[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 37 (Tuesday, March 23, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H1349-H1351]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2000
                           HELP AMERICA VOTE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida). Under a 
previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, following the election debacle in Florida in 
the 2000 Presidential race, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act 
to improve election systems across the country; but lately I have met 
with many election officials who are largely unaware of what that law 
actually says, and tonight I would like to clarify some of its 
provisions.
  Importantly, HAVA will make money available to the Sates for new 
voting machines, but HAVA does not require States and localities to 
replace systems if they are satisfied with the ones that they have. All 
those jurisdictions have to do if they want to keep their equipment is 
just provide voters with instructions how to correct their ballot if 
they make a mistake before that ballot is cast and counted. So the law 
that Congress passed permits paper ballots if jurisdictions want to use 
them, it permits punch cards, it permits lever machines, it permits a 
central count voting system. Those are not outlawed. Indeed, I am 
putting in the Record tonight title III, section 301 from that act that 
explains to local election officials what the law actually says. They 
should not be afraid. There is no Federal pressure to do what they do 
not want to do.
  Some States have decided to go ahead with replacing equipment before 
this year's Presidential elections even though there are no standards 
in place at the Federal level to guarantee if they purchase new 
machines, particularly electronic machines, that they will be secure. 
And 23 States, including Ohio, have thus received a waiver and are not 
required to have new systems in place until the first Federal election 
in 2006, nearly 2 years from now.
  There are problems with new electronic voting machines that we did 
not know when this legislation was initially passed. Some, particularly 
the primary sponsors of this legislation, say we should leave it alone. 
They say let the Election Assistance Commission that was talked about 
in the law do its work. They say let the National Institute of 
Standards and Technology do its work, let us not have Congress ask any 
questions right now.
  Well, that would be all well and good if those entities had the 
resources to carry out their job. But the Election Assistance 
Commission has been formed very late. In fact, a year late. Virtually 
every deadline that it was given for the issuance of voluntary 
guidelines to help our local election officials for reports to Congress 
and for assistance to State and local election authorities has been 
missed. Today, the commission had its first public meeting, despite the 
fact it has no permanent office, no equipment it can call its own, no 
staff beyond the four commissioners and its detailees, and not even 
enough money to pay for rent for its offices, nor money to pay for the 
publication tomorrow of State election plans in the Federal Register. 
It had to depend on the generosity of the General Services 
Administration for this step required by the Help America Vote Act. 
Election plans must be published, but the commission has no authority 
to require changes in them. Public comments will be directed to State 
election authorities who are free to certify themselves as having met 
the requirements of HAVA, which essentially at this point has no 
standards.
  So in 45 days with their own certification and no input from the 
commission, they will begin to receive more than $2.3 billion to spend 
with no security standards and no guidance beyond the limited verbiage 
in the act itself. If this were any other Federal program, how many of 
our colleagues would be here condemning it? Testing by the National 
Institute of Standards and Technology on voting machines and its 
obligation to help develop tough standards for this new equipment was 
suspended for 2 months this year because of the lack of Federal money.
  The commission is thankful that NIST has been able to identify 
$375,000 to help the technical guidance development committee get under 
way, but it is only getting under way. No recommendations are expected 
for another 9 months while the commissioners themselves recognize that 
State and local election authorities are looking for Federal guidelines 
to help them develop their own standards.
  In fact, AP writer Robert Tanner said this weekend, and I will place 
the entire article in the Record, ``High-tech voting machines can 
miscount election results through a software bug or a crashing 
computer. What is even more troubling, they can be manipulated if 
someone hacks the computer software. And the biggest problem is without 
a paper ballot, there is nothing tangible to recount.''
  To offer some level of guidance, the commission today voted to hold 
its own hearing on election voting technology within 35 days. I applaud 
the commission for doing so, but nothing is more important than our 
right to vote. We must take the time to get this right.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge State and local election officials to read my 
remarks in the Record.

    Election Fix Stymied by Delays, Computer Doubts, Confidence Gap

       Editors Note--Problems with the election system in Florida 
     left the winner of the 2000 presidential race in doubt for 
     more than a month, and prompted widespread calls to reform 
     the way the nation elects its leaders. Yet nearly four years 
     since George W. Bush won in Florida by 537 votes, reform has 
     been spotty. This story is part of the AP's ongoing coverage 
     of electoral problems across the country.

                 (By Robert Tanner, AP National Writer)

       The discord of Florida 2000 is hard to forget. Angry crowds 
     yelling at local election officials, a paralysis that 
     virtually halted other political work, accusations of a 
     stolen presidential election that echo today.
       But the many promises that followed the 36-day stalemate 
     have not produced a nationwide solution to the glaring flaws 
     exposed in the way we cast votes and count them--and another 
     presidential election is just months away.
       There's blame enough to go around. Pick any of the 
     following, or all: President Bush and Congress; the voting 
     machine industry; local election officials. (You can add 
     computer scientists, the media, even mistake-prone voters.)
       It's true some changes have been made: Roughly 50 million 
     registered voters, or slightly more than a quarter 
     nationwide, will be able to cast ballots on the latest 
     touchscreen equipment this year.
       But that leaves the glass half-full, at best, especially 
     with the biggest reforms so far now coming in for criticism. 
     In particular, those ATM-style electronic voting machines--
     once trumpeted as the solution to voting problems--are now 
     under fire from some computer scientists and lawmakers. That, 
     in turn, is slowing further reforms and weakening confidence 
     in the system even more.

