballot system, which was introduced in the sixties
in my own home county--Mr. Bradbury, I have gone through that
awful trauma of trying to vote absentee with a punch card which
was backed up by some little piece of styrofoam, and included
in the mail with some stylus. I just want you to know, I
punched the dickens out of those holes to try to make sure my
vote counted. And then, when I put it in the mail, I still was
not sure. That is my home county, the second biggest county in
Georgia where that system has been in place since the mid-
sixties. When it was first introduced, it created havoc in a
congressional election. There were 1,200 overvotes, and the
congressional winner was thrown out of office and the other
person won. You could clearly determine the intent of the
voter, but as you ran the punch card through, it was easy to
see that you could vote twice. You could, in effect, defeat the
system, and that is what worries me about the punch card
system.
And now, Ms. Cox, about the optical scan system that you
can defeat. At least with the Thomas Edison voting equipment it
was programmed correctly. You could only vote once for a
candidate in a particular election. Yet, with the optical scan
equipment and the punch card system, you can vote once, you can
vote twice, you can vote wrong, or you can vote and have it not
counted. So Ms. Cox, we are in a thicket here. Lead us out of
it. Give us your recommendations.
Ms. Cox. Well, we are somewhat in a thicket, but there is
so much better equipment available today, various variations of
electronic equipment that are almost electronic lever machines,
will prevent you from ever overvoting, just like the lever
machine, if properly set up, would not allow you to overvote.
Lots of the electronic equipment on the market today is
almost as foolproof as you could probably make a voting
machine. It minimizes, I think to the great extent possible,
the opportunity for a voter to make an innocent mistake. It
will not allow you to overvote, and it gives you some of the
feedback that you have never been able to get from voting
equipment before. After you vote the whole ballot, most of
these systems will pull up a screen that says, these are all of
your choices, are these correct, in case you made a mistake.
You have a chance, in the privacy of that voting booth, to
correct those mistakes, rather than opti-scan, which at best
you go put it into a counting machine and it kicks it back.
Someone may have to violate the privacy of your ballot to tell
you that you made a mistake, and then you have got to go back
and delay the process by going back to the voting booth.
That is why I like the electronic equipment, and our
election reform bill in Georgia is actually going to be voted
on by the Georgia Senate today, so I am hopeful things are
going well back in Atlanta, but we are hoping to experiment
with some of the electronic equipment in some city elections
this November and the legislature has funded that pilot project
for us already, and we are hoping to put together a bipartisan
commission that will view all of the different types of
equipment out there, hopefully with bills like yours and
Senator McCain's and other pending bills that may give us some
evaluation of all of this equipment on a national level.
This time next year, we hope to implement one of these
types of electronic systems state-wide in Georgia over a 2 to
3-year period, so we have it in place in every county by the
next presidential election.
Senator Cleland. Thank you very much for your service.
Thank you for your study and your insight. We will depend upon
wonderful people like you and our panelists to lead us forward.
Speaking of the Georgia Senate in closing, I had the
pleasure of serving there at one time. Jimmy Carter said that
when he went to the State Senate in 1962 the first bill that he
saw debated on the Senate floor was that you could not vote in
Georgia if you had been dead longer than 3 years, so we have
come a long way.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Smith.
STATEMENT OF HON. GORDON SMITH,
U.S. SENATOR FROM OREGON
Senator Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, ladies and
gentlemen. Thank you, Bill. It is particularly good to have you
here. I apologize, I was called to another committee and a
commitment I could not avoid, but I have read your testimony,
and I appreciate that you would come here to provide it.
Senator Wyden, I think, asked my first question, which is
really a concern. I voted last night in a local election in
Oregon at home. We have these punch-out ballots, and I must
tell you, when I saw Florida's difficulties I almost envied the
simplicity of their butterfly ballots, which were roundly
criticized but those are much easier than what we have in
Umatilla County. I wonder if you have identified an approach
for vote-by-mail that is more user-friendly?
Mr. Bradbury. It is clear to me that the optical scan
system is more user-friendly for vote-by-mail than the punch
card, because the punch card, as you said, is really quite a
challenge for Oregon voters. By voting at home rather than in a
voting booth, the voter is trying to find hole number 61 to
vote no on measure 62. It is very difficult, and I think it
leads to voter confusion. We have statistics, actually, that
run a little bit counter to Secretary of State Cox's, in that
our statistics would show that 1 percent of the optical scan
ballots are undercounts for President, and 2 percent of the
punch card ballots are undercount for President. It just seems
to go a little different way state by state.
Senator Smith. As I look at this map, there are just a few
states, or a few counties in Oregon that have punch-outs, and I
guess what I am wondering is, was there any increase in the
number of votes thrown out this time, and were they identified
in particular counties? Do you have the ability to tell us
that?
Mr. Bradbury. I can tell you that the undervote for
President was 1 percent in optical scan counties, and in the
seven counties that use punch cards it was 2 percent, so it was
twice as high.
Senator Smith. That is probably just a function of the
machine. I mean, every chad I punched last night I had to tear
off afterwards, every one of them, and I can only imagine that
a lot of the undervotes came from my county.
How many people total voted in the election?
Mr. Bradbury. 1.6 million ballots.
Senator Smith. And how many ballots were thrown out?
Mr. Bradbury. I do not think I have that statistic. Not
very many ballots are thrown out in Oregon, because every
ballot is pre-screened by a bipartisan election board that is,
in fact, bipartisan. Our election boards have four members, two
from each major party, not three members, like Florida. We have
chad patrols in punch card counties that clear off the hanging
chad before the ballots are put into the machine. I do not have
the number you asked for, but I do not think it is very high.
Senator Smith. Maybe you can provide it to me, but I
believe I have heard a number of 29,000 ballots in the whole
State of Oregon, and I would hate to think, in an election as
close as that was, that I was one of those 29,000. I am
wondering if you can give me an update on the central data
system that you are seeking? Is the legislature going to be
forthcoming with the money?
Mr. Bradbury. I think that is the issue. It will cost $6
million for Oregon to have a centralized voter registration
system. What that system would do is network the 36 county
systems into a virtual state-wide file. Getting $6 million to
do that is going to be a very tough thing to get out of a
legislature where clearly that money is going to come from K
through 12, or higher education, or health care.
Senator Smith. If you need any help lobbying them, let me
know, because I will be your ally on that, because I cannot
think of anything more important to our state government than
having confidence in the integrity of our electoral system. I
think there are a lot of people who really want to feel more
comfort than they currently do.
If you were to predict where we will go with vote by mail,
will it be to opti-scan? If one of these bills passes, is that
where we will go as a state?
Mr. Bradbury. Well, I think it is going to be really
important that the legislation not mandate where we go, and I
think that technology needs to have an opportunity to improve.
It is clear to me that there is bipartisan support in Oregon as
well as there is apparently bipartisan support here in Congress
to do away with punch cards. When that happens, I think we are
very likely to move to an optical scan system as it is really
the only other system that is currently available in commercial
quantity.
Senator Smith. It seems clear to me the bills that are
before you would not pay for the data bank that Oregon
desperately needs, but I think the state just needs to do that
on its own, but on the other hand, converting to this other
system, at what percentage, what share do you think would be
fair between a federal and a state match? Is it 50-50, 75-25?
Mr. Bradbury. As I said in my testimony, we can move faster
with a higher federal match, more in the range of 75-25. We
could clearly get things done more quickly so that the reform
is completed before the next presidential election.
Senator Smith. I am on a bill that is 75-25. I am delighted
to hear that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Boxer.
STATEMENT OF HON. BARBARA BOXER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM CALIFORNIA
Senator Boxer. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and my
colleagues. Mr. Chairman, I really do want to thank you and add
my voice. You have started to look at this, and it is not a
pretty picture. There is no clear answer. That is why it is a
little painstaking, but I think we really need to look at this.
I have a few comments. First, I would ask unanimous consent
that my statement be placed in the record.
[The prepared statement of Senator Boxer follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Barbara Boxer, U.S. Senator from California
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing today to explore
ways that we, as elected officials in Congress, can help make sure that
every person's vote counts in this country. Last year's election opened
all of our eyes to the fact that our election system, while designed to
give each person the ability to cast a vote, often fails in part
because of antiquated voting equipment and confusing ballots.
While no system will ever be perfect, we should make it a top
priority that no voter be disenfranchised, as they were in Florida this
past November. Looking at how new technologies can help in this effort
is a great start. We certainly need to know how the different voting
systems impact voter turnout and election results.
In fact, last November after the election, I asked GAO to study how
various voting and balloting systems compare in terms of fraud, error
rates and other voting irregularities. I also asked them to discuss the
feasibility of voting on the Internet, and whether such a system would
be more or less susceptible to these problems. GAO plans to complete
this report by the summer.
Since we are talking today about the range of voting technologies
currently available, I am pleased to report that in the 2000 election,
Riverside County in my home state of California acted as a test bed for
a new high-tech computerized touch-screen voting system. This system
proved to be very user friendly and was able to tally its votes in
record time, with a high degree of accuracy. I actually heard stories
from some of my elderly constituents, that while they were nervous
before using these new computer voting systems, they left the polls
raving about how easy these new machines were to use.
Again, I am very pleased that we are looking at how new technology
can help our election system, but we should also keep in mind that old
voting machines and ``butterfly'' ballots are only part of the problem.
We must also look closely at other factors that affect our election
process such as how states educate people manning the polls and whether
voters understand the registration process. Recruiting qualified poll
workers, and making sure they are trained, is difficult for local
authorities to do and yet a crucial component of whether any system
works. Simplifying the registration process, as we did with the Motor-
Voter Act in 1993, is also essential if we truly want our consitituents
to exercise their right to vote.
Mr. Chairman, we are now truly living in the information age, and I
hope that we do whatever we can to encourage the innovation and use of
technology that makes it easier to vote, reduces fraud, ensures the
privacy of voters and, most of all, guarantees that all votes count.
Senator Boxer. On November 15, I wrote a letter to David
Walker, Comptroller General of the U.S., and asked the GAO to
do a report and an analysis of what happened Nation-wide. I
have asked them to look at the various voting and balloting
systems. We have a preliminary analysis of that here today, but
not from the GAO. I think the private sector did this
comparison of the results of those systems. Today, we are
hearing, Mr. Chairman, contrasting views. Ms. Cox is saying the
opti-scan is worse than the punch cards, Mr. Bradbury is saying
punch cards are worse, and Mr. Thornburgh is saying, don't
worry, be happy, essentially.
So, I want to see what really happened, an analysis of
which system appears to operate more efficiently, and the
feasibility of voting on the Internet, in which my friend Ron
Wyden and I really agree upon. We should not just say no. We
have got to look at Internet voting.
Mr. Chairman, you may not be aware of this, and frankly I
was not until after the election, that in my home state,
Riverside acted as a test bed for a new high tech, computerized
touch-screen voting system in the last election.
The system, just the first analysis of it, proved to be
very user-friendly and was able to tally its votes in record
time with a high degree of accuracy. I actually heard stories
from elderly constituents who were really very nervous about it
who later raved about it. They were ready to surf the net when
they walked out of the polling place. However, I worry about,
being from California, power outages and things like that
compromising the system, but these are problems we may be able
to meet quickly.
Of course, the Chairman is very familiar with California,
and I'm glad that he will be there on Monday to promote
campaign finance reform.
Let me go through a few more points. I wish Senator Burns
was here, because I think he really minimized the problems in
Florida. I think if you listen to Jeb Bush and Carrie Meeks,
you hear that these are serious problems that had to do with
ballot design and people being stopped and not being able to
vote; people being purged. As Ms. Cox points out, there was no
standard for recount. I think Senator Burns made the point that
these recounts do not work, and Ms. Cox debated him.
I think we should take a look at Washington State. There
was a major recount in our Senate race there and nobody
complained about it. I would say this, let us take the case of
a presidential election and use our chairman as an example.
Using an opti-scan system, a very enthusiastic McCain voter
walks in and uses the pencil and fills in the dot next to John
McCain. Then, not being terribly sophisticated, perhaps not
educated they see write-in, and get really excited and write in
John McCain. So they voted essentially twice for John McCain,
the same person. This happened in the election to John McCain;
it happened to George Bush; it happened to Al Gore. Those
ballots get thrown out.
Now, it does not take a master's degree in poli-sci to know
that that person wanted to vote, in this case, for John McCain.
It is not as complicated as figuring out a chad. You could
pretty well say that is a vote for John McCain. I think to just
say that manual recounts do not work is not the case. It seemed
to work well in Washington.
I do believe in the wisdom of people. The makers of the
machines, Mr. Chairman, said themselves that the machines
certainly are not perfect, and that people are an important
check. That was testimony in one of the court hearings.
So, I guess what I want to say is, to Ms. Cox perhaps, or
any of the panelists here, what if we did not have write-in on
that same piece of paper? I think it is confusing. What if we
just said, this is the opti-scan ballot, and on the way out
people are asked, would you like to vote for someone else who
was not on the ballot? Then, you stopped and did that. It is a
thought, but it seems to me thousands of ballots were thrown
out as being overcast. Can you envision any type of fail-safe
system where you could remove that, because it is very few
people that do write in, and perhaps they could have another
way to do that.
Ms. Cox, could you comment on that idea?
Ms. Cox. Senator Boxer, I believe there is some kind of
opti-scan system where the write-in line is not under each
race. It is perhaps at the end of the entire ballot, a section
to write in. It is a little more difficult for the voter to
connect that back up with a Senate race, or a state legislative
race, but it does probably minimize the chance for that gung-ho
voter to write in the same name, and we had numerous votes
where we heard about that were exactly what you described
happened.
Senator Boxer. So, you think it would be an immediate
improvement just have it boxed off and print do not write in
here unless you did not vote for one? I am concerned. Any other
comments?
Mr. Bradbury. Well, Senator Boxer, in Oregon, the provision
we have is that a bipartisan election board with four members,
two Democrats and two Republicans, look at the ballot to
determine voter intent before it is counted. If it is rejected
by the machine that ballot is looked at again, and it is
usually very easy to determine the voter's intent. Like the
case you just outlined, where they punched John McCain and
wrote in John McCain, that that person wanted to vote for John
McCain.
Senator Boxer. In Ms. Cox's case, she has to get a court
order, as I understand it, to deal with that. I see my time is
up. Can I conclude with this: I just wanted to say--I did not
mean to cut you off, Mr. Thornburgh, on that question, but my
time is up.
I just wanted to comment on your statement, and I wrote it
down, that there was a peaceful transition of power and nothing
is really that broken. You said it was a successful election. I
would just like to say, the fact that there was a peaceful
transition of power is a credit to our people, and our people
are amazing. However, I would have to report to you that there
was deep discontent among many people after that election, much
more aimed at the system in terms of the outdated modes than
the early projections, which people were annoyed about. In the
end, what counts is who voted, and the fact that all of those
millions of votes were not counted. I do not mean to in any way
misinterpret your comments, because you did say we have work to
do. However, I just want to leave you just with this Senator
saying that I am not as complacent about the way this thing
ended, and I think that we must act. It is going to be hard,
but with the leadership of our Chairman and others, I think we
will be able to do something.
Thank you very much.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. Senator Allen.
STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE ALLEN,
U.S. SENATOR FROM VIRGINIA
Senator Allen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, first and foremost
for holding this very timely and appropriate hearing, and there
are few issues, as far as our democratic republic, as
important--nothing is more important than the right of
citizens, legally qualified citizens in our republic to vote
under an electoral system that is as fair and as accurate as
possible.
Any system, we want to make it as fair and accurate as
possible and, as I was listening to all the different ways that
people were fiddling around with whether it is punch card
ballots or the lever action ballots or paper ballots, any
system is only as verifiable and credible as the people who are
administering it, and it is important to have people from both
sides, from all parties involved in the matter.
My first election where I won, I won by 25 votes and was
subject to a recount and had all sorts of these different types
of machines and ways being utilized, from paper ballots, where
the great worry was with paper ballots they would just throw
out the ones that are hand-counted, and they have always more
ballots than there are voters, and then they just could stick
those in. No one cheated, nothing was wrong with it, but that
had happened. On voting machines with the levers, there are
places in Virginia where people went to jail where there were
more people voting on machines than there were registered
voters. That is how they caught them. They just got over-
zealous in it.
