[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
H.R. 672, TO TERMINATE THE ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS
of the
COMMITTEE ON HOUSE
ADMINISTRATION
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
Held in Washington, DC, April 14, 2011
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on House Administration
Available on the Internet:
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COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION
DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California, Chairman
GREGG HARPER, Mississippi ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania,
PHIL GINGREY, M.D., Georgia Ranking Minority Member
AARON SCHOCK, Illinois ZOE LOFGREN, California
TODD ROKITA, Indiana CHARLES GONZALEZ, Texas
RICHARD NUGENT, Florida
Professional Staff
Philip Kiko, Staff Director & General Counsel
Jamie Fleet, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Elections
GREGG HARPER, Mississippi, Chairman
AARON SCHOCK, Illinois CHARLES GONZALEZ, Texas
RICHARD NUGENT, Florida ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania
TODD ROKITA, Indiana
H.R. 672, TO TERMINATE THE ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION
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THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2011
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Elections,
Committee on House Administration,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 a.m., in
Room 1310, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Gregg Harper
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Harper, Nugent, Rokita and
Gonzalez.
Staff Present: Peter Schalestock, Deputy General Counsel;
Kimani Little, Parliamentarian; Joe Wallace, Legislative Clerk;
Yael Barash, Assistant Legislative Clerk; Salley Wood,
Communications Director; Bob Sensenbrenner, Elections Counsel;
Karin Moore, Elections Counsel; Jamie Fleet, Minority Staff
Director; Kyle Andersen, Minority Press Secretary; Matt
Defreitas, Minority Professional Staff; Khalil Abboud, Minority
Elections Staff; Thomas Hicks, Minority Elections Counsel; and
Gregg Abbott, Minority Professional Staff.
Mr. Harper. I now call to order the Committee on House
Administration Subcommittee on Elections oversight hearing
regarding H.R. 672, which is legislation terminating the
Election Assistance Commission. The hearing record will remain
open for 5 legislative days so that Members may submit any
material that they wish to be included therein. A quorum is
present, so we may proceed.
The Subcommittee on Elections oversees Federal elections
and considers legislative means to improve and protect the
integrity of our electoral system. To that end, in the 112th
Congress this committee has held oversight hearings on military
and overseas voting, the 2010 elections, and the operations and
budget request of the EAC. At that hearing we explored multiple
operational and managerial problems at the EAC and the
statutory responsibilities that are complete.
Today I look forward to discussing H.R. 672, which would
terminate the Commission and transfer its remaining
responsibilities to a more appropriate agency. HAVA, passed in
2002, required updated voting equipment and standardized
election-related procedures across this country. The
legislation also established the Election Assistance Commission
to disburse funds and assist States in their obligation to meet
the requirements of HAVA.
Today, nearly a decade later, after most States have met
the major requirements of HAVA, little funding remains to be
disbursed. And yet with the bloated, management-heavy budget
and a demonstrated inability to manage its resources wisely,
the EAC continues to operate providing little, if any, real
assistance to the States at significant cost to taxpayers.
The Commission's chronic issues have included an astounding
doubling in staff, while the Commission's responsibilities did
not increase; a budget that spends more on internal operational
costs than actual election assistance; questionable funding
allocation decisions; and hiring processes that have led to
multiple discrimination claims. In totality, the Commission has
simply lived passed its usefulness.
As another example of the EAC's inability to function
effectively, following an oversight hearing last month, this
subcommittee sent written follow-up questions to the EAC with a
response deadline of April 6th. Today it is April 14, and we
still have not received responses to some seemingly
straightforward questions.
Finally, I note that when HAVA was on the House floor in
2002, Congressman Hoyer cited a study showing that 4- to 6-
million people could not vote or did not have their votes
counted in the 2000 elections. In 2008, a successor study said
the comparable figure was 4- to 5-million, after the EAC had
existed for 6 years and spent over $3 billion. Now the EAC's
election programs have shrunk to one-third of its budget, so
future improvements seems unlikely.
I believe the States benefited from Federal assistance to
update voting machines and election procedures, no doubt; but
the funding for those payments has ended, and the Federal
Government cannot afford to keep spending money on an agency
that has not produced measurable improvement.
I look forward to discussing these issues with our
witnesses, particularly the minority whip, who, during his time
on the committee, was instrumental in HAVA's passage. I look
forward to hearing their thoughts on these troubling practices
and why in both 2005 and 2010 the National Association of
Secretaries of State adopted resolutions calling on Congress
not to reauthorize or fund the EAC, why the very beneficiaries
of the Commission's work no longer feel it is needed.
Since introducing H.R. 672, I have heard from many
elections officials from across the country who have provided
their suggestions and advice. I appreciate and value their
input and suggestions, including maintaining the voting system
testing and certification programs, and maintaining a formal
role for election officials in the development of the voluntary
voting system guidelines. Again, I appreciate this input and
plan to incorporate much of it in an amendment to this bill.
These are the types of constructive ideas I look forward to
discussing today.
At a time of in excess of $1.6 trillion deficits and a
$14.3 trillion debt, continuing to spend money on the EAC is
unjustifiable. Simply put, if we can't cut spending by
eliminating a commission that has so obviously outlived its
usefulness and that is opposed by many of the elections
officials that it is supposedly serving, then the system is
broken.
Again, I thank each of our witnesses that are going to be
here today and would like now to recognize my colleague Mr.
Gonzalez, the ranking member of this subcommittee, for the
purpose of providing an opening statement.Mr. Gonzalez.
Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Now, I
remember when the Help America Vote Act was written and passed.
I wasn't on the committee at that time, but I fought hard
during the drafting to fix some of the problems that I saw were
inherent in the draft bill. Mr. Hoyer probably remembers our
discussions way back then. And I did have a strong reservation,
but not for the reasons that are cited today as justifying
passage of H.R. 672.
I want to make some acknowledgments. It is true that the
Election Assistance Commission, having been created, has had
its problems. No one denies that, including the Commissioners
and staff. But it is not the first agency to have problems, and
it was faced with a tremendous task: tackling the challenges of
voters in 50 States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico,
Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa, and the
thousands of different electoral districts within them. Perhaps
it was in recognition of this challenge that during the 109th
Congress the Republican-controlled Congress lifted the cap on
EAC employment so they could staff up to tackle those goals.
The EAC remains a tiny Federal agency compared to others in
our Federal Government. The chairman has mentioned the
disproportionate amount of its budget that EAC spends on
personnel costs, and this is one of the reasons for that. The
reason, of course, is that every agency, no matter how large,
has to fill certain requirements. You need someone handling
accounting and human resources whether you have 5 people or 50.
In business they call these ``fixed costs'', and they are one
of the economies of scale enjoyed by large companies.
I know that EAC has tried to minimize the relative cost of
their small size, first by outsourcing some functions to GAO,
and now by cooperating with other small agencies to share some
of those fixed costs.
But the real point isn't whether EAC is spending a lot or a
little on personnel. The real question is, Does the work EAC
produces justify the money that we spend on it. Now, I am of
the opinion that few things are more important in our country
and more deserving our support, including financial support,
than ensuring that every American citizen's right to vote is
protected, but that doesn't mean that I will sit still while a
single penny is wasted on an agency that isn't helping to do
that. So is EAC helping America to vote? It is my opinion, Mr.
Chairman, that the answer is yes.
The chairman and others of my colleagues have mentioned
that the National Association of Secretaries of State, a letter
written some time ago calling for the dissolution of EAC. Of
course, that resolution was first adopted in February 2005, as
pointed out, when EAC was barely 2 years old and certainly
going through the terrible twos.
