[House Hearing, 108 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, JUNE 17, 2004
__________
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COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION
BOB NEY, Ohio, Chairman
VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
JOHN L. MICA, Florida Ranking Minority Member
JOHN LINDER, Georgia JUANITA MILLENDER-McDONALD,
JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California California
THOMAS M. REYNOLDS, New York ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania
Professional Staff
Paul Vinovich, Staff Director
George Shevlin, Minority Staff Director
ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION
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THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 2004
House of Representatives,
Committee on House Administration,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 11:05 a.m., in Room
1310, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Robert W. Ney
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Ney, Ehlers, Linder, Doolittle,
Larson, Millender-McDonald, and Brady.
Also present: Representative Hoyer.
Staff present: Paul Vinovich, Staff Director; Matt
Petersen, Counsel; George F. Shevlin, Minority Staff Director;
Thomas Hicks, Minority Professional Staff; Matt Pinkus,
Minority Professional Staff; and Charles Howell, Minority Chief
Counsel.
The Chairman. The committee will come to order. The
committee is meeting today to hear from all four members of the
Election Assistance Commission regarding the implementation of
the Help America Vote Act of 2002.
It has now been 20 months since the Congress voted
overwhelmingly in favor of, and President Bush signed into law
the Help America Vote Act, known as HAVA.
I am proud to have been the chief architect of what I think
was a very historic bipartisan legislation. Legislation that
holds the potential to fundamentally improve the health of our
Nation's democracy and strengthen the right of every eligible
citizen to cast an accurate ballot, and have that ballot
counted--providing much needed resources to States and
localities in putting into place safeguards to protect the
integrity of our elections process.
HAVA will help ensure that our democratic republic has
election systems in which its citizens can have confidence and
pride. As we have always said, we make it easier to vote and
harder to cheat.
At the core of HAVA are three primary components. There is
much more to the bill, but, first, HAVA establishes a
bipartisan, four-member Federal agency: the Elections
Assistance Commission, known as the EAC, whose purpose is to
help States and localities implement HAVA's provisions by
developing voluntary standards and guidance, issuing studies
and reports on various election-related issues and serving as a
clearinghouse for best-election-administration practices.
I think that the motto when we created it is that we are
here from the government and we are here to help. I think that
the energy level and the idea that was crafted into the written
part of the law is becoming reality through the citizens that
are serving on this commission. I think that has been the tone
of the law and the tone of our commissioners.
Second, HAVA establishes new voter rights, providing for
second-chance voting, provisional ballots and enhanced access
for individuals with disabilities, specifies new voting system
standards, obligates first-time voters who register by mail to
provide some form of identification before casting their
ballots, requires each State to implement a computerized State-
wide voter registration database, and sets requirements for
certain voting information to be publicly posted at every
polling place.
And, third, HAVA authorizes $3.86 billion in election
reform spending to assist States and localities in meeting
their new obligations under this law. This is the first time
that Federal funds have been made available to assist State and
local Governments in shouldering their election administration
responsibilities.
So far, Congress has appropriated roughly $3 billion out of
that total amount authorized by HAVA. The EAC is responsible
for distributing the bulk of these funds, and there is still
some more to go and we are always working toward making sure
this is not an unfunded Federal mandate. Again, there are a few
people I definitely want to publicly thank for that.
Through the Help America Vote Act, I think we have achieved
a landmark legislative achievement in which Members of Congress
may continue to make tremendous strides with legislation we can
take pride in. We also realize that HAVA's passage represented
a beginning, not an end.
Once President Bush put his signature on HAVA, the heavy
lifting began. We are therefore privileged, I believe today, to
have with us all four EAC commissioners. I want to thank all
four of you for being here to provide us with details on the
heavy lifting that is currently going on, because you all are
doing that heavy lifting. Please give us your thoughts, your
comments, positive and negative, whatever you want to say
today, so that we can have a review.
In the half-year since the commissioners were installed in
their current position, they have been confronted with a large
number of tasks. For instance, the EAC has been responsible for
distributing approximately $2.3 billion in payments to the
States to assist them in meeting the requirements. Moreover,
the EAC has had to deal with the issues of electronic voting
systems security, which has been the subject of a great deal of
media attention.
I will also note that we will have another hearing that
will deal with a wide variety of issues, including electronic
voting systems security and other issues we need to talk about
with HAVA and how it is implemented. So I expect advocacy
groups, people with interest, to be here as we will schedule it
with our ranking Member's office in a short period of time.
The first public hearing conducted by the Commission
related specifically to that issue--the voting systems
security. And the chairman recently issued a series of
recommendations for maintaining the integrity of electronic
voting systems. We look forward to receiving more information
about that issue and of course also during this hearing.
We are also very interested in hearing how well States and
localities are doing in implementing the HAVA requirements that
went into effect this year, as well as those that will go into
effect in the 2006 election cycle. Thus, it is our hope that
today's hearings will provide an opportunity for the Members of
this committee to become more informed about the current status
of HAVA's implementation as well as to learn more about the
issues and challenges currently facing the EAC.
And in summing up before I close--and the timing of
Congressman Hoyer, the Democratic Whip, is very perfect.
Actually, I was going to make some comments and tell you I said
good things, but now you will be here to hear them.
But I said earlier I wanted to conclude with something.
This was a bill, frankly, that Congressman Hoyer approached me
on and said, ``We need to do something,'' and everybody talked
about the hanging and dimpled chads that were talked about.
This--it looked at that issue, but it went far beyond that.
It became a piece of legislation that--I don't want to miss
anybody, but it just, I think, generated into a wonderful
situation.
My secretary of state, Ken Blackwell, got together with
other secretary of states, such as Secretary of State Priest,
and many others were involved; Connie McCormick on the Board of
Elections, and a lot of other people involved with advocacy
groups. They came forward to bring their input to the table,
groups that cared about voting, groups that cared about
disenfranchisement.
The issues went far, far, far beyond a hanging chad, and
Congressman Hoyer had the diligence. He worked with us.
Congressman Blunt was another Member that put a lot of time
into it, and on an overwhelming bipartisan basis, Congressman
Conyers was involved. We passed this on the floor of the House,
went to the conference committee, and through Senator Chris
Dodd, Senator McConnell, Senator Bond, and other Members of the
Senate, we finalized this bill.
It was a bill that had a real conference committee.
Congressman Hoyer can tell you that. I mean, we really had one
where we sat until 5 o'clock in the morning. Members
participated and the staffs worked diligently, and some people
said, ``Why it is taking so long?'' It was a very complicated
bill, and we didn't want to get it wrong. We envisioned,
without knowing what your names would be, what the Board would
be like. We felt that the way the Board was structured, you
could put decent people onto it, it could be appointed, and we
could begin this process.
I want to thank Congressman Larson for his support of that
bill but also, as ranking member, for his ongoing support to
work with us.
I think this hearing is important, and the next hearing we
are going to have will also be important. This is our ability
as a Congress to listen to what you have to say, to see how the
bill is progressing, to see where we need to step in or where
we need to not interfere, what we can do, and basically how
everything is going.
I am going to stop with that and yield to our ranking
member. But, again, I want to thank all of the Members of our
committee for being here, Congressman Larson for following
through with this, as his responsibility as ranking member to
oversee Federal election law.
But, again, we couldn't be here if it wasn't for
Congressman Hoyer. He was our partner on this committee for
quite a while, on this bill, led the charge, had the integrity,
and wanted to do what was right. That is why I think it was a
good model with a great working relationship on this bill. I am
just very pleased to be here.
With that, I will yield to our ranking member, Mr. Larson.
Mr. Larson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me, at the outset,
associate myself with your remarks and add to the accolades,
first and foremost, to recognize the enormous legacy that HAVA
has created. And it is a demonstration of what bipartisan
cooperation can yield. Both you and our distinguished
Democratic whip deserve a tremendous amount of credit for the
way in which you marshaled the resources, the energy and the
votes to make this come to fruition.
It is a hallmark, in terms of what it means and how we can
function and operate as an institution. More importantly, I
can't think of a more important and essential function than
securing the franchise of our citizens.
I would also like to acknowledge all of our distinguished
panelists. Indeed, you know, we are pinning our hopes on your
great integrity, your zeal, and your desire to carry out the
mandate of HAVA.
And that is why, Mr. Chairman, these hearings are so
vitally important. And again, I commend you. I know of your
deep concern to make sure that we have a body of law that is
functional and working. And I have written remarks that I would
like to submit for the record.
[The statement of Mr. Larson follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Without objection.
Mr. Larson. I am very interested in hearing the testimony
from the commissioners.
I am also very concerned about a couple of articles that
appeared in the New York Times and editorials that I have read
in the past week. But I would like to submit them for the
record.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Without objection.
Mr. Larson. And also a response by the American Association
for the People of Disabilities.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Larson. And at some point, I would like to hear from
the commissioners, if you are familiar with those articles, to
get your personal response.
I want to say that I have personally met with Members of
the civil rights and disabilities communities and heard from
concerned citizens around the country pertaining to voting
issues.
I would like to hear clarification from our Commissioners
on where the EAC is on making sure that this and future
elections run as smoothly as possible. The Nation obviously is
watching very closely. And I am concerned at where the
commission is on providing to the States best practices on
provisional ballots, the new voter ID requirements, voter
registration lists, absentee ballots, military and overseas
voters and absentee ballots as well.
I also hope to hear from the commissioners concerning
funding issues, particularly in the area of research and
development of new voting equipment and procedures.
One of the hallmarks of HAVA is that it does not mandate
voting equipment. We don't know what technology tomorrow might
bring. Today's cutting-edge technology could be tomorrow's
museum piece.
I am further interested in whether or not there is
sufficient funding for your partnership with the National
Institute for Standards and Technology and for the HAVA
mandated reports and studies and equally as important, the
funding levels of the EAC itself.
I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, again for conveying this
important hearing. I want to thank our distinguished majority
whip, who I know has a deep concern and vested interest in this
issue as well, for availing himself and joining us this morning
as well. And I look forward to the testimony from our
commissioners.