Now, for any citizen to believe, or wonder, as Senator
Smith was wondering, whether his or her vote would not be
counted, I think the sanctity of the ballot box and the system
would work. If there is any question on that, I think it
undermines the foundation upon which our government rests and
stands, and I think any such ineptitude that we have seen and
worry about, any ineptitude in properly administrating free
elections I think can undermine the respect for and the
legitimacy of the government of the people.
Now, I would like to use this time to raise the issue of
uncounted military ballots. The absentee ballots from those who
are serving, and the recent controversy in Florida, has brought
to light a problem that has apparently existed for a long time.
This is not something new that arose in this election, and
it is little wonder that retired General Norman Schwartzkopf
spoke out. He called it, quote, a very sad day for our country
when servicemen and women find that, quote because of some
technicality out of their control, they are denied the right to
vote for the President of the United States, who will be their
commander-in-chief.
Now, in my view it is not only sad, it is outrageous, and I
think it is wrong, and I would hope, Mr. Chairman, that this
Committee could hold a hearing that will look into combining
some modern communications technology such as the Internet and
the military's encryption system to provide for electronic
voting systems for military personnel, and I think that has
been stated by both----
Senator Wyden. Would the Senator yield without losing time?
I just want to commend you for an idea that I want to work with
you on.
Senator Allen. Senator Allard from Colorado has a measure,
and I think Senator Hutchison has signed on to it as well, and
I would like to turn to our Secretaries of State on this issue
of absentee military ballots.
You observed, as I am sure we all did, the issues in
Florida as far as ballots being counted or not counted for
technical reasons, because of--such as a lack of a postmark.
How would the absentee military ballots have been treated
differently in your state, and we could start with Ms. Cox from
Georgia.
Ms. Cox. Thank you, Senator Allen. My understanding of the
history, and I would stand to be corrected, is that back in the
early 1990's the federal government made an effort to make sure
that everyone in the military had about a 40-day window, 40 to
50-day window to obtain absentee ballots.
The states were given an option as to whether that 40 to 45
days was fully in advance of Election Day, or whether some
states like Florida would extend the time for receipt of those
ballots 10 days beyond the Election Day, which is why the
postmark became a critical issue in Florida. It is not a
critical issue in Georgia, because our absentee ballots are
available 45 days in advance, and they must be received by
Election Day, so the post mark is really not an issue here.
But for those states that opted--because Florida has a
September primary, they would not have time to get absentee
ballots ready early enough, they opted to use the 10-day-or-so
window after the Election Day, so those ballots could still
come in and be counted. Were the margin not so close, it really
would never have come to light in Florida, but that military
issue may be another issue that would be more appropriately
addressed on the federal level than by individual states doing
everything we can to maximize the opportunity of our military
personnel to vote.
Senator Allen. So in your situation in Georgia, in the
event that somebody mails it off 3 weeks before the election,
if it does not arrive by 7 o'clock, I assume, on Tuesday,
election night, it is not counted?
Ms. Cox. That is right.
Senator Allen. Secretary Thornburgh.
Mr. Thornburgh. Thank you, Senator Allen. I would suggest
there are a couple of things we could look at. Kansas and
Georgia, in that we require by law that all federal service
ballots for military personnel and for American citizens living
overseas must be sent 45 days prior to the election, all
ballots have to be received by the close of polls on Election
Day, and so the issue of the postmark does not come into play
in the State of Kansas, either.
However, there are still cases where I believe we need to
make improvements, and that is, there are segments within the
military community--for instance, submariners often take tours
of more than 45 days. At that time, they simply do not have the
capability of receiving the ballot. Special forces, access to a
fax machine is rather limited in many instances in that case. I
think we do have to develop the technology to allow electronic
voting at a minimum within those segments of our military
community, and within the entire military with overseas voting.
Senator Allen. Mr. Bradbury.
Mr. Bradbury. Oregon is very similar to the other states,
in that we mail ballots to military personnel at least 45 days
ahead of time, and they have to be in our hands by 8 p.m.
Tuesday evening on Election Day.
The other thing we do is, we put our entire voters'
pamphlet online. Our voters really need a voters' pamphlet to
understand some of the ballot measures. The online voters'
pamphlet is available to overseas' personnel as well, and it is
available when they get their ballot.
Senator Allen. Thank you all, and thank you, Mr.
Thornburgh, for your support of using new technologies. Thank
you all.
The Chairman. Senator Allen, I think we should vigorously
pursue this proposal. I noticed a NSF report out today, which
states that it is not secure to vote over the Internet. I am of
the view that technology should solve most of the objections
raised in this report.
Senator Ensign.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN ENSIGN,
U.S. SENATOR FROM NEVADA
Senator Ensign. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to get your
comments. I have been in a few close races in the last few
years, including 1998, where my Senate race that I lost
narrowly was a little over 400 votes, and if Nevada would have
been the subject of scrutiny by the rest of the country, we
would have been the embarrassment instead of Florida this year.
We had literally all of the different types of voting
machines. We had the optical scan units where we had the
problem in Washoe County. I thought it was very interesting,
here we have a map that has been prepared, and the map is not
even accurate, because Clark County, where Las Vegas is, has
the electronic ballots, and it is on this map, I think, as data
votes, so the things that we talked about, or that we found
out, and the lessons we learned I think can go a long way
towards solving the problems in the rest of the country as
well.
One of the reasons that you hear about races like Senator
Boxer talked about in Washington State, where there was a
recount in the Senate race. Well, you did not really hear
anything about that, there were not problems, sometimes that is
not because there are not problems. Sometimes that is because
the politics of it, you cannot say there are problems. That was
certainly the case in my senate race. You just have to say,
well, there were problems, but we have to go on and live
another day, otherwise you would kill yourself politically.
Well, in Washoe County what happened was that we had such
severe problems there we ended up going through manual
recounts, and the ballots were printed improperly, were
slightly off, and so some would not go through the machines.
Clark County, which is where Las Vegas is, has the Sequoia
Pacific machines. Now, the problem with these Sequoia Pacific
machines, they work beautifully, except when you go to do a
recount, because you have no idea whether the machines
malfunctioned, because there is no paper trail.
It seems to me whatever we do, Mr. Chairman, as far as
recommendations, that if you go to electronic machines, which I
think really are the answer, it is the technology that you have
to have some kind of a paper backup, not that the voter gets,
because I know there are problems. You do not want people
taking how they voted outside and then have somebody intimidate
them, how did you vote, and then, prove it to me, but where it
prints out in front of the voter and then it drops down into a
box.
And then if you are in a close race, you recount 1 percent,
and if it looks like the machines have--randomly you do 1
percent, and if the machines worked well, then you know they
worked, and then you just let the machines recount, instead of
doing a hand recount.
That was, I think, the great lesson we learned, although we
have not changed to this paper backup, and I hope we do that in
our state. I know it is very expensive, especially for a lot of
small counties, but I would like your comments on if you think
that is the direction we need to go.
Ms. Cox. Senator Ensign, in Clark County you have an
undervote rate of 0.6 percent, 6/10ths of 1 percent, and you
compare that to some counties in Georgia that had 15 percent
undervote, that is why I really like this electronic
technology. Some of the earlier versions did not have that
independent audit trail. Most of the newer versions do, and in
fact the legislation we are introducing in Georgia would
require that any of the electronic systems have that
independent verification system.
Senator Ensign. Good.
Mr. Thornburgh. Senator, I would agree there are certainly
cases in this country where technology is the answer to the
problems that lay before us. I would also recommend again that
we do not forget about some of those issues as basic poll
worker training and basic canvassing board training, creating
uniform standards for recounts, creating uniform standards for
canvassing. Those types of elements are going to be just as
important as the technology is going to be as well.
Mr. Bradbury. Senator, just to remind you, we do not use
polling places any more in Oregon. We vote by mail, so if you
set up an electronic system in a polling place, that does not
address the issue for us.
Senator Ensign. I realize Oregon is a completely different
animal in a lot of ways, but certainly in the voting.
Mr. Chairman, I would also like to express--one of the
other things we have found in Nevada that works very
successfully, although I think they do it too early, is we have
something called early voting. Early voting was started three
election cycles ago, and they do it 2 weeks ahead of time, and
they set it up in the shopping malls, at DMV, at various places
around the state, and the citizens love it. They love it so
much, almost half of the vote now is done early, and that is so
convenient. I voted early this year. 2 weeks is maybe too early
because a lot of things can happen in those last 2 weeks in an
election. It is probably too early, but a week in advance is
probably a pretty good idea.
As far as the absentee ballots between electronic balloting
and everything, our polls close at 7 o'clock. By 7:30 we know
almost every race in our state, and even the presidential race,
which was only a 2-percentage point difference in Nevada this
year, we knew that by 8:30, so there are some things that are
working out there. Our system is certainly not perfect by any
stretch of the imagination in Nevada, but we learned some
lessons in 1998 that I think have helped us, but I think every
state has a long way to go in reforming the election process.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Ensign.
Before dismissing the panel, I want to thank you for your
efforts to identify the problems with the low voter turnout
amongst young Americans. I hope you will continue your efforts
to identify ways in which we can motivate them to be involved
in the political process. Even though there was fairly good
turnout this time, there was still very low voter turnout among
younger Americans. We look forward to working with you in the
future. I thank the panel.
Our next panel will consist of Mr. John Bollinger, deputy
executive director, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Mr. Wade
Henderson, executive director, Leadership Conference on Civil
Rights, Ms. Mary Jane O'Gara, board member of the AARP, and Mr.
Raul Yzaguirre, president, National Council of La Raza. Please
come up to the table.
Mr. Bollinger, will you please begin?
STATEMENT OF JOHN C. BOLLINGER, DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
PARALYZED VETERANS OF AMERICA
Mr. Bollinger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning. Thank
you very much for asking the Paralyzed Veterans of America to
testify at what we believe to be an extremely important
hearing.
Virtually all of our members use wheelchairs, so over the
years we have become acutely and sometimes painfully aware of
some of the accessibility issues involved in voting, and I will
focus my comments this morning on accessibility for people with
disabilities as it pertains to voting.
The community of people with disabilities is both large in
number and broad in scope. In terms of the various kinds of
disabilities, obviously, beyond mobility impairments there are
cognitive impairments, speech, hearing, dexterity, vision, and
there are subcategories of all those, so whatever election
reform is considered, first and foremost it has got to be
inclusive, I believe, of all of those disabilities.
PVA has worked very closely with your staff in regards to
S. 511 in the 106th Congress. While the introduction of that
bill led to efforts to voluntarily improve access to voting for
people with disabilities, we believe it is time for even
stronger efforts. Being able to vote, it has been said a number
of times this morning, is one of the most basic and important
rights we have as citizens, and to think that anyone would be
unable to vote simply because the voting booth or the place of
polling is not accessible is something that I believe should
have zero tolerance.
In trying to exercise the right to vote, people with
disabilities face structural, technological, and attitudinal
barriers. The Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and
Handicapped Act of 1984 requires polling places and
registration facilities to be physically accessible to all
people with disabilities. Between 1986 and 1992, the Federal
Election Commission collected data on accessibility through
self-reporting by local jurisdictions. Physical barriers
include lack of accessible parking, unramped stairs, raised
thresholds, and lack of directional signage.
At an oversight hearing in 1994, the FEC reported that for
the 1992 general election 14 percent, or close to 20,000
polling places, were physically inaccessible to people with
disabilities. Physical accessibility continued to be a problem
in the 1998 elections. In a project involving close to 400
people in 40 states who offered first-hand accounts of their
experiences, we discovered that 11 percent reported locations
with no accessible path of travel, 42 percent reported no
accessible voting booths, and inability to use standard booths.
This report also indicated a tremendous problem for voters
who are blind or visually impaired. 81 percent had to rely on
others to mark the ballot for them.
Just last year, in February of 2000, the federal court in
New York found that two counties every polling place except one
was physically inaccessible. In March of 2000, the Philadelphia
City Paper reported that over 1,200 of their 1,681 polling
places in Philadelphia were physically inaccessible to voters
with disabilities.
Voters who are blind or visually impaired may gain access
to the facility only to be denied the ability to vote privately
and independently, and I can speak personally in my case. I can
have access to our voting facility, but I do not have
independence. I do not have privacy when I cast my vote.
We believe that comprehensive voting system standards that
include accessibility of design for people with disabilities
are definitely needed. So many years after the Voting Rights
Act, the Voting Accessibility Act, and the ADA, the purchase
and use of new equipment that is not accessible to all is
simply unacceptable.
Many proposals to reform the electoral process are
currently before this Congress, and we hope that reform will
certainly be enacted, and we hope it will be done in time for
the 2002 elections, and whether this reform is comprised of
grants to purchase new voting technology, or the development of
voting systems, it must address full access to voters with
disabilities.
We request that any reform legislation include development
of accessibility guidelines. S. 511 proposed that the access
board develop minimum guidelines, and we strongly encourage
that this Committee include such a provision.
In closing, I ask that as you consider all of this,
Congress take into account all people with disabilities who
have the right to vote. Do not allow this opportunity to pass
without addressing the needs of so many American citizens who
deserve to be heard, and I would offer not only in the case of
PVA, but I know many disability organizations across the
country will be more than happy to assist in a number of ways
as we go down this road, so thank you for your efforts. We look
forward to working with you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bollinger follows:]
Prepared Statement of John C. Bollinger, Deputy Executive Director,
Paralyzed Veterans of America
Mr. Chairman, Senator Hollings, Members of the Committee on
Commerce, Science and Transportation, it is an honor and privilege for
me to appear here today on behalf of the Paralyzed Veterans of America
(PVA). I am John C. Bollinger, Deputy Executive Director of PVA. PVA is
a Congressionally chartered Veterans Service Organization with over
20,000 members. Our members are honorably discharged veterans of the
United States Armed Services who have incurred spinal cord injury or
disease resulting in paralysis. Virtually all of our members use
wheelchairs for mobility and all are individuals with disabilities as
defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Today's hearing is timely, as complications in the 2000 elections
led to this Congressional call for election reform. Many citizens,
including voters with disabilities, felt that because of outdated
voting machines and ballot confusion, their votes were not counted.
This Committee must ensure that all voters, including those with
disabilities, have access to an effective voting process.
PVA has a long history of advocating for the right to vote. Our
members know first hand, as do all veterans who served our country, the
sacrifices that must be made to safe guard our democracy. We ask now
that members of this Committee ensure that PVA members and others with
disabilities are able to vote with the same privacy, dignity and
independence as all other Americans.
PVA last testified in 1994 before the then House Subcommittee on
Elections on the final oversight hearing of the Voting Accessibility
Act of 1984 (VAA). This Act's intent was to improve access to voting
for people with physical disabilities by removing architectural
barriers at polling places and voter registration facilities. But ten
years later, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) testified at that
hearing, ``14 percent of the precincts, close to 20,000 polling places,
were physically inaccessible to voters with disabilities.'' This
statistic represents serious disenfranchisement of thousands of voters
with physical disabilities. The primary barriers noted were lack of
accessible parking, inadequate directional signage, unramped stairs,
and high thresholds--all barriers that are not difficult or expensive
to remove. In PVA's testimony, we recommended that the FEC continue to
monitor the progress of compliance with VAA and, with technical
assistance from the Access Board, develop standards for access.
Mr. Chairman, during the 106th Congress, you introduced legislation
to eliminate barriers that people with disabilities face in the
electoral process. The bill, S. 511, would have expanded the coverage
of the Elderly and Handicapped Voting Accessibility Act of 1984 so that
all people with disabilities were protected from discrimination. It
states that all polling places are to be physically accessible, and
that all polling methods permit individuals who are blind or visually
impaired to vote independently. S. 511 directed the Access Board to
develop minimum guidelines for states to determine accessible standards
in polling places and methods. Enforcement provisions of the Act
designated State Chief Election Officers as the party responsible for
ensuring compliance with the Act. PVA worked closely with your staff to
sculpt this legislation and we stand ready to work with you on
introduction of similar legislation in the 107th Congress.
The introduction of S. 511 seemed to be a ``wake up call'' to the
election community about their responsibilities to provide access to
voters with disabilities. As a result the ``National Task Force on
Elections Accessibility'' was formed. Lee Page, Associate Advocacy
Director for PVA, and Gary Bartlett, Chief Election Officer for the
State Board of Elections of North Carolina, co-chaired the task force
for the last two years. The task force, through collaboration of
election officials and disability advocates, produced tools to better
educate election officials on the requirements of the Voting
Accessibility Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA.)