It was renewed last summer, and Mr. Rokita and Secretary of
State Browning have both cited the resolution. But I notice
that the renewal wasn't sufficiently important to the
association for them to update the resolution. So it still
calls for EAC to fade out of existence, quote, ``after the
conclusion of the 2006 Federal general election.''
I also note we have had the president of the association
testifying before this subcommittee just a few weeks ago, and
Minnesota's Secretary of State Ritchie had many complimentary
things to say about EAC. So the opinion among Secretaries of
State is clearly not unanimous.
There is a further point that needs to be made. The
secretary of state is the chief election official in most, if
not all, of our States. But, that means they are like the
general who organizes the campaign. It is the local election
officials who are on the front lines dealing directly with the
voters and struggling to ensure that our elections, the very
foundation of our democracy, run smoothly.
And what they do and what do they have to say when they are
doing it? At our last hearing Susan Gill, supervisor of
elections of Citrus County, Florida, spoke glowingly of EAC and
how, quote, ``the Help America Vote Act provided the continuity
needed on the national level, but left the states to devise how
best to serve their voters.'' I have never heard a better
description of how our federal system is supposed to work.
Now, my own election official--because we all know that all
politics, voting activity and how it is conducted, is truly
local--but Jacque Callanen Bexar County, Texas, she speaks of
EAC's ``terrific outreach'' and ``fantastic'' services. And
Chairman Lungren's local election official, Ms. LaVine, speaks
highly of EAC in her written testimony.
Indeed, Mr. Chairman, at this time I would ask unanimous
consent to enter into the record a total of seven letters from
local election officials from Virginia to California,
Republicans and Democrats and nonpartisan, as well as letters
from the League of Women Voters and the Leadership Council on
Civil Rights and Human Rights.
Mr. Harper. Without objection.
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Mr. Gonzalez. Now, I was surprised to read that one of the
witnesses will testify that the problems EAC was created to
address ``are essentially resolved,'' and that there is no need
for EAC. Frankly, I am amazed that anyone would say that while
we are still in the midst of the Wisconsin recount in which
14,000 votes went missing, votes that could be decisive in that
race.
Now, Wisconsin is a race for a State office, but can you
imagine how much trouble this would cause if it was a federal
office that was in dispute? We don't have to imagine. The
citizens of Minnesota had to make do with only one senator for
6 months in 2009, less than 2 years ago, as the state struggled
to administer the 2008 election, and next year is a
presidential year that presents its own set of challenges.
EAC does have its problems. It has for some time. But it
also remedied many problems, and the officials who run our
elections say that EAC helps them do so better than any other
agency. In such a situation, the proper response is to improve
EAC, not throw up our hands in frustration.
In 1788, the country faced a problem: It had a government
that didn't work. Money was wasted, and problems were mounting
as the government's central purposes--establishing Justice,
ensuring domestic Tranquility, providing for the common defence
and promoting the general Welfare--weren't being met. They
could have said, ``Well, we tried. The government we created
did the main thing we created it for when in the Revolutionary
War, but now it has just broken down, and we will dissolve
it.'' They could have said that, and some people did. But other
people, we call them the Founders, said, No. Instead they
created an improved government, one that has served us well for
222 years, but which itself has required 27 amendments, thus
far, to improve its functioning.
If they could do that, which is monumental in our history,
I think we can tweak, and we can improve and have a more
effective EAC. It's not a question of dissolving and doing away
with something that is so important in protecting the rights of
all Americans to cast their vote.
Thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Harper. Thank you. Does any other Member wish to be
recognized for the purpose of an opening statement?
The gentleman from Indiana Mr. Rokita is recognized.
Mr. Rokita. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We are hearing talking about ending a commission that has
become a burden to the American taxpayers and simply, to my
friend Mr. Gonzalez, is not needed. The Founders specifically
said this in the Constitution when they left the procedures and
processes surrounding our elections to the States to quite
honestly do a much better job than any Federal bureaucracy can
possibly dream of doing.
I know a little bit about this because as former secretary
of state for Indiana, I have practical experience with the
Election Assistance Commission and with conducting elections at
the State level.
The EAC was created by the Help America Vote Act to help
States replace old punch-card and lever-voting systems and to
implement statewide voter registration databases. These were
necessary updates, I certainly agree, due to the voting machine
issues illuminated in the 2000 Presidential elections. HAVA
authorized $10 million per year for EAC, but last year the EAC
actually spent $18 million. The budget request we received from
EAC this year reflects administrative costs as 51 percent of
the budget. Such funds are a waste.
In a hearing held in March, the committee heard firsthand
accounts of the EAC's bloated budget, including an ever-growing
staff with shrinking responsibilities and discriminatory hiring
practices. Additionally it was found that the EAC was spending
more money on management than on actual programs.
Mr. Chairman, like the fate of so many of the Federal
Government's ideas and programs, this one has become nothing
more than a large bureaucracy supporting a small program
mandate that has largely been completed at this point. In 2005,
I authored, and the National Association of Secretaries of
State voted on, a resolution to dissolve EAC after the 2006
election. Congressman Gonzalez's point there is correct. That
resolution was based on the fact that the task outlined in HAVA
was nearly completed at the time.
Where Congressman Gonzalez, I believe, is wrong, Mr.
Chairman, is that there was another resolution. NASS renewed
the call to dissolve the Commission in 2010. Furthermore, Mr.
Chairman, that vote at the National Association of Secretaries
of State was nearly unanimous. Only two of our members voted
against it, and we had more Democratic secretaries of state, I
believe, at the time than we had Republicans. So it was
certainly bipartisan. Furthermore, Secretary Ritchie, who
Congressman Gonzalez mentioned, voted for the resolution to get
rid of the EAC.
It is now 2011, and the EAC still exists. When the
Commission was created, the Congress agreed that it should only
be authorized, Mr. Chairman, for 3 years. Five years after
that--the authorization date, after the scheduled
deauthorization, the American taxpayers are still footing the
bill, and the amount of work that is getting done can be done
by some other agency, like the Federal Election Commission.
At a time of crushing debt and deficits, the money spent on
EAC cannot be justified. I do not believe that the creation of
the EAC was necessary in the first place.
As I noted earlier, the 2000 Presidential election brought
awareness of needed changes to our voting system and
registration databases. And with some assistance from the EAC
at the time, the States--the States--took care of the problems.
We didn't need another Federal bureaucracy. Furthermore, those
changes could have been made by, like I said, other already
existing entities.
To date we have spent $147 million on the EAC, and, again,
it wasn't necessary. I am proud to be a cosponsor of the
chairman's bill to eliminate this duplicative, overly
administrative agency. Supporting the EAC and its bloat, and
its waste, and its inefficiency, and its ineffectiveness by
comparing it to the bloat, the waste, the inefficiency, and
ineffectiveness of other agencies is not the answer. That is
not an answer at all. That attitude is what is part of the
problem of this growing Federal Government that many of us were
sent here to get under control.
I would like to thank the witnesses for being here. I look
forward to hearing them, and I want to especially welcome my
Sigma Chi fraternity brother Steny Hoyer for being here today.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Harper. Thank you, Mr. Rokita.
And it is now my privilege to introduce our first witness,
who we are especially pleased to have here given your service
on this committee, and I know your interest, long-time
interest, on elections reform. And we could truly say you are a
witness who needs no introduction, but you are now serving your
16th term.
Congressman Hoyer represents the Fifth Congressional
District of Maryland and is the longest-serving Member of the
House from Maryland in our history. First elected in 1981,
Congressman Hoyer has had a distinguished career, having served
as deputy majority whip, cochair of the Democrat Steering
Committee, chair of the Democratic Caucus and majority leader.