[[Page H1350]]

       ``You have resistance, sort of natural resistance, to 
     change,'' said Ken Blackwell, Ohio's secretary of state. 
     Legislators in his state, worried about security, want an end 
     to electronic machine purchases, even if punch cards remain 
     in many counties.
       In critics' eyes, the problems have been worsened by 
     electoral officials blind to the dangers of a broken system 
     or influenced by political aims, and caring too little about 
     damage done to voters' trust. Others see the slow progress as 
     healthy--that's the way democracies work, they argue, by 
     publicly hashing out problems.
       Either way, the bottom line is that another razor-thin 
     presidential election could again leave a victor unclear, a 
     system unable to smoothly resolve the problem, and a 
     skeptical and angry public.
       The pitfalls break down into three broad categories: cash, 
     computers and confidence.
       After the 2000 crisis, promises of electoral reform didn't 
     translate into quick action. It took nearly two years for 
     Congress to pass the law giving states money and direction to 
     buy new machines, and improve voter registration and 
     training.
       The problem was the policy-makers were pulled in different 
     directions--minority and disabled voters sought federal 
     standards to ensure all had equal access to the polls, while 
     state election officials argued local control would best 
     serve widely different communities.
       Experts produced nearly a dozen studies, including 
     recommendations from a Gerald Ford-Jimmy Carter commission 
     (some of its top ideas, like making Election Day a holiday 
     and giving all felons the right to vote after serving their 
     sentence, were promptly ignored).
       Money for the states to implement reform took even longer: 
     Of $3.8 billion promised, states have only received $650 
     million so far.
       The commission that was to be created to dole out money and 
     advice was delayed by arguments between the White House and 
     Congress. Members weren't appointed until December, less than 
     a year before the 2004 election.
       ``I put the largest blame on Congress itself,'' said Kim 
     Brace, an elections expert who consults with states. ``They 
     built up a lot of hope in the rhetoric side and fell through 
     dramatically on the action side. And certainly on the 
     dollars.''


                          the delays continue

       Critical technical work on voting machines, tasked to the 
     National Institute of Standards and Technology, was suspended 
     for two months this year because of a lack of federal money. 
     The institute's job? Make sure standards are tough for 
     computerized touchscreen voting machines.
       And that leads to the heart of the fight: Critics, 
     including some prominent Democrats, say the ATM-style 
     machines are a bigger danger than punch cards. Source of the 
     infamous ``hanging chad'' ballots that left Florida 
     election commissioners trying to divine voter intent from 
     bumps on the cards.
       Laterly, those warnings have been heard: Besides Ohio, 
     officials are reconsidering or delaying the switch to new 
     machines in California, West Virginia, Utah, and more.
       ``Why trade one imperfect system for another imperfect 
     system?'' David Wilde, a councilman in Salt Lake County, 
     asked when questions were raised there about switching to 
     touchscreen machines.