The Chairman. Well, I thank the ranking member.
Also the ranking Member has asked for unanimous consent
that Congressman Hoyer be able to participate in this hearing.
Without objection. Congressman Hoyer is more than welcome to
participate in this hearing.
Any opening statements?
Mr. Doolittle. No.
Mr. Linder. No.
Mr. Brady. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Just briefly.
I guess I need to note for the record, I am a party
chairman in the City of Philadelphia, have been for the last 20
years. My main responsibility on election day is any and all.
Anything that has anything to do with election day operations,
I am responsible for it.
That includes poll workers, election day workers, a place
to poll, a physical place where the machines can go and the
responsibility for getting the machines there and, at the end
of the day, responsibility to make sure that they are totaled
up and the votes that were cast were cast properly and for the
right person.
My main interest is in fairness. And probably more so than
that, a lot more so than fairness, but also is accessibility to
every voter that has a right to vote, that should have a right
to vote, make it as easy as possible for them to vote.
In our modern day, with the voting process as it is, we
don't get enough participation as it is. We are not like in
some countries, where they get 100 percent participation, or
most, where they get lined up to vote. We have to--we have a
problem with people, when they register, to actually get them
out to vote and vote for whoever they want to vote for.
And I think the main thing you need to make much more
easier--I understand that there are some fail-safes that we
have to put into place to make sure that nothing happens, that
the vote is done accurately and, again, not to have what my
good chairman had made reference to, the hanging chads or the
pregnant chads.
I didn't even know what a chad was until the Florida
election. But we just need to make sure that--not to be so
zealous in making sure that we hinder people when they come out
to vote, make sure it is accessible. We want to let them know
that we are there to try to make sure that they can have their
vote cast properly the way that they decide to have it done.
I thank the Chairman and ranking Member for having this
hearing, bringing it to light, and letting people know that we
are interested, that we do want to make sure that it is done in
a bipartisan fashion, and it is done in fairness.
And as always, I would like to thank Steny Hoyer for all of
his participation, having hearings. We had hearings in the City
of Philadelphia, which he conducted, to make sure that all of
our citizens that are eligible can vote in a proper way. So
thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Other opening statements?
Mr. Hoyer. Mr. Chairman, first of all, thank you.
I want to thank the committee for giving me this
opportunity to participate with you. I enjoyed very much my
service with Bob Ney. Bob has indicated that we considered this
in a bipartisan fashion. That was absolutely correct.
In fact, in the last Congress, the speaker and Leader
Gephardt both pointed to this as the best symbol of bipartisan
working together, both in the House, particularly in the House,
and I think in the Senate as well.
It was a historic bill. It was a historic civil rights
bill. It was a historic federalism bill. From 1789 to 2002,
essentially the Federal Government did not contribute at all to
the management or conducting of Federal elections. Clearly, the
States and localities funded their own elections, but they also
funded our elections.
As a result of it being easy to defer technological
advances in the election process and expenditures for election
administration, to some degree they became the stepchild of
State and local Government funding. One of the things that HAVA
did was to refocus the necessity, and the 2000 election, of
course, focused us, not just in Florida but throughout the
country, on the necessity of having a system in what we believe
is the world's greatest democracy that assured its citizens of
access and accuracy and confidence in their vote.
We made a number of changes. And, Mr. Chairman, I want to
thank you for having this hearing and subsequent hearings. In
fact, Mr. Larson and Mr. Brady, and Mr. Linder and Mr.
Doolittle and other Members of this committee--Mr. Ehlers is
not here, but he made a very valuable contribution to HAVA in
ensuring that NIST was a partner in the process of determining
not what we would mandate but the advice and counsel that we
would give to States and localities on the technology that was
available to run elections.
I believe that the commission, although for no fault of
your own, you started very late, has been very vigorous in the
undertaking of your responsibilities. I am working with Mr. Ney
and Mr. Istook and Senator McConnell and Senator Lott to assure
that we get you some more money pretty quickly. And Mr. Ney and
I have been talking about that.
But I want to congratulate you for undertaking your
responsibilities with a great deal of vigor and a great deal of
responsibility.
Mr. Chairman, I had the opportunity to read your statement
that you made in Maryland. I talked to Linda Lamone about that
statement. I think you made some very good suggestions.
We obviously have some controversy. We have some
controversy in California and throughout the country about the
new technology, the DREs, the computer voting, touch screens
and whether or not we can assure the fact that they will be
credible reporters of the decisions that citizens make. That
obviously is an important question for us to resolve so the
confidence of voters can be established.
In addition, one of the very important things we did, Mr.
Chairman, as you know, is that more people were disenfranchised
because of registration problems than were disenfranchised
because of technical difficulties in the voting process.
And one of the things we have done, as you know, is to
provide for Statewide registration with local election
interface, critically important. That will not be accomplished
by this election. And, indeed, technological change will not be
accomplished. But, we have a great responsibility to act as
vigorously as possible so that, in the next few months, come
September there will be a much greater confidence level in the
media, in the groups, with the disabilities group to assure
that they have access, which has been denied to them.
One of the hallmarks of the American democracy is the
secret ballot. And too many of those with disabilities were
denied that secret ballot. Technology now allows that. And we
need to assure it.
So, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for giving me this
opportunity to participate with you.
Commissioners, thank you very much for pursuing this. And
together, I think we will see that HAVA resulted in a much
better system in which our citizens much greater confidence.
Thank you.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
STATEMENTS OF HON. DeFOREST B. SOARIES, JR., CHAIRMAN, ELECTION
ASSISTANCE COMMISSION; HON. GRACIA HILLMAN, VICE CHAIR; HON.
PAUL DeGREGORIO, COMMISSIONER; HON. RAY MARTINEZ, COMMISSIONER
The Chairman. We will get to why we are here today, first
by introducing Commissioner DeForest B. Soaries, current
chairman of the EAC.
Commissioner Gracia Hillman, current EAC vice chair.
Commissioner Paul DeGregorio, Republican Member of the EAC, and
Commissioner Ray Martinez, Democratic Member of the EAC.
We will start with Commissioner Soaries.
STATEMENT OF HON. DeFOREST B. SOARIES, JR.
Mr. Soaries. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and ranking
Member, and Members of this committee, Mr. Hoyer, for this
opportunity to come and share with you an update on the work of
the EAC.
We have submitted a 20-page written testimony, and in the
interests of time, I will not read that to you. We have many
appendices. I will simply summarize the contents of that
testimony, allow my colleagues to have introductory remarks and
then dedicate as much time as you have to answering specific
questions about our work.
The presence of all four commissioners should represent to
you our commitment and respect for this body, for this
committee, for your leadership, Mr. Chairman, and for this
process.
Let me begin by thanking you, Mr. Chairman, for your
leadership, along with your partnership with Mr. Hoyer and his
leadership on the creation of the Help America Vote Act of
2002. We have discovered that throughout this country, peoples'
hopes have been lifted and expectations have been expanded as a
direct consequence of this legislation.
When people ask the question, what is different in America
between 2000 and 2004, the critical answer lies in the language
of the Help America Vote Act of 2002. And so thank you on
behalf of the country for this great product.
In our written testimony, we summarize some of the
highlights of our having gotten started. As you know, we had
the unenviable task of creating a brand new agency during a
year when we have a Federal election. And I need not go into
the details as to the complexity of that matter, but the
testimony describes the process that we engaged in hiring some
staff, in publishing State plans, in securing detailees from
other agencies to assist us in our work, meetings with civil
rights groups, coordinating functions with the Department of
Justice, the Department of Health and Human Services, the
Office of Management and Budget. Certainly we received
administrative support from the General Services
Administration. And we even had meetings at the Environmental
Protection Agency, just taking help from where it existed to
craft our strategy and our process to get about our mission.
We also describe to you in our written testimony what we
consider to be accomplishments about which we are quite proud.
We visited over 20 primary elections personally as
commissioners. We held a public meeting in March where we
conducted the first business of the commission.
We created our budget for 2005, while we were still
negotiating our budget for 2004, and appeared before our
subcommittee in this body to justify our budget for 2005. We
were able to manage the transfer of the Office of Election
Administration from the FEC to the EAC. We were able to get up
an office space not far from here. We were able to launch our
website. We issued a Human Factors Report, which we would like
to discuss in whatever detail you would like to today.
And we held two public hearings, the first on the use and
reliability and security of electronic voting devices, and the
second on punch card and lever machine voting devices, which
will be used throughout the country in 2004, and on provisional
ballots.
Our written testimony also has new information, information
that has not been disclosed before, and we would like to focus
just for a minute on what that is.
In the first category are three things that are germane to
our generic mission under HAVA. The EAC has some deadlines and
some responsibilities that are very explicit in HAVA, and I
would like to share with you three updates on those
responsibilities.
In the first instance, it is our task, after having
published the State plans and received 45 days of comment as a
result of that publication, to distribute Title II funds to the
States to assist them in a manner that Mr. Hoyer described.
As of today, 25 States have self-certified their compliance
with HAVA, consistent with the language of the law, and today,
I am happy to announce to you that we are in the process of
releasing $861 million to 25 States, and they should receive
those checks by next week.
The second responsibility we have under HAVA is the
creation of standards and advisory boards, which will give an
inclusive aspect to the development of the standards that
ultimately will guide the States in the use of voting
equipment.
The Standards Board is now in place. That board under HAVA
has 110 members, and the first meeting will be in Houston,
Texas, on the 29th of this month.
The Advisory Board consists of 37 persons under HAVA. That
board is in place, and that board will have its first meeting
in Houston, Texas on June 28th, of this month.
The third update I would like to provide is pursuant to
another committee that is very critical to the outcome of our
policies, that relates to the use of any particular voting
device, and that is the Technical Guidelines Development
Committee.
HAVA assigns to this commission the responsibility of
creating standards that become guidelines for the States to use
in Federal elections. The Technical Guidelines Development
Committee is a very specific committee under HAVA with
representation from various bodies. I am happy to report today
that that committee has now been appointed, and that committee
will have its first meeting in the next 30 days.