In the 112th Congress, he is the House Democratic whip, a
position he also held from 2003 to 2007. And, of course,
Congressman Hoyer is a former member of the Committee on House
Administration and served as ranking member during
consideration of the Help America Vote Act that created the
Election Assistance Commission. We are honored to have
Congressman Hoyer here and thank him for his dedication to
public service.
Congressman, we look forward to hearing from you today, I
obviously don't need to give you any instructions other than
you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. STENY HOYER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND
Mr. Hoyer. Thank you very much, Chairman Harper, members of
the committee, and Mr. Gonzalez. I appreciate the opportunity
to appear here before you. I want to thank you for inviting me
to testify today on the important work of the Election
Assistance Commission and why we must make sure that that work
continues.
The work of the EAC matters to voters who deserve assurance
that their vote will count on election day and to poll workers
who across the country are being asked to do more with less and
still ensure that polling places operate smoothly.
I would make as an aside the observation that not only do
the States obviously conduct State elections, but they conduct,
as we all know, extraordinarily important Federal elections. In
the first 210 years or 15, 20 years of our existence, the
Federal Government gave no assistance to them to do so.
Abolishing the EAC would be an invitation, in my opinion,
to repeat the mistakes that blemished our democracy in 2000.
The debacle of the 2000 Presidential election embarrassed the
United States and showed just how flawed elections systems
were. Regardless of their feelings about the controversial
outcome of that election, Republicans and Democrats alike
agreed that the Federal Government had a duty to step in and
improve election systems and procedures so that every qualified
citizen's vote is, in fact, counted; to provide States the
financial and informational resources--I stress informational
resources--to upgrade their voting and registration systems,
train their poll workers, and improve access for disabled
voters. The result was the bipartisan Help America Vote Act,
which I was proud to help write when I was the committee's
ranking member. I might say that a very distinguished member,
Bob Ney, worked with me on that and in a bipartisan way.
HAVA, which established the EAC, overwhelmingly passed the
House 357 to 48. That was, of course, when your party, Mr.
Chairman, was in control of the House of Representatives. This
was not imposed by Democrats on the country, it was supported
in a bipartisan way and overwhelmingly by the secretaries of
state as well. It passed the Senate with only two votes against
it. So this was not a partisanly imposed bureaucracy on the
neck of the American people or the States. It was in a
bipartisan way decided that this was an important addition to
our election monitoring and effectiveness.
Before HAVA, the Federal Government worked to guarantee
voting rights, but it had no serious involvement in the nuts
and bolts of elections, conditions in our polling places and
voter registration offices that ensure that our precious voting
rights are translated into a vote that counts. That is not
simply a concern of the State officials, which it is, it is
clearly a concern of the Congress and the American people
generally.
I presume the people of Indiana are concerned about whether
or not we have fair voting in Maryland. Clearly the Maryland
voters are concerned whether we have fair voting in Indiana.
Why? Because the votes in both States affect who the President
of the United States is going to be, so that there is a
national interest in elections, not just a State interest.
For over 200 years the Federal Government in effect got a
free ride from States when it came to elections. And, in fact,
as I am sure the former secretary of state of Indiana knows, my
brother in Sigma Chi, traditionally all States, all governments
have had trouble with resources. Where was it easiest to cut?
Elections.
Congress passed HAVA because it recognized that the Federal
Government had to step up to the plate with the resources to
help ensure that every vote is, in fact, counted. HAVA
authorized 3.8 billion in grants to States to buy new voting
machines, improve voter registration procedures and train poll
workers. HAVA also created the Election Assistance Commission,
a four-member bipartisan Commission, which only has two members
right now, whose job is to administer grants to States and
provide States with ongoing guidance. It is that really
function that I think is a critically important one so that we
have a national perspective as well as a State-by-State
perspective. Just as important, it provides expert advice on
how polling places and voting machines can be fully accessible
to disabled voters, which Mr. Ney and I were both very focused
on.
The EAC has created a comprehensive program to test State
voting systems for accuracy. And use of this program has been
shown to save our State millions of dollars and up to 12 months
of testing time.
The EAC is dedicated to transparency and makes its methods
and test reports public so that the public can hold both the
EAC and voting machine manufacturers accountable. In addition,
the EAC develops best practices for Armed Forces to ensure that
the votes of our troops are accounted fairly. Let me emphasize
that. It also is involved, and we have made very sure, with
making sure that those folks from Indiana or Maryland or Texas
or any other State, including your own, Mr. Chairman, are
treated fairly, notwithstanding they may be deployed to
Afghanistan or Iraq or some other trouble spot in the world.
Prior to the EAC, a narrow range of voting-related activities
was conducted by the Federal Election Commission.
Let me comment on the comment the former secretary of state
made about the Federal Election Commission perhaps could
undertake the responsibility. The focus of the Federal Election
Commission and the EAC are totally different. The Federal
Election Commission is concerned about the financing of Federal
elections and the enforcement of financing laws. They have
their hands full, as all of us know. Totally different
perspective than how elections are run as opposed to how
candidates run. The FEC's mission is to ensure that campaign
finance laws are obeyed. As I said, HAVA's lead sponsors
quickly learned that voting-related issues are not the same by
any stretch of the imagination. Transferring most of the EAC's
function to the FEC, in my opinion, would be a mistake.
The EAC, as all of us have observed and with which I agree,
has not been, is not now a perfect agency. Does it need
oversight? Yes. Does it need efficiencies? Yes. Should you as
the committee of jurisdiction and the Appropriations Committee
as well look at these, make cuts where cuts are appropriate?
Certainly. But should that mean that, therefore, we should
abolish an agency which the Congress overwhelmingly decided was
a useful, an appropriate function for the Federal Government to
follow? I think not.
Mr. Chairman, I would submit the balance of my statement
for the record and urge you as you consider this to improve, do
not eliminate, because if we eliminate it, it would mean that
the Federal Government will have no effective participation in
ensuring that every vote counts, that the Voting Rights Act
means something for every American whomever they might be, and
Federal elections as well as State elections are held in a
manner to give confidence to every voter that his or her vote
will count and that the votes of every other American will
count. And I thank you for this opportunity.
Mr. Harper. And we thank you for being here, Congressman
Hoyer. Thank you for your leadership in the House and your
history of leadership on this committee, and we appreciate your
insight.
Mr. Hoyer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Harper. Thank you.
We will now call the second panel up, please.
I now would like to introduce our second panel of
witnesses, some who probably just flew in. We appreciate that
dedication to get here and to share your testimony.
Our first witness, the Honorable Delbert Hosemann, is the
secretary of state of the great State of Mississippi. The
secretary is serving his first term, having been elected in
2007. As chief elections officer from Mississippi, Secretary
Hosemann has sought to protect Mississippians' right to vote by
visiting precincts around the State during elections, working
very closely with the circuit clerks and elections
commissioners, and supporting voter education programs such as
Promote the Vote for young Mississippians and Vote in Honor of
a Veteran.
The Honorable Kurt Browning is Florida's secretary of
state, having been appointed this past January. He also served
as secretary of state during the previous administration,
serving from December 2006 until April 2010. Prior to that
appointment Secretary Browning spent 26 years as the supervisor
of elections for Pasco County, where he was extensively
involved in Florida's election community, serving as the
president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of
Elections; and as a member of Governor Jeb Bush's Task Force on
Election Procedures, Standards and Technology; and as a member
of the State Planning Committee for the Help America Vote Act.
Mrs. Jill LaVine is the registrar of voters for Sacramento
County, where she is responsible for the day-to-day operations
of the division of voter registration and elections. She has
been registrar for almost 8 years and has worked in elections
for over 24 years. In addition to her election duties, Mrs.