The Task Force published the guidebook ``Voting: A Constitutional
Right for All Citizens'' to assist election officials to achieve equal
access for all citizens. This report is based on a document originally
published in 1986 by the National Organization on Disability. The
guidebook lists the goals and principles of the National Task Force,
which were jointly agreed upon by election officials and disability
advocates. The primary principle states that voters with and without
disabilities are equally entitled to the right to full participation in
elections and to the privilege of casting their votes privately and
independently. Further, no polling place in the United States should be
physically inaccessible to voters with disabilities. The task force
also produced a ``best practices'' checklist to identify barriers at
the polling place and an instructional video CD-Rom that identifies
attitudinal barriers that discourage people with disabilities from
voting.
Despite these voluntary efforts, barriers continue to prevent
qualified people with disabilities from voting. In the 1996 election,
11.6 million Americans with disabilities (of 35 million registered) did
vote. In that election, 50 percent of the general population voted,
while only 30 percent of registered voters with disabilities actually
voted. While some reasons for the low turnout are beyond the control of
voting officials, e.g., a dependence on public transportation and voter
apathy, structural, technological and attitudinal barriers likely
contribute to the 20 percent deficiency in voting by people with
disabilities.
In 1999, PVA helped coordinate the Report of the National Voter
Independence Project as a member of the Coalition for Accessible
Political Elections. This report provides anecdotal reports from 377
voters with disabilities in 40 states of barriers they encountered in
the November 1998 elections. The survey focused primarily on aspects of
accessibility, the overall experience in voting, and whether
respondents had any difficulty in registering to vote. Eleven percent
reported locations with no accessible path to the facility. Forty-two
percent reported no accessible voting booths and inability to use
standard booths. This report also indicates a tremendous problem for
voters who are blind or visually impaired--81 percent had to rely on
others to mark their ballot for them. The report concludes that, to
achieve equal access, all polling places need to be physically
accessible to all people with disabilities, and voters who are blind or
visually impaired must be able to vote independently and
confidentially. Mr. Chairman, I request that this report and other
related documents be included in the record.
Only a year ago, in February 2000, a federal court in New York
State found that in two counties every polling place except one was
physically inaccessible. In March 2000, the Philadelphia City Paper
reported that 1231 (73 percent) of the 1681 polling places in
Philadelphia were physically inaccessible to voters with disabilities.
Information from the 2000 Presidential election relating to access
is only anecdotal at this point. But just a few examples demonstrate
barriers that existed only a few months ago. A citizen in Mansfield,
Ohio reports, ``There is no accessible path at my polling place. . . .
I have had to vote outside because I am a paraplegic and could not get
in the door. But this was only after `making a fuss' to the point where
law enforcement was called because poll workers would not bring a
ballot out to me in the snow (just outside the door) so I could vote .
. . Voting in Ohio has been a horrible experience for me ever since I
moved here.'' From Oakland, California, ``The polling place is up a
driveway with uneven pavement and grass and bumps. The actual place is
in a garage, and there were no booths at the right height for a person
in a wheelchair or scooter. So I had to ask my personal care attendant
to go into the inaccessible booth for me, and I had to tell her my
choices from outside the booth. I was not happy about it because it did
not give me my privacy or independence.'' In Allentown, Pennsylvania,
``It is degrading and humiliating to have one of the officials go in
the booth with you and then speak real loud so everyone in the room and
waiting line can hear her announce each candidate. Even though I
whisper my answers I feel very `exposed.' I have asked for
consideration in this to no avail. The official in charge . . . now
remembers my name, and says real loud, `You are legally blind, right?'
There is no attempt at privacy or dignity at all . . . Yet, I refuse to
be bullied into accepting an absentee ballot and not be able to vote
with the mainstream.'' In Orange Park, Florida, ``The last time I went
to my polling place, I had to go to a store room to fill out my ballot.
I have a sight impairment and my care giver had to read the ballot to
me. . . . I requested a ballot for vision impaired and was told there
weren't any. . . . I tried to speak to the poll manager, but he was too
busy to speak with me. I spoke with the Supervisor of Elections and was
told that larger type ballots had never been asked for, so they don't
provide them . . . I now use an absentee ballot, which is still not in
print large enough for me to read without aid.'' Report of the National
Voter Independence Project (2000 Draft). If the general public had to
tolerate this type of treatment, no doubt the turnout would be as low,
if not lower, than the 30 percent of voters with disabilities who go to
the polls.
A 1998 NOD/Lou Harris survey of Americans with disabilities reports
that 75 percent of people with disabilities have never been asked to
register to vote by a service provider as required by the NVRA (Motor
Voter Law). All too often people with disabilities are told that they
should vote by absentee ballot or at the curb. Absentee ballots are not
an adequate substitute for actually going to the polls, particularly
when the voter is in the jurisdiction on election day. Further, this
most recent election brought to light deficiencies in counting absentee
ballots, again raising the possibility that the votes of people with
disabilities who are encouraged to use this method do not count.
The structural and technological barriers discussed above are
hardly insurmountable. Ramps, accessible booths (with privacy screens),
easily maneuverable controls, and appropriate signage enable many
voters with mobility impairments to vote independently. For people with
vision impairments, easy solutions as simple as large print ballots and
magnifying lenses will solve many problems. More advanced technology,
even touch screen equipment, is now accessible to people with vision
impairments. Legislation cannot overcome the attitudinal barriers, but
many disability organizations would willingly train polling place staff
and volunteers to avoid this type of treatment.
Information on improving access is readily available. In 1996, PVA
and Paradigm Design Group produced the report, ``Ensuring the
Accessibility of the Election Process''. This report, distributed by
the FEC, provided information and guidance to election officials on
access to the election process for people with disabilities. The
publication explains relevant federal laws and provides applicable
architectural guidelines. It demonstrates how to ensure polling place
access, from accessible parking along an accessible path of travel to
an accessible voting booth. National organizations that are able to
provide assistance are identified.
PVA believes that comprehensive voting systems standards that
include accessibility design guidelines for people with disabilities,
are needed. So many years after the Voting Rights Act, the Voting
Accessibility Act, and the ADA, the purchase and use of new equipment
that is not accessible to all is unacceptable.
In 1999, then Governor George W. Bush signed such a bill into law
in Texas. The Texas Election Code requires all voting systems purchased
after September 1,1999, to comply with Section 504 of the
Rehabilitation Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and to
``provide a practical and effective means for voters with physical
disabilities to cast a secret ballot.'' Requirements for accessibility
and authorized methods for a secret vote are specified.
Many proposals to reform the electoral process are currently before
this Congress. Reform will most certainly be enacted, and in sufficient
time to affect the 2002 elections. Whether this reform is comprised of
grants to purchase new voting technology, or the development of voting
system standards, it must address full access for voters with
disabilities. We request that any reform legislation include the
development of accessibility guidelines. S. 511 proposed that the
Access Board develop minimum guidelines; PVA encourages this Committee
to include such a provision. These guidelines must provide for private
and independent voting by voters with disabilities. We also urge that a
single state election official be designated for compliance with the
legislation.
We ask that in your considerations, this Congress take into account
not only paralyzed veterans, but all people with disabilities who have
the right to vote. Do not allow this opportunity to pass without
addressing the needs of so many American citizens who deserve to be
heard.
The Chairman. Mr. Henderson, thank you.
STATEMENT OF WADE HENDERSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, LEADERSHIP
CONFERENCE ON CIVIL RIGHTS
Mr. Henderson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am Wade
Henderson, the executive director of the Leadership Conference
on Civil rights. The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights is
the Nation's oldest and most diverse coalition of civil and
human rights organizations. I am pleased to appear before you
today on behalf of the conference to discuss the need to ensure
that all Americans have equal access to the right to cast their
ballots and to have their votes, once cast, accurately counted,
and I would like to request, Mr. Chairman, that my entire
statement be made a part of the record.
The Chairman. Without objection.
Mr. Henderson. Thank you. More than 35 years have passed
since the enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In that
time, our Nation has made significant progress in making the
act's promise of one person, one vote a reality for all
Americans. The serious and extensive irregularities reported in
November, however, make clear that we still have a long way to
go as a Nation, and while yesterday's poll taxes and literacy
tests are long gone, they have been replaced by punch card
machines and inaccurate voting list purges as barriers to
minority enfranchisement.
The need for today's discussion should be apparent to all.
The right to vote is among the most fundamental of all freedoms
guaranteed the American people. Without it, we are not a
republic, not a democracy. For this reason, reports of voting
irregularities in Florida have captured widespread attention.
Barriers to minority voting participation, however, are by no
means limited to Florida. Because of the need to ensure the
integrity of our democratic processes is national in scope,
federal attention and action are both appropriate and
necessary.
Now, in my testimony today, I will first review briefly
some of the problems that make clear the pressing need for
action. I will then identify some fundamental principles that
must be included in any effective reform proposal. Now, across
America, voters, especially minority voters, were effectively
denied the franchise in a variety of ways. Minority voters
often faced a significantly greater risk that their votes would
not be counted accurately.
In Cook County, Illinois, for example, an analysis by the
Washington Post concluded that only 4.9 percent of ballots were
invalidated in precincts with minority populations of less than
30 percent, while the invalidation rate nearly doubled to more
than 9 percent in precincts with a minority population of 90
percent or more.
In Florida, as we heard today, punch card balloting systems
used in counties with substantial African American populations,
such as Miami-Dade and 24 other counties, are alleged to have a
substantially higher error rate than other systems. Nearly 4
percent of ballots in Florida counties using punch card systems
were recorded as having no vote, while the no-vote rate under
the optical scan systems used elsewhere in Florida was only
1.43 percent.
Second, Asian American, Haitian American, Latino American,
and other language-minority voters were denied language
assistance to which they are entitled. In many jurisdictions
covered by the Voting Rights Act, language minorities are
entitled, upon request, to bilingual materials and other
assistance of bilingual poll workers.
In New York City, however, Chinese-speaking voters reported
that ballots at several polling sites inaccurately translated
candidates' party identifications, and others reported that
absentee ballots contained mistakes in the Chinese language
instructions. Those problems were replicated in many parts of
the country.
Eligible voters were wrongly purged from the polls. For
example, Florida ordered the purging of ex-felons and other
ineligible voters from official lists of eligible voters prior
to the November election. During this process, however, many
qualified voters were wrongly identified as ineligible to vote
and, for example, a number of African American and Latino
voters reported that they were told by poll workers that they
had been dropped from the polls because they were ex-felons,
even though they had never been arrested, much less convicted
of any crime.
Fourth, eligible voters were wrongly denied the opportunity
to vote because voter registrations and change of address
information were not processed in a timely and accurate manner.
That has been discussed extensively. Eligible voters, moreover,
were barred from voting because complete and accurate lists of
eligible voters were not available at each polling place. The
Kansas City Star reported that in St. Louis, for example,
voters whose registration was not on record at their polling
places had to travel to the election board's downtown office,
where several hundred people waited up to 3 hours just to
confirm their registration.
Voters who realized that they had inaccurately marked their
ballots before casting them were wrongly denied the opportunity
to correct them. That has been substantially documented in a
number of jurisdictions. Many voting systems are inaccessible
to persons with disabilities, as my friend John Bollinger has
said, and do not allow many voters with disabilities to cast a
secret ballot.
Now, according to the Federal Election Commission, there
are at least 20,000 polling places across the country that are
physically inaccessible to voters with disabilities and,
moreover, the punch card machines, as has again been noted, are
particularly difficult for persons with vision impairment or
arm or hand mobility impairments.
Now, unfortunately, time permits only a partial listing of
these reported irregularities, but even this incomplete
discussion demonstrates the extent and severity of the problem,
and the need for reform. Such barriers to voting inflict double
pain. First, they effectively disenfranchise a significant
number of eligible voters and, second, they fuel the perception
that minority voters, and that persons with disabilities, are
not really welcome to participate fully in our Nation's
democratic institutions. A system riddled with such
irregularities fosters cynicism about our Nation's commitment
to its professed ideal that every vote counts.
Now, in terms of meaningful reform, we think it is
important that a number of steps be taken and, because the need
to ensure the integrity of our democratic process is of
national significance, these reports make clear of the need for
congressional action.
Now, we are very mindful of concerns about overreaching in
terms of the ability of the federal government to dictate to
the states appropriate steps in state elections, but it is
important that the federal government strike a balance of
responsibility between what it must supervise with regard to
federal elections and the responsibility of the states.
Second, we are aware that several proposals, legislative
proposals to remedy the problems of Election 2000 are already
under discussion, and we welcome the opportunity, Mr. Chairman,
to work with you and other Members of the Committee in trying
to fashion specific details.
Now, I should note at the outset, however, that the issue
of election reform we think is too important to be considered
with other initiatives. Some have suggested, for example, that
Congress should consider election reform in combination with
the issue of campaign finance reform, which will come to the
Senate floor in the next few weeks. The leadership conference
member organizations have differing views on the question of
campaign finance reform. However, we are strongly of the belief
that this issue should not be considered at the same time that
campaign finance reform comes to the floor. We think it has to
be evaluated on its own merits.
Second, as these important discussions move forward, let me
just identify some of what we think are the fundamental
principles that any reform legislation should consider. First,
any comprehensive election reform proposal must be in place in
time for the 2002 election. We have to ensure that we learn
from and act upon rather than repeat the painful mistakes of
last November.
Second, any reform proposal must adhere to the principle of
one person, one vote, because we know that that obviously is a
fundamental democratic principle. What this means is that the
right to cast one's vote as well as the right to have it
counted has to be preserved, and that means, of course, that we
have to do away with systems like the punch card machines,
which we know have a disproportionate and unacceptably high
error rate.
Third, any reform proposal must address procedural, as well
as technological obstacles to voting. Now, minority voters
faced at least three barriers in the last November election,
first, the use of outdated voting equipment with significant
failure rates, second, inadequate and often discriminatory
voter registration and purging practices, and third, human
factors that led to ill-prepared and overburdened poll workers
that inappropriately turned away voters. All three of these
things have to be addressed.
Fourth, any reform proposal must not limit or conflict with
existing civil rights laws, like the voting Rights Act, the
National Voter Registration Act, or the Americans With
Disabilities Act, and Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and
Handicapped Act.
And then last, assuming all of these things are considered,
my testimony goes into several specific recommendations for
facilitating the ease with which our citizens are enabled to
vote and to participate, such as extending the time of voter
registration, providing same-day registration where
appropriate, addressing other mechanisms that have proven to be
barriers to full civic and voter participation.
Last, the practice of ex-felon disenfranchisement should be
eliminated. Not only is disenfranchisement one of those issues
that really affects persons who have completed their sentences,
it is inconsistent with basic democratic principles, and we
believe it has a disproportionate impact on persons who are,
indeed, trying to recoup their lives and to participate fully
in civic life in this country.
The leadership conference welcomes, as I said, Mr.
Chairman, the opportunity to work with you. It is impossible to
overstate the importance of what you are doing today with this
hearing, since, in order to have continued confidence in the
integrity of our democratic process, we have to ensure that the
elections that we all cherish and recognize are at the heart of
what we do as a Nation be preserved, and that their integrity
be enhanced.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Henderson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Wade Henderson, Executive Director, Leadership
Conference on Civil Rights
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: I am Wade Henderson,
Executive Director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. I am
pleased to appear before you today on behalf of the Leadership
Conference to discuss the need to ensure that all Americans have equal
access to the right to cast their ballots--and to have their votes,
once cast, accurately counted.
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) is the nation's
oldest and most diverse coalition of civil rights organizations.
Founded in 1950 by Arnold Aronson, A. Phillip Randolph, and Roy
Wilkins, LCCR works in support of policies that further the goal of
equality under law. To that end, we promote the enactment, and monitor
the enforcement, of our nation's landmark civil rights laws. Today the
LCCR consists of over 180 organizations representing persons of color,
women, children, organized labor, persons with disabilities, the
elderly, gays and lesbians, and major religious groups. It is a
privilege to represent the civil and human rights community in
addressing the Committee today.
More than 35 years have passed since the enactment of the Voting
Rights Act in 1965. In that time, we have made significant progress in
making that Act's promise of ``one person, one vote'' a reality for all
Americans. The serious and extensive irregularities reported last
November, however, make clear that we still have a long way to go.
