[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 34 (Wednesday, March 14, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2307-S2309]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. BOND:
  S. 528. A bill to amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 
to modify the requirements for voter mail registration and for other 
purposes; to the Committee on Rules and Administration.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, today I rise to introduce a commonsense 
election reform bill which we have entitled the Safeguard the Vote Act. 
I realize other reform issues have received a lot of media attention, 
but I think it is vital to focus on the fundamental issue of casting 
and counting votes honestly and fairly as well.
  Over the past months, many Americans saw for the first time how 
actual vote counting is done or not done. We have had a real-life 
civics lesson that was as unexpected as it was frustrating. Those of us 
in positions of responsibility need to fix what needs fixing, reform 
what needs reforming, and prosecute where actual wrongdoing has 
occurred.
  Voting is the most important civic duty and responsibility for 
citizens in our form of government. It should not be diluted by fraud, 
false filings in lawsuits, judges who do not follow the law, 
politicians who try to profit from confusion, and people who just abuse 
the system.
  Let me be clear, at the same time voters must not be unduly confused 
by complicated ballots or confounded by inadequate phone lines or 
voting booths. These barriers to voting are absolutely unacceptable, 
and we need to make sure they do not exist.
  Having said that--and I believe very strongly in it--I also say to 
some who want to hide the other abuses, do not try to use general 
confusion as an excuse or a justification for fraud.
  I want to make one simple point as I begin. Vote fraud is not about 
partisanship. It is not about Democrats versus Republicans. It is not 
about the north side of St. Louis versus the south side of St. Louis. 
It is not about somebody getting a partisan advantage. It is about 
justice.
  Vote fraud is a criminal not a political act. Illegal votes dilute 
the value of votes cast legally. When people try to stuff the ballot 
box, what they are really doing is trying to steal political power from 
those who follow election laws.
  On election night in November of 2000, I was exercised and somewhat 
upset, one might say, as we learned about what was going on in St. 
Louis city where orders had been issued to keep the voting booths open 
in certain areas for an extended period of time. Lawyers appealed that 
decision, and the Missouri Court of Appeals shut them down. They wrote:

       (E)qual vigilance is required to ensure that only those 
     entitled to vote are allowed to cast a ballot. Otherwise, the 
     rights of those lawfully entitled to vote are inevitably 
     diluted.

  Unfortunately, what we have seen in St. Louis these past months has 
been nothing short of breathtaking. Some might say that we have even 
become a national laughingstock. We have dead people registering by 
mail.
  This city alderman died more than 10 years ago. He was registered to 
vote on cards turned in just before the March 6 mayoral primary. We had 
people registering from vacant lots. The media in St. Louis was very 
aggressive, and they checked on some of the voter addresses. There was 
no building there. They did not even see the tents in which people were 
living.
  Voter rolls in St. Louis had more names on the registered active and 
inactive list than there were people in St. Louis city. It begins to 
raise suspicions.
  A city judge exceeded the law by providing extended voting hours for 
only selected polling places. Then there is the strange story of a 
plaintiff in that case who claimed he ``has not been able to vote and 
fears he will not be able to vote because of long lines at the polling 
places and machine breakdowns.'' It was discovered he had two problems. 
He was dead, in which case long lines should not have been a problem 
because he was not going anywhere anyway.
  The lawyer then came up with somebody else: Oh, what we really meant 
to say was a guy whose name is similar to that, so they tracked him 
out. The

[[Page S2308]]

problem was he had already voted when the lawyers filed the sworn 
statement saying that he was worried about not being able to 
vote, which, I guess, we can only conclude meant he was worried about 
casting a second illegal ballot.

  We have had felons voting, people not even registered voting. Just 
when you think we have seen it all--this is my favorite--here is the 
voting registration card that was sent in in October of 1994 by one 
Ritzy Mekler. The interesting thing about Ritzy Mekler is that Ritzy is 
a dog. We do not know how many times Ritzy may have voted, but this 
seems to be an unwarranted extension of the voting franchise. Much as I 
love dogs, I don't really think they should be voting. This is 
certainly a new avenue for those who like pets. But that is the kind of 
thing with which we need to deal.
  The end result of all these revelations is that a city grand jury in 
St. Louis is now investigating fraudulent voter registration, and the 
lawyers involved have sent the U.S. attorney a 250-page report. People 
are beginning to take it seriously. You don't have to take my word for 
it. Local St. Louis city Democrats have had a few things to say.
  St. Louis' current mayor, Clarence Harmon, said:

       I think there is ample, longstanding evidence of voter 
     fraud in our community.

  State representative Quincy Troupe said:

       There is no doubt in any black elected official's mind that 
     the whole process has discouraged honest elections in the 
     city of St. Louis for some time. We know that we have people 
     who cheat in every election. The only way you can win a close 
     election in this town, you have to beat the cheat.

  From another side, 11th ward alderman, Matt Villa, said:

       Who knows who did it. But it is apparent they are trying to 
     cheat and steal this election.

  The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which has been aggressively covering 
this story, noted on its editorial page:

       St. Louis appears to have a full-blown election scandal 
     that grows with each newly discovered box of bogus 
     registration cards.

