[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 68 (Thursday, May 17, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H2316-H2323]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
COMPREHENSIVE ELECTION REFORM LEGISLATION NEEDED
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2001, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to open a discussion on election
reform.
Mr. Speaker and colleagues, as chair of the Democratic Caucus Special
Committee on Election Reform, I stand before Congress today to urge
this body to respond to the unrelenting public outcry for comprehensive
election reform legislation.
Election reform is an issue that transcends all partisan politics.
The right to vote is the very cornerstone of our democracy. Earlier
this year I was honored to be appointed by the gentleman from Missouri
(Mr. Gephardt) House minority leader, to chair the U.S. House of
Representatives Democratic Caucus Special Committee on Election Reform.
I am very pleased to be joined on that committee by a prestigious group
of representatives, including the ranking members of the Committee on
House Administration and the Committee on the Judiciary. As a matter of
fact, many of those on that committee may serve as speakers here today.
The goal of our committee is to ensure the integrity of the election
process while increasing voter confidence and participation. While the
Florida experience is still fresh in our mind, this committee has begun
a thorough review of nationwide voting practices and election laws in
an effort to restore the confidence of the American people.
We anticipate that our committee will propose legislation designed to
serve our goals, identify key areas where uniform national standards
may be appropriate, and make recommendations to Congress on the
implementation of changes at the State and local levels.
On April 2, 2001, we held our first hearing in Philadelphia, the
cradle of American democracy, and we learned firsthand from
Philadelphia voters that when their names were not found on precinct
rosters, they were forced to have to travel to police stations to see a
judge to determine if they could vote.
Many voters confronted with this form of provisional voting ended up
not voting at all, because they were intimidated by the idea of having
to go to a police station or because it was just a logistical
nightmare.
At our second hearing in San Antonio, Texas on April 20, we heard
testimony from registered voter Mrs. Carmen Martinez who was denied her
right to vote in the November elections because her name had been
erroneously purged from state voter polls. The Texas Secretary of State
who also testified explained that Texas' practice of purging voter
rolls resulted in 750,000 voters removed from the polls last year. In
Texas names are purged from voter rolls as a result of confirmation
notices mailed by county registrars which are returned as undeliverable
or indicating a return of address.
However, Mrs. Martinez explained that she had never lived at any
other address since the day she registered to vote.
On Saturday our committee will travel to Chicago, Illinois, where
more ballots were discarded in the last election than in any other
major city in the country. A hand-examination of the 123,000 discarded
ballots found that the number one reason for the uncounted ballots was
faulty ballot punches.
We recognize that in many States they are indeed in the process of
approving reforms to their election systems. Most of these reforms
relate to modernizing outdated voting equipment and machinery. The
committee applauds these efforts to upgrade from punch card or lever
voting systems to touch screen or optical scan systems, and we support
these reforms.
{time} 1500
But technological advances in voting equipment alone will not solve
all of the problems of our electoral process. The committee intends to
thoroughly examine issues relating to poll worker recruitment and
training, national holidays or time off for voting, uniform voting
standards, absentee voting, and standardized recount and vote
certification procedures. Particular attention needs to be focused on
issues relating to voter disenfranchisement, like the purging of voter
rolls, voter identification requirements, provisional balloting, voter
education, ballot design, sensitivity to poorly educated voters, and
voters with disabilities, voting rights and voter intimidation issues.
These issues have a disproportionate effect on voters in minority
communities. We are monitoring civil rights lawsuits that have been
filed in California, Florida, Illinois and St. Louis among others
involving many of these issues.
Equally important is the disenfranchisement of overseas military
personnel. Congress is uniquely situated to implement uniform standards
to ensure that American men and women serving overseas have their
voices heard in our elections. Similar reforms must be adopted for
other U.S. citizens living abroad. Congress must indeed
[[Page H2317]]
take the lead role in restoring voter confidence in our election system
and increasing voter participation.
Given the resources available to Congress and the studies being
developed by other organizations and commissions, Congress is in the
best position to identify key areas where uniform, national standards
may very well be appropriate. We need to pass legislation and propose
recommendations for changes at the State and local levels to ensure
that every vote is indeed counted. As chair of this committee, I will
do everything in my power to see that we accomplish these goals on
behalf of the American people.
Mr. Speaker, I know that just as I and the Members who serve on this
committee are concerned about voter reform, we have members in the
Senate who are very much concerned and they too are working, holding
hearings and putting together legislation. Just this morning, the
Congressional Black Caucus met with many members of the United States
Senate. At that meeting, we heard from Senator Dodd about legislation
that he is proposing. We also heard more about the legislation that is
being proposed by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers). And we
know that we have many other Members, even some of the Members who
serve on our special committee, such as the gentleman from Maryland
(Mr. Hoyer) and the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price) and also
the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), all who have introduced
legislation. So we have many pieces of legislation that are being
introduced. I think our committee will be able to examine this
legislation and we will be able to give input and recommendation to
those who will end up being the final persons who will present
legislation, both in this body and in the other body, to come up with
legislation that can indeed carry us into election reform.
We are concerned, however. There is no money in the budget for
election reform. And we are surprised about that. We had talked at
length to representatives of this administration about election reform
and we had been told that it was important to the President and that it
was important to even the Republican Conference. But we have not been
able to get any commitments for the resources that are necessary to
help some of these jurisdictions who have little or no money to deal
with just the simple problems of replacing punch card systems and
getting rid of machines that do not work.
We will continue to try to encourage the President and Members on the
other side of the aisle to get involved in this issue, to help us get
the resources that we need in order to make reform a reality.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms.
Schakowsky) to share with us the important work that she is doing on
provisional balloting in the election process.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I thank the gentlewoman from California not only for
yielding but for her steadfast leadership on this very important issue
of election reform. As chairperson of the Democratic Caucus Special
Committee on Election Reform, she is working to ensure that citizens
across the Nation are aware of the serious effort that is going on to
reform our system and guaranteeing that in the future, no eligible
voter will ever be turned away again, shut out or discriminated against
on election day.