LaVine is also responsible for the redistricting of the
supervisoral boundaries following the 2010 census, a very
exciting and thankless job. She is the cochair of the
legislation committee for the California Association of Clerks
and Election Officials, and is also a member of the election
center. She has testified before Congress on paper audit
trails, and therefore the EAC, regarding accessibility
standards for voting systems.
Mr. John Fortier was a research fellow at the American
Enterprise Institute, where he was the principal contributor to
the AEI-Brookings Institution Election Reform Project and
executive director of the Continuity of Government Commission.
This month he joined the Bipartisan Policy Center as director
of the Democracy Project.
You each have a wealth of knowledge and experience, and we
will look forward to hearing your testimony shortly.
I would like now to recognize the distinguished
Representative from New Hampshire, Congressman Charlie Bass,
who will introduce our final witness.
Congressman Bass, you are recognized.
Mr. Bass. And I thank the chairman for your indulgence. And
I understand that it isn't customary to have double
introductions, if you will, for witnesses, but New Hampshire's
secretary of state Bill Gardner is a special friend and a great
citizen of the State of New Hampshire. He was elected secretary
of state, I think, a couple of years after I graduated from
college, and that is the New Hampshire tradition. We have had
probably no more than a half dozen, maybe a couple more,
secretaries of state in the history of our State. Secretary
Gardner has served with distinction and integrity now for many
years. He is a Democrat who has been elected time and time
again by a legislature that for almost all of his career has
been controlled by the Republican Party.
I spent a considerable amount of time and energy when I was
in the New Hampshire Legislature and the New Hampshire State
Senate working on issues involving elections and ethics, and
Secretary Gardner was at my side for most of that period--all
of that period of time. And I think during that time we made
good progress on various--many areas of election law in New
Hampshire and also ethics.
Bill Gardner is also a personal friend, an advisor, and
probably one of the less nationally or State-known individuals
who wields power beyond any other secretary of state in the
Nation because he has, in essence, the sole power to set the
date of the New Hampshire primary, which is, of course, the
first in the Nation and will remain so forevermore.
So without any further ado, I bring you my good friend, the
secretary of state, Bill Gardner.
Mr. Harper. Thank you, Congressman Bass.
I thank each of you for being here.
As I mentioned with Congressman Hoyer, the committee has
received your written testimonies. At the appropriate time I
will recognize each of you for 5 minutes to present a summary
of that submission.
To help you keep the time, you will see in front of you a
timing device. The device will be green for 4 minutes and will
turn yellow when you have--1 minute remains. When the light
turn red, it means that your time has expired, and we would ask
you to bring it in for a landing at that point.
So we will begin with Secretary Gardner and ask you to
please proceed.
STATEMENTS OF WILLIAM M. GARDNER, NEW HAMPSHIRE SECRETARY OF
STATE; DELBERT HOSEMANN, MISSISSIPPI SECRETARY OF STATE; KURT
BROWNING, FLORIDA SECRETARY OF STATE; JILL LAVINE, REGISTRAR OF
VOTERS, COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO; AND JOHN FORTIER, AMERICAN
ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM M. GARDNER
Mr. Gardner. Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and
members of the committee. I was going to say something a little
special about Congressman Rokita. And I want to thank
Congressman Bass, who is like having a brother here with me,
because we go back a long way. I worked with him when he served
in the house, when he served in the senate. He chaired the
elections committee in the senate and the ethics committee. He
is from a distinguished longtime family; his grandfather was
Governor, his father was a Congressman and then a Senate
President.
I will get to the business.
I support this legislation wholeheartedly. I do so with
very strong passion. When this Commission was established in
2004 and had its first meeting in March of that year, within 2
months it was making national headlines all across the country
because letters had been sent out that hinted at having the EAC
become the authority for determining whether we had a
Presidential election or not in 2004--later in 2004. Actually
when we went to our conference that summer, it was the 100th
anniversary of the association, and as we talked about it
amongst ourselves, that was the news in all the States. What
was this new upshot Federal agency, what was it? And how could
this be?
In my State there were several newspaper editorials that
referred to how the country had an election in the middle of
the Civil War, had an election during World War II. How can
this be? So we made a statement as secretaries. We sent a
letter. The letter made it to Congress. Within a week or so the
Congress voted 419 to 2 saying that there is no Federal agency
that is going to have this kind of authority; the States run
the elections.
Well, after that, legislation was introduced in both the
House and the Senate that would increase the authority of EAC,
and give it rulemaking. That gave us a lot of concern, and in
2005 we passed this resolution saying that when the States
complied with HAVA, it should go away, i.e. the EAC. And at the
time we were discussing ``How? With eight staff members, what
were they for?'' The concern was that in a few years there may
be twice or three times as many. And so we passed it. As
Congressman Rokita said, it passed pretty substantially, just
less than a handful against.
And then 2 years later we passed another resolution in 2007
where we mentioned this again. And in 2008, we passed another
resolution entitled ``Maintenance of Effort,'' but it had in
the resolution our concern about the expanding role in programs
and why it should continue not to be reauthorized.
In 2009, we passed another resolution, and it was about
payments and grants, because it appeared to us what was being
done was not helping the States, but it was just creating more
burdens for the States, and States particularly that have small
staffs.
So then it continued. And that came to a point now where,
as some of the States--many of the States were reminded in the
last 3, 4, 5 months that there was payments money left that
they hadn't taken yet. But what has been done is that in order
to get that money, the States have to agree that it is grant
money. Ninety-nine percent of the funding for the States has
been payments money, but the director is called grants
director. After our resolution it was changed to director of
grants and payments. Now it is back to just grants. Why?
Because it falls under OMB; there are more strings attached;
there is more taking away from the States.
And so the bottom line--and there has been a continuing
attempt to have more programs and power, more authority, and we
don't like that.
In 2010, we did it again, and we just said, enough is
enough. We have done this now five times as an association and
feel very strong about it, and I applaud you for the
legislation.
I might just say, Congressman Rokita came back when I
thanked you for coming in. I just want to say that he is a
friend and a former colleague, and I am proud, and I know a lot
of the rest of us are, to be able to call him a Congressman and
address him that way. We in New Hampshire have a reverence for
Indiana, because if it wasn't for Indiana, we wouldn't have the
first-in-the-Nation primary.
Mr. Harper. Thank you so much, Secretary Gardner, for your
testimony and for being here today.
[The statement of Mr. Gardner follows:]
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Mr. Harper. I now ask unanimous consent to enter into the
record the letters and NASS resolutions mentioned by Secretary
Gardner in his testimony. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
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Mr. Harper. I will now recognize Secretary Hosemann for
your testimony for 5 minutes, and welcome.
STATEMENT OF DELBERT HOSEMANN
Mr. Hosemann. Thank you. Thank you, Congressman Harper.
Good to see you. You are missed at home. Apparently the adage
of the State of New Hampshire, Don't Tread on Me, still applies
to Bill.
In light of the budget issues and the international
conflicts and national debt ceilings that we have got here that
you all are all facing and the country is facing, election
issues seem to be less important. However, as everyone who
charts this country's path comes through the electoral process,
we believe it is very important what you are doing today.
I have given you my comments in writing, and I will just
summarize those quickly. Obviously, under HAVA we have had an
explosion of scrutiny of increased types of voting systems. But
the key to HAVA, of course, was to give Federal funding to
elections, to develop standards in election administration, and
the systematic collection of data. That is what we were about
when you started this.