  As I noted earlier, I believe it is our duty to fix what needs to be 
fixed, reform what needs to be reformed, and prosecute where there has 
been wrongdoing. In St. Louis, I believe criminal prosecutions are 
being considered. Coupled with the bill I am introducing today, this 
should go a long way toward cleaning up what has gone wrong in St. 
Louis.
  I might add, just the threat of criminal prosecutions appear to have 
made a difference in the mayoral primary in St. Louis last week. It was 
a lot more honest than it has been in a long time. There is nothing 
like the healthy atmosphere of possible criminal prosecutions to make 
people think maybe we should not try to steal this election.
  Well, let me go through the list of things we found out are 
contributing to fraud.
  The first obvious problem is the blatant fraud of the bogus voter 
registrations. With dead people reregistering, fake names, phony 
addresses, and dogs being registered, it is clear the system is being 
abused.
  Nearly all of these fraudulent registrations were the mail-in forms. 
Our plan begins by addressing this type of fraud with a few simple 
reforms. These are changing Federal law, which in some instances, has 
actually facilitated voter fraud.
  1. First-time voters who register by mail would be required to vote 
in person and present a photo ID the first time after registration. We 
trust that the local officials would recognize the dog if she came in--
even with a photo registration.

  2. If the follow-up registration card is returned to the election 
office as undeliverable by the post office, States would be allowed 
immediately to remove those names from the rolls, provided they made a 
good-faith effort to ensure that eligible voters would not be removed 
from the rolls.
  3. Finally, the bill would give the States the authority to include 
on the mail registration form a place for notarization or other form of 
authentication. Under current Federal law, States are actually 
prohibited from including this safeguard.
  I believe the incentives for the bogus addresses and fake names would 
be virtually eliminated by these simple safeguards, while all the 
legitimate efforts to encourage new voters to register could, should, 
and must continue.
  The second major problem we have seen in St. Louis is that the voter 
rolls are so clogged up with incorrect or fraudulent data that legal 
voters are shortchanged. St. Louis city actually, as I said earlier, 
has more voters listed on its active plus inactive rolls than the 
voting age population of the city. That is not surprising if they are 
registering dead people, dogs, and people from vacant lots.
  Even more amazing is the fact that the Secretary of State said in a 
recent report that 5,000 of the names on the inactive list are actually 
duplicates of other names on the inactive list. There are numerous 
other examples of names on both the active and inactive lists at the 
same time. These inactive lists are what is being used for election day 
registration and voting. They just go in and say my name is on the 
inactive list. Hundreds were allowed to vote in that instance.
  Thus, it is painfully clear that something must be done to keep the 
voter rolls clean and accurate.
  The bill I introduce includes two basic reforms to assist in the 
cleanup of voter rolls. First, it would require States to conduct a 
program of cleaning up lists wherever the voter roll list of eligible 
voters is larger than the number of people of voting age in that county 
or city. That seems to make only common sense. I can't imagine anyone 
opposing that if you have more people registered than you have people, 
something is wrong.
  Second, my proposal adopts the commonsense approach just used by the 
St. Louis election board in their March primary. For those voters whose 
names have been moved to the inactive list, it would require that a 
photo ID be presented by the voter as part of their oral or written 
affirmation of their address when they seek to vote again. The board of 
elections just required this in last week's election, and that election 
seemed to go off without a hitch.
  I believe these straightforward reforms will go a long way toward 
restoring the confidence in the voter registration and balloting 
process. But for those who insist on continuing their fraudulent 
activities, this bill strengthens criminal penalties for those who 
commit fraud or conspire to commit voter fraud.
  Finally, given the dimensions of the vote fraud scandal in St. Louis, 
this legislation creates a national pilot project to clean up voter 
lists in St. Louis in order to assist in ending election day corruption 
across the Nation.
  I have proposed that the Federal Election Commission run the project 
in St. Louis city and St. Louis County to develop a method we can use 
nationally to maintain accurate voter rolls and ensure that all 
properly registered voters are permitted to vote without wrongfully 
being disenfranchised by failure of their registration to be effective, 
or by allowing others who are not qualified and registered to vote, 
diluting their votes. The FEC would also coordinate records of voters 
registered to vote at places authorized under the National Voter 
Registration Act of 1993, along with State death and felony conviction 
records and the official voter registered for each polling place.
  As the Missouri Court of Appeals wrote when they shut down the 
improper efforts to keep only certain polling places open:

       . . . (C)ommendable zeal to protect voting rights must be 
     tempered by the corresponding duty to protect the integrity 
     of the voting process. . . . (E)qual vigilance is required to 
     ensure that only those entitled to vote are allowed to cast a 
     ballot. Otherwise, the rights of those lawfully entitled to 
     vote are inevitably diluted.

  With these new tools, and some real leadership, the election boards 
of St. Louis City, and St. Louis County could get the big broom--and 
start cleaning up the mess. Criminal investigations are ongoing, I hope 
that anyone responsible for cheating will be caught and punished. But 
we must get a handle on the voter rolls. People who register and follow 
the rules shouldn't be frustrated by inadequate polling places and 
phone lines or confused by out-of-date lists. At the same time, we must 
require voter lists to be scrubbed and reviewed in a much more timely 
manner--so the cheaters cannot use confusion as their friend.
  I certainly don't want St. Louis to have the lasting reputation 
described by my old friend Quincy Troupe:


[[Page S2309]]


       The only way you can win a close election in this town, you 
     have to beat the cheat.
                                 ______