[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 19 (Thursday, February 28, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1329-S1330]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            ELECTION REFORM

  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I just happened to catch the last of the 
remarks of my very good friend, the distinguished majority whip, about 
what has happened with this election reform bill.
  We ought to get the record straight. My good friend mentioned the 
fact that we seem to be holding this up over one little amendment. I 
will tell you what this is all about, Mr. President. We worked long and 
hard to come to a reasonable, responsible compromise because the 
Senator from Connecticut very eloquently made the case that we need to 
make it easier to vote, and I agree with that.
  We worked on his portion of the bill. He made some compromises that 
took care of some of our concerns, but at the same time I tried to 
testify before the Rules Committee, and I came to the floor and made 
the case that there is another problem that is as serious a problem as 
making it difficult for somebody to vote, and that is diluting their 
vote with fraudulent, improper votes.
  I have laid out for this body a number of times the fact that vote 
fraud continues to exist in Missouri and too many other States. So I 
proposed some solutions to give us some minimal protection against vote 
fraud in the future.
  As part of the compromise, it was pointed out by my colleagues on the 
other side that requiring the photo ID may be too difficult, or 
requiring them to vote in person may be too difficult, although seven 
States do it, and I think that makes a lot of sense. St. Louis, MO, 
after we called attention to the vote fraud committed in November of 
2000, decided to require photo IDs at the poll in the mayoral primary. 
Do you know something. It worked. We did not hear any complaints that 
people could not vote. They had an honest election in St. Louis.
  I was willing to compromise with my colleagues, the Senator from 
Connecticut, the Senator from New York, and the Senator from New 
Jersey, and say if it is too burdensome to require a photo ID, let us 
go down the list and see what other things could be done. That is why 
we added that a bank statement with one's name and address can be used, 
or a utility bill, a government check, a paycheck, to try to make it 
possible so that one time in the process they would have to have proof 
that they were a real live human being.
  Now our friends on the other side made fun of the fact that we had 
dogs registered to vote in Missouri and in Maryland. Well, that sounds 
kind of crazy, but the system is so sloppy, the motor voter law has 
made it possible for people to register dogs. I will guarantee there 
are a lot more fraudulent votes than just the dogs.
  Some have objected and said we have not shown widespread fraud in St. 
Louis. Oh, yes, we have. Wherever we have looked, we have found fraud. 
Wherever we have looked, we have found ineligible people voting, dead 
people voting, felons voting--in Virginia, Wisconsin, California, 
Colorado, North Carolina, Indiana, Florida, and Texas.
  What we found that in Missouri they had judges ordering people to be 
registered to vote. They went before a judge, and he said: Why are you 
not registered? One said: I am a Democrat. Another one said: I want to 
vote for Gore. Another one said: I have been a felon and forgot to 
reregister. Thirteen hundred people were registered by judge order. The 
secretary of state went back and did an exhaustive search on those 
1,300 and found 97 percent of them were not lawful votes.
  In the mayoral primary in 2001, 3,000 postcard registrations were 
dumped on the election board on the last day. At that point, my 
colleagues in the other party in St. Louis, who were a lot more 
concerned about stealing a mayor's race than they were about stealing a 
Governor's race or President's race or a Senate race, raised cane.
  When those postcard registrations were looked at, they were all found 
to have had the same handwriting--many of them had the same 
handwriting. They were on one or two blocks. Those have all been turned 
over to the prosecuting authorities. We have not gotten any convictions 
yet.
  We also know that right before the general election in November of 
2000, 30,000 postcard registrations were dumped on the St. Louis city 
election board. Nobody has gone back and reviewed them, but the guess 
is that at least 15,000 of them were fraudulent. Is it not a little bit 
beyond credibility that St. Louis, which had 200,000 registered voters, 
would on the last 2 days of registration register 30,000 people, equal 
to 15 percent?
  That is one of the reasons St. Louis has almost as many registered 
voters as it has adults. It would be truly remarkable if each one of 
those registrations equaled a registration of somebody who was an adult 
human being entitled to vote in Missouri. I do not believe it. We have 
not had the resources to go back and check.
  Frankly, as the Senator from Pennsylvania pointed out yesterday, it 
is very difficult, particularly under motor voter, to prosecute people 
who register illegally. Why? Because there is nobody there. You sign 
somebody else's name, send it in, and say I promise to, with a 
signature affirmation and verification. I could register all my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle in a Republican area of 
Missouri, and we would have signatures on their mail-in ballots every 
time. This time they might be voting our way rather than the other way.
  I believe some of the people arguing against the bill yesterday were 
woefully uninformed about what this bill requires. I say to my friend 
from Oregon, this only applies to people registering after the bill 
becomes law. It only applies one time, either when you register or when 
you vote for the first time. You have to show something that would tend 
to prove you are a live human being, living where you said you were, 
entitled to vote.

[[Page S1330]]

  Concern was expressed over provisional voting, and the registration--
the identification goes into effect immediately. Right now, 39 States 
have either provisional voting or same-day registration. I did not 
draft that part of the bill that says provisional voting would only go 
into effect in 2004. We would be happy to move it up for the other 11 
States so it takes effect immediately.
  The Senator from Oregon made a very good point in his discussions 
yesterday: When a person registers, we ought to make sure when they 
register that they are legitimate voters. I agree 100 percent.
  Do you know what. Motor voter prevents verification of the 
registration, as it now stands. That is why we had to amend it.
  There was a lot of discussion yesterday about how many people we 
would disenfranchise, and they postulated hundreds of thousands, maybe 
millions, of people would be disenfranchised because they would not 
have a photo ID, a utility bill, a bank statement, a government check, 
that shows their address. I think that is hogwash.
  There may be a handful of people who do not have that, but we have 
money in the bill for the States to go out and affirmatively identify 
and provide registration for people who fall through the cracks. I am 
happy to put a provision in there saying the States--if on application 
by somebody who is entitled to vote, who does not have any of these 
documents, they can get a State or an election board identification 
card. Put the burden on the States when somebody shows they have none 
of these articles or identifiers. I think that might be one-hundredth 
of a percent at the maximum.

                          ____________________