And so those developments position the commission for its
long-term mission that hopefully will result in the entire
country reflecting practices in Federal elections that were
envisioned by HAVA.
But as we began our work, it was obvious to us, based upon
meetings that we had and, frankly, based on commonsense, that
we still had to figure out what kind of impact we could have
this year, in November.
HAVA assumed in its origin that, by 2007, that its vision
would be fully manifest in the way the country operated. But
commonsense said that people needed to know, and we were
required to respond to the question, what impact can you make
as an EAC on this November's election?
There are three areas broadly that our report includes and
we would like to discuss today. One has to do with the best
practices or what we call our HAVA tool kit. There are certain
things that will be different this year than ever before. And
we are now in our third draft of completing best practices as
it relates to both HAVA mandates, provisional ballots, ID
requirements, signage in the polling place and the complaint
procedure, so that we can distribute that information by mid-
June to every election official and every community and
advocacy group in the country, to ensure that we are on the
same page as it relates to HAVA requirements in 2004.
The best practices focus primarily on equipment usage. And
its not our job to tell jurisdictions what equipment to use,
but it is our job to give jurisdictions guidance on the use of
those products. We will have, by the time we meet with our
Standards Board, a final draft for the Standards Board to
review, that we can distribute throughout the country to ensure
that local jurisdictions have as much information as they can
on the use of the variety of voting devices.
We also are concerned about the issue of poll workers. We
know that, beyond some of the technical issues, we need about 2
million people to work on election day for a Federal election.
We also know that, in jurisdictions around the country, we have
information that suggests that we are understaffed.
It is very difficult to recruit poll workers. We have an
aging population of poll workers. The complexity of voting
devices makes it even harder for the existing poll workers, and
we just don't have enough numbers. We have begun talking to
national corporate leaders. We have begun talking to national
organizations, fraternities, sororities and others, and we are
preparing now to roll out a national poll worker initiative
where, for the first time in the history of the country, the
Federal Government is helping local jurisdictions recruit and
track poll workers that they can train to work on election day.
We have on our website today an opportunity for any
American to sign up through their local State election director
to be a poll worker in their jurisdiction. We think that will
help the small districts, like yours, Mr. Ney, that only need a
handful of poll workers, and larger, like Los Angeles that
requires almost 25,000 poll workers.
The college program, that we should have some real sense of
timing about tomorrow, we have a critical meeting tomorrow on
the Help America Vote Act College Program, where we think we
can partner with organizations that already have access to
mobilizing college students to link into this November,
sufficient to give college students an opportunity to work on
the polls in November.
Finally is the issue of security. We have received probably
more mail and more phone calls on the issue of security for
electronic voting devices than we have received on any other
subject. I have proposed, as a result of conversations with
commissioners, meetings with groups, research and the public
hearing we had on May 5th, a strategy that appropriately
positions this commission to address the issue of security in a
proactive way.
I have to remind the committee, Mr. Chairman, that when we
talk about security and electronic voting devices, we are not
attempting to fix a problem that has been demonstrated to
undermine any previous election, rather we are attempting to
prevent problems that we acknowledge exist on a potential basis
due to vulnerabilities that have been discovered.
In that sense, we think there are some proactive steps we
can take, one of which is asking vendors to register their
software at the National Software Reference Library. Another is
providing--from the vendors to the local election officials--
the source code that can be analyzed and verified as being
authentic. Another is by asking every jurisdiction to do
something that they have never done before to enhance security,
in some districts, it is simply the chain of custody for the
equipment.
We have met with the Department of Justice, because we want
to remind people that tampering with elections is a Federal
crime, and the Justice Department has assured us that they will
work with us to prosecute people who have been identified as
suspects in tampering with Federal elections.
And the final thing we want to do is to broadly publish the
fact that we will collect data on election day that identifies
problems in voting devices. What that does is acts as a
deterrent to ensure that vendors take more seriously the fact
that we will know about malfunctions, but also for the first
time, provide through our clearinghouse function a central
repository of information that gives us some sense of which
machines and which devices are working well or not.
So I think that we have positioned ourselves for the long
term mission of HAVA to get us where HAVA intended to go and
the immediate needs to get us through this Federal election in
a way that gives the American people confidence that the
outcome has integrity.
And so thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity to be
here today to report to you and other Members the progress that
we have made, the plans that we have made, and I would like now
to call upon my colleagues to give their opening remarks and
then answer any questions that you have.
[The statement of Mr. Soaries follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. I assume we will go to the vice chair.
STATEMENT OF HON. GRACIA HILLMAN
Ms. Hillman. Thank you. Good morning. I join my colleague
in thanking you for the opportunity to be here this morning to
talk about the work that we have been doing, the challenges
that we have faced, the accomplishments we have made, what we
see needs to be done short term and long term.
I will focus my remarks this morning on some of the
challenges we faced getting started and talk a little bit more
about the Standards Board and the Board of Advisors. And I
think that any expectations of the Election Assistance
Commission have to be within the reality of our circumstances,
that being, when we were first designated as appointees for the
commission, naively--and I say naively from lack of
information--we focused on what the bill authorized and the
authorized numbers. And we were ever so thrilled to note that
there would be sufficient funds for us to do research and
conduct the operations of the commission.
We were very mindful that we would be somewhat late in
being appointed, but felt that we could catch up quickly. And
it was a rather rude awakening when we realized that our 2004
appropriation was only $1.2 million, and we really had been
focusing on the bigger number of the amount of money that it
turns out were requirements payments to the States. And so very
quickly when we took office, we realized that we were going to
have to do some very careful and strategic planning in order to
get ourselves organized and to address the issues that were
immediately in front of us, the needs of States, for us to move
quickly so they could get their requirements payments to
implement their plans, as well as to accept the responsibility
of the transfer of the Office of Election Administration from
the Federal Election Commission.
And so in the end, we were able to get some things done
between January and March because the Federal Election
Commission was willing to give us temporary office space and
because we worked very closely with General Services
Administration to be able to get a rent waiver so that we could
occupy offices.
Quite candidly, we were faced with the decision of, do we
hire staff or do we rent office space? And so, what good is it
to have staff and no place to work? What good it is to have an
office and no staff? We were able to work through that, so that
we could occupy our offices as of April 1.
And in many respects, some of what we were going through
was a little bit like being in two kinds of amusement park
activities, one a maze and one the house of mirrors, where we
really weren't sure, you know, which direction was going to
lead us to where we had to go. We explored many recommendations
that were made to us about detail staff and perhaps pursuing
supplemental funding and so on and so forth.
And we quickly decided that the best we could do was take
the $1.2 million, figure out how we could spend it to implement
our activities and move forward. We have had to do a staggering
of the hiring of staff so that we still are in a position where
we don't have a general counsel and don't have an executive
director, but we believe that we can fill both of those
positions this summer and will have sufficient funds to carry
us through, assuming that after the end of the fiscal year,
when, as we are told 99 percent certain, we will have to
operate under a continuing resolution, that the appropriate
steps are taken to make sure that we can continue operating
during the CR at the level where we are now, and not take us
back to the $1.2 million.
And certainly, Mr. Hoyer, if additional funds are able to
be made available to us this year, it would increase our
capacity to have more rapid response to inquiries from State
and local election administration officials as well as to be
able to disseminate more information much more quickly and to
do some of the public hearings that we would like to pursue.
The chairman talked a little bit about the challenge we had
in making sure that the requirements payments could go to the
States. And again, it was through a very good cooperative
working relationship with the General Services Administration
that we were able to get that accomplished.
For the Fiscal Year 2005 appropriation, we did, as the
Chairman mentioned, have our hearing with the Appropriations
Subcommittee. And we were describing the work that we could do
within a $10 million operating budget, having to find ways to
find money to do research. I mean, we know that we cannot
responsibly fulfill all of our mandates without having
research, some evidence-based information, on which we could
formulate standards, adopt guidelines. Those are not the kinds
of things that we want to do based on anecdotal information.
And so we talked with the subcommittee about our need for money
for research.
And Mr. Larson, I am very happy to address any specific
questions you might have. And we are having those discussions
with the Administration, about our needs for FY05.
We did have to spend some time understanding just what our
authority was as an independent agency, what that independence
meant. We know it means that we don't have the authority to
come directly to ask for funds. We do have to do it within the
context of the Administration. So we are having those
discussions.
Outlined for you in our written statement are the
accomplishments that the chairman addressed. And we, quite
frankly, are very pleased that we have been able to move
forward. We were able to get detailees from other agencies
through training programs and the like. And we did receive five
staff people when the Office of Election Administration was
transferred to us, effective April 1. So we are beginning to
put some things in order and do expect that, when we are able
to hire an executive director and general counsel, we will move
forward.
At the end of this month, there will be the first meetings
of the Board of Advisors and the Standards Board. It will be an
interesting time, because they are all important stakeholders
in the work that we are doing under the Help America Vote Act.
There are 110 members of the Standards Board, and that will
be broad geographical representation, because there are two
people from each State, the District of Columbia and the
territories. The EAC has no input over who is appointed to the
Standards Board. That appointment is made by the chief election
official of each State. And so we are hoping that, along with
that broad geographic representation, that there will also be
good diversity with respect to racial diversity and language
diversity, so that we will receive broad input from a diverse
group.
The Board of Advisors also within HAVA is very explicit
about the representation. And these are not individuals that
the EAC appoints, but the EAC is responsible for providing
administrative support and working with those bodies. And so at
the end of this month they will be organizing their work. The
Board of Advisors is to elect a chair. The Standards Board will
select a nine-person executive committee, and then both
committees are to--I mean both boards are to appoint committees
to help us recruit, interview and identify candidates for
executive director. And so that is a process that will be
ongoing through the fall and I would expect into early 2005.
And so with that, I will conclude my remarks and, again, am
prepared to and pleased to answer any questions you might have.