This Saturday, the committee will hold its next hearing in Chicago.
Hundreds of voters will have the opportunity to tell us their
experiences about how we can improve the system. Chicago, a large part
of which I have in my district, had the most error-ridden Presidential
election last fall of any major U.S. city, with 123,000 uncounted
ballots in Cook County.
That is why the work of this committee is so important. We can learn
from voters across the country and from local election officials and
experts how we can reform our election system. What the 2000 election
has taught us is that many problems exist and that without serious
Federal legislative steps, we are destined for another Florida fiasco
with the election decided by the judicial branch and not the
electorate.
Florida could have happened anywhere. As it turns out, it certainly
could have happened in Chicago given all the problems that we had. On
election day around the country, voters were turned away from the
polling place. They were unfairly targeted. They were not allowed to
fully exercise their constitutional right during the election.
This past election taught us a very important lesson. Voters were
penalized for no fault of their own. That is why I believe, as I
believe the gentlewoman does, that Congress can play a role in
reforming current law. One of the ways that it can do it is with
provisional voting legislation. It is important that one standard exist
nationwide that would guarantee that no registered voter is turned away
at the polls.
When we talk about national involvement in elections, which is
largely a matter of local jurisdictions, we are not talking about
muddling in their business. What we are talking about is setting
standards that will guarantee the right of every citizen and the
details left to the local jurisdiction. But this provisional voting
issue is one where we can play a role in setting the standard. Passing
legislation like, for example, my Provisional Voting Rights Act of
2001, H.R. 1004, registered voters can feel confident if their name
does not appear on the registration list, they will be permitted to
vote. They would not have to go, as they do in some places, we heard in
Philadelphia, to a police station, or leaving the polling place in
order to get their provisional ballot.
During the committee's hearing in Philadelphia, we heard testimony
from Juan Ramos, founder of the Delaware Valley Voter Registration
Education Project and Petricio Morales, an ordinary voter, who
testified that voters had to travel to the police station to see a
judge to determine whether they are eligible to vote. Voters then had
to travel all the way back to the polling place to cast their vote.
Many voters who are confronted with that process either decide not to
vote because they feel intimidated or because of time constraints or
just plain inconvenience.
In Cook County, if your name does not appear in the right place, then
you are just simply prohibited from voting altogether. You can vote by
affidavit under certain limited conditions but there are many instances
where even though you may be a registered voter, you cannot vote on
election day.
We have to change that. Voters should be given a provisional ballot
after affirming their right before an election official right there at
the polling place. They can vote immediately and feel confident that if
it is certified that day that they are eligible, that that vote will
count. If our goal is to ensure that more voter participation occurs,
we should take steps to ensure that this is achieved. And reforming
provisional voting is a step in that direction.
Actually in the legislation that I have, if they cannot show that
this person is not eligible to vote, then the person would be able to
vote, exercising their right as a citizen of the United States. I am
certain that we will hear more during our committee's hearings in
Chicago on Saturday and across the country as the committee continues
to highlight the importance of election reform in subsequent hearings.
I look forward to that. I once again congratulate my colleague from
California on a job well done.
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I sincerely thank the gentlewoman from
Chicago for all of the work that she has done on election reform. She
has been at every meeting. She has traveled with us both to Texas and
to Pennsylvania and, of course, she is hosting us in Chicago this
weekend. She is giving priority time to this issue. And it is because
of the kind of work that she is doing, we are going to be able to help
set some standards on issues such as provisional balloting.
Now it is my great pleasure to yield to the gentleman from North
Carolina to deal with the bill and some issues that he has been working
with on election reform. I thank him for all of the time and attention
that he has given to us as we have tried to put together this committee
and gather the information that we need to make the recommendations to
this House.
Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I thank my colleague for yielding. I
want to underscore what others have
[[Page H2318]]
said, that the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) has done a
wonderful job in pulling this committee together and in taking us all
over the country to examine voting practices and possible reforms in
various communities. I think we are going to have some very significant
results in a relatively short period of time.
Everyone in the country, of course, knows about the travesty that
occurred in Florida last fall. But what we have learned is that
unfortunately, it is not that unusual for people to have their votes
not counted accurately, to find that somehow their name has
mysteriously dropped off the rolls when they go to vote on election
day. There is a range of problems and challenges that we need to deal
with to make our democracy work as it needs to work. Certainly the
right to vote and to have your vote counted is fundamental to
democracy.
My particular focus today is going to be on voting equipment, because
we know that we need modern equipment to have votes cast accurately and
counted accurately and unfortunately there is a great disparity in this
country in the kind of equipment that people are using and the kind of
equipment that local communities have access to. All too often, there
is a correlation between the worst, worn-out, inaccurate equipment and
the economic level of that neighborhood and that precinct and that
community.
That simply is unacceptable. It is unacceptable for any community to
have worn-out, inaccurate equipment but particularly for it to be
concentrated in lower-income areas, minority areas, that is just simply
unacceptable. We should not stand for it for another election. Before
the 2002 election occurs, we must move on this problem.
It is sort of like the situation we face when we find a neighborhood
built on top of a toxic waste dump. How do we respond? We respond to
that emergency by buying out those homes to protect the people who live
there. When a flood wipes out a community like happened in eastern
North Carolina not too long ago, we respond by buying out property to
protect the residents and help them find safe places to live.
{time} 1515
Well, I think error-prone voting equipment is no less an emergency.
It is an emergency that threatens our democracy, and we need an
immediate response. And it is going to take some money. It is going to
take some money to upgrade voting technology from error-prone punch-
card systems to reliable machines. But we cannot afford not to do
anything, and here too I think a buyout is warranted, a buyout of these
machines, so that new, accurate machines can be in place by the 2002
election.
Just look at what error-prone voting machinery does to our democracy.