While yesterday's poll taxes and literacy tests are long gone, they
have been replaced by punch-card machines and inaccurate voting list
purges as barriers to minority enfranchisement.
The need for today's discussion should be apparent to all. The
right to vote is among the most fundamental of freedoms guaranteed the
American people. Without it, we are not a republic, not a democracy.
For this reason, reports of voting irregularities in Florida have
captured widespread attention. Barriers to minority voting
participation, however, are by no means limited to Florida. Because the
need to ensure the integrity of our democratic processes is national in
scope, federal attention and action are both appropriate and necessary.
In my testimony today, I will first review some of the problems
that make clear the pressing need for action. I will then identify some
fundamental principles that must be included in any effective reform
proposal.
Overview of Voting Irregularities in the 2000 Election
Across America, voters--especially minority voters--were
effectively denied the franchise in a variety of ways:
Minority voters often faced a significantly greater risk that their
votes would not be counted accurately. In Cook County, Illinois, for
example, an analysis by The Washington Post concluded that only 4.9
percent of ballots were invalidated in precincts with a minority
population of less than 30 percent, while the invalidation rate nearly
doubled--to more than 9 percent--in precincts with a minority
population of 90 percent or more.
Similarly, a lawsuit recently filed in Georgia on behalf of African
American voters in DeKalb, Fulton, and Cobb counties alleged that the
punch-card machines used in predominantly African American counties had
an error rate more than double that of optical scanning machines used
elsewhere in Georgia.
In Florida, too, punch-card balloting systems used in counties with
substantial African American populations (such as Miami-Dade and 24
other counties) are alleged to have a substantially higher error rate
than other systems. Nearly four percent of ballots in Florida counties
using punch-card systems were recorded as having no vote, while the no-
vote rate under the optical-scan systems used elsewhere in Florida was
only 1.43 percent.
Asian American, Haitian American, Latino, and other language
minority voters were denied language assistance to which they were
entitled. In many jurisdictions covered by Section 203 of the Voting
Rights Act, language minority voters are entitled, upon request, to
bilingual materials and/or the assistance of a bilingual poll worker.
In New York City, however, Chinese-speaking voters reported that
ballots at several polling sites inaccurately translated candidates'
party identifications; others reported that absentee ballots contained
mistakes in the Chinese-language instructions.
Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund monitors observed
that some New York polling sites had no interpreters at all, prompting
some voters to leave without casting a ballot due to the absence of
language assistance; interpreters at other sites were observed to
provide inaccurate or improper directions.
And in some Florida counties, Haitian American and Latino voters
reported that their requests for language assistance were denied.
Eligible voters were wrongly ``purged'' from the rolls. Florida,
for example, ordered the ``purging'' of ex-felons and other ineligible
voters from official lists of eligible voters prior to the November
election. During this process, however, many qualified voters were
wrongly identified as ineligible to vote. For example, a number of
African American voters reported that they were told by poll workers
that they had been dropped from the rolls because they were ex-felons--
even though they had never been arrested, much less convicted, of any
crime.
Other eligible minority voters reported that they were provided no
reason for their purging; they were simply turned away on the grounds
that their names did not appear on the list of registered voters.
Moreover, many of these purges occurred very late in the process--i.e.,
after the individuals purged had already voted in the September
primary--thus offering little, if any, corrective opportunity.
Eligible voters were wrongfully denied the opportunity to vote
because voter registrations and change-of-address information were not
processed in a timely and accurate manner. Asian American voters in New
York reported that they completed their registration forms, but were
never provided confirmation of their registration, nor information
about the location of their polling places.
Similarly, in Ohio, African American voters reported that they were
not notified that their polling places had been changed; when they
tried to vote at their old polling places, they were turned away and
denied even the opportunity to cast provisional ballots.
Minority voters in Florida and elsewhere have reported that they
submitted timely and complete voter registration packages (or notices
of change in address), only to be turned away at the polls because
there was no record of their registration or move. As Fumiko Robinson
testified before the NAACP in explaining her feelings while driving
Florida voters to the polls on election day, only to have them turned
away: ``[I]t was almost as if I brought people to the poll to be
embarrassed.''
Eligible voters were barred from voting because complete and
accurate lists of eligible voters were not available at each polling
place. The Kansas City Star reported that, in St. Louis, ``voters whose
registration was not on record at their polling places had to travel to
the election board's downtown office, where several hundred people
waited up to three hours just to confirm their registration.''
In some Florida counties, certain registered voters were placed on
an ``inactive'' list and were not included on their respective
precincts' lists of voters. These unlisted voters were able to vote
only if their precinct polling official contacted the central county
office to confirm eligibility. Many of the telephone lines were busy
for extended periods of time, however, thus thwarting eligibility
verification. And while some precincts were apparently provided with
laptop computers to enable pollworkers to access directly the list of
inactive-yet-eligible voters, observers reported that few, if any,
laptops were assigned to majority black precincts.
Voters who realized that they had inaccurately marked their ballots
before casting them were wrongfully denied the opportunity to correct
them. When voters realize that they have inaccurately marked their
ballots before submitting them, the law entitles them to a second--and
even a third--ballot to correct any such errors. However, numerous
Florida voters have reported that their requests for new ballots were
denied.
Many voting systems are inaccessible for persons with disabilities
and do not allow many voters with disabilities to cast a secret ballot.
According to the Federal Election Commission, there are at least 20,000
polling places across the country that are physically inaccessible to
voters with disabilities. Moreover, punch-card machines are
particularly difficult for persons with vision impairments or arm or
hand mobility impairments.
The list goes on and on. Voters who did not have identification or
who did not appear on eligible lists were improperly denied the
opportunity to vote by affirmation or affidavit. Voters already in line
when polling places closed were denied the opportunity to cast their
ballots. Unfortunately, time permits only a partial listing of the
reported irregularities. But even this incomplete discussion
demonstrates the extent and severity of the problem--and the need for
reform.
Such barriers to voting inflict double pain. First, they
effectively disenfranchise a significant number of eligible voters.
Second, they fuel the perception that minority voters and voters with
disabilities are not really welcome to participate fully in our
nation's democratic institutions. A system riddled with such
irregularities fosters cynicism about our nation's commitment to its
professed ideal that every vote counts. As a result, many minority
voters concluded that some votes matter more--or less--than others;
that every vote does NOT count; that the system does NOT work. As
Donnise DeSouza, who was denied access to the polls on Election Day,
described her feelings in testimony before the NAACP: ``I felt very
outraged. I felt I had been stripped of something important and
personal to me and I felt violated. . . .''
Principles for Meaningful Reform
Because the need to ensure the integrity of our democratic
processes is of national significance, these reports make clear the
need for Congressional action. While we are mindful of concerns
regarding federalism and the appropriate balance of responsibility
between the federal government and the states, we strongly believe that
Congress has the authority--and the responsibility--to maintain the
integrity of federal elections and ensure that states and localities
have the resources to improve election technology and administration
procedures. To this end, we urge the enactment of legislation that
would encourage the adoption of upgraded, accurate equipment and
uniform, nondiscriminatory standards for election administration in all
federal elections.
We are aware that several legislative proposals to remedy the
problems of Election 2000 are already under discussion, with more on
the horizon. We welcome the opportunity to work together with this
Committee and others in Congress on the specific details of these
efforts.
We note at the outset, however, that the issue of election reform
must be considered separately from any other legislative issue. Some
have suggested that Congress should consider election reform in
combination with the issue of campaign finance reform, which will come
to the Senate floor in the next few weeks. While the Leadership
Conference has taken no position on campaign finance legislation, we
strongly believe that the issue of election reform is of such critical
importance that it requires full and fair evaluation on its own merits,
apart from any other proposal.
As these important discussions move forward, let me identify some
fundamental principles that must be included in any meaningful reform
proposal:
First, any comprehensive election reform proposal must be in place
in time for the 2002 elections. We must ensure that we learn from and
act upon--rather than repeat--the painful lessons learned in 2000. To
this end, the federal government must supply adequate resources on the
front end to permit states and localities to make the upgrades and
changes necessary to ensure that all Americans have equal and
meaningful access to the right to vote in the 2002 elections.
Second, any reform proposal must adhere to the principle of ``one
person, one vote.'' The right to vote is a right guaranteed to all
Americans, regardless of their race, their neighborhood, their income,
or their level of education. This applies both to the right to cast
one's ballot and the right to have that vote, once cast, counted
accurately. We must acknowledge and address widespread evidence that
punch-card machines and certain other voting systems carry
disproportionately--and unacceptably--high error rates. Federal funding
should be made available to encourage state and local jurisdictions to
upgrade election equipment to ensure that all votes are counted
accurately and equally. For example, federal efforts should encourage
states and localities to adopt election technology that produces no
more than a 1 percent error rate.
Third, any reform proposal must address procedural as well as
technological obstacles to voting. Minority voters faced at least three
types of barriers to full and equal voting participation this past
November: (1) the use of outdated voting equipment with significant
failure rates; (2) inadequate (and often discriminatory) voter
registration and purging practices; and (3) human factors that led ill-
prepared and overburdened poll workers to inappropriately turn away
qualified voters. We must both modernize the machinery of voting and
improve procedures for the administration of elections. Both of these
issues deserve significant attention and funding at the federal level.
Fourth, any reform proposal must not limit or conflict with the
Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act, nor any
other existing civil and voting rights statute, such as the Americans
with Disabilities Act and the Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and
the Handicapped Act. Indeed, any effective reform proposal must include
a commitment to and investment in full and vigorous enforcement of
these laws--for example, ensuring that minority language voters and
voters with disabilities receive the assistance to which they are
entitled. In addition, funds distributed by the federal government for
election reform must be considered federal financial assistance for the
purposes of applying the prohibition against discrimination on the
basis of race, color, or national origin under Title VI of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964.
With these baseline principles in mind, a number of more specific
measures deserve careful consideration as we explore ways to encourage
the development of uniform, nondiscriminatory procedures for election
administration:
Registering to vote should be simple and easy. Current
registration procedures too often discourage, rather than
encourage, voting. For example, under current practice, voter
registration often closes 30 days before the election.
Providing for same-day registration or otherwise shortening
registration deadlines (i.e., keeping registration open until
shortly before Election Day) would encourage voter
registration. Procedures better facilitating change-in-address
notification (e.g., by allowing voters who change addresses
within the same state to file a change-of-address and vote on
Election Day without re-registering) would further ease
registration difficulties.
Voting itself should be as simple and easy as possible.
Voters should be made aware of their rights to request
assistance, to correct their ballots if they believe they have
made an error, and to alternative identification procedures if
they do not have a photo identification.
To encourage full civic participation, we should support
changes designed to ease long lines and other time pressures on
voters (e.g., making Election Day a federal holiday, ensuring
that anyone in line at closing time is allowed to vote,
extending voting hours, holding multi-day and/or weekend
elections).
In light of last fall's extensive reports of inaccurate and/
or incomplete voter lists, federal legislation should encourage
the development of uniform mechanisms to ensure that persons
whose names do not appear on the list of registered voters at
the polling place may still cast a provisional ballot without
undue delay--subject to challenge if they are shown to be
ineligible to vote.
Federal legislation should encourage development of
standards to ensure that decisions to purge certain voters from
the rolls are carefully verified. For example, the National
Voter Registration Act prohibits certain types of purges--i.e.,
those needed to verify addresses--within 90 days of an
election. The same 90-day rule could be applied to all types of
purges, including those for ex-felons. Moreover, state or local
governments are better equipped to carry the burden of
verifying that registered voters are actually not entitled to
vote before purging--rather than placing the burden on the
voter to establish his or her eligibility.
The practice of ex-felon disenfranchisement should be
eliminated. Not only is the disenfranchisement of those who
have completed their sentences inconsistent with basic
democratic principles, it disproportionately harms minorities
and thus dilutes the gains of the Voting Rights Act. Moreover,
the Florida experience helps demonstrate that restoring the
franchise to ex-felons who have served their time will also
eliminate the significant number of ``false positives'' that
wrongly denied the vote to individuals who were not ex-felons,
as well as save millions of dollars in administrative costs.
Finally, we recognize that we have not addressed issues related to
voting over the Internet, even as states and localities are
increasingly likely to turn to high-tech solutions to election
challenges. We note that while such technology offers significant
opportunities to eliminate certain voting irregularities, we must also
be mindful of possible racial, ethnic or income disparities in voter
access commonly characterized as aspects of the digital divide. We are
also concerned with the security and integrity of election systems with
Internet voting, a concern highlighted in a recently released study
commissioned by the National Science Foundation.\1\ The Leadership
Conference is currently studying this issue, and plans to share our
observations and recommendations in the near future.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ ``Report of the National Workshop on Internet Voting: Issues
and Research Agenda''. A report commissioned by the National Science
Foundation on a workshop October 11-12, 2000 by the Internet Policy
Institute.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights welcomes the opportunity
to work with this Committee and others in Congress on election reform
consistent with the principles we have outlined. It is impossible to
overstate the importance of this endeavor, since continued confidence
in the integrity of our democratic processes will hinge on our success
or failure. Together, we must ensure that the painful lessons learned
in 2000 are not forgotten, and that the ideals of 1965 are not
abandoned.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Ms. O'Gara.
STATEMENT OF MARY JANE O'GARA, BOARD MEMBER, AARP
Ms. O'Gara. Mr. Chairman, my name is Mary Jane O'Gara. I am
a member of the board of directors of AARP. On behalf of the
association, I thank you for inviting AARP to offer its views
regarding the use of technology to address some of the major
issues related to voting and election reform legislation.
The right to vote is the most basic of all political
rights. The recent presidential election illustrated the many
inconsistencies that threaten the integrity of the election
process at all levels of government. While all of the problems
revealed cannot be addressed in today's hearing, many can be
ameliorated. It is important, however, that fair, bipartisan
policy solutions in related areas be devised to accompany any
technological innovations.
Examples of related areas are discrimination in the
registration and voting process, inconsistent interpretation
and application of regulations, varying hours of operation and
access, variances in notification about voting status and local
polling sites, accessibility and user friendliness of
registration and polling sites and equipment.
The effectiveness of each of the federal statutes governing
voting in this country can be improved through technological
innovations. Technology can enhance the fairness of statutory
implementation and enforcement. Still, issues like access and
the climate of both registration and polling sites are
precursory concerns. Voting and registration procedures should
be as user-friendly as possible for all Americans. In that
regard, Congress must ensure that such procedures are fair,
acceptably uniform, accessible, and protected against fraud and
preventable mistakes.
Under the NVRA, states must allow individuals to register
to vote at a variety of state agency locations such as the
Department of Motor Vehicles, and through the mail. Based on
available data, lower increases in registration rates can be
attributed to less aggressive implementation of the law for
various reasons.
Technology could improve processing, verifying and sharing
of registration information among various agencies. These
benefits, however, would be nullified if the atmosphere
discourages or frustrates applicants. Misinformation, lack of
information, and/or confusing and inconsistent information
foster a discouraging atmosphere.
That said, AARP believes that technology can make the most
significant and immediate contribution to voting and election
reform in the area of balloting and verification of voter
registration. With respect to balloting, technical innovations
could make ballots and voting systems more accessible, and
their use more easily understood by voters. Specific assistive
devices, telecommunication devices for the deaf and large type
instructions could be integrated to assist people with
disabilities, and compensate for barriers to participation.
Equipment design could help with dexterity problems, so common
among older persons.
Ballots and voting systems should minimize human and
mechanical errors and allow for effective monitoring. While
systems improved by technology, such as Internet voting,
optical scanners, and touch-screen technology, are less
vulnerable to manual fraud, they must be protected from
internal and external tampering. Objective monitoring to detect
tampering is essential.
Voters can and should be more thoroughly informed about the
mechanics of voting. Internet and on-site training tools are
existing technologies that can be used to this end. Investment
in public education could also decrease the likelihood of voter
error, especially if voters are given the opportunity for a
``dry run'' before actually casting a ballot. Voter turnout
might even increase as a result.
Finally, in the area of voter registration, strong
protections against fraud and bias can be established through
technology that permits instant voter verification of
registration status. Systems that permit voters to verify
registration, polling and registration sites, and hours of
operation could virtually eliminate most human discrimination
factors that impede some voters.
