[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 52 (Wednesday, April 21, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H2253-H2261]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      SUPPORT THE VOTER CONFIDENCE AND INCREASED ACCESSIBILITY ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Burns). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 2003, the

[[Page H2254]]

gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I would like to address the subject at the 
heart our democracy, voter confidence. What is the central act, Mr. 
Speaker, of our democracy? It is the vote. For that to work, we must 
have confidence. In fact, for our government to work, we must have the 
confidence of the citizens. This is a self-governed country, and it 
only works if we believe it does. It only works if we maintain faith in 
the system.
  Now, obviously, that has a lot to do with how elected officials 
behave today, it has a lot to do with how the citizens feel that their 
money is spent, it has a lot to do with how much we elected officials 
stay in touch with the people.
  But it also has to do with the process of voting, itself; and in 
recent efforts to strengthen our voting procedures, particularly 
following the problems that became apparent in the 2000 election, a 
number of changes have been made that might actually serve to reduce 
voter confidence.
  In November of this year, it is expected that 50 million votes, 
almost one-third of the votes that are likely to be cast in this 
country, will be cast on machines, touch screen, electronic machines, 
what are known as direct recording electronic voting machines, or DREs; 
and these 50 million votes will be unauditable. If we do not pass 
legislation requiring a voter-verified audit for each vote at the time 
each voter votes, we may as well outlaw recounts.
  Now, I ask my colleagues if they know any candidate for office who 
would want to run without the possibility of a recount if there were 
questions about the election. If we do not take legislative action, we 
might as well outlaw recounts in Federal elections. Somewhere along the 
way, we allowed the vote count to become privatized, and we should act 
now to undo that.
  In July of last year, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelly 
released a report of a touch screen task force. It was comprised of 
computer scientists, election officials, representatives from the 
Secretary of State's office, election reform groups, and election 
officials. This task force said, ``There needs to be voter verification 
imposed by a date certain.''
  By voter verification, what they meant was a procedure, a mechanism, 
so that each time a voter goes into the booth that that voter can 
verify that his or her intentions are correctly recorded, in other 
words, that the vote cast is the same as the vote recorded.
  Now, at the same time that the Secretary of State of California was 
releasing this task force report, computer scientists reviewed the 
source code used by one of this country's major voting machines; and 
their analysis, which is commonly referred to as the ``Johns Hopkins 
Report,'' found that ``this voting system is far below even the most 
minimal security standards applicable in other contexts. We identified 
several problems, including unauthorized privilege escalation, 
incorrect use of cryptography, vulnerabilities to network threats and 
poor software development processes. We show that voters without any 
insider privileges can cast unlimited votes without being detected by 
any mechanism within the voting terminal software. Further, we show 
that even the most serious of our outsider attacks could have been 
discovered and executed without access to a source code. We conclude 
that this voting system,'' and now this is one of the most common 
voting systems in America, ``that this voting system is unsuitable for 
use in a general election.''
  Well, there are a lot of technical computer science terms there, but 
what they mean is the software is unreliable, that the machines may not 
record the votes the way the voters intended them to be recorded, 
either through inadvertent error or through malicious software hacking.
  The State of Maryland commissioned a third-party review of their 
electronic voting machines. This review was conducted by Science 
Applications International Corporation, SAIC, last summer. A version of 
that report was released and it said: ``This risk assessment has 
identified several high-risk vulnerabilities in the implementation of 
the managerial, operational, and technical controls for the voting 
system. If these risks are exploited, significant impact could occur on 
the accuracy, integrity, and availability of election results. The 
system is at high risk of compromise.''
  Again, this is written in technical terms, but it says quite simply, 
your vote may not be counted.
  Now, even if great pains have been taken to get rid of the bugs in 
the software and the systems are guarded so hackers do not get to them, 
we still cannot be certain, we still cannot be certain that the system 
works to record the voters' intentions accurately.
  Now, some election officials say, well, we have been using these 
electronic machines for several years now and we have never had a 
problem, to which I say, Mr. Speaker, how do you know? If the system 
has an obvious breakdown, then you know it does not work. But if it 
appears to be recording votes, you cannot know, fundamentally cannot 
know whether it does work.
  That is why it is necessary that there be a parallel audit trail, so 
that each voter owns the verification. Not some discount company that 
vouches for its machine, not even the election officials of the State, 
but the voter herself or himself can verify that the vote that is 
recorded is the vote that was intended.
  Maryland commissioned yet another study, because there was continuing 
uncertainty following the really troubling results of that first study. 
This study, prepared by another organization, was released in January 
of this year. It was based on what they called a ``red team exercise,'' 
a deliberate attempt to compromise the system, to see how easily they 
could be compromised.
  That reported said: ``The State of Maryland election system, 
comprising technical, operation and procedural components, as 
configured, contains considerable security risks that can cause 
moderate to severe disruption in an election.''
  Mr. Speaker, we are talking about the central act, the centerpiece of 
our democracy, voting. What could be more important?
  Well, there is a way to deal with this problem. It is technologically 
and practically feasible. In fact, it is easy to give each voter the 
control of the verification, to give each voter the assurance, the 
confidence, that his or her vote has been recorded the way she or he 
intended.
  I have introduced the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility 
Act. I introduced this about a year ago, working with a number of 
computer scientists and election officials and others, seeking input 
from civil rights groups and public interest groups and groups of 
citizens with physical disabilities; and we crafted language that would 
solve this security problem.
  Quite simply, my legislation would require that all voting systems 
produce a voter-verified paper record for use in manual audits. So you 
go into the booth, if there is an electronic machine, one of these DRE 
touch-screen machines, for example. You would vote. Before you submit 
the vote, after you have chosen the candidates and selected your 
position on the referenda and so forth, the machine would produce a 
parallel audited record, a paper account of your vote.