It is impossible to say every vote counts, when a study done by Caltech
and MIT revealed that the spoilage rate for punch cards from 1988 to
2000 was 2.9 percent, or as many as 986,000 votes in the year 2000
alone.
In Florida last year, the spoilage rate for punch cards was 3.9
percent. In Fulton County, Georgia, the punch-card spoilage rate
reached 6.25 percent. In Cook County, Illinois, it was 5 percent during
the last election. That amounts to 120,000 ballots.
Now, we have seen some encouraging efforts in cities and counties and
States to get rid of this error-prone equipment. In 1996, the City of
Detroit used punch-card machines and 3.1 percent of its ballots were
spoiled. In 2000, after the city moved to an optical scan system, which
warns voters of errors and allows them to correct mistakes, the rate
fell to 1.1 percent.
In the States, Georgia recently passed legislation requiring uniform
election equipment throughout the State by 2004, and the State is going
to conduct a pilot project to test electronic touch screen voting
equipment in the 2001 municipal elections.
Maryland passed legislation to require the State Board of Elections
to select and certify a new voting system to be used by all counties in
the State. And, as we have recently heard, in Florida, the legislature
passed sweeping election reform, including $24 million for new voting
systems. Florida has banned punch-card machines, thank goodness, and it
requires counties now to use electronic or precinct-based optical scan
equipment in the 2002 elections.
Perhaps I ought to point out in discussing the possible avenues for
reform that we are not necessarily finding that high-tech is always
better. In fact, some of the answers to our problems might be described
as low-tech.
For example, these precinct-based optical scan machines which have
been turned to in so many areas are not as complex or advanced or
certainly as expensive as touch screen machines or proposed Internet
voting. But the fundamental question is not how fancy or how expensive
or how complicated the machinery is, but rather does it work? Does it
enable you to cast your vote in a straightforward way, and does it
count that vote accurately? There may be many different technologies
that lend themselves to our reform efforts.
The U.S. election system comprises 200,000 polling places, 7,000
jurisdictions, 1.4 million poll workers and 700,000 voting machines, so
it is not a simple system and there are not simple solutions. But
Congress needs to be an active and constructive partner if we are going
to have a successful and meaningful election reform, and there is no
better time to act than now.
There are several proposals in the Congress to help States and
counties and cities get the technology they need to run accurate
elections. A bill I introduced with the gentleman from Maryland (Mr.
Hoyer) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn) would make grants
available to any jurisdiction that used a punch-card voting system in
the last election. We want to see them get new equipment in place by
2002, and we are going to push for Federal funding to make that buyout
happen, to get those inaccurate, worn-out machines off line and bring
on more accurate systems.
I am disappointed that the President and our Republican friends have
failed to include one dollar for election reform in their budget, but
that must not stop us. This Congress must meet the challenge of
restoring faith in our democracy.
I thank my colleague from California for her leadership in making
this happen, and I pledge my continued support, my continued work, to
make meaningful election reform a front-burner item before even the
first session of this Congress goes home.
Ms. WATERS. I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for all of the
time and attention he has given to the efforts of this committee. It is
because of his diligent work and his efforts that we are going to be
successful in helping to reform the election systems of this country.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gonzalez).
Mr. GONZALEZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from California and
join everyone that preceded me in praise of her efforts and the
leadership that she has demonstrated in making sure that this committee
meets its charge.
Mr. Speaker, if one thinks in terms of the greatest and most precious
right that any American citizen would have, and that is the right to
vote, it is the great equalizer. One vote counts just as much as any
other. The vote of the President of the United States is no more
important and is given no more weight than the vote of someone who is
18 years old and happens to be a senior in high school and casting
their vote for the first time. It empowers us. It empowers the people
of the greatest democracy known in all of history, and therein lies our
problem, and that is the exercise of that right.
Now, we all know that we have laws at the State and Federal level
that protect the right to vote. It guarantees the right to vote. We
have the Constitution of the United States, the Supreme Court of the
land, that, again, will guarantee us the right to vote. But it is only
guaranteeing the right to vote.
What thwarts, what frustrates, what impedes the citizen's right to
vote, regardless of the constitutional guarantee or the laws that we
have on the books? Well, believe it or not, it is something as simple
as a machine that malfunctions, something a little more complicated by
not keeping an accurate voter list.
In the past though, and this is so important, and I think we are
forgetting the lessons that history should have taught us, when I was
growing up in
[[Page H2319]]
the State of Texas the greatest evil to the right to vote was the poll
tax. It kept people from being able to exercise that precious right.
The poll tax at one time was about $1. It went up to about $2. My
father, who served in this Chamber for 37 years, the first bill he
introduced upon being sworn in was to abolish the poll tax, and
eventually it was.
But then there was something else, literacy tests. Anything that
could keep the citizens of the United States from exercising their
right to vote.
Well, we have made great progress. We do not have literacy tests any
more, we do not have the poll tax any more. But what comes in its place
today? Either through intention or through neglect, other things are
now posing as great a risk to the disenfranchisement of the citizens as
in the past, where once, because of gender or color, people were denied
the right to vote, and once, because they did not have the amount of
dollars to pay for the poll tax or could not pass some made up literacy
test, were denied the right to vote. That was a travesty, as I said,
and we corrected it.
But we are back there. That is the tragedy of what was demonstrated
in Florida, is that we may still be there. It is more subtle. Like I
said, maybe it is by some intentional act, or it could be simply by
negligence.
What do I mean by that? Well, today we have voting equipment that
simply does not work. I mean, it simply does not work. It does not do
its intended job.
We have inaccurate voter lists, so that when people go to vote, they
are not on the list and they are denied the right to vote, even though
they truly are registered. Because of some mistake, lack of funds,
technology, they are just not on the list.