The Chairman. Other statements?
Now, we do have two votes, one 15-minute vote and a 5-
minute vote.
Mr. Ehlers. Mr. Chairman, if I may just interrupt a moment.
I apologize for being late. I had another meeting I could not
get out of. But I do have an opening statement. And I would
just ask unanimous consent to enter that in the record.
[The statement of Mr. Ehlers follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Without objection.
STATEMENT OF HON. PAUL DeGREGORIO
Mr. DeGregorio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Chairman Ney,
Ranking Member Larson, Members of the Committee and Congressman
Hoyer, thank you for giving me this opportunity to come before
you to join my distinguished colleagues seated with me at this
table.
Before I begin, I want to thank the Chairman and Members of
the committee for their leadership in passing the Help America
Vote Act. Obviously, without it, we would not be sitting here
today. However, more importantly, without HAVA, there would not
be a Federal role in the national leadership we have today on
the way elections are conducted in the United States.
As one who conducted elections in Missouri's largest county
for 8 years, I can attest to the fact that this Federal role in
providing assistance to States and local election officials was
sorely needed, and long before the 2000 election, I might add.
Furthermore, as one who provided technical assistance on
elections to the Russians and 19 other countries for 9 years
prior to my appointment as a commissioner, I am grateful to
have the opportunity to provide assistance to my own country.
I would like to briefly update the committee on our
important work in several areas. Our work on best practices
guidance for this November's election, the formation of our
Technical Guidelines Development Committee and our work with
the National Institute for Standards and Technology. More
details regarding this activity can be found in the written
testimony submitted to this committee.
As part of its clearinghouse responsibility, the EAC is
committed to gathering information regarding best practices and
lessons learned and to disseminate this information to election
administrators, advocates, other interested parties in a timely
and informative manner.
The EAC believes there are many things that election
administrators can do to increase the likelihood of reliability
of voting equipment and systems for the November 2004 elections
and decrease the likelihood of an irregularity.
The EAC serves as a repository of useful information which
enables it to provide critical guidance and resources to
election officials as they prepare for upcoming general
elections. The EAC is developing a HAVA tool kit that will
offer guidance to election officials. The first set of guidance
will be issued in the next few weeks so that it can be of
practical use in time for the November election.
Then, as the EAC progresses in its work, the tool kit will
evolve in 2005 to include guidelines, guidance, resource
materials and other publications that will be helpful over the
long run to election administrators, elected officials,
advocates, scientists, academics, the media and other parties
interested in the administration and integrity of our election
systems and progress and certainly the Congress.
The EAC recognizes that there are many aspects of election
systems and practices that have nothing to do with how voting
machines function. These areas of election administration which
are covered in HAVA also need examination and guidance. Two
glaring examples are poll worker recruitment and training,
which the chairman made reference to earlier, which are major
challenges that confront most election officials.
Also important to be included in the HAVA tool kit would be
information and guidance on voter registration requirements,
provisional ballots, absentee ballots, especially for our
troops and our American citizens who work outside of the U.S.,
and other aspects of election administration and voter
education.
Pursuant to HAVA Section 252, the EAC will soon issue to
Congress a report on best practice for facilitating voting by
U.S. citizens covered by the Uniform and Overseas Citizens
Absentee Voting Act, which is being developed in consultation
with the Federal voting assistance program of the U.S.
Department of Defense.
However, Mr. Chairman, we know that, in the midst of many
HAVA mandates that need our attention, the one that cries out
for immediate attention is the growing concern about the use,
reliability, accessibility and security of the various voting
systems that will be administered in 2004.
As noted earlier by our chairman, we believe that there are
things that the EAC and election administrators can do now to
increase the likelihood of reliability of voting equipment
assistance in the November 2004 elections and decrease the
likelihood of irregularity.
To that end, our best practices guidelines published in
coming weeks will be critical components of our tool kit, and
based on testimony we received at our May 5th and June 3rd
hearings and with thoughtful input over the past few weeks from
election official advocates, academics, vendors and other
experts from across the country.
As noted earlier, HAVA established a 15-member Technical
Guidelines Development Committee that is charged with the
responsibility of developing voluntary guidelines for voting
systems and voting equipment that will be reviewed by the EAC
Board of Advisors and Standards Board and ultimately adopted by
the four of us.
As established by HAVA, the TGDC, as it is known, is
chaired by the director of the National Institute For Standards
and Technology, Dr. Arden Bement. He currently serves as the
director of NIST and will chair the committee.
In consultation with NIST, the EAC has appointed the 14
other members of the TGDC, which, by law, includes
representatives from the American National Standards Institute,
the National Association of State Election Directors, the
Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the Access
Board, the EAC Standards Board and the EAC Board of Advisors.
These are individuals with technical and scientific
expertise as well as dedicated election officials and public
representatives. EAC plans to hold the first meeting of the
TGDC on July the 9th. HAVA provides that the TGDC will have a
9-month time table to draft voting system guidelines.
These draft guidelines will be reviewed, as stated earlier,
for final disposition by the EAC. With all certainty, the
public hearings will be conducted on this important issue by
the TGDC during the process to ensure adequate input by
officials and voters alike.
HAVA provides that the voting system guidelines will be
voluntary, but the EAC is well aware that most States and
jurisdictions will follow these guidelines as they develop
their own standards for election equipment used in their
States.
Now I would like to talk just briefly about our work----
The Chairman. If I were 10 years younger, I could let you
go another 2 minutes and get over to that vote in time. I can
run, but I can't jog. If you don't mind----
Mr. DeGregorio. Chairman, let me just add, in our
statement, we talk about the work with NIST. NIST has provided
tremendous support to the EAC over the past 5 months. And we
are going to work with them in the next coming months with the
technical guidelines development that we are going to do.
The Chairman. Thank you. We have about 6 minutes left, and
the vote will occur, so we will go over.
If we can recess, come back with any additional comments
Commissioner Martinez has and then open it up for questions and
thoughts. We will be in recess.
[Recess.]
The Chairman. The committee will come to order. Thank you.
We will begin with Mr. Martinez--or we will complete with
Commissioner Martinez. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF RAY MARTINEZ
Mr. Martinez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member Larson and members of the
committee, I am pleased to be here to join my colleagues this
morning to give an update on our progress with respect to the
implementation of the Help America Vote Act. I will be very
brief in my comments so that we can get to some questions and
answers and talk in greater detail about our work.
As you know, Mr. Chairman, HAVA creates new mandatory
minimum standards for States to follow in several key areas of
election administration. For example, HAVA provides funding
referred to as requirements payments to assist States in
implementing several uniform nondiscriminatory election
technology and administrative improvements. These include new
voting system standards, provisional, and voting information
requirements, voter identification requirements, and the
creation of computerized statewide voter registration lists.
To be eligible for requirements payments under Title II
states have to submit to the EAC written State plans indicating
how the requirements payments would be used. All 55 States--
and, of course, the four U.S. territories and the District of
Columbia are referred to in HAVA as States--all 55 State plans
were published by the EAC, as Chairman Soaries has reported, in
the Federal Register on March 24, 2004. And following that,
there was a 45-day mandatory comment period that ended on May
the 8th of 2004. And at that point States began submitting
statements of certification as required to the EAC.
Over the course of the last several weeks, the EAC has
attempted to provide appropriate oversight and due diligence to
the distribution of these Federal funds. For example, the EAC
has been working with many States to resolve questions that
have arisen regarding the certification process and
distribution of the Title II funds.
In addition, the EAC has worked closely with other Federal
agencies such as the Office of Management and Budget to resolve
issues pertaining to procurement, reporting, and auditing
protocols that are normally applicable to the Federal funds
awarded to outside entities such as State and local
governments.
In short, Mr. Chairman, this has already been reported by
Chairman Soaries, in the 5 weeks since the end of the 45-day
comment period, the EAC has now processed statements of
certification from 25 States. And, accordingly, by next week
GSA, at the direction of the EAC, will begin making
requirements payments to these 25 States totaling well over
$800 million. We expect to process additional statements of
certification from States in the days and weeks to follow, and,
in fact, we have some already in the pipeline that we are
trying to process today.
Another critical responsibility of the EAC is to serve as a
national clearinghouse for the compilation of information with
respect to the administration of Federal elections. In order to
successfully fulfill this requirement, Mr. Chairman, the EAC
has worked diligently in its first 6 months of operation to
develop close ties not only with our main constituency, which
are election administrators and supervisors throughout the
country, and, of course, other State and local government
organizations, but, equally as important, with advocacies,
civil, and voting rights organizations, and other interested
parties that are interested in assisting us with implementation
of the Help America Vote Act.
Shortly after assuming office last December, all four EAC
Commissioners traveled to various local jurisdictions
throughout the country in order to personally observe the
administration of primary elections, to visit with election
administrators, poll workers, and voters, and to see firsthand
the implementation of various HAVA requirements such as
provisional voting. One of the States that I visited was
Oklahoma, which was implementing a type of provisional voting
for the first time as a result of the requirements in the Help
America Vote Act.
Moreover, the EAC has held, as we know, two public
hearings, one here in D.C. covering DRE machines and another
just several weeks ago in Chicago, Illinois, where election
officials, representatives of advocacy organizations, and
members of the general public were invited to submit oral and
written testimony regarding HAVA implementation issues.
In addition to travel and public hearings, Mr. Chairman,
the EAC Commissioners as a group and through the individual
efforts of each of the Commissioners have been attending
various functions, meetings, and annual conferences in order to
educate and inform the public regarding the important mission
of the EAC. Since various advocacy and civic organizations have
also worked hard on issues central to HAVA implementation, the
EAC has also made a concerted effort over the course of the
last several months and since we have been appointed in
December to be informed of their experiences and perspectives
regarding HAVA implementation.
Finally, because coordination with other Federal agencies
is critical, members of the EAC have held planning sessions and
various meetings with agencies such as the Departments of
Justice and Defense, and the Administration on Developmental
Disabilities within HHS.