In this environment the EAC was created. It placed--this
was the genesis, and Congress in its wisdom in 2002 gave it
only a 3-year life. It was not appointed perpetually.
My colleagues at NASS, as Congressman Rokita has already
pointed out, have voted time and again to abolish the EAC.
Those votes were, as he mentioned, bipartisan and, in fact, 22
to 3 with 3 abstentions the last time it came up. Frankly, Mr.
Chairman, this is a time which has come and a time now that is
overdue.
As a threshold matter I would want explain to the committee
that we could not have implemented the Federal standards
without the assistance of some $35 million to the State of
Mississippi. Those were the HAVA grants, and we hope that we
have used them, and we believe we have used them, in accordance
with HAVA's mandates. However, EAC's role, as I agree with the
majority of my NASS colleagues, EAC has become redundant as we
move forward in the enforcement of HAVA. Many of their
functions or all their functions can now be utilized by other
organizations. And I have read the statutory language that you
have drafted.
There is nothing in the administrative functions of EAC
which cannot be performed by another entity. The funding, the
standards, the data collection are all things that can be done
from others. My colleagues here from Florida and New Hampshire
are here with me today. We share this information that is
gathered under HAVA, and it is very helpful in creating
solutions to the electoral process.
I am not opposed to reporting for the reasons mentioned.
EAC could be more efficient, and I have outlined those in my
comments. The secretary of state of Mississippi has no
statutory authority to require counties to provide the
requested data of the EAC, although we get the initial contacts
for each of them.
The lack of information that is reported from the counties,
it is very hard to prepare this 58-page document and get it
back on time. Standardization of the reporting data is very
important as a step going forward, although we don't believe
that the EAC is the one to do that. We believe FVAP and DOJ,
the Department of Justice, can both do this as well as the FEC.
I read with some interest the involvement in military and
overseas voting. Of five secretaries of state that went to
Afghanistan and Iraq to promote votes for the Presidential
election, three of them are sitting here today. We got really
good information. We learned a great deal of respect for the
members of our military and how the voting was going to be
conducted. I know firsthand what secure Internet-based access
is.
However, the EAC has come in with two grants to research
technology for injured members of the military and also create
guidelines for the design of remote electronic voting systems.
Those could be handled by FVAP or by the FEC.
One area of standardization I mentioned in here in regards
to reporting requirements. They have changed over the years,
and we have had reports--the ones where we follow the prior
year's reports, we have had those rejected and had to refile
them. Under the EAC guidelines, they have moved around.
I want to say, Mr. Chairman, that from my experience, in
all due respect to Congressman Hoyer's statements before, this
issue is not about the continuing of enforcement of HAVA. We
all support that. The secretaries of state have repeatedly
supported that.
We are the ones that train the elections officials at the
local level, as you well know. We educate election
commissioners, and we maintain the systems, and we assure
disability access, and educate the voters. All of the things
that were required in HAVA when we started are done by the
secretaries of state in the local reporting agencies. It is not
about HAVA here; it is about the fact that the EAC's
responsibilities can be better utilized in other locations, and
the government can function better.
All of the issues that I have raised today we raise on
behalf of all of the secretaries of state, although I do not
mention--I am not speaking for NASS today.
I do think it is critically important that we continue the
three functions of HAVA that I have mentioned to you, the data
collection, the standardization, and hopefully the funding. All
of those, though, can be better served by another agency, and
this one has become redundant and expensive.
Thank you for allowing me to come today.
[The statement of Mr. Hosemann follows:]
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Mr. Harper. Thank you, Secretary Hosemann. Appreciate your
being here and your friendship and your dedication to our great
State of Mississippi.
I now recognize Secretary Browning for 5 minutes. You may
proceed.
STATEMENT OF KURT BROWNING
Mr. Browning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee, for the opportunity to be here today to provide
testimony for H.R. 672. Today I speak in support of this
legislation, and, as you know, elections administration has
always been a responsibility of the States. With the passage of
the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, I believe the
Federal Government took its first major step into their
involvement in the conduct of elections. Certainly after the
2000 general election that has been frequently mentioned today,
Congress passed the Help America Vote Act of 2002 that I
believe went even further into the administration of elections,
and under that act created the Elections Assistance Commission
and provided much-needed funding to the States for modernizing
their voter registration systems as well as their voting
systems. And we continue to be appreciative certainly of that
assistance.
The EAC was also tasked with administering, obviously, the
number of grants to study various elections-related issues. The
creation of the Election Assistance Commission was probably a
good idea at the time, because it did provide a means of
administering the requirements payments for the State, as well
as providing some much-needed uniformity that was pretty much
nonexistent among the States. It also had a limited life span.
It continues to operate today as a Federal agency that has
grown both in staffing and in its budget. It appears to me to
be an overlap of responsibilities between the EAC and other
Federal agencies. As Secretary Hosemann has mentioned, some of
the military initiatives that the EAC has involved themselves
with is something that to me only makes sense that the Federal
voting assistance program would be the logical home for some of
those initiatives.
My experience with the EAC has been mixed at best. In my
opinion, the EAC has outlived its usefulness. In 2007, I
appeared before the EAC seeking guidance from the Commission
regarding the use of Florida HAVA dollars that we still had on
account for the purchase of voting systems when we were moving
from touch-screen to optical-scan voting systems. After a great
deal of testimony and questions, they, the Commission, were
unable to provide any definitive answer to me for a very timely
topic and in need of a very timely answer since my legislature
was in session. It was only after discussion with the
Commission's general counsel that an answer was provided, and
then and only then was it a tentative answer.
A common criticism is the EAC's voting system
certification, and that it has taken extended amounts of time
to certify systems. It wasn't until recently that they
certified their first system after having been in existence for
as long as they have.
The other thing that is a concern is the continually
changing voting system standards. No sooner is a set of
standards adopted by the EAC before they are preparing a new
round of standards. This constant state of flux has cost the
voting system's manufacturers millions of dollars, and in turn
those costs are passed on to local and State governments. For
that reason Florida chose not to require Federal voting system
certification, but instead to rely on our own rigorous voting
system certification program. In my opinion, we can certify a
system faster and more accurately in Florida than the EAC.
As has been stated a number of times today, the National
Association of Secretaries of State has, in fact, adopted a
resolution in 2005 and again in 2010 calling on Congress not to
reauthorize funding or--reauthorize the EAC or its funding, and
I supported that resolution. I do, however, believe that they
should have gone further by providing specific suggestions to
you, the Congress, as to the disposition of the functions of
the EAC.
The legislation today calls for the termination of EAC and
reassignment of most of its responsibilities to the Federal
Election Commission. I believe a more philosophical question
that I believe needs to be asked and answered in light of this
legislation is does the Federal Government need to continue
administering a program intended to fix problems that are now
10 years old and have essentially been resolved? If the Federal
Government is going to continue to be involved with voting
system certification issues, I would recommend and certainly
suggest that this be transferred to the Federal Election
Commission and not the National Institute of Standards and
Technology as currently proposed.
Certainly with the passage of this legislation, the
Standards Board and the Advisory Board cease to exist. I
believe there needs to be some formalized process that State
stakeholders have in providing input to the body that is going
to determine these voting system standards as well as other
things would impact the administration of elections at the
State level.
Certainly I am not an ardent supporter of Federal
involvement in election administration, but I do believe that
the issues that we are talking about today that are currently
assigned to the Elections Assistance Commission could and
should be assigned or reassigned to the Federal Election
Commission, and I believe that it would be the best place to do
it because of their continued relationship with the elections
community.
I would be more than happy to answer any appropriate
questions at the appropriate time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Harper. Thank you, Secretary Browning, for being here.