Confusing ballot design. There are many. I will tell you right now,
if you look at certain ballots, you will be confused. I know that when
I go to vote, I assume it is going to be somewhat of a simple ballot. I
hate to admit, but in a recent City Council election in San Antonio,
when I went to vote earlier, I looked at that thing and I was too
embarrassed to ask for instructions. A lot of people feel that way. I
think I was more embarrassed than the average citizen, because I am a
Member of Congress. But the point is, if I felt somewhat intimidated,
if I was confused, think of the average citizen going to the polling
place.
In Texas, we do have provisional ballots in voting. If your name is
not on the list, you might be able to swear, if you have an educated,
trained, skilled poll worker that knows the law. However, that is
denied many voters, because we do not have trained and educated poll
workers. They are not paid enough, they are not trained, they are not
educated in the election law, that which they are there to administer.
It sounds outrageous, but there is no one right now that can hear my
voice, no matter where you live, that is not experiencing this problem.
You just do not know about it. You have not looked into it.
That is what this committee is doing. We are going throughout the
United States and holding hearings in different locations,
Philadelphia, San Antonio; it will be Chicago next. And what are we
learning? We are learning quite a bit.
I will tell you what I learned in San Antonio, my own backyard. We
have the problems as Florida. We have overvotes. We never knew that
they were invalidating individuals' votes until we looked at it in the
context of the Florida experience. And then I have got my election
officials saying, well, Congressman, this is nothing new. We always
have these votes. We just toss them out. They do not count.
See, you have to ask yourself, why do we have these? It might be
ballot design or the equipment itself, improper instruction, the lack
of voter education. Again, the polling worker in San Antonio, I found
out in a city where you have more than 60 percent Hispanic population
that we did not have bilingual poll workers in many of those parts of
the community, where it is not 60 percent Hispanic, it is 85 and 90
percent Hispanic. So it is my own backyard. And I am willing to admit
to it, that out of ignorance, I never got involved. Out of ignorance, I
never did anything.
The tragedy of Florida is not what happened in Florida. In and of
itself, it is a tragedy. The real tragedy is if we do not learn a
lesson and do something.
So this committee is going to do something. We are going to identify
the problems. We are going to make recommendations. We will come up
with legislation that will address many of these problems.
But do not get us wrong. Part of our job is to be a clearinghouse for
not just the problems, but for the ideas and the solutions and the
remedies. And we will look to the States and the local authorities to
come up with their own solutions, those that custom fit their
particular problem. We want to give the States and the localities that
opportunity, because that is what we do here in Congress.
We do not want a Federal fix for every problem. However, if action is
not taken that addresses the inequities and the injustices of people
not being able to vote, then it is our duty, as Federal officials, to
step in and not only give direction, but basically do it on our own.
I do not think it will come to that. I think we will make certain
suggestions. Many States and localities are already incorporating and
enacting laws. If there is a shortcoming, we will say, how can we help?
You have already heard one of my colleagues. We have legislation, it
has already been introduced, about assisting localities in the purchase
of the latest technology, which is really important. But they will make
the decision on what best suits their situation. But we are there to
help.
It is so important. I guess there is no way to explain it. How can we
guarantee the right to vote to the citizen? How can we teach the
children in our classrooms how great our country is, and then we say,
voter participation is decreasing. Get out there and vote. Every year,
every election, I am out there with some sort of public service
announcement, begging my constituents to please get out there, to
register and vote.
Now they are going to take me up on that. They go and attempt to
exercise that right, and they are not able to. Therein lies the real
problem. I do not think the problem is that we do not have enough laws
guaranteeing the right, we just do not have the mechanism to translate
the right into reality, and that is our charge.
Madam Chairman, I think I am going to end where I started. I am going
to thank you for the leadership you provided us. It is a great honor to
serve on this committee, and I think many, many people are going to be
quite impressed with the end product.
We have heard that this is not an issue that is way at the top of the
list as far as the American public or the United States Congress is
concerned, and that is wrong, because then what we have done is we have
compounded the tragedy of Florida. We did not learn a lesson, we did
not make a situation better, we did not cure a problem.
{time} 1530
Should we fail to do that, I think we have failed in our duty and
responsibility; but more importantly, we have failed the American
people. They have a right to vote, but they also have a right to make
sure that that vote is counted. What good is a right if one cannot
exercise it.
Again, I thank the gentlewoman very much.
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman from
Texas, not only for his participation here today, but for his
participation on this very special committee. He has been at every
meeting, and I want my colleagues to know that he rolled out the red
carpet for us in San Antonio where we had an excellent hearing and we
learned an awful lot about purging and had testimony from Mrs. Carmen
Martinez, who told us about what happened to her there.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to the gentleman from Maryland as
much time as he may consume. While the gentleman is coming to the
microphone, I would like to say that we are so happy to have him on
this committee. He has contributed tremendously to our work already;
not only has he been involved with us as we have traveled, but he has
been to all of the meetings that we hold every Tuesday, and he has been
working very hard, trying to bridge the gap between this side of the
aisle and that side of
[[Page H2320]]
the aisle, to come up with legislation that will move us forward in
reform. I thank the gentleman so very much for all that he has done.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her comments. I
want to also thank her for the extraordinary efforts that she is making
to ensure that not only will in America every citizen have the right to
vote and be welcomed and encouraged in exercising that right, but will
also have his vote counted correctly.
When the minority leader, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt),
was discussing who should chair a committee that would look at election
reforms, the problems that were brought to light in the last election,
we had some discussions. He suggested the gentlewoman from California
(Ms. Waters), and the reason he did so is because he knew and I knew
and her colleagues knew that the gentlewoman is one of the strongest,
most courageous voices that we have on this floor, a voice much like
the voice of the gentleman from Texas's father who, in his time, was a
giant in speaking out for those who were disenfranchised by operation
of law. No less should we speak out for those who might be
disenfranchised by either negligence or the misoperation of technology.
So I thank the gentlewoman for her leadership, for her hard work on
this effort; and I am confident that we are going to pass legislation
in this Congress. This is the civil rights issue of the 107th Congress.
There is no more basic right in democracy than the right to vote. When
we do pass legislation, it will be largely attributable to her hard
work and efforts in making sure that everybody in the Nation is focused
on this issue.