The EAC remains firmly committed to continuing this
important outreach and to soliciting input from the general
public. The valuable information we receive will inform us as
we make critical recommendations to State and local governments
regarding election administration, and as we give guidance on
implementing the various election reform measures required by
HAVA.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to say a few
words. And of course I would welcome your questions on this or
any other issues regarding HAVA implementation.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Normally we are pretty relaxed here about the time, but I
am going to hold myself to the 5 minutes, and that way we all 4
can get 5 minutes in, in case members have to come and go.
There are other questions I want to ask, and I know others do,
but we will just hold to the 5. That way everybody gets a round
in, and then we can continue with no problem.
Again, I appreciate your testimony. As far as my question,
when do you anticipate--anyone can answer if you want to or
decide who wants to answer. When do you anticipate issuing the
best administration practices with respect to electronic voting
equipment? I mean, do you have a date or a guesstimate?
Mr. Soaries. Commissioner DeGregorio is working closest to
that process. Our expectation is to be prepared by mid-July to
distribute that information.
The Chairman. I think one other thing that also concerns
me, and we can go into this later in the rounds of questioning,
is that we had an issue with the Defense Department. They were
supposed to have this program, and it was all pooled--I think
it was roughly $20 million. I am not sure that--I don't know
what happens after that. I am not asking for an answer now in
my time, but I think I will come back to that.
I am assuming you plan in the near future for the
provisional ballots--to issue some guidelines for those. Do you
have an idea of the time frame for that?
Mr. DeGregorio. Mr. Chairman, those will be issued at the
same time we issue the best practices for voting systems in
early to mid-July.
The Chairman. Okay. As far as most States, I am assuming,
have asked for a waiver from the implementation of the
computerization until 2006. Is that correct?
Mr. Soaries. Forty-one have asked for waivers.
The Chairman. Do you think the other nine are going to do
it, or do you think they will be asking, too?
Mr. Soaries. No. I think in varying stages. We have some
States that have already had computerized voting databases, but
they had to upgrade their hardware. In another State, we have
an upgrade of the software. I think they are in various stages
of implementation, but most, if not all, will be doing some
work to get to 2006. No one is in a perfect state yet.
The Chairman. As far as the poll workers, and I know the
Chairman mentioned it and a few of the other Commissioners, I
think that is a real critical part of this. It is something we
looked at, it is something Congressman Hoyer, Senator Bond and
Dodd and everybody, McConnell and everybody all looked at that
issue. One of the reasons we also devised the high school and
college bipartisan program--and Congressman Hoyer came up with
the college end, and I came up with the high school end--was to
encourage the participation. Maybe the students get the day off
and they can go to the polls and help, and then you are getting
people that are going to be poll workers down the road in their
communities, so I am hoping that program gets started.
Now, I know from our end, I don't believe that the head of
the high school program has been appointed yet, which we need
to take care of that. That is going to be our duty to push
that. I would hope that is an integral part, I would assume,
down the road. Any comments on those two programs?
Mr. Soaries. The poll worker initiative both for high
school students, college students, and corporate support is
critical to the future voting in this country. I have not met a
jurisdiction yet that believes they have sufficient numbers of
poll workers. Again, the complexity of the voting process
requires even more poll workers. And it is just--it is not in
the culture that being a poll worker outside of the partisan
political apparatus is important to do.
We are attempting everything we know to do, including
trying to get some celebrities who have high name recognition
to volunteer to be poll workers. If we don't put this on the
map and make it a part of the culture, then voting in the
country is at risk.
The Chairman. Also, I think when we start to talk about
DREs and machines--and I am of this era. If I hook up a VCR--my
son Bobby or my daughter Kayla, they hook up the VCR. I won't
even talk about computers and what happens, but younger people,
they don't have the fear of it. I think, too, as we go down the
path of equipment and technology, I think having these younger
people now who don't fear machines as much--that is not to say
that people who are older can't learn. I mean, we have talked
to poll workers, and they are starting to become comfortable
now with the idea. When they first heard about it, they were
fearful of it. They are becoming comfortable. But I think as
time goes on, having the younger people in there will--I think
will be a very good thing.
In my remaining 39 seconds, also, how about the--it is
very, very important--the persons with disabilities, who have a
form of disability, and they push so hard for the one machine
per precinct. How do you think that is going, the one machine
per precinct?
Mr. Soaries. We are finding local jurisdictions'
willingness to cooperate, participate. Again, the controversy
surrounding the use of DREs in general is beginning to weigh
against some of the advocacy for accessibility for people with
disabilities. And I think a proper role for the EAC is to make
sure that we keep that balance, that we have maximum security
and maximum accessibility.
The Chairman. Thank you.
The gentleman from Connecticut.
Mr. Larson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And, again,
let me thank the panelists.
Let me also recognize that in the audience today we have
Joe Crangle from New York, who is on the EAC Advisory Board as
well, and I just wanted to acknowledge his presence.
And let me cut right to the chase with respect to, I think,
one of the overarching concerns that I have is whether or not
you have adequate funding for the administration of the EAC.
And as was pointed out both in testimony and by Mr. Ney and Mr.
Hoyer, this is an ongoing concern of mine. And given the broad
tasks that you have been given, do you feel that you have
sufficient funding? And where are you with asking for
additional funding for research?
Mr. Soaries. I am going to ask Vice Chair Hillman to
explain my one-sentence answer.
The EAC is best described as being fiscally challenged, and
Vice Chair Hillman will break it down for you.
Ms. Hillman. The short answer to your first question is,
no, we do not have sufficient resources. As the committee
knows, EAC is authorized to have up to $10 million for
operating, and for 2004 we were appropriated 1.2-. When we
received the transfer of the Office of Election Administration,
along with that came the balance of their funds, which was
about $500,000. So what we scaled out was that we are operating
in fiscal year 2004 with a budget of--annual budget of about $2
million.
And so we quickly began exploring whether there was any
possibility to get supplemental funding, and we always
identified that somewhere between 1 and 2 million dollars in
additional funds wouldn't do for us what 10 million would have,
but it would have at least enabled us to be able to respond a
little more quickly to some of the challenges.
With respect to money for research, we--I don't want to say
that we gave up on money for research, but we recognized that
with the time remaining, we couldn't do the kind of research
that would allow for analysis, testing, and so on and so forth.
But the National Institute of Standards and Technology did give
us for $1 million what they could do right now this summer that
would be available to jurisdictions in time for the November
elections. So we do have, you know, in place programs that
could be immediately implemented if we had additional funds.
For 2005, we identified what we could do with $10 million
in research funds. Now, there were authorized up to $30 million
that could be available for research monies, none of which has
ever been appropriated. And so we were saying to the
subcommittee and the Administration, you know, we really need
the $10 million. What we had originally done was be so modest
as to come in and say, okay, well, if we only get 10 million
for operating, we will take 30 percent of that and apply it to
research, and we can do a little bit. We were encouraged to ask
for what we thought we could use and need. So what we are
discussing with the administration is 10 million for operating
and 10 million for research.
And the research would be programs that we would be working
with NIST on, looking at the equipment and coming up with
recommendations for standards that we should adopt. And we are
behind on that because I think that was supposed to happen
within 9 months, you know, after the TDGC had been formed.
Mr. Larson. Well, as Mr. Hoyer noted in his opening
statement, this is something that Mr. Ehlers was critical in
both providing the impetus and the influence of having the
relationship with NIST. And to say that you are fiscally
challenged is an understatement, I would say, and it is
important that the committee hear this so that we can seek to
help address these critical areas that are so important to us.
Another question. You had a hearing back in May, and I
would like to know where the EAC is with respect to DRE
security and the debate, and where do you see that all going?
And, most importantly, because this is a question I get asked
all the time, even if legislation such as the Holt legislation
were to be embraced, could it be effective by--put in place and
be effective by November for this election?
Mr. Soaries. I will take the latter question first.
The answer is no, that the expectation that legislation
passed would result in every DRE voting device in the country
being retrofitted with a printer is--it is beyond what is
practical. One, we don't know the cost, and we don't have
sufficient projections as to the reliability of printers. We
don't know the protocols for training poll workers. We don't
know the implications for backup systems. We just--we don't
know enough yet. And on May 5th, when we talked to experts with
various perspectives on this issue, we came away with the
understanding that we just don't know enough yet.
But the larger--the larger answer to you, Congressman, is
that when you frame the debate the way it has been around paper
verification, you create an assumption that paper is the
solution to the only security risk involved. Experts have told
us that if one can manipulate the results of a DRE that doesn't
have paper, one also could manipulate the results of a DRE that
does have paper.
And then we have the issue of verification being one that
is more complicated than paper. There is a school of thought
that you have a voter-verified paper trail, but then there is
another body of research that talks about the voter-verified
audit trail. And the audit trail without paper can be made
possible by cryptography, and that a cryptographic solution is
much more secure than a paper solution because we have had such
a history of paper.
What we have said is that all of these varying views compel
us to get the technical process in place, get the money to do
the research.
Mr. Larson. Which is why the funding is so important.
Mr. Soaries. Exactly. And the position of HAVA was that the
Commission would be in place by about March of 2003, that the
research would be done by December of 2003. And so when the
States got the money, along with the money would come the
guidance. We were in the position of having to release the
money without having the money to do the research, and so the
States will have over the $2 billion in Federal funds before we
can study sufficient to give them guidance on using the money.
Mr. Larson. In keeping with the admonition of the Chair, I
will get back with other questions. But thank you, sir.
The Chairman. We will come back.
Also, I just wanted to note, I know the gentleman from
Connecticut was putting something in the record, I think, for
one of the--I don't know if it was for the American Association
of Persons with Disabilities.
Also, without objection, I want to put something in the
record. I think that the New York Times article written by Jim
Dixon was over the top on impugning the integrity of the
association of the National Federation of the Blind and one of
our U.S. Senators, who I hate to even print the names because I
don't want to have them again impugned--I think it was
impugning--it is okay in this democracy to have a difference of
opinion. I think it just simply impugned them over them having
an opinion. Therefore I am going to, without objection, put
some further remarks in the record.