Because technological innovations can be costly, the
federal government can play a role in financing needed
innovations. Any federal funding for voting and election
reforms should be conditioned upon satisfying specific
procedural standards, best practices in election
administration, and the elimination of practices that suppress
voter participation. Further, it is important that
technological and administrative initiatives to reform
registration and voting processes be equitable in their impact
on all classes of potential voters.
AARP understands that technology is not the only solution
to the problem of voting and election reform, but it could make
a significant difference.
We appreciate this opportunity to offer our views on this
potential improvement, Mr. Chairman. This concludes my remarks,
and I would be happy to respond to questions if you have any.
[The prepared statement of Ms. O'Gara follows:]
Prepared Statement of Mary Jane O'Gara, Board Member, AARP
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
My name is Mary Jane O'Gara and I am a member of the Board of
Directors of AARP. On behalf of the Association, I thank you for
inviting AARP to offer its views regarding the use of technology to
address some of the major issues related to voting and elections reform
legislation.
The right to vote is the most basic of all political rights. The
recent Presidential election of 2000 has brought to the forefront of
the public's attention the many inconsistencies that presently exist in
the voting systems throughout the nation at all levels of government.
These inconsistencies threaten the integrity of the election process.
While all of the problems and inconsistencies revealed in the recent
elections cannot be addressed within the scope of today's hearing on
technology solutions, many can be ameliorated. However, it is important
that fair, bipartisan policy solutions in related areas be devised to
accompany any technological innovations. Examples of related areas are:
discrimination in the registration and voting process,
inconsistent interpretation and application of regulations;
varying hours of operation and access;
variances in notification about voting status and local
polling sites;
accessibility and user-friendliness of registration and
polling sites and equipment;
varying guidelines and criteria for mail-in and in-person
registration and voting; and,
differing circumstances about when verification is essential
to register or vote.
Technological innovations are likely to be costly for most
jurisdictions. AARP believes the federal government has a role to play
in financing needed innovations. Any federal funding for voting and
election reform should be conditioned upon satisfying specific
procedural standards (``best practices'') in election administration
and the elimination of practices that suppress voter participation,
including but not limited to areas mentioned above.
AARP would like to lay out the principal policy areas that we see
as needing reform, and proceed to address how technology might address
some of those. The major federal statutes governing voting in this
country such as the Voting Rights Act (VRA), the Voting Accessibility
for the Elderly and Handicapped Act of 1984, the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) and the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA)
establish voting rights and registration policy. While these statutes
do not address questions of technology, technological innovations could
have a tremendous impact on the fairness of how those statutory
policies are implemented or enforced. Critical issues such as access to
and the climate of both registration and polling sites are precursory
concerns that are directly related to the utility of any voting
technology innovation. In that regard, we believe Congress must take
steps to ensure that voting and registration processes are:
Fair (non-discriminatory and equitably interpreted, applied
and enforced);
Acceptably uniform (based on reasonably consistent,
mandatory guidelines within constitutional limits);
Accessible (such that persons with physical or other
limitations are not discouraged from participating); and
Protected against fraud (deliberate manipulation) and
preventable mistakes (e.g. design flaws).
The recent election brought to light the fact that voting
mechanisms lack uniform standards and in many locations have failed to
keep pace with new technologies. Further, registration difficulties,
physical barriers and other problems often disproportionately prevent
minorities, the frail elderly and persons with disabilities from voting
or from having that vote counted. Voting and registration procedures
should be as user-friendly as possible, especially to accommodate the
large number of Americans that move or temporarily relocate each year.
Since the NVRA became effective in 1995, states have been required
to allow individuals to register to vote when they apply for a driver's
license or other type of permit and to make registration forms
available at a variety of state offices as well as through the mail.
Preliminary studies on the law's impact suggest that registration rates
have risen 3 to 13 times higher than in previous years. In states where
the rise is relatively low, much of the variance can be attributed to
some states having been less aggressive in implementing the law. While
technology could improve the systems by which information about
registration applicants could be shared among various agencies,
processed and verified, those benefits are likely to be nullified if
the atmosphere discourages or frustrates applicants. Such an atmosphere
may be fostered through misinformation, lack of information or
confusing and inconsistent information. One common example of practices
that discourage voter participation is varying the hours and location
of registration and polling sites without sufficient public notice.
Another area of law that could benefit from improved technology
would be the Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act.
The statute's voluntary state reporting guidelines remain although
mandated reporting sunset in 1995. Thus, the Federal Election
Commission (FEC) can no longer require reporting. Technology could make
such reporting requirements simple and easy to share within and across
jurisdictions, enabling voters to be directed to alternative accessible
sites. Unfortunately, lack of a mandate or resources to encourage
states present a barrier. In the 1992 general elections, the last
elections for which the law required an FEC report to Congress, 42 of
52 states and other electoral jurisdictions evaluated the accessibility
of polling places using FEC criteria or criteria sufficiently similar
to permit cross-state comparisons. Of the polling places evaluated, 14
percent were reported inaccessible, compared with 16 percent in 1990,
21 percent in 1988 and 27 percent in 1986. Stairs without ramps remain
the greatest physical obstacle. And while we expect the percentage of
inaccessible sites to continue to drop as a result of the ADA,
technology could play an invaluable role in facilitating the collection
and sharing of this information, leading to increased voting
participation among the millions of older and disabled persons who face
these barriers.
Having said that, AARP believes that the most significant and
immediate contribution that technology can make to reform of the voting
and election process is in the area of balloting and verification of
voter registration. With respect to balloting, technology can afford
all Americans the ability to express their electoral preference through
the following types of improvements:
Ballots and voting systems can be made more accessible to
and easily understood by the voters. Extra efforts, such as
equipping polling places and balloting devices with large-type
instructions and telecommunications devices for the deaf, may
be necessary to assist people with disabilities. Similarly,
technological innovations should be designed to compensate for
barriers to access by persons with visual and other
disabilities, such as the problems of dexterity that are so
common among older people.
Voting systems can and should be instituted that minimize
human and mechanical errors while allowing for effective
monitoring. The current manual systems afford many
opportunities for intentional and unintentional human
interventions that can result in unlawful or invalidated
ballots. Systems improved by technology (such as internet
voting, optical scanners, and touch screen technology) are less
vulnerable to manual fraud. They must, however, be protected
from internal tampering (programmer manipulation) and external
tampering (hackers). This makes it essential that such
innovations be built with the capacity for objective monitoring
to ensure that any tampering will be detected. Such monitoring
results must be officially witnessed, certified and made
publicly available. Similarly, technology such as optical
scanners already exists to minimize human error in expressing
one's voting preference. AARP does not endorse any specific
technology for eliminating human error; there are a variety of
applications that permit the development of systems that are
sensitive to physical and other human limitations.
Voters can and should be more thoroughly informed about the
mechanics of voting. The capacity already exists for technology
to provide advance information via the Internet or even on-site
training through special modules. Access to such training could
be provided through a wide variety of public and community
based agencies. Indeed, education and training innovations
could effectively address other sensitive voting rights issues,
such as language barriers. Investment in such public education
would not only provide direct education to the voter, it would
also decrease the likelihood of voter error--especially if
voters were given the opportunity to do a ``dry run'' before
actually casting a ballot. Indeed, such voter education might
increase voter turnout.
Finally, in the area of voter registration, strong protections
against fraud and bias can be established through technology that
permits instant verification of registration status. For example,
dispensing protected codes on stickers for all new registrants that can
be verified could reduce the number of eligible voters being refused
the right to vote. Systems that permit voters to verify their
registration status along with the location and hours of both central
registration sites and assigned polling sites could virtually eliminate
most human discrimination factors that impede some voters from
exercising their franchise rights.
While AARP understands that technology is not the only solution to
the major problems of voting and election reform in this country, it
clearly could make a significant difference. However, federal funding
will be essential in making it possible to implement any technological
or other reforms that may become law. AARP believes that those areas
with the most significant demonstrated problems receive priority for
any funds available for making system and guideline changes. Finally,
initiatives to reform registration or voting processes must be
equitable in their impact on all classes of citizens who are either
voters or potential voters.
This concludes my remarks. AARP stands ready to work with Congress,
the Administration and state governments to reform our voting and
elections systems so that all Americans can have confidence that they
can participate in the vote and have their preferences in elections
accurately counted. I would be happy to respond to any questions that
you may have.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Ms. O'Gara. Thank you
for being here.
Last, and certainly not least, my old friend Raul
Yzaguirre. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF RAUL YZAGUIRRE,
PRESIDENT, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF LA RAZA
Mr. Yzaguirre. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity
to present our comments. I ask that the full text of my
testimony be entered into the record.
The Chairman. Without objection.
Mr. Yzaguirre. I appreciate the opportunity to appear
before you today to support a thorough revision of the voting
process. The right to vote is fundamental civil right for all
Americans. The National Council of La Raza supports efforts to
remove barriers that inhibit Americans, especially the more
vulnerable in our society, from exercising the right to vote.
We believe that the discrepancies observed in Florida were not
limited to that state.
Many other states with close elections, New Mexico, for
example, have some jurisdictions that use voting machines and
procedures similar to those found in Florida. Furthermore, we
have received evidence of irregularities found in other states
like New York, which disproportionately affected language
minority voters. We suspect that these irregularities represent
the proverbial tip of the iceberg waiting to be uncovered in
subsequent close elections, unless they are addressed now.
The right to vote is guaranteed to all United States
citizens by the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States
Constitution. This right is extended to all people, including
those for whom English is not their mother tongue. Despite
these provisions of current law, there is evidence that some
jurisdictions do not comply with federal language assistance
provisions.
For example, in testimony before the United States
Commission on Civil Rights, the Puerto Rico Legal Defense and
Education Fund reported that many registered Latino voters who
had voted in immediate past elections went to the polls and
were told their names could not be found on the rolls. Many
voters not found on the rolls were not able to cast their
votes. In violation of both federal and Florida laws, election
poll workers often did not offer the use of alternative method
of voting, i.e., the paper affirmation ballot.
Some registered Latino voters went to their usual voting
poll sites, only to be told that their names were not found.
They were sent to other polling sites miles away, where again
their names did not appear on the rolls. Many new Latino voters
who had registered in a timely manner were not processed by
government agencies. Because they did not receive their voter
identity cards, they were not given an assignment of a poll
site. They could not vote.
Spanish-speaking Latino voters received no bilingual
assistance at most polling sites. In most precincts, the entire
election staff spoke English only and could not assist
language-minority voters. In certain precincts, election staff
told Latino voters to present more pieces of photo
identification than non-Hispanics, even though no such legal
requirement exists under Florida or federal law.
Mr. Chairman, these kinds of problems were not just limited
to Latinos in that state. Other language minorities, including
Haitian Americans for whom language assistance is authorized in
several jurisdictions under state law face serious barriers to
voting. Testimony by Marleine Bastien before the NAACP
describes lack of language assistance, other irregularities.
Overall, Ms. Bastien described an atmosphere of intimidation
which generally discouraged Haitian Americans from casting
their vote.
Nor were such irregularities limited to the State of
Florida. A report presented on December 22 of the year 2000 to
the New York Board of Elections by the Asian American Legal
Defense and Education Fund observed inaccurate translations,
lack of Chinese interpreters, Chinese characters on the ballot
too small to read, problems processing voter registration
forms, and lack of bilingual materials.
The National Council of La Raza supports prudent,
bipartisan election reform legislation that will: (1) create a
substantial multiyear federal grants program to upgrade
election technologies, (2) protect the voting Rights Act and
National Voter Registration Act while ensuring that any
activities under the new legislation are consistent with these
existing laws, (3) set federally approved best practices for
grant-eligible technologies, which includes standards to ensure
accessibility, accuracy, and nondiscrimination, (4) structure
priorities setting criteria to assure that jurisdictions with
the most significant problems receive needed funding.
NCLR is eager to see election reform that secures the right
of all Americans to vote. Election reform should be guided by
current law, ensuring access to the language-minority voters.
It should not become a vehicle for adding barriers to any part
of the voting process, whether it is voter education,
registration, or casting a vote. We urge you to ensure
additional unnecessary measures to, quote, confirm, or, quote,
verify the eligibility of voters which have a clear disparate
impact on Latinos or language minorities not be imposed.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your leadership on this
issue, and for your valiant work in electoral reform.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Yzaguirre follows:]
Prepared Statement of Raul Yzaguirre, President,
National Council of La Raza
I. Introduction
Chairman McCain, Ranking Minority Member Hollings, and the
Committee, on behalf of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), thank
you for holding this hearing on an issue that is very important to the
Latino community. NCLR is the nation's largest national Latino civil
rights organization, which is an ``umbrella organization'' for more
than 250 local affiliated community-based organizations (CBOs) and
about 30,000 individual associate members. In addition to providing
capacity-building assistance to our affiliates and essential
information to our individual associates, NCLR serves as a voice for
all Hispanic subgroups in all regions of the country.
I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to support
a thorough revision of the voting process. The right to vote is a
fundamental civil right for all Americans, and NCLR supports efforts to
remove barriers that inhibit Americans, especially the most vulnerable
in our society, from exercising their right to vote.
All Americans are concerned about the election irregularities
observed during the 2000 presidential election. Hispanic Americans
share these concerns. Although they have not been as widely-publicized
as the experiences of some communities, we believe that too many
Latinos were unfairly denied the opportunity to vote, or had their
votes discarded, through no fault of their own. Since the media
spotlight was cast on Florida's electoral process, we have learned
about outdated voting machines, understaffed polling places,
inexperienced poll workers, and confusion that left some registered
voters' names off the books. We learned about polling places that moved
without adequate notice--literally in the middle of the night--leaving
hundreds of voters without knowledge of where to go to cast their vote.
Some duly registered voters whose names were improperly purged from the
rolls were denied an affidavit, or they were not offered one, and thus
were unfairly excluded from the process.
Language minority voters who requested the assistance of a
bilingual volunteer or materials at the polls, as is their right in
many jurisdictions, were denied such assistance. Reports indicate that
in some counties, minority voters were asked for photo identification
while White voters were not required to show any form of ID. Many polls
in disproportionately minority precincts were closed even though voters
were still in line; other polls had lines so long that some voters left
the polling places without casting their vote.
Moreover, we believe that the discrepancies observed in Florida
were not limited to that state. Many other states with close elections,
New Mexico for example, have some jurisdictions that use voting
machines and procedures similar to those found wanting in Florida.
Furthermore, we have reviewed evidence of irregularities found in other
states, like New York, which disproportionately affected language
minority voters. We suspect that these irregularities represent the
proverbial ``tip of the iceberg,'' waiting to be uncovered in
subsequent close elections unless they are addressed now.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ NCLR is grateful for the assistance of the Asian American Legal
Defense Education Fund (AALDEF), the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and
Education Fund (PRLDEF), and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in
preparing this testimony. NCLR is working in coalition with AALDEF,
PRLDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund
(MALDEF), the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium
(NAPALC), the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed
Officials, the Asian Law Caucus, the League of United Latin American
Citizens, the National Puerto Rican Coalition, the Asian Pacific
American Legal Center of Southern California, and other organizations
to monitor developments on election reform. The views cited herein are
those only of NCLR, and may not represent the opinions of other
organizations.
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II. Hispanic and Language Minority Concerns with the 2000 Election
The right to vote is guaranteed to all U.S. citizens by the
Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Every voter has the right
to cast an informed and effective vote. This right is extended to all
people including those for whom English is not their mother tongue.
Language minorities are ensured protection and full participation in
the electoral process by two separate provisions of the Voting Rights
Act of 1965--Section 203 and Section 4(f)(4).\2\ Despite these
provisions of current law, there is evidence that some jurisdictions do
not comply with federal language assistance provisions. The following
selected examples illustrate the pervasiveness of the lack of
compliance with the language assistance provisions of the Voting Rights
Act.
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\2\ In 1975 Congress added minority language provisions to the
Voting Rights Act, and recognized that large numbers of American
citizens who primarily spoke language other than English had been
effectively excluded from participation in the electoral process. The
denial of the right to vote among language minority citizens was
``directly related to the unequal educational opportunities afforded
them, resulting in high illiteracy and low voting participation.'' 42
U.S.C. Sec. 1973aa-1(a).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in January
2001, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund reported the
results of its investigation in Florida; specifically, it found that:
Many registered Latino voters who had voted in immediate
past elections went to the polls and were told their names
could not be found on the rolls. Consequently, they were not
allowed to vote, were sent home, or were required to wait many
hours while election poll workers sought unsuccessfully to
contact supervisors for approval to allow these voters to cast
their votes. In other cases, their grievances were ignored.