Mr. Speaker, I want to speak for a few minutes on one element that is
key to reform: better voting technologies, the nuts and bolts of the
election infrastructure. Now, as I begin this, I want to make it again
clear that the technology issue comes in only after we have ensured and
facilitated a voter getting to the technology. If the voter never gets
to the technology, it is irrelevant.
So the most important thing we need to make sure of is that every
voter is able to register; that they have their registration accurately
recorded; that it is transmitted accurately to a polling place; that
the election officials receive the voter and accurately check to make
sure that voter is registered; and that there is, if there is a failure
to communicate from the recipient of the registration and the polling
place, a way in which a provisional ballot can be cast, so that that
voter is not turned away, is not told no, your democracy is not open to
you today, not because of your failure, but because we failed to
transmit information properly. So what we are going to do is allow you
to vote and then we will take a day or two to make sure that you, as
you have said, were registered to vote and a legal voter.
None of us on this floor wants to facilitate voting by people who are
not eligible to vote. But equally, I hope, there is nobody on this
floor who wants to prevent an eligible voter from casting a vote. We
found in Florida that people who got to the polls voted, thought they
had voted correctly, left, and found that, lo and behold, their votes
were not counted. We further found that this was not a Florida problem.
It was Florida that we focused on, it was Florida that we learned from,
but we quickly were informed by others around the country that it was
not a Florida problem.
It was a problem in jurisdictions north, east, south and west, in
Maryland, in California, in Texas, and New Jersey, the four
jurisdictions represented on the floor right now. So we focused on the
fact that we need to make sure that that voter, when they exercise
their franchise, has it counted and has it counted accurately. Better
voting technology is the nuts and bolts of election infrastructure.
When I say nuts and bolts, I mean that quite literally. Over the past
2 days, the Committee on House Administration, of which I am the
ranking Democratic member, has learned from the manufacturers that
actually build the sophisticated, durable equipment that Americans use
to exercise their right of franchise, equipment used not only by
Americans, by the way, but voters all over the world, many of whom have
struggled to attain the right to vote and will retain it only if their
nations' democracies are conducted honestly. While we have a long
history and are not at risk, we are at risk of retaining the confidence
of our people that their votes will be accurately counted when their
voices are raised to participate in democracy.
For that reason, it is not an exaggeration, I think, to say that the
voting machine manufacturers build the tools that make democracies all
over the world live up to their names. They produce what I will call
the ``voting veins of democracy.'' And how well those veins carry votes
forward to an accurate count can be the difference between a democracy
whose heart pumps strongly and faithfully and a system that does not
enjoy the confidence of its citizens.
Over the past 2 days, 13 vendors have displayed the newest technology
available in the voting machine industry in the Committee on House
Administration room. Members of Congress, their staffs, the media, and
the general public have had the opportunity to test the machines and to
ask questions. I saw the full range of what the voting technology
industry is developing, including Optiscan equipment and Direct Read
Equipment, so-called DRE, computer touch-screen equipment. I also
learned and other Members and staff learned about sophisticated
software and hardware to ensure that voting is accessible to all
Americans, and ``all'' needs to be underlined, that votes are counted
accurately and completely, and that voters have a chance to correct
mismarked ballots before they are cast.
That is so critically important, Madam Speaker, as the gentlewoman
well knows. What we have found is a system that counts at the precinct
level is much more accurate than a system that counts at a central
location after the voter has left, where there is no opportunity to
tell the voter, you forgot to vote, you overvoted, you made a mistake,
do you want to try to correct your ballot. People make mistakes, but we
should not subject them to the vagaries of the possibility of making a
mistake when we have technology that can say to them, either you did
not vote for President, do you want to; you do not have to, we are not
forcing you to, but do you want to? Did you forget this? Or, hey, you
voted for two people for President and that will not be counted. Do you
want to correct it? Give them that opportunity so they can ensure the
fact that they have exercised their franchise correctly.
We also learned about sophisticated software and hardware devices to
ensure that voting is accessible to those with disabilities, to those
who are even quadriplegic and cannot use hands or feet, to those who
are blind, to those who have other impairments. We can fully make
accessible the voting system to them and provide for the secrecy of
their ballot as well. That technology is available. We need to pursue
it.
What I did not see on display, I am happy to say, is the latest in
punch card technology. Why? Because almost everybody has concluded that
punch cards have seen their day and ought to be on their way. The fact
of the matter is, Florida, with only two dissenting votes, has mandated
the abolition of the use of punch cards in their State. Only two
dissenting votes, unanimous in the Senate and two in the House. They
came up with money, and the President's brother, Governor Jeb Bush,
signed the bill and they are proceeding to do that. I am hopeful that
President Bush will follow the lead of his brother, Governor Bush, and
help us take that same path.
Any industry operating at the cutting edge can teach us a lot about
the future of technology. What I have learned from the voting
technology industry in the past 2 days is that there is no future for
that punch card. Inventors may yet devise a better mousetrap. What they
will not devise, however, is a better punch card.
The punch card will soon be obsolete. I look forward to the day when
it will be on display downtown in the Smithsonian and not in the voting
precinct. We may talk about those days between November 8 and December
12 when we were mesmerized by the 537 votes, or the 219 votes, or the
five votes that would make a difference in counting these punch cards,
and whether or not
[[Page H2321]]
they would make a difference in Florida's electoral votes. We are
beyond that, and it is not the purpose of anybody on this floor to look
back. It is, however, to learn from that history and not see it
repeated.
I have also learned that taking advantage of the latest, most
reliable and accessible technology represented in that room, in the
Committee on House Administration room, that voting technology will not
be cheap. Now, relatively speaking, in my opinion, it will not be
extraordinarily expensive either, and it is worth the price. But the
average DRE machine runs about $4,500. That is a touch-screen machine
or some other computer technology. The average Optiscan technology
where one fills out the ballot as if one is taking a test, and take a
number 2 pencil or something else and connect the dots, or connect the
line, and then put it into the counting machine and have it scanned
optically, from which it gets its name. If you have not voted
correctly, if you have overvoted, it simply kicks it out, and says, you
have made a mistake, you get it back and you can correct it. But that
costs about $5,000 to $6,000.