[The statement of Mr. Browning follows:]
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Mr. Harper. And I now recognize Mrs. LaVine for 5 minutes.
Thank you. You may proceed.
STATEMENT OF JILL LAVINE
Ms. LaVine. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for this
opportunity to speak here at this committee and to give you the
viewpoint of the local election official if the EAC was
terminated.
In 2002, when the Help America Vote Act was being debated
here in Washington, it was the topic of every election
official. And I have to admit, I was on the concerned side. It
was perceived that the Federal Government wanted control how
the States and local elections conducted their elections. I
changed my mind, however, when I saw what the EAC really did,
that they were an Election Assistance Commission.
In 2005, Sacramento County rolled out our new voter assist
terminals for voters with disabilities. This was the largest
rollout in any State at that time. The EAC was there to help
and observe, and their experience was very helpful. I have been
able to participate in several of the EAC projects, and in
preparing the Election Management Guidelines and the Quick
Start Guide. The Commission would gather together a group of
election officials. We would get together and discuss the
topic. We were not told what to do or what we were supposed to
say, but rather how did we make this work, and what were our
differences, and what could we suggest to improve the process.
Since we represented different States, and worked under
different laws, and used different voting systems, the finished
products will help everyone.
The Election Management Guidelines should be in every
election office. I use them when I write procedures, when
looking for ways to save money, and when writing RFPs for new
equipment. However, election laws change, and technology
changes, and these guidelines need to be updated, and the new
elections trends need to be vetted with election officials
having those experiences.
There are two topics now that should be added: One,
requiring identification to vote; and another would be on-line
voter registration. I believe the EAC is the best organization
to continue these projects. On the EAC Web site, it is one the
best and most helpful clearinghouse spots for information for
election officials from all States. I cochair the legislation
committee in California, and as I prepare analysis of the bills
to determine cost and impacts, I can do research on the EAC Web
site and be able to make appropriate suggestions for
amendments. I even used the Web site when I was asked by my
county to prepare a contingency plan for the H1N1, or swine
flu.
As cochair of the legislation committee, I put on a yearly
workshop to discuss all the laws that had been passed the
previous year and the impact on the local officials. The EAC
has been very supportive of this workshop and, when available,
will speak at this meeting to update what is happening on the
Federal level. It is that interaction to show their support and
we build trust together.
The authors of H.R. 672 recommend the termination of the
EAC because they feel the job is done. HAVA has recommended--or
one of the HAVA's requirements is that they have--every State
have a statewide voter registration database. California does
not, and right now the expected implementation date is 2015.
Another requirement of HAVA is to improve voting systems.
At this time Los Angeles County, the largest county, I think,
in the Nation, is looking for a voting system. They are using
their homegrown Inkavote system because there is not a system
that will accommodate their needs. And California's passage of
the Top Two Primary has increased their burden, and they will
not be able to accommodate the number of candidates and
contests for 2012.
I bought our optical scan system in 2004, and soon it will
be at the end of its lifecycle. Many counties are in the same
position. HAVA's requirement to improve voting systems will
always be an ongoing job.
One fast food company used the saying, you don't notice
clean until it is not there. Well, the same could be said for
elections. No one pays any attention to an election official
until something goes wrong. That is what happened in 2000.
Election officials now are preparing for the Presidential 2012
elections. Now is not the time to terminate the EAC.
While the research projects first included in HAVA are
complete, elections change, people change, voters change,
technology changes, and the EAC also needs to be changed, but
not terminated. Like all election offices facing budget cuts,
we must look for new efficiencies. HAVA now requires three
advisory boards for the EAC. I would suggest reviewing the need
for all these members. I would recommend staffing all four
Commissioners. There is no cost savings when decisions cannot
be made to get the work done.
In conclusion, I would recommend a change, not a
termination, of the EAC. Election officials rely on the
guidance and the resources that the Election Assistance
Commission provides.
Thank you.
Mr. Harper. Thank you Ms. LaVine. Appreciate your
attendance today.
[The statement of Ms. LaVine follows:]
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Mr. Harper. I now recognize Mr. Fortier for his testimony.
You are recognized, sir. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF JOHN FORTIER
Mr. Fortier. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
members of the subcommittee, for having me here today. I
appreciate testifying on this subject, and I guess I have
something of a middle view.
I sympathize very much with the aim of the bill. There are
a lot of reasons to think that we have a time of fiscal crisis,
we should look at every line in the budget; that the EAC has a
number of missions that it has completed and it is not going to
be performing in the future; and finally, the questions about
the EAC's management, and how much it spends on management, and
how it allocates its resources. All of those point in the
direction of doing something significant with the EAC.
I do have some, a couple of reservations that caused me not
to go down the road of absolutely calling for the termination
of the EAC. One is that, I think, the one function of the EAC
that is partially preserved by the bill, partially preserved in
the FEC with reports on UOCAVA and reports on NVRAs, the
research function; the research function, the ability to
collect and standardize data, which can be very different from
State to State. Not only the reporting of the data is uneven,
but different things are called different things in different
States. So it is very difficult to find a sort of common data
across States, and the EAC performs a valuable function in that
area.
I guess I want to take you back to the time when Mr. Hoyer
was sitting here at this table, was sitting where you are
sitting, and we had the 2000 elections crisis, and it really
was a time when Washington had to figure out how elections
worked. There were secretaries of state, local elections
officials well versed in these issues, but in many ways
Washington wasn't, scholars weren't versed in these things. And
we spent a couple of years in this committee and various
private commissions around the country trying to get a real
handle on how the whole system works. We had worked on it
episodically here and there, but having a place that can look
at the elections system as a whole and collect data, I think,
is significant and important.
Two things I would highlight. One is that, yes, you
preserve some of the research functions. But I do think that
the Elections Administration Survey, which really is part of a
larger survey that includes UOCAVA and NVRA, is valuable. The
work that I have done on early and absentee voting, information
about provisional ballots, about types of voting machines, just
getting a sense of the landscape of where we are across this
very, varied country, is something I think is worth preserving.
I do think a more robust research component in general than
has been proposed by the bill would be worthwhile. Thinking
about a State of Voting in America report coming out regularly
that would be a Federal and independent voice of what was going
on in the country would help policymakers here in Washington,
policymakers in the States, and elections scholars as well.
The other concern I have is that elections administration
issues might get lost. The FEC, of course, did have a
responsibility for these matters before 2000. And we did come
to the 2000 elections crisis and realize we didn't know enough
about it here in Washington. And I worry that all of the
resources of Washington knowing about elections will drain away
if we don't treat this core responsibility of being able to
describe the elections system well seriously.
The committee here may find itself not as interested in
these issues if there is not an EAC. Scholars may not write as
many reports. There already is some sense that foundations and
others are pulling away from this area. So I think it is
important to keep these issues in the forefront.
And I suggest a leaner, meaner EAC focused much more on
research issues and making sure that we retain some of these
core components. That might be a significantly smaller EAC than
it is today, but certainly an important function. Or if you do
need to move it to another place, to the FEC, I think the
challenge here is to make sure that that part of the FEC has a
voice. The FEC is a busy place, and Commissioners are concerned
with other things, and getting Commissioners' time and getting
a prominence to those issues, I think, is a challenge.
So I am supportive of the strong look at the FEC, the need
to streamline, cut down many of the functions, but I do think
we need to look much more significantly about preserving a
strong research function and finding a place, whether it is a
smaller independent agency or as a part of the FEC, to make
sure that those issues are not lost in other issues.
Mr. Harper. Mr. Fortier, we thank you for your testimony.