Many voters not found on the rolls were not able to cast
their vote. In violation of both federal and Florida laws,
election poll workers often did not offer the use of the
alternative method of voting the paper affirmation ballot.
Some registered Latino voters went to their usual voting
poll sites only to be told that their names were not found.
They were sent to other polling sites miles away, where again,
their names did not appear on the rolls. Voters became
frustrated, confused, and gave up--leaving without voting.
Many new Latino voters who had registered in a timely manner
were not processed by government agencies. Because they did not
receive their voter registration identity cards and were not
given an assignment of a voting poll site, they could not vote.
Latino voters who went to the polls after work and arrived
between 15 and 25 minutes before the official closing hour were
told they could not vote and were turned away.
Spanish-speaking Latino voters received no bilingual
assistance at most polling sites. In most precincts, the entire
election staff spoke English only, and could not assist
language minority voters.
At certain precincts, election staff told Latino voters to
present more pieces of photo identification than non-Hispanics,
even though no such legal requirement exists under Florida or
federal law.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Testimony of Mr. Jackson Chin, Puerto Rican Legal Defense and
Education Fund, before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, January 11,
2001.
Mr. Chairman, these kinds of problems were not just limited to
Latinos in that state. Other language minorities, including Haitian
Americans for whom language assistance is authorized in several
jurisdictions under state law, faced serious barriers to voting.
Testimony by Marleine Bastien before the NAACP on November 11, 2000, in
Florida, describes in great detail the hardship experienced on Election
Day by the Haitian American community. Ms. Bastien, a Haitian American
community leader in South Florida, spent part of her day on Election
Day at a Creole radio station receiving calls from Haitian American
voters who called complaining about the treatment they encountered at
polling places. Later, Ms. Bastien went to one of the polling places
voters complained most about and witnessed the experiences of Haitian
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
American voters; she testified that:
Lack of language assistance: There were forty-seven
precincts located in areas where the majority of the population
is Haitian or of Haitian descent, for whom Creole is their
native language. State law mandated that ballots be printed in
Creole to serve the Haitian American community living in those
forty-seven precincts. At the precinct she visited, Ms. Bastien
indicated that many Haitian American voters left without voting
because the ballots confused them and there was no one to
assist them. Even though there was a Creole-speaking volunteer
willing to assist Haitian American voters, the polling place
supervisor denied assistance to the voters, claiming that none
were entitled to special treatment. Ms. Bastien showed the
polling place supervisor a pamphlet printed by the Florida
Department of Elections, which authorized a procedure to secure
volunteer language assistance to people who needed it, but even
then, Haitian American voters were denied assistance.
Other irregularities: Many Haitian Americans voted, or
tried to vote, for the first time last year. Many were turned
away from polling places because they did not have their voting
card. They were asked to show identification documents even
though they were registered to vote. Other Haitian American
voters were unable to vote because they stepped out of line and
they were told they had lost their chance to vote. Many voters
were denied their right to vote because their polling place
closed earlier than 7:00 p.m., the official closing time. Some
Haitian American voters who were able to vote reported that
poll workers collected their voting cards instead of
instructing them to put the voting cards in the box. People
were left to wonder whether their voting cards were discarded.
Overall, Ms. Bastien described an atmosphere of intimidation,
which greatly discouraged Haitian Americans from casting their
vote.\4\
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\4\ Testimony of Ms. Marleine Bastien, before the NAACP, November
11, 2000.
Nor were such irregularities limited to the State of Florida. A
report presented on December 22, 2000 to the New York Board of
Elections by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund
(AALDEF), found that the failure of the Board of Elections to prepare
adequately for heavy turnout city-wide created severe problems for
Asian-language voters. On November 7, 2000, AALDEF attorneys and
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
volunteers monitored 20 polling sites in New York City; they observed:
Inaccurate translations. The Chinese translation for
``Democrat'' and ``Republican'' were reversed. Paper ballot
requested by absentee voters also contained mistakes in the
Chinese-language instructions.
Lack of Chinese interpreters. At polling sites across the
city, particularly those places with dense Asian populations,
there were insufficient numbers of interpreters to serve
Chinese-speaking voters.
Chinese characters on the ballot too small to read.
Obviously, the fundamental purpose of language translations is
undermined when the characters are unreadable on the machine
ballot.
Problems processing voter registration forms. Asian
Americans experienced many problems in registering to vote.
Many newly-naturalized citizens never received a voter
confirmation postcard from the Board of Elections. Thus, they
did not know the location of their polling sites. In
registering to vote, a number of Asian American voters
complained that they were asked to show proof of U.S.
citizenship before their voter registration forms would be
processed, even though White registrants were not asked for
such proof.
Lack of bilingual materials. A number of polling sites and
election districts did not have Chinese language materials or
did not use them effectively, as mandated by Section 203 of the
Voting Rights Act.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Letter from AALDEF to Mr. Daniel DeFrancesco, New York Board of
Elections, December 22, 2000.
These are clear examples of the lack of compliance of some
jurisdictions with the language assistance provisions and other
protections of the Voting Rights Act or state law. We believe they are
no less important than the irregularities experienced by other
Americans in the 2000 election, and we expect that any election reform
legislation considered by the Congress should address them.
III. Election Reform
The National Council of La Raza supports prudent, bipartisan
election reform legislation. NCLR has been working in concert with the
League of Women Voters and a broad coalition of civil rights
organizations interested in improving the electoral process. We believe
that several key elements must be included in an election reform bill,
which would guarantee that the voting process is accessible to all
eligible citizens. These key elements are as follows:
1. Create a substantial, multiyear federal grants program to
upgrade election technologies, including:
Improved voting equipment and associated counting
mechanism
State-wide technologies on a uniform basis, such as
computerized voter registration lists
2. Protect the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter
Registration Act, while ensuring that any activities under the new
legislation are consistent with these existing laws.
3. Set federally-approved ``best practices'' for grant-eligible
technologies which include standards to ensure:
Accessibility and convenience for the voter, including
voters with disabilities
Accuracy, including safeguards for maintaining voter rolls
Nondiscrimination, including full participation of
language minorities, racial and ethnic minorities, and people
with disabilities
4. Structure priority-setting criteria to ensure that
jurisdictions with the most significant problems receive needed
funding.
IV. Recommendations
Consistent with these principles, and speaking from the perspective
of the Latino and language minority community, NCLR urges the enactment
of legislation that:
1. Fully protects and compliance with existing civil rights laws,
including the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration
Act.
2. Encourages the compliance and implementation of language
minority assistance provisions of the Voting Rights Act.
3. Provides statewide multiyear federal funding for program to
upgrade election technologies, including improvement of voting
equipment and associated counting mechanism, and technologies on a
uniform basis, such as computerized voter registration lists.
4. Does not impose additional, unnecessary barriers to voting.
NCLR is eager to see election reform that secures the right of all
Americans to vote. Election reform should be guided by current law
ensuring access to language minority voters. It should not become a
vehicle for adding barriers to any part of the voting process, whether
it is voter education, registration, or casting a vote. We urge you to
ensure that additional, unnecessary measures to ``confirm'' or
``verify'' the eligibility of voters--which have a clear, disparate
impact on Latinos or language minorities--are not imposed.
In the past we have seen legislation that attempts to cross-
reference the citizenship of registered voters and voter registration
applicants against Social Security Administration and Immigration and
Naturalization Services databases. Because of the well-documented
inaccuracies with such databases, reliance on these systems for
verification of citizenship will result in massive numbers of ``false
negatives,'' i.e., legitimate U.S. citizens whose status may not be
verifiable through computer matches. These systems lack the capacity to
confirm the status of significant categories of both native-born and
naturalized U.S. citizens. Other proposals would authorize registrars
or poll workers to challenge the identity or citizenship status of
persons seeking to register or vote, based on the mere suspicion that
such persons may be ineligible. Mr. Chairman and Members of the
Committee, such proposals would inevitably thwart the fundamental
purpose of the election reform effort, which should be focused on
expanding--and not further limiting--the ability of all Americans to
participate fairly and equally in the electoral process.
I thank the Chairman, the Ranking Member, and the Committee once
again for providing NCLR an opportunity to share its views on election
reform.
The Chairman. I thank you, and the witnesses. I want to
apologize for the lateness of your appearance, because you
represent those who are in most danger of losing the ability to
exercise our most precious right. Your testimony is important.
As you know, this is the first in a series of hearings to
be held by the Commerce Committee. The Rules Committee will
also hold hearings. I want to comment to you that I believe
that the concerns expressed by this panel should be given the
highest priority as we consider the much-needed electoral
reform. Mr. Henderson, I do take your recommendation and that
of other members and witnesses very seriously. We need to
implement these reforms by the 2002 election.
At the same time, I believe that the testimony presented
this morning concerning optical scanning has indicated to us
that perhaps the readily apparent solutions are not, indeed,
readily apparent. Reforming this process will require a full
and in-depth study of the problems and the results of the last
election.
I think that all members of this panel can play a vital
role in helping to shape legislation that will be necessary to
cure the obvious ills of this system. The bad news is, those
ills have been there for a long time. It is unfortunate that it
took this kind of publicity to goad the Congress and the
American people in to action. The good news is, I believe we
will act. But I do not believe we can act to ensure fairness to
all unless you are intimately involved in the process as we
shape legislation.
Finally, could I just mention the military ballot. As Mr.
Henderson and Mr. Yzaguirre certainly understand, a very large
percentage of our military happen to be Hispanic and African
American. We want to make sure that they are adequately
informed, and that the procedures enabling them to vote are
streamlined in whatever way possible.
The fact that an American happens to be in Saudi Arabia, or
on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the Pacific Ocean,
should not be a reason why they should not vote, rather a
reason for us to take extra steps to ensure that they are able
to vote. These Americans are out there defending the rest of
us.
If there are any final comments, we would like to start
with you, Mr. Bollinger.
Mr. Bollinger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, thanks for
having this hearing, and thanks for having us testify today. I
guess my only parting comment would be, with at least four laws
on the books now addressing to some degree voting rights for
people with disabilities, and a lot of good intentions, we
still have a long way to go, and we look forward to playing a
role with you as you create legislation, and wish you well, and
hope that we can accomplish quite a bit between now and the
next election.
The Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Henderson.
Mr. Henderson. Yes, Mr. Chairman. First of all, thank you
again for the hearing, and thank you for your comments about
your commitment to proceed expeditiously to try to address
these problems.
Third, I think your point about the military is absolutely
on target and, indeed, including a streamlining of the military
vote procedure is an important part of protecting the civil
rights of all Americans.
Then last, my written testimony addresses this issue, but I
did not mention it in my oral summary, and that is the issue of
Internet voting. I heard this morning with other panels,
Members of the Committee, of course, encouraging review of
Internet voting and the possible development of Internet
voting, and certainly while the use of technology to improve
our lives and to improve the process of voting is important, I
have to take note of the National Science Foundation study
which was noted yesterday, which suggests proceeding down this
area with some caution.
And while the National Science Foundation did not mention
this, certainly we are aware of existing disparities in the use
of Internet and other computer-based technology in ways that
trouble us, that pursuing Internet voting as an exclusive
alternative to some of the problems that we have identified
may, in fact, exacerbate those disparities among people of
racial and linguistic minorities, and also of persons because
of their income or class who have not had as much full
participation in the use of Internet technology, so we are
concerned about the issues of the digital divide and how they
could have impact in this area.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Ms. O'Gara.
Ms. O'Gara. I think the question of fairness is critical as
we go ahead in looking at technological change. I was very
disturbed this morning to hear that the disenfranchisement that
occurred using technological innovations in Georgia, especially
as they relate to minority voters. Was there not a chance
provided to educate and inform them prior to the election? It
would seem to me that possibly many of those people did not
know how to use the machines. I do not know; that is just my
feeling. But I was worried about that.
The Chairman. Thank you, and we learned a lot from that
panel.
Mr. Yzaguirre.
Mr. Yzaguirre. Thank you, Senator. Two points.
I want to stress how important an issue this is for our
community. We are the least-represented, politically speaking,
community in this country, and so if we are going to become
part of this society as now perhaps the largest minority in
this nation, we need access to the voting process, and your
presence here emboldens me to say something that I probably
should not be saying, but I want to make a comment.
Speaking as somebody who served in the Armed Forces for 4
years, in the Air Force, and proud of my record, and proud of
my involvement, I thoroughly agree with you that we need to
protect the voting rights of our military, but there seems to
be a subtext that somehow those votes are more important than
other votes, and I just want to make sure that, you know,
whether you are in the Armed Forces or in a ghetto or working
the fields, your vote is equally important, so I want to make
sure that we consider all populations as equally important in
the voting process.
The Chairman. I am glad you made that point. As we
encourage their participation, we also need to take the same
measures to prevent the abuse of any voting procedures. Because
an abused vote or a vote fraud, no matter where it occurs, is
unacceptable.
I appreciate your making that point, and in our zeal to
make sure that members of the Armed Forces are given every
opportunity to vote, we must also guard against any fraudulent
practice, and I thank you for making that point.
I thank the panel. Thank you for your patience and thank
you for your participation. I believe that this will be the
first of many instances of your involvement in this very
important issue. I thank you. This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the Committee adjourned.]
APPENDIX
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. John McCain to
Bill Bradbury
Question 1. Oregon's Vote-by-Mail approach is very impressive,
particularly in its ability to increase voter turnout and to improve
accessibility for Americans with disabilities. However, problems still
persist with the use of punch-card machines. What machines would you
encourage the state to buy if money was not a concern?
Answer. We are strongly supporting legislation now moving through
our Legislature that would require counties to replace punch-card
systems prior to the 2004 election cycle. That legislation does not
mandate the use of any specific technology. However, the other 29
counties in Oregon currently use optical scan technology and we believe
that the clerks in punch card counties would opt for that technology as
well.
Question 2. How will Oregon approach election modernization should
federal funds not be made available before the 2002 and 2004 elections?
Answer. Given the fiscal realities currently being faced by the
Oregon Legislature, I do not anticipate that they will appropriate
sufficient funding to replace punch cards during the current
Legislature. However, at least one of the punch-card counties in Oregon
had planned to replace their equipment prior to 2004 even before
national attention was focused on its shortcomings. Absent significant
federal dollars becoming available, I would anticipate that most of the
seven punch-card counties in 2000 would still be using the technology
in 2004.
Question 3. Beyond simply providing funding, what role do you
believe the federal government should play in this modernization
process? What do you think would be most helpful to states?
Answer. Clearly federal funding is critical to our ability to
replace punch cards. I want to ensure that the federal government
continues to recognize the important differences among the states, such
as vote-by-mail, and ensure that any federal solution does not trample
on innovation in the states.
Question 4. You mentioned that when a voter makes a mistake using a
punch card, under Oregon's Vote-By-Mail system, that he or she must
write the county's elections office or travel to that office to request
a new ballot. How are requests handled if they are received after
election day?
Answer. By law, all ballots must be received by an elections
official prior to 8:00 p.m. on election day to be counted. Therefore,
any request for a new ballot coming after the deadline would be denied.
Question 5. While a centralized voter registration system would
clearly be beneficial to your state, what measures are currently in
place to reduce the likelihood that voters will vote multiple times in
several counties?
Answer. We provide a strong legal deterrent, in that voting more
than once is a class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison
and a $10,000 fine. Enforcement is made more difficult by the lack of a
centralized system. That is why the adoption of a centralized voter
registration system is my highest legislative priority.
Question 6. Have you made any overtures to advise states interested
in adopting a system similar to Oregon's Vote-by-Mail system? Have any
expressed interest?
Answer. We have received inquiries from all over the country about
our vote-by-mail system. We are quick to point out to those who are
interested in such a system, that we had twenty years of experience
with vote-by-mail in local elections prior to its adoption in 1998 for
all elections. We strongly recommend against a complete change from
polling places to vote-by-mail without a transition period of several
election cycles.
Question 7. Several witnesses from our second panel testified that
millions of Americans were disenfranchised for reasons based upon the
color of their skin or their physical disabilities. Does your state
have systems in place to assess the needs of minority voters, bilingual
voters, or voters with disabilities? Do you have adequate numbers of
trained poll workers to address the varied needs of these voters?