While communities should be expected to help pay for much of the cost
of these machines, we in Congress have an obligation to foot the bill.
For over 200 years, States and localities have been conducting
elections, and during those 200-plus years, they have had Federal
officials running on their ballots, and they have paid the full price.
We, in effect, have gotten a free lunch. It is appropriate that we at
the Federal level, as State and local governments do, participate in
partnership in ensuring the accurate, accessible elections of our
officials. After all, we in Congress are elected on the machines that
are now in use, including the punch card devices that were used in
72,000 of the 200,000 voting precincts last year.
We in Congress will be elected on the new machines that start
entering service in the months ahead, I hope by 2002. It is therefore,
Madam Speaker, appropriate that we help with guidelines and
encouragement to local subdivisions to run these elections as best they
possibly can, in this, probably the most technologically proficient
Nation on the face of the Earth. Surely, surely, we can, we must. It is
our sacred obligation to ensure that this Nation, a beacon of democracy
for all the world, is as good a democracy as the world thinks it is and
as we know it to be.
{time} 1545
I might say, I also look forward to joining the gentlewoman on
Saturday when we go to Chicago where we will hear from voters and those
who administer elections as to how best we can make the system work.
I thank the gentlewoman for her leadership.
Ms. WATERS. I thank the gentleman from Maryland so very much for all
of the work that he has put into this issue of election reform. I thank
him for the attention he has paid to the committee, and I thank him for
the work that he is doing to come up with legislation dealing with this
technology.
Mr. Speaker, I ask the gentleman from Texas and the gentleman from
Maryland to join me as we close out in a colloquy just reinforcing how
important this issue is.
I would just like to say to the gentleman from Texas, I was listening
to him as he talked about the work of his father, a man that I loved
dearly and paid a lot of attention to, and hope to follow in his
footsteps, by the way.
I thought about the work that I have done here, the issues I have
been involved in: women's issues, women's health issues, criminal
justice issues, AIDS issues, foreign affairs issues, et cetera. But I
think that this work that we are doing on election reform may be the
most important work that I will do in my entire career here in the
Congress of the United States.
Do Members feel that this work holds that kind of priority, I ask the
gentleman?
Mr. GONZALEZ. Mr. Speaker, I think our colleague, the gentleman from
Maryland, said it, that it really is almost a sacred duty because it is
a sacred trust. Nothing rises to the level of the importance of this
issue.
People sometimes think we are given to hyperbole and exaggeration,
but we really are talking about the fundamentals of a democracy, the
absolute right of the public to be masters of their own destiny. It is
the right to vote.
Again, this is not a Republican or a Democratic issue. That is the
beauty of it, too. It transcends party lines, philosophies, everything;
station in left. This is basically the common thread, more or less,
that our citizenry really holds in common.
So I agree with the gentlewoman, I do not think there is going to be
anything more important that I will ever work on. I am the lucky one. I
have only been here 3 years. I am lucky to have this opportunity.
But truly in relation to all the wonderful leaders who have preceded
us, and we are thinking about the Civil Rights Act and so on, what we
are talking about is really giving life to those laws, and life and
meaning to the Constitution. So we are privileged, but by the same
token, I think it is a tremendous responsibility. We cannot fail.
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, as I work with the committee members and as
I listen to all that has been said here today, and as I stand here as
an African American woman, and to my right I have a gentleman
representing Texas of Hispanic descent, and I have here on my left the
gentleman from Maryland, a Caucasian gentleman, we are really the
rainbow of America on this issue.
I think that all Americans, no matter where we are in this country,
no matter what our backgrounds are, all Americans care about this
cornerstone of democracy.
Would the gentleman say this is a very central issue?
Mr. HOYER. I think the gentlewoman is absolutely right. The polls
reflect that. The polls reflect overwhelmingly that Americans expect us
to fix the problem of which they were made aware last November and
December.
They were shocked to learn that many absentee ballots and overseas
ballots were never counted in the course of running the elections. It
was just expected by election officials if they were not going to make
a difference, they would not be counted. I was chagrined. I may not
have been shocked, but I was certainly chagrined to hear that.
I am a white male, who from the very start of this nation everybody
presumed would vote. Margaret Brent was the first woman lawyer. She
came from Maryland. She was on the Governor's Council. Governor Calvert
died, and she asked for a vote. She was denied that vote.
It is incredible to me that we have had to amend the Constitution on
a number of occasions in this connection. Thomas Jefferson intoned
words that all of us recite, that all men, presumably but not
necessarily meaning women as well, were endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.
Clearly it was the concept of so many of us that that meant all of
us, but clearly, it did not mean all of us. It was not until a great
civil war and the Thirteenth Amendment that we ensured that, at least
legally, African Americans could not be discriminated against.
But we know as a result of poll taxes and literacy tests and the
imposition of devices to intimidate people from registering and coming
to vote that that was honored more in the breach than it was in the
adherence.
We know that immigrants, nonwhite Caucasian Americans, had
difficulty, for which the father of the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Gonzalez) was a giant in saying, that is not right.
We did not add women, and an African American woman, or African
Americans, men at least, could vote before women could vote. It was
incredible that in the enlightened democracy of America in 1914 and
1918 women could not vote. We had to pass a constitutional amendment
which said that we are not going to discriminate on the basis of
gender.
It was not until 1965, as the gentlewoman knows, when we passed the
Voting Rights Act that we said, we cannot have poll taxes, we cannot
have literacy taxes, we cannot preclude, and the Federal government is
going to step in and ensure that every American has access to the
polling place? Why? Because it is central.