The gentleman from Michigan.
Mr. Ehlers. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank
you for having this hearing.
Just for background, in case you didn't know, I happen to
be the scientist on the committee and the person who wrote the
part of the bill dealing with the technical aspects. That bill
came out of our Science Committee and then was folded into
this.
I have to confess to a lot of chagrin about what has
happened. Obviously, the research should have been done first
before we buy several billion dollars worth of voting machines,
and that was the intent. And I had advocated originally that we
have a set-aside out of the money for the computers. That would
automatically fund your operation. That got lost in the
appropriations process. The authorization we did was
sufficient, but the appropriations weren't.
I do want to add also that I also attempted to persuade the
recipients of the $3 billion approximately that they should be
willing to let us use a portion of that, and I will never
forgive them for saying no when we were giving them that much
money for their purposes and their job, and they said, no, we
don't want you to use any of it for research. And that is, I
think, a gross error on their part and unforgivable.
The points I want to make. I think the issues that have to
be dealt with in voting are usability; in other words, the
human factors. Make sure it is easy to use. And I have rebelled
against the people who say all we have to do is train the
voters. That is not the point. You cannot train people who are
going to do something once, maybe twice a year and expect them
to remember it. The machines have to be good enough so that no
training is required, literally idiot-proof. And so usability
is very high on my scale of things that have to be achieved.
Accuracy, of course, is very important, and that is
relatively easy to achieve using electronic devices. It is
actually fairly easy to achieve using punch cards if people
simply operate them correctly. And that relates to maintenance
and testing. And punch cards are fine if you maintain and test
them, but every system has to be maintained and tested.
Verifiability is very important, and that gets to the point
you just raised a moment ago, Mr. Chairman. I have not joined
in sponsoring the bill to require a printout even though I
think it would be a good thing, because it was on the basis
that this would somehow verify that the vote was cast
accurately. And I personally can program a computer to print
out precisely what the person put in, but store in the memory
something different, and that is where the opportunities for
fraud come in.
I have been surprised in serving on this committee that
fraud is still a very viable issue in this Nation. I have been
led to believe as I was growing up that once we got rid of
Tammany Hall and all the other various machines, that elections
now were just slick and clean. They may be slick, but they are
not all clean. It depends on the part of the country you are
in. And fraud is still a problem in a number of ways, and you
can commit fraud more easily with electronic machines in many
cases than you can with the old system. And so we really have
to emphasize the security, and that means, as part of the
testing procedure, you really have to, before each election,
test and make sure that the machines are recording accurately
and verifiably.
I think a key factor is going to be also to have skilled
technical help available in the polling places. Now, that is
very difficult. It is hard enough to find poll workers, but to
find poll workers who understand electronic instruments and can
verify they are working accurately is very difficult. And I
really think we--and Mr. Hoyer has mentioned this, too. I think
it is an excellent idea that we should simply call upon the
high-tech industries in this country to donate employees with
full pay to be in the polling places, to ensure that the
machines are working properly and accurately, and not simply
depend on the poll workers who frequently do not have a
technical background.
All of these have to be done, but above all you have to
have the money to do your job right, because I think yours is
the most crucial part of the entire enterprise. And if the work
is done properly and setting standards for all the factors I
have mentioned, we are going to have fair and free elections
and with equipment that operates properly. If your background
work doesn't get done right, and you don't have the resources
to do it, we are throwing several billion dollars down the
drain again, and we will come back with the same problem a few
years from now.
I have thrown a lot at you, but I would appreciate, even
though the time is basically up, any comments you would like to
make in response.
The Chairman. If we could, because I want to do that. If we
could go to the gentlelady, and in 5 minutes, if you could come
back and answer that.
Mr. Ehlers. Okay.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And it is
very critical that we have this hearing this morning. Thank you
and the Ranking Member for convening this.
And I thank you all for being here and in your positions as
you are starting out on a deficit yourself in terms of lack of
funding.
I think the Chairman stated that there were 41 States--our
Chairman raised the question, and I think you responded, Mr.
Chairman, that there are 41 States that have opted out of the
computerized system. Am I correct in that? Because I was kind
of reading and then listening. Is that a fair assessment of
that question he raised and you answered to that?
Mr. Soaries. The question was, how many States have asked
for a waiver for this year to construct their statewide
computerized voter registration database?
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Okay.
Mr. Soaries. And the deferment is to meet the 2006
deadline. So that----
Ms. Millender-McDonald. That is what it was. And it is 41.
Mr. Soaries. Forty-one. Yes.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. So would they be perhaps going back
to the paper ballot, I suppose? Is that what they are going
back to?
Mr. Soaries. No. This doesn't have to do with voting
devices. It has to do with the management of the voter lists.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. I got you. Okay, fine.
In terms of polling places, that has become extremely
problematic especially in the minority communities. Are you--
and you stated that, Mr. Chairman, insufficient number of
persons, a lot of ill-trained personnel. How does this
Commission work in that regard? What will be your role in that?
Mr. Soaries. In the selection of polling places?
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Selection, training, ensuring that
there is not disenfranchisement because of what we saw in
Florida. We see it in California, and you see it in Texas and a
lot of other places.
Mr. Soaries. Our role formally is to establish the areas of
great concern and areas that are legally mandated, and share
immediately best practices with election officials around the
country and communities that can hold the election officials
accountable to these best practices. In other words, if you are
going to use provisional ballots, which every district is, here
is how you get it right; here is how you ensure that it is
consistently executed in a legal way and in a fair way. If you
are going to train poll workers, we have in our best practices
where--a section on the training of poll workers. If you only
train for about 20 minutes, you probably won't get it right. If
you train for 45 hours, you will probably get no one to sign
up. And so what we are doing----
Ms. Millender-McDonald. And may not get it right either.
Mr. Soaries. Exactly.
Commissioner Martinez and I met with a group of disability
groups last week to talk about how we as a Commission can
encourage election officials to identify more polling places
that are accessible for disabled. It is one thing to say that
the machines have to be accessible, but the question is, what
about the polling place itself, whether or not it is
accessible? And so in a larger role we have more of a bully
pulpit where, because of our legal mandates, it puts us in a
position to raise other issues that may not be in the
legislation, but have to do with the effective management of
election practices.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Either one of you can answer this
question. So, have you had meetings with registered recorders,
clerk, or have you had meetings with city clerks who handle
some of this, or State personnel? Have you had those hearings,
meetings? Are you anticipating that, what, 5 months out?
Certainly you had such a short window getting started, it seems
to me it is rather late.
Mr. Martinez. To answer your question, Congresswoman, yes,
we have had lots of meetings where we have tried to make
ourselves very visible and available to election
administrators, to folks who have direct responsibility for the
administration of our elections, but also, as I said in my
opening remarks, to other interested parties, to advocacy
groups, for example, who have a history of monitoring the
administration of elections. We want to make sure that we
garner as much experience and perspective as possible as we
implement the Help America Vote Act.
The other answer to the question that you raised is that,
you know, as the Chairman said, the power of this Commission is
really the power of persuasion, the power of the bully pulpit.
We are essentially a nonregulatory agency, but it is important
for us to remind States and local governments that they are
coming into a lot of unprecedented and really historical
Federal funds for use of improving the administration of
Federal elections. It is incumbent upon us to use our bully
pulpit to make sure that this is not about just replacing
technology, it is also about the people side of election
administration.
So the money that is flowing, the Title I money that has
already been out there for a while, section 101 and 102 money,
and now the Title II funds that are about to flow can be used
for the things like poll worker training, nonpartisan voter
education, so that if you purchase new technology in a
jurisdiction, you want to make sure that the folks who are
going to be using that technology are comfortable with that
technology and not intimidated by the fact that they are using
a brand-new voting system.
So, appropriately some of these Federal funds can be used,
again, on the people side of election administration. It is not
all just for the technology, as important as that is. So I
think it is important for us to use our bully pulpit to be able
to educate the public and the election administrators about the
use of these funds.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Mr. Chairman, I don't know who is
running my clock, but that is a quick red light that I saw. I
did want to raise one more question.
Mr. Ehlers [presiding]. Actually I think it was no quicker
than mine.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Really. Thank you.
The Chairman. I will let you have another minute.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Please.
I just wanted to raise the question about the last
election. We know that the Justice Department had some of their
personnel going out, monitoring, overseeing elections, and
rightfully so, because we did not anticipate but did have the
Florida debacle. Do you have any oversight monitoring role in
this as well, and will you enforce such laws as civil rights
laws and the Disability Act?
Mr. Soaries. We have a very cooperative working
relationship with the Justice Department. One of our early
meetings in January was with the Civil Rights Division of the
Justice Department. We probably speak with them every single
week. Because the Justice Department under HAVA has enforcement
authority for the implementation of HAVA, we have some
responsibility as it relates to auditing the use of funds and
ensuring that States are compliant with HAVA in the use of
those funds, and so it is more of a cooperative relationship
than it is oversight.
But HAVA does explicitly state that States have to be in
compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Americans
with Disabilities Act. And to the extent that we are working
with the 8,000 election officials and we have information about
possible violations, we have established a methodology for
triggering the Justice Department to investigate and, if
necessary, prosecute. There are a few consent decrees that have
already been entered as relates to HAVA violations, and we have
collaborated with Justice over those issues.
Ms. Millender-McDonald. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ehlers. Thank you.
And I will return to my questions and ask for your
reactions and comments to my statements.
Mr. Soaries. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We worked with the National Institute of Standards and
Technology from day one. And as you know, HAVA requires that we
release a human factors report that would be conducted by NIST.
NIST gave us the draft of the human factors report for us to
ultimately pass on to this committee, and I think I can speak
for all of us, we were alarmed at the paucity of research that
has been done in usability. I don't think the average American
knows in comparison to other industries how weak the usability
research is on voting devices. And as you rightfully state, one
can be secure, a machine can be accessible, but if no one has
studied font size, positioning of ballots, whether vertical or
horizontal positioning affects the outcome of an election, then
we really are groping in the dark as relates to usability.