Answer. There is no prohibition of any voter receiving assistance
in completing their ballot by anyone. Additionally, there is a
provision in law (Oregon Revised Statutes 254.445) that requires a
county clerk to provide to any voter unable to complete the ballot the
assistance of two people (one form each of the major political parties)
to assist in completing the ballot. For those individuals who are
unable to leave home, that assistance is provided at their home. The
counties have not experienced widespread difficulties in finding and
training people to assist voters.
Question 8. A bipartisan task force in Florida has recommended both
a uniform statewide system and spending $20 million to lease equipment
in time for the 2002 election. Would you please comment on the task
force's recommendation and how similar actions would impact your
respective states?
Answer. While I believe that there would be benefit to having a
uniform statewide voting system, I do not believe that the costs
outweigh the benefits. I commissioned, jointly with the Oregon
Association of County Clerks, a task force to study the 2000 General
Election and make recommendations. A copy of the Oregon Elections Task
Force Report can be found on the Oregon Secretary of State Elections
Division web page at http://www.sos.state.or.us. The task force
concluded that further study of a uniform vote tally system was needed.
I would rank moving to a uniform system well below the need for a
centralized voter registration system and the need to replace punch
cards.
Question 9. Have you studied the impact of using optical-scanning
equipment on site, accessible to your voters, to allow them to correct
mistakenly filled-out ballots? Does this provide an effective
alternative to simple punch-card systems, at a lower cost than other
equipment?
Answer. Since we vote-by-mail, there is not a ``site'' for the vast
majority of voters. Although we do provide drop sites for ballots, many
of those are unstaffed receptacles similar to a blue street-corner
mailbox. There is an additional logistical problem in moving away from
centralized counting. The law requires the clerks to verify each
signature on the ballot envelope prior to opening and counting the
ballot. Decentralizing the counting of ballots would significantly
complicate the verification of signatures and ensuring that the voter
casts only one ballot.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. John McCain to
Ron Thornburgh
Question 1. How do you intend to develop the type of vote counting
system mentioned in your testimony, at the state level? Would you like
to see vote counting added to a list of voluntary national standards,
established at the national level?
Answer.
a. I have introduced legislation in the Kansas Legislature to
improve the vote counting process, particularly in promoting
uniformity in procedures among the counties.
b. I have developed a plan and am seeking state funding to
improve training of county election officers and county boards
of canvassers to promote uniformity in ballot distribution and
tabulation and to reduce errors in these processes.
c. I am developing printed guides to enhance uniform
compliance with existing state laws on vote tabulation,
recounts and election contests.
Some general guidelines at the national level for vote counting
could be useful, but specific rules must be made by states, taking into
account the voting systems used and existing state laws governing the
electoral process.
Question 2. How has Kansas addressed the need for increased funding
for poll worker and voter education, as part of its effort to improve
the election process?
Answer. I have developed a ``Six-Point Plan for Election
Improvement'' in Kansas. I am seeking a modest legislative
appropriation to cover the costs. The Plan includes development of
guides for vote tabulation, training sessions for county election
officers, a four-state Midwest Election Officials Conference (with
Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska), and a technology exposition to
familiarize county election officers with the latest technology
available.
Question 3. In your testimony you mentioned the importance of
ensuring ``equal protection.'' What specific measures have you taken in
Kansas to achieve this goal? And how do you propose other states work
to provide all of their citizens with ``absolute and unobstructed
access to the voting process?''
Answer. When we receive reports that someone has been illegally
denied access to the ballot, my office works with local officials to
investigate those matters and to provide information to local
prosecutors.
When considering new voting equipment for certification, one
consideration is its accessibility. In my experience nearly all the
voting equipment brought to me for certification in Kansas in recent
years has been designed to enhance accessibility for disabled persons.
There has been much improvement in this area in recent years. When
counties consider adopting and purchasing new equipment, my office
emphasizes to them the importance of accessibility in making their
decisions.
I think all states should cooperate with the Federal Election
Commission in the updating of the voting equipment standards. States
must work with various private associations that promote access for
disabled persons to constantly improve access and meet the needs of
disabled persons within the limits of local budgetary concerns.
States must work with their respective local election officers to
continually review their polling sites for accessibility.
Question 4. Would you address the need for a uniform statewide
voting technology, similar to that proposed by Secretaries Cox and
Harris, to ensure equal protection under the Constitution?
Answer. As I stated in my testimony before your Committee, I do not
favor a uniform, one-size-fits-all voting system for the entire nation
or even for the entire state of Kansas. I support the development of
voluntary national standards. Many different voting systems can exist
within a given set of standards, each system complying with those
standards and also meeting the requirements of the respective state
laws.
I support the right of a given locality to choose the system that's
right for that locality from a list of available, certified voting
systems. Each locality is the best judge of its own demographic and
budgetary realities that dictate their decisions.
Question 5. Several witnesses from our second panel testified that
millions of Americans were disenfranchised for reasons such as the
color of their skin or their physical disabilities. Does your state
have systems in place to assess the needs of minority voters, bilingual
voters, or voters with disabilities? Do you have adequate numbers of
trained poll workers to address the varied needs of voters?
Answer. Kansas has specific laws requiring the accommodation of
disabled voters. We do not have specific laws regarding minority voters
or bilingual voters.
Voters do not register their racial or ethnic characteristics or
their disabilities during the voter registration process. Special needs
are assessed at the point where the ballot is requested, either at the
polling place or during the absentee/early voting process. Voters
needing assistance may request it from a poll worker or another person
of the voter's choice.
Kansas has no special rules governing bilingual ballots. We are
subject to federal regulations on this, and to my knowledge no
jurisdictions in Kansas have met the qualifications to require
bilingual ballots.
Our local election offices have adequate numbers of poll workers to
address the varied needs of voters.
Question 6. Have you studied the impact of using optical-scanning
equipment, on site, to allow voters to correct mistakenly filled out
ballots? Does this provide an effective alternative to simple punch-
card systems, at a lower cost than other equipment?
Answer. In Kansas, 81 of 105 counties use optical scanning ballot
systems. Some of them use a central-count system and some use a
precinct-count system. I have thought for years that optical scan
systems are an effective alternative to punch cards. As stated earlier,
we have had no punch card systems in use in Kansas for many years.
Precinct scanning systems do have an advantage of identifying a
mismarked ballot and enabling the voter to correct it. However, a
disadvantage is that such systems require more scanning hardware and
thus have a much higher implementation cost.
The cost of systems is relative to the number of units required,
the number of precincts, and the number of voters per precinct. I am
not aware that optical scan systems are more expensive than punch card
systems.
Question 7. A bipartisan task force in Florida has recommended both
a uniform statewide system and spending $20 million to lease equipment
in time for the 2002 election. Would you please comment on the task
force's recommendation and on how similar actions would impact your
state?
Answer. State laws would have to be changed in Kansas to provide
for a uniform state voting system because current law authorizes the
county to make this decision for itself.
Further, as stated in my testimony I do not support imposing the
same voting system on each state or even on each county and locality
within a state.
A uniform system might be right for Florida; it appears from the
2000 election experience that Florida had less uniformity in voting and
tabulating procedures than did some states.
Question 8. You expressed the need for improved voting equipment
and technology. Is it likely that states will be able to install new
equipment and technology in time for the 2002 or 2004 elections, even
if federal matching funds are made available?
Answer. It is possible to purchase and install new equipment in a
given locality in time for the 2002 election, but we must act now. As a
practical matter, it might make more sense to wait until 2004,
especially in areas which have not experienced serious problems
recently.
Question 9. Beyond simply providing funding, what role do you
believe the federal government should play in this modernization
process? What do you think would be most helpful to states?
Answer. Beyond providing funding, the federal government can
commission ad hoc studies to identify the problems and propose
solutions and can authorize permanent agencies, such as the Federal
Election Commission and the Federal Voting Assistance Program, to
oversee disbursement of funds.
Further, these permanent agencies can update standards for voting
equipment and procedures.
The most helpful type of federal involvement would be to: (1)
provide funds on an ongoing basis with few strings attached, and (2)
consult with state and local election officials to identify needs and
solutions.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. John McCain to
Cathy Cox
Question 1. Many states, including Florida would like to shift to a
uniform electronic voting system.
(a) What evaluation process are you using to determine which
technology is most suitable for your state?
Answer. There are a number of ways we have begun to evaluate
the performance of various election systems, both those
currently in use in Georgia and systems we may wish to deploy
in the future. As mentioned in my testimony, we have spent a
good deal of time evaluating the performance of the four
systems currently in use in Georgia--punch card, opti-scan,
lever machine and paper ballot--and have looked closely at the
question of how likely voters are to cast an accurate ballot
when using the various equipment types. We also have
scrutinized precinct level data to see if we can find patterns
in undervoting by race or geographic region.
Our analysis has also included extensive discussion with county
election officials and others involved in the elections process
and information sharing with other states and counties about
their experience with equipment types. Our conclusion is that
Georgia should adopt a uniform electronic voting system because
we believe it offers the best opportunity to minimize voter
confusion and errors in the computation of votes.
Our election reform legislation, SB 213, which passed the
General Assembly last week, establishes a mandate for uniform
voting equipment by 2004, authorizes a pilot project to field
test different types of equipment in municipal elections this
fall and establishes a 21st Century Voting Commission, a
bipartisan group to assist our office in evaluating the
strengths and weaknesses of machinery from several different
suppliers.
(b) Will you establish minimum performance standards for voting
machines before you purchase them?
Answer. Clearly, any equipment we consider for lease or
purchase must meet certification standards at both the state
and federal level. We also believe, and have written into our
new reform bill, that any new electronic systems we deploy must
have an independent audit trail--a manual printout of voter
choices which will provide a back-up in case of equipment
failure, election contest or recount, etc.
(c) How will you prioritize the order in which precincts
receive new or refurbished machines?
Answer. The order and speed of equipment replacement will be
extremely dependent on the status of state and federal funding.
While we will ask the new Voting Commission to examine this
question, we anticipate that top priority will be given to
counties that currently use punch card ballots.
(d) What is the projected total cost to the State of Georgia?
Answer. Cost estimates for the purchase of equipment statewide
have ranged from $20 to $200 million. In a leasing arrangement
the cost structure would vary considerably. Our new reform
package provides that the state will acquire equipment, but
counties and municipalities will be responsible for certain
infrastructure expenditures (electricity, phone lines, etc.) to
effectively deploy the equipment we acquire.
Question 2. Have you studied the benefits of using optical-scanning
equipment on site, to allow voters to correct mistakenly filled-out
ballots? Does this provide an effective alternative to simple punch-
card systems, at a lower cost than other equipment? How does having
opti-scan machines on-site affect the undervotes percentage rates?
Answer. While many of the counties that operate precinct-based
optical scan equipment have the capability to program their machines to
reject overvoted ballots, in practice few, if any, counties actually do
so. County election officials have indicated they believe such a
practice would create delay and confusion, with electors being put back
into lines for ballots in an already crowded precinct. Such ballot
``kick out'' capabilities, even if utilized, do not allow an elector to
correct an accidentally undervoted ballot.
In Georgia, we have found that the alleged benefits of the ballot
rejection feature of precinct scanners are not typically realized in
the real world of elections. This practice also presents significant
problems for the secrecy of the ballot selection, since a poll worker
will nearly always need to examine the ballot to be able to describe to
the voter what caused the ballot to be kicked out. It is simply not a
practical solution to tell an elector--``Your ballot was rejected, I
cannot tell you why, you need to start over with your voting.''
All optiscan equipment, however it may be configured, lacks two
capabilities of the electronic equipment we prefer. It does not
prohibit overvoting at the time the choices are being made, and it does
not provide feedback to the voter, with confirmation screens to verify
choices, during the voting process. No opti-scan equipment in use in
Georgia will indicate to the voter that they cast an accidental
undervote.
The presidential undervote percentages for the two types of
optiscan systems in Georgia are as follows:
Central Count Optiscan--46 counties
Absolute average: 3.5 percent
Mean average: 4.2 percent
Precinct Count Optiscan--21 counties
Absolute average: 2.1 percent
Mean average: 5.2 percent
While the absolute percentage of undervote is lower in precinct
count locations, there is wide variation in performance from county to
county. In fact, 9 of the 21 precinct count optiscan counties had
undervote rates of 5 percent or higher, including rates of 6.2 percent,
6.4 percent, 7.7 percent, 9.1 percent and 15 percent in five respective
counties.
Question 3. You expressed the need for improved voting equipment
and technology. Is it likely that states will be able to install new
equipment and technology in time for the 2002 or 2004 elections, even
if federal matching funds are made available?
Answer. With federal matching funds in hand, we believe it is
feasible to begin deployment of new equipment in some counties by 2002,
but we certainly do not expect the process to be completed that soon.
The legislation recently enacted sets as our goal full deployment, in
all 159 counties, by July of 2004. That is an ambitious goal, but one
we believe can be achieved if budget dollars are made available.
Question 4. Beyond simply providing funding, what role do you
believe the federal government should play in this modernization
process? What do you think would be most helpful to states?
Answer. The federal government can play a valuable role in
assisting states in the testing and evaluation of equipment--that which
is currently available on the market and that which will be entering
the marketplace in the future. Our admittedly limited analysis of the
racial disparities in undervoting, (although we believe more
comprehensive than that performed by any other state election official)
and the influence that voting equipment has on those variations, points
to the need for a much more comprehensive national evaluation of the
impact of equipment on successful voter participation. This component
of Senator McCain's bill would be especially helpful going forward. We
need to apply the Nation's best, most sophisticated analytical
resources to study not only issues of speed, accuracy and ballot
security, but also how the voter interface impacts different
populations of voters.
Question 5. While you spoke at length about the need for improved
technology, you did not mention the need for improved voter and poll
worker education. Is this a concern in Georgia? What steps are you
taking to address this need?
Answer. Although my testimony did not touch on this issue, please
note that our January 2001 report, The 2000 Election: A Wake-Up Call
For Reform and Change, which was submitted to the Committee, discusses
these issues at considerable length. Technology alone will not produce
the more fair and more accurate elections we desire. In Georgia, as in
most states, serious problems exist with the recruitment, training and
retention of poll workers. Our report, while offering no ``magic
bullet,'' offers several suggestions to strengthen the ``people side''
of elections--from recruiting teachers and high school students to work
at the polls, to mandating training for poll workers and producing
standardized training materials to better prepare them for the demands
of election day, to expanding outreach efforts and encouraging more
participation by statewide associations, civic clubs and youth groups.
Additionally, the Georgia General Assembly just passed legislation that
we sponsored to increase the training requirement for election
officials from 12 hours biennially to 12 hours annually. Increased
training is also set forthestablished for poll workers and deputy
registrars.
Much more also must be done to educate electors on how to vote a
valid and accurate ballot. Today, such efforts are nearly impossible
because of the crazy quilt of differing voting systems deployed in
Georgia's 159 counties. One of the greatest virtues of a new uniform
system will be our ability to broadly and clearly communicate to
voters, well before election day, exactly how the equipment works, what
they will be asked to do when they arrive at the polling place and how
they can be sure their electoral choice is accurately tabulated.
Question 6. You mentioned that it doesn't take an election expert
to know that when you have more than 1 in 10 ballots register no
choice, something is seriously wrong with the system. Did Georgia have
similar high numbers of undervotes in previous elections? What was done
to address the problem?
Answer. We arrive at our presidential undervote numbers by
subtracting the total number of votes cast in that race in a county or
precinct from the total number of ballots issued in that county or
precinct. The ``apples to apples'' comparison to assess whether
undervote rates were higher, lower or the same in previous elections
would be 1996. Unfortunately, the statewide ``ballots issued'' data was
not compiled until 1998, so we simply cannot say how the 2000 election
experience compares with previous presidential years. It is certainly
our belief that the problem of unacceptably high undervoting is not
new, but we do not have the data to confirm that belief.
Question 7. Several witnesses from our second panel testified that
millions of Americans were disenfranchised for reasons based on the
color of their skin or their physical disabilities. Does your state
have systems in place to assess the needs of voters from minority,
bilingual, or disabled communities? Do you have adequate numbers of
trained poll workers to address the varied needs of voters?