Then we had another constitutional amendment and said that if one is
old enough to go overseas and fight to defend democracy, one is old
enough to
[[Page H2322]]
vote at 18. We amended the Constitution again. So this has been an
ongoing process of ensuring that our democracy is participated in by
every citizen, not just a select few.
This effort is about that objective. Again, I think the gentlewoman
is correct, it is a critically important objective.
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlemen for participating with
me today. They have both stated so clearly and in so many ways that
something is wrong with the system and we perhaps fell asleep at the
wheel, and we allowed the infrastructure to kind of fall apart.
Many of us thought with the 1965 Voting Rights Act that we had gotten
rid of all of the problems. Little did we know that we would reach a
time when we could not recruit polling place workers. Little did we
know that we would have a system that did not train them so they would
know what to do when a provisional ballot was needed. Little did we
ever dream that we would find ourselves at a time when there is a
polling place with almost 100 percent Latino voters and no one to do
translation, or to make sure that they have access to that vote and to
that ballot.
I want Members to know how proud I am to serve here in the Congress
of the United States, and to serve with Members who care so much that
they make this their priority work.
I want Members to know how proud I am to be able to do the kind of
work my ancestors would certainly have me do, and I am so proud that I
have been given this opportunity, and that the people who have joined
with me appointed to this committee are working very hard.
Yes, we have been to Texas, we have been to Pennsylvania, and we are
on our way to Chicago, a place that really does need us. It has needed
us for a long time. We are on our way there to find out what we can do
to strengthen the system. But we will be going to many other places.
Let me conclude by saying, as a Californian, a suit has been filed in
California by the ACLU because, as sophisticated as we are supposed to
be, guess what, we rank right up there with some of the other States
like Illinois where votes are thrown out, not counted, because of
overvoting and other problems in the system.
So hopefully both Members will be able to join me in California as we
take a look at this suit and see what we can do.
Mr. REYES. Mr. Speaker, as Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic
Caucus, I am committed to building on the success of growing Latino
voter turnout by working with my colleagues to achieve meaningful
election reform before the 2002 elections.
The 2000 presidential election has brought long overdue attention to
the need to overhaul our country's election procedures and provide
resources that will ensure we have accurate elections. Central to these
efforts must be the protection of each citizen's ability to freely
exercise his or her right to vote.
Throughout our nation's history, expansion of the right to vote has
been a struggle, and it is a struggle that continues to this day. The
glare of media coverage, caused by the closest presidential election of
our time, exposed voting irregularities that have long been ignored all
across the country, not just in Florida.
Numerous legislative proposals have been introduced in this Congress
to address election reform, and I believe it is encouraging to see that
so many members are making this a priority. While there are about a
dozen different bills, they also share many similarities. It is clear
that based on the proposals we have seen so far, we need to move toward
establishing a new elections body that will be charged with
distributing grants to local election authorities for modernizing
voting procedures and providing incentives to voting machine
manufacturers to improve their equipment and invest in research and
development.
In order to gain useful knowledge necessary for the effective
modernization of our voting system, a study will need to be conducted
of voting irregularities in the 2000 election and of flaws in our
voting system in general.
As we chart our way through these various reforms, which coincide
with another upcoming round of redistricting, the significance of
minority representation is going to be greater than ever. Where
necessary, we must be prepared to reaffirm support for, and strengthen,
the provisions of the Voting Rights Act and National Voter Registration
Act that protect minority representation and bilingual elections
services.
The problems facing the integrity of our elections fall into two
broad categories: (1) logistical challenges, and (2) barriers to voter
turnout.
There are three main logistical problems prevalent in the process of
running elections. First, local election boards are typically
underfunded. As a result, counties are unable to replace antiquated
voting machines. The punchcard ballots made infamous by the Florida
recount are used by about one third of voters. Replacing them all with
a more reliable system will be a costly, though certainly worthwhile
investment.
Second, there is a shortage of adequately trained staff to respond in
a timely and professional manner to voters' questions about absentee
voting, their registration status, polling place locations and other
concerns. On election day itself, many polling places open late, are
not open long enough or lack polling place workers who are adequately
trained, further causing delays, confusion and the disenfranchisement
of voters. In particular, there is a lack of bilingual staff who are
able to help voters who face a language barrier at the polls.
Third, polling place access is an extremely important logistical
issue, and is not always directly related to funding. Every polling
place should be easily accessible and in safe, familiar locations that
are easy for residents to find.
The most troubling obstacle to fair elections is voter suppression,
which is aimed almost exclusively at minorities. Unfortunately, such
tactics are prevalent across the country and not only targeted against
African-American voters. The practice of placing so-called security
guards, or volunteers in clothing that resemble uniforms, at polling
places has been used to intimidate Latino voters in past elections. The
use of misleading radio broadcasts or other means to confuse minority
voters about their polling place location is another tactic employed to
keep down minority turnout. First-time voters, such as newly
naturalized citizens, many of whom are Latino, are particularly
susceptible to confusion about the voting process, especially because
relatively less, if any, election information is provided in Spanish.
In response, state and county governments must be spurred to pro-
actively prevent voter suppression in heavily minority precincts. To
ensure smoother elections, there needs to be greater investment and
attention in such precincts to ensure appropriate staffing levels and
training, equipment, polling place site selection, and education
campaigns.
We will need to consider ways of enhancing the enforcement of
existing laws that punish voter intimidation and implement new or
stronger penalties where necessary. We should also consider expanding
the scope of such efforts to include more passive forms of voter
suppression, such as the withholding of assistance and information to
voters might prevent them from voting. For example, there have been
many accounts of polling place workers refusing to allow voters the
right to a provisional ballot, a right that was expanded under the 1993
National Voter Registration Act.
A final obstacle to voter turnout relates to the maintenance of voter
registration rolls, which must be considerably improved. Latino voters
have experienced problems with getting on the rolls in the first place
and then later being purged from them. The problem with getting on the
rolls is related to problems with voter registration. Voter
registration forms have been rejected for arbitrary reasons, such as
being filled out with the wrong color ink, and during the most recent
election, there were reports from Florida of Latinos who had registered
but whose names did not appear on the rolls and were therefore barred
from voting.