The human factors report lists 10 recommendations, which we
accept. We pass it on to Congress. But all of them require the
funding that is needed to do the proper research. And we have
been challenged, as it were, because on the one hand we are
responsible as public officials to inform the public as often
as we can and as honestly as we can. On the other hand, if we
say everything we know, it could frighten people to death. And
so we are constantly looking for the kind of support that your
questions lead to to ensure that we can do the work that we
have been charged and tasked to do to make sure we have
integrity.
The maintenance and testing, though, is something I want to
mention for a moment. If you take away the EAC and remove HAVA,
the fact is technology is advancing more rapidly today than it
ever has, and no one has been able to assess the true
maintenance needs, the true testing procedures, and ultimately
the true cost of replacement for the new voting technologies.
If we, the EAC, aren't in a position to offer the country that
kind of information, we may find that the money the Federal
Government is spending today will commit the States to
technologies and upgrades that they don't have the resources to
sustain over the long haul. If you buy a personal computer
today, you buy it knowing that 3 years from now you will need a
new one. And we have yet to even begin to discuss the 10-year,
15-, 20-year impact, fiscal impact, that is generated by the
use of the $3 billion that we will use to seed voting
technology upgrade in the country.
So there are so many unknowns that those of us who felt we
might only serve a year or two probably now understand that
this is probably a 10-year mission.
Mr. Ehlers. Thank you. And, frankly, the good news part of
it is that because these do not have to be very sophisticated
machines, that you probably don't have to replace the machines
every 3 years, but you may have to upgrade the software every 2
or 3 years. That is a generally less expensive proposition. So
if you get some good basic computers to begin with, I think you
can then probably get a 5- to 7-year lifetime out of them
simply by upgrading the software. But it is still an important
maintenance and testing problem; every election you are going
to have to go through it.
Any others wish to respond? Yes.
Ms. Hillman. On the issue of poll workers, just getting
back to the issue of high school and college students. I just
want to note that one thing we are keeping an eye on and
collecting information on is that in some States and local
jurisdictions, law requires that the poll worker be a
registered voter in that jurisdiction, age 18 or older. And so
in some places it precludes the involvement of high school and
college students. But there are many areas where they certainly
can get involved.
Mr. Ehlers. Yes. And in fact, that is why I suggested
getting high-tech companies to donate employees for a day,
which presumably they would be old enough and wise enough.
Any other comments?
Mr. DeGregorio. Mr. Chairman, if I might add to our
Chairman's comments. I know you are talking about testing and
maintenance of election equipment by election officials, but
there is also the testing and certification of election
equipment itself, which we know a lot of new election equipment
will be purchased. And we have a crisis in that area because we
really only have three labs in this country that are doing it,
one to test and certify hardware, and two to test and certify
hardware--software. And we are working very closely with NIST
on this problem to try to move the process forward to certify
more labs in this country that can test equipment, because
there is a bottleneck developing, and it takes many months for
these labs to certify this equipment.
And so we are moving forward, but, again, the funding
shortage has made it difficult to move that as fast as we would
have liked.
Mr. Ehlers. It is a very valid point. And when we wrote the
bill, we would have been quite pleased to allow NIST to also do
it until enough private supplies were up, but of course the
private sector objects to the government taking away business
from them. So we will see whether the private sector comes up
with the requisite number of certifiable labs that do the work,
and we may have to readjust if they don't.
Mr. Martinez. I will simply speak very briefly to the
overall point that I think that you made, Mr. Chairman, and
that is that the lack of funding has many implications for our
Agency. One of the statutory obligations that we have under
Title III of the Act is to issue guidance to States and local
governments that are implementing the various administrative
and technical requirements, the election reform measures that
are in Title III of the Act. And one of the consequences of our
being fiscally challenged, of course, is that while we are
doing best practices and we are developing as much guidance as
we can within the context of our budget and limited
infrastructure, the fact of the matter is that there are some
Title III requirements that have to be put in place and that
started January 1 of this year, provisional voting, voter ID
requirements, voter signage, and administrative complaint
procedures. But there are other big ones coming up now that
States have asked for a waiver on that you are very familiar
with, the computerized voter registration database, and the
various election--the various standards for election equipment
that are in section 301 of the act, that we are unable to do
anything more than at this point, as Vice Chair Hillman has
stated, than really recite anecdotal things that we have heard
as opposed to giving research-based guidance to States on how
to implement the various election form measures. That is a
critical point. We just don't have the means at this point to
do anything other than how we are going about it, which I think
is a very responsible and the best possible way that we can,
but it is within the context of some very severely limited
funds.
Mr. Ehlers. Well, we all recognize the problem, and none of
us are happy about it. We tried to prevent it, but the vagaries
of writing law sometimes lead to strange results. But we will
continue to work on and try to improve it.
My time has expired. Mr. Larson, do you have further
questions?
Mr. Larson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes.
First, just to so I am clear on this, from an
administrative standpoint, how much more money would be needed
in this current year, in the year 2005, in order for you to be
able to perform your functions? And has there been a suggestion
of bringing up a supplemental in order to make that happen,
make that a reality?
Ms. Hillman. Sure. For 2004, the administration will not
introduce the supplemental on our behalf. We estimated that,
given where we are in the fiscal year, 1 million--somewhere
between 1- and $2 million would enable us--and this, of course,
assumes that NIST is still prepared to do the work that it had
scoped out--would enable us to respond to the needs of the
States and local jurisdictions. But that really is predicated
on when the money comes. I mean, obviously, if the money came
in August, it would be very, very difficult for us to do
justice to that kind of money.
And for fiscal year 2005, what we identified was the need
for $10 million in operating, plus an additional $10 million
for research. That would allow us to do some catch-up, to try
to catch up on what didn't happen in 2003 and what didn't
happen in 2004, but needs to be in place in 2005 so that the
States can meet the mandates of the law.
Mr. Larson. So, ASAP, you would need a supplemental, for
2004, between 1- and 2 million; and approximately 20 million,
10- for administration, 10- for R&D, going forward.
How does this relate to the questions, Mr. Chairman, as you
raised earlier? I think everyone is concerned, and I can
certainly understand everyone's desire to have a paper trail
given the results of the 2000 election, and general concerns
about making sure that your vote counts. Obviously every
citizen wants to see that. You pointed out that the--even under
the best circumstances, the Holt bill, for example, could not
be implemented in time for this election. And also, there is a
myriad of problems that are presented with that as well.
I was intrigued by the notion of encryption. I think that
that clearly interests me, but that also brings the point, the
fact that we don't have the money to go through this process to
take a look to see how that is going to work.
Having said all that, and given your charge and given the
election in November of 2004, what steps are we taking to
assure voters that their vote is going to count?
Mr. Soaries. Here is the direction that we are pursuing as
it relates specifically to security and electronic voting. One,
we are asking every jurisdiction that uses these devices--which
is about 700 in the country--to identify security measures that
they have never taken before that they can take now. Parallel
monitoring is one such step. In four counties in California, we
had parallel monitoring, and everyone was happy with the
results, including the secretary of state. In some areas, it is
the chain of custody that needs to be upgraded to ensure that
the voting devices are more secure than they had been. And so
that is one.
Two, we are preparing to ask every vendor, every
manufacturer of voting software to make the source code
available to the contracting authority so that any election
official in the country can, with the assistance of the
computer science community, analyze the source code that is
being used in their jurisdiction. And it is kind of a halfway
step between the open code, which some people have said should
make every source code public, and the proprietary interests
that the vendors have said is theirs. And we believe the
vendors will cooperate, so it is the analysis of source code.
The third is brand new also, and that is that we are
prepared to ask every vendor to participate in the NIST
National Software Reference Library. Every other software
manufacturing industry in the country does that. Here is what
that accomplishes. It means that the Federal Government will
have on file the software being used by every certified vendor.
That software can be analyzed so that you can do pre- and
postanalysis. And if anyone suspects that a different software
was used on Election Day than the software that was certified,
then having hashed that code means you can analyze and compare
the code to what was submitted and what was used. And if we
detect that there is a difference, then you can investigate the
implications of that difference. We have heard from NIST as of
yesterday that two vendors have contacted NIST to say they
would like to participate.
The fourth thing we have done is begun talking with the
Department of Justice. While many----
Mr. Larson. Excuse me, I didn't mean to interrupt. And if
the Chairman will allow it, in the Times editorial--and when
they did the analogy between slot machines in Las Vegas and
voting, part of what you are saying would go a long way towards
addressing some of the voter protection concerns that were
raised in that analogy; would it not?
Mr. Soaries. It certainly would, because what it does, it
makes available to the public information about software
certified and software used. It would be similar to a human
fingerprint analysis. But in all----
Mr. Larson. Should we mandate that? That was my question.
Should we mandate that, or should we, as was----
Mr. Soaries. We believe the industry will respond favorably
and will participate in our request. There are signs already.
NIST is already negotiating two nondisclosure agreements with
vendors who have voluntarily said this is a good idea. The
vendors have an interest in having a more transparent process
to protect the image that they have invested heavily in.
But on that point of the software, you know, in many ways
comparing voting technology software to slot machine software
is apples and oranges if for no other reason that the money--
not the money that comes out of the machine, but the money that
the industry has to do the research. And these machines are
used 24 hours a day, every day, and it is--I think the media is
responsible for helping us not spread fear.
Mr. Larson. But that is why I was asking about the need--
and, again, these are all attached to money--for us as a
legislative body to consider putting in as we move, as we get
more technologically advanced, what safeguards--again, a
problem which will require study, but some of which seem to be
common sense and practical. And you seem to be----
Mr. Soaries. But we can do the software registration today
with no extra money in time for November to assure America that
we are looking more carefully at the software, the technology,
and thus the voting than we have ever looked before.
The other thing I think we have to remind people,
Congressman, is that tampering with elections is a crime.