[The statement of Mr. Fortier follows:]
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Mr. Harper. And we now have time for committee members to
ask questions of the witnesses. Each member is allotted 5
minutes to question the witnesses, and, of course, we have the
same time clock to look at, and I'll begin by recognizing
myself for 5 minutes.
And I certainly want to thank each of you for taking the
time that you have out of a very busy schedule to be here and
to give us some insight into this legislation on what we should
do.
And, of course, Mr. Fortier, recognizing some of the things
that you said about research and things of that nature, one of
the responsibilities for EAC was that they were to have--and
this was assigned under HAVA--they were supposed to do a study
on the use of Social Security numbers in voter registration,
and I believe that it was due in 2005. And as of April 2011, we
don't have it, even though there have been inquiries. And their
response, EAC's response, was that it was the responsibility of
the Social Security Administration, which they have responded
back, no, under HAVA it is your responsibility. So we have had
some disappointment in that response.
I don't know if you were in the room when I did my opening,
but we asked for simple questions to be responded to by April
6th. How hard is that?
And so there is a high level of frustration here as we look
at what is going on. And EAC, having responsibility for
fairness in elections, has two of their Commissioners commit
political discrimination. That gets the government sued and
results in a hefty settlement being paid by the taxpayers
ultimately.
So there are many things here that we are dealing with. But
as it comes to research, which is certainly an important
aspect, who else besides EAC can handle the research
responsibilities that are already in the system?
Mr. Fortier. Well, I do think it is important that there be
a Federal role, a core Federal role. It is true that there--
since our problems in 2000 have been much more interesting to
the academic community, certainly the secretaries of state,
their organizations, and local elections officials, the
elections centers do lots of good work in that area. But what
is difficult is, and what I think needed is, an organization
that can go to States and localities and say, look, we need
relatively common information, and it is a difficult challenge
because of the differences out there.
I have written a book about absentee and early voting, and
I know that each State calls it something different. And some
States don't report at the State level on this. And I found
myself having to go to town-level data. So just to know what is
happening in the States for you, for Federal policymakers, for
us requires some sort of core data. Yes, others can do
additional research, but I do think that that is important to
preserve.
Mr. Harper. Thank you, Mr. Fortier.
Secretary Gardner, if I may, can you explain the difference
between a payment and a grant under HAVA and how the EAC's use
of terms interchangeably affects your State or other States?
Mr. Gardner. Well, a payment: 99-plus percent of the money
that has been given to the States have been payments. To comply
with the provisions of HAVA, make sure that all disabled voters
have a way to participate that protects them, and create the
statewide database. A grant was for colleges, for instance,
that want to have a program for students that might want to
work in a polling place. It amounts to a small amount of money;
compared to almost 3 billion for payments, maybe 30 million for
grants. But grants tie the States up. Grants have a lot more
strings attached, and that really got to the fundamentals of--
is this just an attempt to prolong the existence by bringing
the States in tighter in a way that doesn't give back? That is
why we made a big point of it.
It is laughable that there was a grants director and not a
payments director, because the focus is towards the OMB and
rules and rulemaking. That is what we at the State level are
really concerned about. That is what your attempt--that is why
I applaud you for that.
This is--this is a waste of money. From all of my
experience: We had the closest U.S. Senate race in history
decided by two votes in 1974. The U.S. Senate decided--the
Rules Committee--that they would do a recount themselves. Just
like your counterpart, you--if you decided someday you wanted
to do a recount because you are the final judge of the
qualification election of your own members.
We shipped all the ballots to Washington. They remained
down here for about 20 years. About a decade ago someone called
me and said, ``What are all these boxes doing in one of the
closets in one of these buildings from New Hampshire, what are
they doing here?'' They were the recount ballots, and the
Senate spent 6 months and couldn't do it.
And this is not--I wasn't expecting your question, but here
is an example. This is one of these Quick Starts, best
practice. This is about recounts. This is laughable what is in
here. It doesn't help at all. I have done a lot of recounts in
my day, and my testimony will tell you that. If the U.S. Senate
got this when they were deciding to look at recounts, whoever
did this, they would ask a lot of questions. This is just one
example of spending money on this and other things that are
part of this.
Mr. Harper. Thank you, Secretary Gardner. I appreciate that
very much.
I am now going to recognize the ranking member Mr. Gonzalez
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me
ask, Mr. Gardner, are you for repeal of the Help America Vote
Act.
Mr. Gardner. No.
Mr. Gonzalez. You would not.
Mr. Gardner. I am not for repeal of the act. I am for
repeal of the EAC.
Mr. Gonzalez. I understand that.
And, Mr. Hosemann, are you for repeal of the Help America
Vote Act?
Mr. Hosemann. No.
Mr. Gonzalez. And, Mr. Browning, same question.
Mr. Browning. No, sir.
Mr. Gonzalez. Because you recognize that its goals and its
purpose are quite valid; is that correct, Mr. Gardner?
Mr. Gardner. Say that again, please.
Mr. Gonzalez. The act itself, you don't want it repealed
because it is a valid piece of legislation addressing very real
issues that existed at the time of its enactment that are still
present today in our elections system. It is a relevant piece
of legislation, that is all I am saying. And I am assuming all
three of you said you would not want to repeal it because you
think it is a legitimate piece of legislation that is relevant
today. That was just an assumption. And I only have 5 minutes
because I want to get some other questions.
I listen to your testimony, and it is almost as if you may
be questioning the validity and the purpose of the act itself.
So let us get that off the table. What you are really
complaining about is the entity, the Election Assistance
Commission as the entity that is charged, in essence, with
carrying forth the goals of the Help America Vote Act.
And I will follow that. My colleagues believe that it is
inefficient, it costs too much, but if you read the letters
that we have received from the other agencies that would
subsume those duties, they are all telling you, We are
understaffed. One, NIST has a conflict of interest; secondly,
doesn't have the resources and would be asking for more monies.
The FEC is telling you, We are ill equipped; we can't do it
unless you plus up. So I don't know where the savings are going
to come. So, I don't even think that is going to be relevant in
this particular discussion. We are not seeking to pass this
particular bill to really save any money, because no one is
going to point at these other agencies.
Now, let me ask you, do you really want to work with DOJ,
NIST and the FEC as opposed to one entity that is charged with
the responsibility of what is going to help you with the Help
America Vote Act? Are you telling me you would rather be
working with three, four, five different Federal agencies than
one?
Mr. Gardner. Your premise is you are saying it helps us. I
don't believe it helps us. You said that the act helps us, and
I am saying to you that I don't believe that it does help us.
Mr. Gonzalez. Then why aren't you for repealing it? No, I
mean, I think what we are really getting into is all sorts of
philosophy and such, which is good. But I would--let me ask the
three secretaries of state. Do all your local election
officials share your opinions as expressed today in your
testimony? Mr. Gardner.
Mr. Gardner. Yes, I can say that--and I work very closely
with our elections officials. We have over 6,000 that
participate just on election night itself. We have workshops
all year. When I have shown them some of these or they have
seen them, there was no enthusiasm whatsoever.
Mr. Gonzalez. All right. I'm saying that----
Mr. Gardner. The whole thing about best practices----
Mr. Gonzalez. Total waste of time? Nothing; they have not
benefited at all by what the Election Assistance Commission has
attempted to do nationwide? They would all agree with you?
Let me ask you, Mr. Hosemann, do all of your local elected
officials agree with your assessment in your testimony?
Mr. Hosemann. They do.
Mr. Gonzalez. So you can speak for each and every one of
them?
Mr. Hosemann. Well, I didn't speak with each and every one
of them about here, but we do meet with election Commissioners.
We train all of them. We have 400 of them. I visit with them on
a regular basis, sometimes monthly, and oftentimes----
Mr. Gonzalez. And they are all for doing away with EAC?