The other side of the voter roll problem is when legitimate names are
purged. In a number of states, voters are purged from the voter rolls
if they do not vote in every presidential election or a set number of
elections within a certain amount of time. Requiring voters to re-
register if they happen to miss an election, or else risk being
ineligible to vote in a subsequent election, is just another barrier to
voting.
I will be working with my colleagues in the Congressional Hispanic
Caucus to press for increased funding of election boards; promote voter
participation through national legislative and educational efforts; and
monitor existing voter protections, especially the 1975 and 1992
amendments to the Voting Rights Act which protect language minority
groups and require bilingual services.
Voting is a hard-won right that should not be a struggle for
minorities in every election. In addition to empowering minority
citizens about their rights as voters, we can also make considerable
progress toward improving the way we run and monitor elections, making
them as easy and convenient for minority voters as they already are in
so many affluent and pre-dominantly white precincts. In the Latino
community, we often say su voto es su voz--your vote is your voice. We
must ensure that we take the necessary steps to ensure that the voices
of all voters are heard.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise because we must
continue to address
[[Page H2323]]
the overwhelming evidence of grave voting irregularities and voting
rights violations in the recent presidential election in what was the
closest and most contested presidential election in the history of our
great nation.
It is imperative that Congress continues to engage in a serious
review and comprehensive reform of our election process in this nation.
The disenfranchisement of voters in the federal electoral process
remains a chilling threat to the integrity of our democratic system in
America.
Mr. Speaker, The right to vote, and to fully exercise that vote, is a
vital component of our collective preservation. On November 7th, 2000,
only a fraction of Americans were able to exercise their right to vote
and have those votes counted, while thousands, and perhaps even
millions of voters were denied this constitutional right as guaranteed
by the Fifteenth Amendment.
It is horrifying to me that such systemic mistakes were made in this
election. But beyond these mistakes, there have been serious
allegations of violations of the Sections 2 and 5 of the Voter Rights
Act of 1965, 42 U.S.C. sec. 1973, which mandates the obligation and
responsibility of the Congress to provide appropriate implementation of
the guarantees of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which
states ``the fundamental principle that the right to vote shall not be
denied or abridged by the States or the Federal Government on account
of race or color.'' Yet we know today, that such violations of
fundamental voting rights did occur during the November 7th elections
throughout the nation. These irregularities also raise potential
violations of several provisions of the National Voter Registration Act
of 1993, 42 U.S.C. sec. 1973gg-5(a) which affirms the right of every
U.S. citizen to cast a ballot and have that ballot be counted. We must
address this today.
The need for election reform is the challenge of all Americans.
President Bush himself recognized this urgency, telling members of
Congress: ``This is America. Everyone deserves the right to vote.''
Congress was reaffirmed of President Bush's commitment to the
protection of the right to vote when the President's spokesman later
assured members of Congress that the ``President wants to make certain
that one of the focuses of attention this year is electoral reform.'' A
letter recently sent to President Bush by virtually every House
Democrat, called on the administration fulfill this promise by
providing ``essential guidance and leadership on a national problem'',
yet today, half a year after the election, we are still without such
leadership. So I call on the Attorney General of the United States to
begin a full investigation of all alleged voting improprieties. We must
clear the air.
So what can be done to remedy these problems for the future?
According to a recent Washington Post article by David Broder, since
the 2000 presidential election more than 1,500 election reform bills
have been introduced in state legislatures around this nation. The
American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations have been filing
suits in California and in other states demanding that uniform methods
of casting and counting ballots be put in place. I applaud these
efforts and I believe that outdated technology is a large part of the
problem.
We also need a greater awareness of how our voting system works. We
need better and more uniform standards, better enforcement, better
education, greater and more convenient access to voting places, and a
generally easier and more user-friendly electoral process.
To begin to address these problems, I have introduced several
important pieces of legislation. I've recently introduced H.R. 934, a
bill that would establish National Election Day on the 2nd Tuesday of
November, in presidential election years, as a legal public holiday in
order to substantially resolve the serious problem of the lack of time
for people to vote or participate in the federal election process, due
to employment commitments.
This bill would merely federalize what some states have done with
great success so that employees in the private sector will be able to
exercise their constitutional right to vote or take part in the
electoral process as election volunteers with no restraints.
I've also introduced H.R. 60, the Secure Democracy for All Americans
Act, which would establish a five member commission and provide funding
necessary to perform a study into federal, state, and local voting
procedures in order to produce a report and make recommendations for
appropriate legislation and administrative actions. This legislation is
greatly needed.
In addition, I've recently founded the bipartisan Congressional
Election Reform Caucus, which was established to enable all members of
Congress to engage in a serious review and dialogue of the election
process in this nation as a recognition of the disenfranchisement of
voters because of voter confusion, poor voter machinery and work
commitments.
I have also drafted legislation that provides for much needed
``provisional ballots'' so that people erroneously ``purged'' or
dropped from the voting rolls can register at the polls, vote, and have
that vote counted. I am also introducing legislation that would create
a uniform voter ``purging'' requirement, because too many states and
localities have confusing and conflicting standards of how long you may
remain inactive as a voter before your name is purged from the voting
rolls. With my legislation, you would have a single uniform 10 years
from the time you last voted until you are purged from the rolls. This
makes good sense.
I would also like to commend Congressman Cummings for today
introducing electoral reform legislation, and for the commitment to
this issue by the Congressional Black Caucus and by the many other
members of this Congress who believe in this legislation.
These bills affirm our constitutional right, as citizens of this
democracy, to vote and have that vote counted, because if our votes are
not counted, our voices are not heard. I hope that in the months to
come, our voices will come together in support of common-sense
solutions and reform, and bring us closer towards our goal of equal
access and equal justice under the law.
____________________