Congressman Ehlers suggested that he was hoping fraud would
disappear. In my other life I am a clergyman. Should fraud
disappear, I would be unemployed, so I--I need some fraud. But
the fact is fraud is a crime. Tampering is a crime. And I will
be addressing all of the assistant U.S. attorneys later next
month on an initiative that the Election Fraud Division of DOJ
is launching with us, and that is to motivate people to let us
know when they detect crimes.
It is interesting to find the vulnerabilities in voting
software in the classroom. That is an appropriate academic
exercise. But when you leave the classroom and you come to the
community, that is a crime; and a person can go to jail in this
country for 20 years, and we intend to remind the country that
violators of that law will be prosecuted. The way we deter
crime in this country is through prosecution, and we don't want
that part of the discussion to be left out, because the fact is
vulnerabilities may exist, but to the extent that they do, you
can go to jail if you exploit those vulnerabilities.
And then, as I mentioned earlier, the collection of data is
critical. We think that many vendors have had the luxury of
this, of nondisclosure. And so if you buy a car or any other
kind of device, there is data somewhere that tells you the
likelihood of that car having certain problems in certain
areas. We have no such data with voting devices. And the fact
that we don't have the data allows certain problems to fly
beneath the national radar, and we would like to put it on the
national radar.
Mr. Larson. I agree.
Ms. Hillman. Mr. Larson, I would also like to note that we
want the American voters to know that we are working to issue
best practices on the other machines as well, because 37
percent of voters will be using optical scans, and 15 percent
will be using punch cards, and about 15 percent using lever
machines. And issues regarding maintenance, storage, you know,
training of poll workers with respect to those machines, we
know the punch card story very, very well. And, in fact, about
46 percent of counties in this country will use the optical
scan as compared to 22 percent using electronic voting
machines. So in addition to the work we are doing on the DREs,
we are keeping an eye on the information on the other equipment
as well.
Mr. Larson. Thank you.
The Chairman. One other question, and I will be glad to
also yield to Members who have additional questions, but one
question that I have, and I apologize, I had to make a phone
call, but I don't know if this was brought up. However, about
the military voting, I just wanted to hone in on it a little
more. I was recently over in Afghanistan, I spent time in Kabul
and I have been on board an aircraft carrier with my colleagues
in Bagram twice, and the issue came up time after time after
time with our men and women in uniform about what is going to
happen to them.
In the Help America Vote Act, we had focused some
language--I remember that I had each State have a designated
person that would be focusing on those ballots. It was one
designated person. Then we had the voting assistance officers
where we stressed to the Defense Department to have those
officers over there, or wherever our soldiers are stationed to
make sure they again assist. I wondered what, with the Federal
Voting Assistance Project--and although the technology part of
it just absolutely vanished, we know what happened with that--
but with the Federal Voting Assistance Project, do you have any
comments on that? Do we need to do more? Or do we have to see
how this runs? I mean, it is important, because we are at war,
and of course a lot of questions come up, are their votes going
to count?
Mr. DeGregorio. Mr. Chairman, let me answer for my
colleagues on this issue, because I have focused on this. Early
on we met with the Federal Voting Assistance Program folks at
the Department of Defense to talk about this issue, because, as
mandated by HAVA, there is a report that was due on April 29th
to the Congress just on this issue of best practices. And we
are hopeful to get that report out in the coming weeks.
I have been disappointed that it has taken so long to do
this. We certainly don't have the staff to do it. But the
Department of Defense Federal Voting Assistance Program
certainly has a lot more funding than we have had to do this
work, and I have impressed upon them the need to get this done
and get it done quickly so it can be utilized this year by
election officials throughout America. And I met with them just
Monday of this week to go through the second draft, and we are
hopeful that that report will be issued to the Congress and to
the President by the end of this month.
But it is a very important issue, and the research that has
been done certainly shows that there needs to be more in this
area, because there actually are very few States that have
appointed a coordinator to focus on this issue statewide, and I
think that is wrong. And one of our best practices
recommendation is going to be to impress upon the States that
they need to do this and do it now.
The Chairman. Do you have the ability to basically send out
a notice to the States, to the Secretaries of State that you
need to appoint someone? Do you have the ability to do that.
Mr. DeGregorio. We have the ability to recommend to do
that.
We don't have any rulemaking authority for the States, as
you well know. But we do have the bully pulpit authority. We
will use that in our Best Practices Report to encourage the
States to do that, because it has been done in several States
very successfully. I think it is incumbent upon every State in
this Nation to do that.
Also, we are going to recommend that each local official
have a point person that is focusing on the military and
overseas voters, because it is--I know it is, as a director of
elections, that we always in my office had a person to do that,
to make sure that we were getting the ballots out on time. You
may recall in 2000, that election did show a very lack of
concern by many election officials to get those ballots out in
time so the military voters can get them back to be counted
accurately, counted on a timely basis. So we are focusing on
that issue.
The Chairman. I mean, we want no one left behind. The
provisional voting, I think, is one of greater things, that
way, you know, you walk in, you are not told, ``Well, your name
is not on the list, go away,'' and therefore being
disenfranchised. As you know, the vote is held. If it is deemed
that the mistake was made, you are accurate, it is counted. If
not, it is shredded. I think that goes a long, long way to stop
anyone from being disenfranchised.
But in a time of war, of course, you can also understand
with our soldiers over there, those men and women are asking
over and over, too, because of the distance away they are. So I
do want to mention that.
I want to see if there are other questions. I also want to
comment, I know Congressman Hoyer has been working with Senator
McConnell and Congressman Istook. And you need the money. That
is something we need to push. You need the money. I think you
are doing a great job under horrifically thin resources. We
authorized $10 million. We authorized it. That gives you $10
million. That needs to be, I believe, pushed to make sure that
check is written, and you can get the resources to help you. So
I think you have done a remarkable job, all of you, under very
strained resources.
Mr. Larson. I would just like to follow up with a question
that I--again, I want to thank Vice Chair Hillman for pointing
out as well, with regard to the 37 percent that will use
optical scan; and 15, punch cards; another 15 percent with
levers.
And I want to commend the chairman for talking about the
need to enjoin the Justice Department with regard to fraud. I
would also hope that we are able, with the Justice Department,
to focus on those who were intimidated from coming to vote, and
exercise their franchise and working with them, whether it is
through a memorandum of understanding or otherwise, and would
be interested in your comments on how you see that unfolding as
well, because I think they are two important aspects.
Mr. Soaries. Certainly, Congressman.
The overarching theme, as we see it, of HAVA is balancing
this issue of access and fraud. And while much emphasis is put
on fraud, equal emphasis has to be put on access, and we know
there are various barriers to access.
One of my personal concerns is that, as we approach
November with a heightened sense of security for the country,
that our response to securing the country does not have the
unintended consequence of being perceived as intimidation at
the polls. In my community, I guess all of my life, every
election day there has been some assertion of intimidation.
Members of my church often complain about intimidation. And
some is explicit, and some is implicit.
And so we, in our talks with Justice, are attempting to
ensure that the Justice Department is poised to support all of
those issues that we have to wrestle with that guarantee free
and fair elections throughout the country.
Mr. Larson. Anyone else care to comment?
Mr. Martinez. I would make a quick comment on this topic.
That is that it is also incumbent upon--I mean, I agree with
our chairman that we have been working closely and building an
appropriate partnership with the Department of Justice on these
very important issues.
You know, it is also important that DOJ and that, to the
extent that we are involved, that current--that new provisions
that are as a result, that the result from the Help America
Vote Act are properly implemented. So, as I have said, there
are some election reform requirements in Title III of the Act
that States could not waive, which are very important.
For example, provisional voting, which we talked about
already, we have talked about voter signage, where
jurisdictions have to put up a notice at every polling place
now that essentially says--it is not a voter's bill of rights,
but in a sense it kind of is--that you have an administrative
complaint procedure that you can seek redress if any of your
HAVA rights are being violated, and it is related information.
So it is important that DOJ is working with jurisdictions
to ensure that these new requirements are properly implemented.
And I have every confidence that DOJ is doing that and making
sure--and another provision would be, for example,
jurisdictions that are under certain sections of the Voting
Rights Act, so if you have to have certain signage, for
example, in Spanish or in a different language, that those
voting rights provisions apply to the requirements that are now
part of Federal law as a result of the Help America Vote Act.
So my experience and I think our collective experience in
working with DOJ is that they are moving aggressively to make
sure that jurisdictions are implementing the laws that are
currently on the books when it comes to access like provisional
voting and related issues.
Mr. Larson. Well, thank you for performing the yeoman's
tasks that you are about.
Do you intend to have any more hearings yourself? I know
the hearings you have had have been very successful.
Mr. Soaries. We would like to have one more hearing between
now and November focusing specifically on the poll worker
issue. We would like to put a face on the issue. We would like
to demonstrate the need. We would like to give poll workers a
chance to discuss the experience, elections officials an
opportunity to talk about their gaps. And then we would like to
get some of those colleges and corporations that are willing to
help us to talk about how they are going about using their
resources to help fill that gap.
And so we are assuming that we can have one more public
hearing, that it will be focused on poll workers, because we
really think that that is going to make or break the election
in November.
Mr. Larson. Thank you.
The Chairman. I want to thank our ranking member, the
gentleman from Connecticut, for his participation and the
amount of time he has put in on this issue.
I want to thank all four of you commissioners for being
here, and also for the job you are doing.
I mean, we can debate all of these issues we want here, but
if people don't feel that they had a true rightful election,
and had their chance at the ballot box, then all of the other
issues I think get very, very grey. I think that what you are
doing is wonderful for the entire country, and I appreciate
your time today and appreciate the job you are doing.
I ask unanimous consent that Members and witnesses have 7
legislative days to submit material into the record and for
those statements and materials to be entered in the appropriate
place in the record. Without objection, the material will be so
entered.
I ask unanimous consent that the staff be authorized to
make technical and conforming changes on all matters considered
by the committee in today's hearing. Without objection, so
ordered.
Having completed our business, we are adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 1:25 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]