                              {time}  1730

  One can look at it and say, yep, that is my vote. Or if it is not, 
one can declare it a spoiled ballot and have the election officials 
reset the machine and vote again, or, vote once and the other ballot is 
disposed of.
  The legislation would not only require a voter-verified paper record 
for each voter at the time of voting, it would ban the use of 
undisclosed software and wireless communication devices in voting 
systems. It would require that all voting systems meet these 
requirements in time for the general election of this year, November 
2004. It would require that electronic voting systems be provided for 
persons with physical disabilities 1 year earlier than is provided 
under the current versions of the law.
  My legislation would also require mandatory surprise recounts in one-
half of 1 percent of all jurisdictions so that the voters, each voter, 
can have assurance that the system is working. This will go a long way 
toward removing one of the areas of uncertainty.
  I think any of us, when we hold town meetings or just walking around 
the

[[Page H2255]]

streets of our towns, we encounter people who say, ``I do not vote. My 
vote does not count.'' I spend a lot of time arguing with people like 
that. As someone who won an election by a razor-thin margin once, I can 
assure them that every vote does count.
  But more and more I hear people saying, my vote will not be counted. 
And that is a very troubling sign. If people do not go to the polls for 
whatever reason, it is a loss to democracy. It is a tragedy for our 
country. And we dare not let them have the excuse that their vote will 
not be counted because the machine will malfunction, because there are 
bugs in the software, or because the software has been tampered with.
  The centerpiece of our democracy, that is what we are talking about.
  And I am pleased to be joined in this discussion by two people who 
have given a great deal of thought to this issue. I am joined by my 
friend the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Udall) who served as attorney 
general in New Mexico before coming here to the House of 
Representatives. And he understands how important it is that we 
maintain the confidence of citizens in their government and in the 
process of government. And he understands how we can do that.
  I would be pleased to yield to my colleague from New Mexico.
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Holt). And let me first of all say that it is a real 
pleasure to be here with him this evening and have the opportunity to 
carry on a debate with him about this important issue. I want to thank 
the gentleman for his leadership on this.
  I had a series of town hall meetings in my district recently. And 
maybe my colleague could help me with some of the questions that people 
have. I thought I would just begin with a question and then with a 
statement, and maybe we can just carry a little bit of a discussion on 
about this one question.
  I have talked to machine manufacturers. I have talked to elected 
officials that supervise these elections. They tell me we have a lot of 
touch machines in New Mexico, and they say things to me like, we do not 
have to worry because we have three levels of redundancy in the 
computers. We do not have to worry because there is backup in the 
computers.
  And I think my colleague has explained it somewhat in his opening 
remarks, but I would like to kick that back to him at this point and 
have my colleague, because I know he has called many of these computer 
experts over the course of developing this legislation, when they say 
three levels of redundancy in the computer, is that a level of 
protection my colleague is satisfied with, and does it, in fact, in 
this piece of legislation give security to the ballot itself?
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, it does not provide enough 
security. This past Tuesday, a day ago, I voted in the school board 
elections in my home district. For the first time our county, Mercer 
County, New Jersey, used electronic touch screen machines, the so-
called DRE, one brand of the DRE machines.
  As I expected, they were clear, easy to use, accessible. I think they 
would be good for people with physical disabilities, better probably 
than the old lever machines. And they were, as I expected, totally 
unverifiable. Now, why do I say that? Because the manufacturers will 
say, oh, we have batteries in there so if the power fails, they will 
not crash. Of course, there are a lot of computer engineers who promise 
that their software will not crash. But the manufacturers say, well, we 
store the votes in two different memory locations so there is 
redundancy.
  With the electronic machines there is no way after the polls close 
that you can go back and determine what was the intention of each voter 
because there is this fundamental principle of secrecy. One's ballot 
must be kept secret. They cannot go back and say, you, Mr. Udall, voter 
number 23 today, voted for candidate A in this election and candidate C 
in that election.
  So it is fundamentally different from your ATM machine, your cash 