              COMPUTER SCIENTISTS' WORRIES RUN MUCH DEEPER

       The high-tech voting machines, they say, can miscount 
     election results through a software bug or a crashing 
     computer; what's even more troubling, they can be manipulated 
     if someone hacks the computer's software. And the biggest 
     problem is that, without a paper ballot, there is nothing 
     tangible to recount.
       Because the voting machine industry keeps its computer code 
     secret, claiming competitive business concerns, no one can be 
     truly confident that the machines are as secure as they 
     promise, critics say.
       ``If something can be stolen, eventually it will be,'' said 
     Barbara Simons, a retired IBM computer scientist. ``Our 
     democracy is much too valuable to trust them to this machine. 
     . . . If the election is close--or the opinion polls are 
     close--that means people aren't going to trust the outcome. 
     And there's no way to convince them that they are right.''
       The solution, in this view, are ``voter verifiable paper 
     trails''--a paper ballot that the computer prints after a 
     vote is cast, that the voter can see to ensure their choice 
     was accurately recorded, and that will be locked away for any 
     recount.
       A number of studies of the electronic machines have 
     confirmed the doubts including a harshly critical one from 
     Johns Hopkins University. Studies in Maryland and Ohio also 
     found flaws, but said they could be corrected.
       The divide is deep, however, with exasperated election 
     officials and executives from the voting machine industry 
     arguing that critics are inflating small problems into 
     systemwide dangers and frightening voters unnecessarily.
       ``I think touchscreen is the best voting system,'' said Pam 
     Iorio, the former elections supervisor in Florida's 
     Hillsborough County (Tampa), where touchscreens were 
     installed. ``Election officials have just not been able to 
     get their message out.''
       The paper trail proposed would ``do more harm than good,'' 
     said Dawn Williams, who oversees elections in Marshall 
     County, Iowa. The receipts will just confuse voters, add more 
     equipment to break down and more burdens for poll workers.
       Primary elections so far this year have produced small 
     glitches--machines that failed to boot up in San Diego, 
     coding problems in Georgia and Maryland--but no outright 
     disasters. Supporters of the new technology say that proves 
     the wisdom of their confidence; doubters say it shows nothing 
     of the sort.
       The suspicion of critics is compounded by the fact that 
     election officials and the voting machine industry are often 
     closely intertwined.
       Washington state's secretary of state went to work in the 
     industry; so did several election officials in California. 
     Under scrutiny is a job change in California, when the former 
     state official in charge of evaluating voting machines took a 
     top job with Election Systems and Software, a large 
     manufacturer.
       Those in the relatively small world of elections say that's 
     natural.
       ``I personally don't see anything wrong with it,'' said 
     Ernie Hawkins, who retired last year as head of Sacramento's 
     election division. ``You know the business, you know the 
     problem, you know where the dangers are. I'd probably be more 
     inclined to listen to someone who was trying to sell me 
     something if they knew what they were talking about.''
       And don't leave out the politics. The chief executive of 
     Ohio-based Diebold Inc., one of the largest voting machine 
     manufacturers and a top target of security critics, is a top 
     fund-raiser for the Bush campaign. In an August fund-raising 
     letter, Walden O'Dell sought $10,000 donations and declared 
     he was ``committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral 
     votes to the president next year.''
       He later announced that he would ``try to be more 
     sensitive'' and would lower his political profile.
       While errors are inevitable in a system recording tens of 
     millions of votes nationally, it's clear that scrutiny of the 
     voting system will be at an all-time high this year. A 
     greater-than-usual number of election officials have quit or 
     taken retirement. Others are just hoping for a presidential 
     blowout.
       ``Every election official's prayer is, you hear many times, 
     they really don't care who wins,'' said Richard Smolka, an 
     elections expert and retired political science professor. 
     ``They just don't want the election to be that close.''
                                  ____

   TITLE III--UNIFORM AND NONDISCRIMINATORY ELECTION TECHNOLOGY AND 
                      ADMINISTRATION REQUIREMENTS

                        Subtitle A--Requirements

     SEC. 301. VOTING SYSTEMS STANDARDS.

       (a) Requirements.--Each voting system used in an election 
     for Federal office shall meet the following requirements:
       (1) In General.--
       (A) Except as provided in subparagraph (B), the voting 
     system (including any lever voting system, optical scanning 
     voting system, or direct recording electronic system) shall--
       (i) permit the voter to verify (in a private and 
     independent manner) the votes selected by the voter on the 
     ballot before the ballot is cast and counted;
       (ii) provide the voter with the opportunity (in a private 
     and independent manner) to change the ballot or correct any 
     error before the ballot is cast and counted (including the 
     opportunity to correct the error through the issuance of a 
     replacement ballot if the voter was otherwise unable to 
     change the ballot or correct any error); and
       (iii) if the voter selects votes for more than one 
     candidate for a single office--
       (I) notify the voter that the voter has selected more than 
     one candidate for a single office on the ballot;
       (II) notify the voter before the ballot is cast and counted 
     of the effect of casting multiple votes for the office; and
       (III) provide the voter with the opportunity to correct the 
     ballot before the ballot is cast and counted.
       (B) A State or jurisdiction that uses a paper ballot voting 
     system, a punch card voting system, or a central count voting 
     system (including mail-in absentee ballots and mail-in 
     ballots), may meet the requirements of subparagraph (A)(iii) 
     by--
       (i) establishing a voter education program specific to that 
     voting system that notifies each voter of the effect of 
     casting multiple votes for an office; and
       (ii) providing the voter with instructions on how to 
     correct the ballot before it is cast and counted (including 
     instructions on how to correct the error through the issuance 
     of a replacement ballot if the voter was otherwise unable to 
     change the ballot or correct any error).
       (C) The voting system shall ensure that any notification 
     required under this paragraph preserves the privacy of the 
     voter and the confidentiality of the ballot.
       (2) Audit capacity.--
       (A) In general.--The voting system shall produce a record 
     with an audit capacity for such system.
       (B) Manual audit capacity.--
       (i) The voting system shall produce a permanent paper 
     record with a manual audit capacity for such system.
       (ii) The voting system shall provide the voter with an 
     opportunity to change the ballot or correct any error before 
     the permanent paper record is produced.
       (iii) The paper record produced under subparagraph (A) 
     shall be available as an official record for any recount 
     conducted with respect to any election in which the system is 
     used.

[[Page H1351]]



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