Answer. As I noted in my testimony, our data indicates that
undervoting is more common in predominantly African-American precincts.
However, the data does not bear out the claim made by some that only
areas of high minority population have severe problems with casting
accurate ballots. In Georgia we saw very high undervoting rates in
areas with very small minority populations as well as counties with
more diverse populations.
One of the mandates for the new 21st Century Voting Commission will
be to assess the impact of elections systems on all of the communities
referenced in your question. We do not have enough trained poll workers
today to address the varied needs of voters. We also do not have
systems that can be easily configured to accommodate the needs of the
disabled and those who do not read English well. We believe the
electronic equipment, or DRE's, we plan to deploy provide much more
attractive options to accommodate the needs of the disabled and
language minorities.
Question 8. A bipartisan task force in Florida has recommended both
a uniform statewide system and spending $20 million to lease equipment
in time for the 2002 election. Would you please comment on the task
force's recommendation and how similar actions would impact your state?
Answer. As a fundamental principle I think the people of Florida
should craft solutions that best meet the needs of their state, and
Georgia should do the same. For our state, I believe an interim measure
that would adopt optiscan as a temporary uniform solution would be
unwise, because of the high error rates experienced in many current
optiscan counties and the higher undervote gap between black and white
voters in these areas. A uniform statewide system is not just
desirable, it is mandatory, and with the passage of our reform package
Georgia may be the first state in the nation to enact legislation that
mandates a uniform system by 2004. We also hope to move toward a new
system of voting equipment only once--i.e., we do not wish to educate
Georgia's four million voters about one type of equipment in one
election, and then do so again two years later for another type of
equipment.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. John McCain to
John Bollinger
Question 1. Last summer Senator Harkin and I requested that GAO
conduct a study to determine the number of disabled Americans who were
disenfranchised during the November 2000 election. Although the results
from that study will not be released until this spring, I am interested
to learn if PVA or the National Organization on Disability conducted
their own review?
Answer. PVA did not do an independent study of its members after
the election. The National Organization on Disability did sponsor a
poll conducted by Lou Harris after the election. That poll found that
during the 2000 election, only 14 million of the 35 million people with
disabilities of voting age voted. Only 62 percent of eligible people
with disabilities are registered to vote, as opposed to 78 percent of
the general population.
Question 2. Would you describe the typical voting experience of
Americans with physical disabilities? How is the process different for
visually impaired voters? Do all disabled voters receive the same
protection under the law?
Answer. The voting experience for Americans with physical
disabilities can be quite challenging. If there are no physical
barriers to entry such as lack of accessible parking, accessible
signage, unramped stairs, or raised thresholds, the person could enter
the polling place. The ability to cast a ballot independently often
depends on the person's disability and/or the voting mechanism. People
with severe upper body or extremity limitations may have difficulty
reaching and operating a ballot machine. Flat surfaces for writing or
filling out forms may be too high for voters using wheelchairs. Blind
and visually impaired voters rarely have audio descriptions of the
ballot and/or machine. Without this guidance, the voter must rely on
the assistance of others, a companion, poll worker or stranger. There
is no guarantee that the vote has been cast as per the voter's
instruction.
Furthermore poll workers sometimes draw attention to the voter with
a disability by trying to provide special assistance. Escorting voters
with any disability to the front of the line or to the voting booth is
not uncommon. Loud or unnecessary explanations may be well intentioned,
but bring unwanted focus to the voter. And oral repetition of the
directions of a voter who needs assistance eliminates any possibility
of privacy.
Under current law, only those with physical disabilities have a
limited course of action under the Voting Accessibility for the Elderly
and Handicapped Act of 1984 (VAEHA). Section 504 of the Rehabilitation
Act would apply in any election operated with the assistance of federal
funds, and Title II of the ADA applies to state and local elections.
These latter two laws have ``program access'' as a standard. This has
been open to interpretation and could still allow such practices as
curbside voting and poll worker assistance.
Question 3. Would you explain the advantages of Oregon's vote-by-
mail system for citizens with physical disabilities? What other states
serve as good role models? What types of voting technologies are most
effective for your constituents?
Answer. The primary advantage of a vote by mail system is that all
voters are using the same method of casting their ballots. Everyone has
the time to make their decisions and all ballots are cast in the
location of the voter's choice. The downside of this system is that
print or punch card ballots limit the ability of a voter with limited
use of hands or a voter with a vision impairment to vote independently.
In September, 1999, the Texas Election Code was amended by adding
Section 81 .55--Adoption of Accessible Voting Systems. This section
requires voting systems to comply with Section 504 of the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title II of the Americans with
Disabilities Act. Other states recognize that they still have physical
barriers at the polls. North Carolina, for instance, recognizes the
importance of accessible polling places and has done much to educate
their jurisdictions and poll workers.
PVA does not endorse one voting system or another. We have not
taken a survey of our members to determine which voting machine best
suits our members. We do note that the ADA Accessibility Guidelines (28
CFR Part 36, Appendix A) provides guidelines for accessibility,
including reach ranges, operating mechanisms, clear floor space, etc.
Question 4. You mentioned that many barriers for Americans with
physical disabilities are not insurmountable. Do you have any specific
thoughts or comments regarding how to lower the costs of ensuring that
voting locations are compliant with ADA?
Answer. Under the VAEHA, (sec. 3. (a)) . . . ``Each political
subdivision responsible for conducting federal elections shall assure
that all polling places are accessible to the elderly and
handicapped.'' If the polling place has significant physical barriers,
the polling place should be moved to an accessible facility. Relocating
polls happens all the time for other reasons and can be done at no
cost.
However, if no accessible polling place is available, then the poll
should remove barriers. According to the final FEC oversight report (9/
13/94), many of the barriers at the polls were unramped stairs and
thresholds, lack of accessible parking and directional signage to the
accessible entrance. Restriping parking lots, installing ramps and
improving signage are simple, inexpensive solutions that the ADA
requires of most places of public accommodation. The Department of
Justice provides technical assistance; this is available on their
website at http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/publicat.htm. Publications
specifically on barrier removal, parking spaces, small businesses and
small towns, and tax incentives, provide information on compliance with
the ADA. The Job Accommodation Network (800-526-7234) also provides
advice on simple solutions for barrier removal. Though the Job
Accommodation Network is geared towards employment of people with
disabilities, it has a wealth of information on general and specific
accommodations. Information can be found at http://
janweb.icdi.wvu.edu/.
Question 5. You mentioned in your statement that legislation could
not overcome ``attitudinal problems.'' How much of the overall voting
challenges for physically disabled Americans can you attribute to
attitudinal problems?
Answer. Again, PVA has not formally studied the problems our
members encounter in voting. Attitudinal problems affect people with
disabilities in many situations. Most people with disabilities can
relate stories of being spoken to loudly and slowly. Well-meaning
people often talk to the companion of the individual with a disability,
or will physically take hold of an individual. In voting, such actions
isolate and draw attention to the voter who is trying to carry out an
extremely private process.
Failure to remove architectural barriers may be caused by attitudes
and assumptions by election officers with decision-making authority.
For instance, voters with disabilities are often encouraged to vote by
absentee ballot or at curbside. A few steps may not be perceived to be
a barrier if assistance is available to carry a voter up into the
polling place. And if personal assistance is available to those unable
to complete the voting process independently, efforts are not likely to
be undertaken to find a solution that allows independent voting.
These problems can most often be resolved by training that focuses
on respect for the individual and his/her privacy in the voting
process. Publications on disability etiquette are available at http://
www.jan.wvu.edu/media/etipresent.html and http://www.epva.org/
Videos_Publications/publication_tab.htm. Many local disability related
organizations would be willing to assist in this training free of
charge.
______
Responses to Written Submitted by Hon. John McCain to
Mary Jane O'Gara
Question 1. In your prepared testimony, you refer to emerging
technologies which can protect against fraud and bias by instantly
verifying voter registration status. Is this technology currently
available? If so, are any states employing it?
Answer. The technology to verify voter registration currently
exists and is used by several states, including Georgia, as was
mentioned in the statement of the Georgia Secretary of State. AARP has
not undertaken a formal study of how many states employ such
technology. The same technology is commonly used by such enterprises as
car washes where customers pay in advance and are given a printed code
that is entered into a code box as verification of payment prior to
moving their vehicles into the wash facility. Similarly, officially
registered individuals could be assigned such codes to authenticate
their registration, especially when recent registrants have not
received registration cards through the mail.
Question 2. Are you concerned that states may gradually adopt new
voting machines with state-of-the-art technology which are not be user-
friendly to the elderly? What types of new technology would
disadvantage your members?
Answer. AARP is not overly concerned that state-of-the-art
technology will be unfriendly for older voters, but we believe it
important to remind innovators of the special requirements of older and
disabled voters as they design new systems. Innovations should address
problems related to print size, print contrast, and keyboard comfort,
and polling stations should be adjustable for voters with vision,
hearing and ambulatory impairments--or special stations to address
these needs should be available.
Question 3. What is your opinion of Oregon's Vote-by-Mail system?
Were the ballots designed sufficiently for people with visual and other
disabilities?
Answer. AARP has not reviewed the Oregon Vote-by-Mail system. With
regard to the ballot design, we have heard some complaints about the
Oregon ballot posing difficulty for persons with both visual and
physical impairments, but lacking a careful review, AARP does not have
any recommendations or position at this time.
Question 4. You expressed in your written testimony that the ``most
significant demonstrated problems'' should receive priority for any
available federal funds. How would you define the ``most significant
demonstrated problems?''
Answer. AARP has not specifically defined the most significant
voting problems. Ideally, an objective, national body would be
commissioned to study the problems we outlined on the first page of the
AARP statement. That body should propose methods and procedures for
measuring and weighting various impediments in the voting process. The
commissioned body would be positioned to identify and suggest problems
to be addressed with the federal funds available to states for state-
selected priorities.
Question 5. You mentioned the need for ``objective monitoring'' of
new voting technologies. Will this type of monitoring prevent
programmer manipulation and hacking? Will it require extensive training
of those responsible for monitoring the voting system? Will smaller and
poorer voting areas be more vulnerable due to a lack of skilled
personnel in those areas?
Answer. Objective monitoring is critical to being able to ascertain
whether any manipulation has occurred and address accusations of
partisan or other special interest manipulation. Unfortunately, it is
virtually impossible to design a system that cannot be manipulated or
``hacked.'' Still, that should not be a deterrent to innovation.
Although training would be required for a core cadre of professionals
responsible for monitoring and evaluating the technology itself, those
persons would not necessarily be the same as those responsible for
monitoring and overseeing elections administration. Indeed, when the
individuals responsible for maintaining and protecting the integrity of
the technology are relatively objective technocrats, their services can
be made available to any area or community regardless of the location
or the voters' ethnicity, race, religion, language or education level.
The need for technical expertise ought not be burdened with a residency
requirement.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. John McCain to
Raul Yzaguirre
Question 1. What new technologies do you think offer the best
approach for addressing the specific needs of bilingual and multi-
lingual communities?
Answer. We do not claim expertise on this subject.
Question 2. What role do you think improved voter and poll worker
education plays in improving the access of minority communities to the
election process?
Answer. We believe education for both voters and poll workers is a
key component to improve accessibility of minority voters to the
election process. Education would benefit voters by reducing the
likelihood of intimidation and encouraging participation. It also
equips poll workers with voting rights knowledge that would facilitate
their job on Election Day and prevent them from inadvertently engaging
in unlawful discrimination. However, we also believe that vigorous
enforcement is needed to punish violations of the Voting Rights Act.
Question 3. In your testimony, you mentioned complications which
may arise from cross referencing registered voters and voter
registration applicants against Social Security and INS data bases.
Would you suggest an alternative method, or methods, which you believe
would be more effective?
Answer. We are not persuaded that major new procedures are, in
fact, needed to verify citizenship status. Current law authorizes any
number of officials to challenge the eligibility of any voter, provided
that the voter is allowed to use a provisional ballot and the question
is resolved after-the-fact. This permits time, for example, for newly-
naturalized citizens to present their certificate of naturalization, or
for native-born citizens to find and present their birth certificate.
In addition, larger investigations are entirely appropriate where there
is probable cause that widespread fraud may be taking place. The
problem with attempts to authorize pre-voting verification systems is
that well-documented errors and inconsistencies in these databases will
inevitably bar eligible persons from voting. For example, an initial
computer match of the INS database with Orange County's voter
registration lists purportedly revealed ``tens of thousands'' of
questionable voters, according to a widely-cited House Administration
Committee press release. After the records were checked manually, it
turned out that at worst a dozen or so citizens mistakenly registered
to vote after they had completed the naturalization process but before
they were sworn in. In the absence of a single study, or a single civil
or criminal court proceeding, which has produced documented evidence of
a major problem, and given the massive potential disenfranchisement
inherent in pre-voting computer match schemes, we do not believe there
is any rational basis for enacting any new ``ballot integrity''
proposal.
Question 4. Are there any existing lawsuits filed by La Raza or
other Latino organizations which challenge as individual state's
compliance with the Fifteenth Amendment?
Answer. We have not filed any lawsuits. We understand that the
Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF) is in the
process of developing litigation in a number of counties in Florida
which violated the Voting Rights Act, the National Voter Registration
Act, and/or Florida state law. They are currently assisting individual
voters with evaluating where to file complaints under the law.
Question 5. Do you believe that Latino voters who were turned away
at the polls this past November, when they arrived between 15 and 25
minutes before official closing time, were singled out because of the
color of their skin? Were Caucasians allowed to vote if they arrived at
the same time? What evidence do you have to affirm this statement?
Answer. We understand that PRLDEF is still compiling evidence in
preparation for potential litigation. Based on the research and
statements cited in our testimony, in at least some cases Latino and
Asian voters were singled out for discrimination--not solely on skin
color but also based on surnames and speech accents.
Question 6. What do you believe is the largest impediment, for the
Latino community, in the voting process?
Answer. For those who already have obtained citizenship, the
barriers experienced by Latinos are similar to other groups--poverty,
education attainment, etc. For a significant number of Hispanic
citizens whose first language is not English, lack of language-
accessible voter education, registration, and ballots deter many from
casting their vote.
Question 7. Beyond the specific examples cited from New York and
Florida, in what other states have you received complaints from
minority communities? Do New York and Florida appear to be the worst
cases?
Answer. We believe New York and Florida may be the worst cases
based on the evidence we received, although as we noted in out
statement, we suspect similarities in other states.
Question 8. Are there currently any voting systems, across the
country, which you would cite as model programs for the way in which
they address the needs of the minority and minority language
communities? If so, how do you think we can best implement those
lessons elsewhere?
Answer. We do not claim expertise on this subject.
Question 9. During your testimony, you mentioned problems with
language translation. Given the current discussion on establishing
statewide uniform voting systems, how important is it the new systems
are multi-lingual?
Answer. Multilingual technology is essential in guaranteeing
accessibility and participation of all language minority voters. We
believe that any new technology should take into account the needs of
limited-English-proficient citizens.
In addition, it may be appropriate to discuss here the continuing
need for language assistance in the electoral process. Some well-
intentioned but uninformed persons have questioned the need for such
assistance, asserting that since the naturalization process requires
foreign-born persons to demonstrate some level of proficiency in
English, language assistance is unnecessary. They further assert that
jurisdictions are incapable of providing appropriate assistance given
the nation's increasing diversity. There are several problems with this
line of argument. First, several categories of persons--including those
persons over a certain age who have lived in the U.S. for a lengthy
period--are exempt from the English language requirement. Second,
current law specifically notes that naturalization applicants are
expected to have a ``basic'' understanding of English and civics. Given
the growing complexity of the language of ballot propositions in most
jurisdictions, we believe it makes sense to have oral assistance and/or
bilingual ballots to help assure that naturalized citizens fully
understand the issues they are being asked to address. Similarly, many
naturalized citizens have low levels of education and literacy, even in
their native language; in these cases, the availability of oral
assistance is essential. Finally, the Voting Rights Act and state-local
laws authorizing language assistance do not create an individual voter
entitlement to such assistance. Most such laws require language
assistance only in jurisdictions with significant concentrations of
language minorities, usually based on Census data. In other words, the
law requires language assistance only where it is cost-effective. In
this context, we believe it is vitally important the electoral reform
supports, and does not undermine, the ability of citizens whose native
language may not be English to participate in the voting process.