Mr. Hosemann. They are frustrated with EAC.
Mr. Gonzalez. No. They are all wanting to do away----
Mr. Hosemann. The ones I have spoken with are in favor of
doing away with EAC.
Mr. Gonzalez. Well, what I am saying, ``all.'' Because I
think you are going to find individuals in your own states--I
am just assuming this; maybe I will hear from them, hopefully I
would, because we do have some local officials that are willing
to testify and correspond with us.
Mr. Browning, same question. Do all of your local elected
officials agree with your testimony today?
Mr. Browning. The way your question is phrased, no.
Mr. Gonzalez. And the reason for that?
Mr. Browning. Well, I haven't polled all my local elections
supervisors, but the ones that I have talked to, and I talk to
my supervisors of elections on a regular basis, they have
sensed or expressed to me a sense of frustration with the EAC.
Certainly we are appreciative of funding that the Federal
Government, through the EAC, has provided for the modernization
of voter registration and voting systems, but, you know, when
you have election administration being done or--I won't even
say--to a degree micromanaged, at least they are attempting to
micromanage elections through the EAC, it doesn't work. The
folks that best know how to administer elections are those
locally, and I think that they see the EAC as an intrusion.
Mr. Gonzalez. I am going to yield back if you'll give me
one second, sir. First I want to apologize to our witnesses and
my colleagues. I am supposed to be chairing a meeting right
now, and so I am 20 minutes late, and this group gets very
restless, so I will apologize. But thank you for your
testimony.
I think if we are realistic about what we are trying to do
and to assist you, it is not necessary to do away. All we have
to do is improve on what has proved beneficial. That is why I
asked that question. I don't believe that all the election
officials agree with your assessment, because, to be honest
with you, we have someone present today that believes it has
been beneficial. That is a local election official.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for your indulgence.
Mr. Harper. Thank you very much, Mr. Gonzalez.
I now recognize the gentleman from Indiana for 5 minutes.
Mr. Rokita. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just say for
the record and to the witnesses, having supervised elections,
having run elections in the State of Indiana for 8 years, I
don't know--this is to Mr. Gonzalez--I don't know a group of
election officials that agree on everything 100 percent of the
time. In that sense they are no more than a simple microcosm of
this great country.
I also would say the fact that bureaucrats might write in
and tell us that they are overworked and understaffed has
little weight with me, and that comes from a guy who used to
run a bureaucracy. I used to run it on 1987 dollars unadjusted
for inflation. We can all do more work around here, Mr.
Chairman.
To my friend Mr. Fortier--I guess we haven't met, so I
shouldn't say ``friend'' so flippantly. You were called in, I
would suggest, as a friendly witness. And I appreciate your
concentration on research. Are you aware that the EAC contracts
out most of its research, or at least does, yes or no?
Mr. Fortier. Yes.
Mr. Rokita. Okay. Are you aware that it contracts it out to
organizations that aren't necessarily unbiased, or do you not
have an opinion? Yes or no, no opinion.
Mr. Fortier. There is a lot of research, I suppose----
Mr. Rokita. Are you aware that I was part of a group as
secretary of state that worked with contractors to the EAC on
issues of voter intimidation and photo ID, yes or no?
Mr. Fortier. Yes.
Mr. Rokita. You are aware that I was part of that.
Are you aware that that contractor was discredited and had
to leave its liberal, biased university, a specific law school,
because of an inspector general's report that came out
indicating that the EAC had contracted biased people, biased
organizations, and gave biased results back?
Mr. Fortier. I am not aware of that.
Mr. Rokita. Okay. Now that you are aware of that, would you
rely on the EAC for its research, yes or no?
Mr. Fortier. I have a hard time answering yes or no, but
what I would say is this: That, yes, the EAC itself I don't
expect to do its research in house. I--the core functions----
Mr. Rokita. Do you have a problem----
Mr. Fortier. Data collection, I think, is the most
important feature.
Mr. Rokita. Do you have a problem with professional
government organizations like the GAO performing the election
research?
Mr. Fortier. Not necessarily, but I think it would be
potentially too diffuse. It wouldn't have the focus of an
organization that had a core competency----
Mr. Rokita. Do you think----
Mr. Fortier [continuing]. Having five or six, seven
people----
Mr. Rokita. Core competency. But you just understood that
they contract out their research.
Mr. Fortier. They contract out data collection, but having
people in house who can analyze----
Mr. Rokita. No, no, no. I was part of a group that didn't
just contract out data collection, they made conclusions.
To my secretary of state friends, starting with Mr.
Hosemann, is there anything in the Mississippi Constitution
that allows the Federal Government to be involved in the
election process?
Mr. Hosemann. No.
Mr. Rokita. Okay. Do you see anything in the U.S.
Constitution that allows for the Election Assistance Commission
to do what it does?
Mr. Hosemann. No, I do not. And I would tell you that I
think clearly we believe that the collection of data is
important, and we believe that the collection of data by
impartial individuals is important to the States. We share that
data. Florida, Mississippi, Indiana, all of us share that data.
Also the indication that there would not be a spotlight on
the election system with the removal of the EAC is not shared
by me. We get the spotlight thrown on the secretary of state's
office every time there is an election, and plenty of reporters
and people looking at it.
So it is not about the data collection. I think it can be
better done in another location. It is not about the fact that
this will somehow go away and people won't look at the election
system anymore. I can assure you they will look at it in
Mississippi. I can't testify for the other States, but I feel
they will as well.
Mr. Rokita. Thank you, Mr. Hosemann.
And, Secretary Browning, thank you for being here as well.
Do you know Supervisor Gill of Citrus County, Florida?
Mr. Browning. Yes, very well.
Mr. Rokita. She testified here last year before I got to
Congress and said some nice things about the EAC at a hearing
that was a look back at the 2010 election. And this comes from
my friend Congressman Nugent, who is of that county. He had a
conversation with her today, and I want to get this on the
record and have you respond. This is her quote from, I believe,
this morning: The more I learned about it, being the EAC, the
more I was for eliminating the organization.
So she has changed her view in an opposite direction from
how Ms. LaVine's testimony recorded her view. Any reaction to
that?
Mr. Browning. Yes. As a matter of fact, I had a
conversation with Supervisor Gill just last evening, and she
had indicated to me that the more she found out, the more she
realized that the EAC was more of a burden than it was a help.
She expressed that to me last night.
Mr. Rokita. Secretaries, I thank all the witnesses. Sorry I
didn't get to each of you. And I yield back.
Mr. Harper. Thank you very much, and I appreciate you being
here. What we want is we want to have efficient and fair
elections in this country where everyone who is legally able to
vote can vote, and those that shouldn't don't. And I know that
is the goal of everybody in this room, but when we look at this
and the function and the history of EAC, this is why we are
here today.
We are not attacking HAVA. In fact, if we are saying that
we support that bill, well, within that bill was a provision
that the EAC was only authorized through 2005. I think when you
look at the history of your organization, of NASS, and what
they have done, you have recognized that and looked at that.
And so when we see the inability to do the job, that is an
issue.
One last thing that I will note that Mr. Gonzalez brought
up of essential functions. Right now the EAC has, I believe, 50
employees. Only six of those would be handling what we would
deem to be essential. So there is a significant cost savings of
what we would be talking about in this reassignment.
But we do look forward to hearing from you. If you have
other thoughts, suggestions, you know, we definitely want to
hear from you. We appreciate each of you, your service and
dedication to the process.
With that, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:56 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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Mr. Fortier did no submit responses to the Committee prior
to the printing of this transcript.