machine at the bank or from other electronics that you work with 
because at the end of the month, with your bank, you have got either 
your checks or photocopies of your checks, and the bank tells you how 
much they think you have, and you tell them how much you think you 
have, and you get together on it.
  With a secret ballot one cannot do that. They cannot tell someone how 
they voted. They cannot know how someone voted. So there is necessarily 
a gap between the casting of the vote and the recording of the vote. It 
is fundamental to these machines. One cannot get around it. We cannot 
build redundancy in there because there is a gap filled with software 
between the casting of the vote and the recording of the vote.
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. Speaker, I hope that that is very clear to everyone out there. It 
was very clear to me the way that was explained. And I want to say that 
the reason we are here today on the floor is because we believe in the 
improved use of technology. Computerized voting systems will soon 
become the primary method for voting across the country, and with this 
new technology comes a potentially serious problem: The fact that these 
systems will not have a verifiable paper trail of how a citizen 
actually voted.
  Without this component, voters and election officials have no 
certainty that votes have been properly recorded, because computer 
voting machines are not currently required to produce a voter-verified 
paper trail. Any errors or irregularities they cause are difficult or 
even impossible to discover.
  Voters would never know and election officials could never determine 
whether a faulty machine erroneously recorded the voter's intent. A 
growing host of nationally and internationally renowned computer 
scientists consider a voter-verified paper trail to be a critical 
safeguard for the accuracy, integrity, and security of computer 
assisted elections.
  Thankfully my colleague the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) has 
introduced H.R. 2239 to address this problem. H.R. 2239 requires the 
electronic voting systems to provide a mechanism for voter verification 
of results. H.R. 2239 would require that voters be able to verify the 
actual paper record after it is printed.

  Requiring a voter-verified paper trail is both easily solved and 
immediately necessary. Localities are making purchasing decisions right 
now. If Congress acts now, we can ensure that every election is voter-
verified and auditable, and localities can move forward with 
confidence. The technology is there to make this happen.
  I am proud to be a cosponsor of H.R. 2239 and hope that this Congress 
will take action on this legislation immediately. There is broad-based 
support for voter-verified paper trails. In fact, more than 70 
organizations, including Common Cause, the National Organization For 
Women, the National Federation of Republican Women, as well as the 
editorial boards of more than 20 newspapers have endorsed voter-
verified paper trails.
  With a critical election looming, it makes it that much more 
important that we address this situation now.
  Mr. Speaker, I would once again like to thank my colleague, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), for his leadership on this issue. 
I look forward to working with him, with the gentleman from North 
Carolina (Mr. Price), with the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) and 
all the other fine sponsors of this legislation to help ensure and 
improve the integrity of our electoral process.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) 
and thank my friend again.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for those stirring words 
that speak to democracy. I cannot emphasize strongly enough what we are 
talking about here. This is not an exercise in computer science. It is 
not a game of political gotcha. It is not a partisan matter. It is not 
antitechnology. It is simply an effort to see that voters believe that 
they own their government, that they own their vote, that the sanctity 
of their vote is preserved.
  Now, someone who has studied this both theoretically and practically 
is the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price), who has looked at 
this with the eyes and the mind of a political scientist, but also as 
someone who has had his share of close elections and

[[Page H2256]]

knows what it would mean if we had elections all across the country 
without the possibility of a recount.
  I am pleased to yield to my friend from North Carolina (Mr. Price).
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding, and I commend him for his good work on this critical issue.
  Like our friend the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Udall), I have 
been hearing a lot about this from constituents, from town meetings, 
from people who just understand that it is unthinkable that we should 
go through another national election with an outcome that is in doubt. 
And we have put some machinery in place to replace outmoded, inaccurate 
voting machines. So it would be ironic if some of that machinery turned 
out to have serious problems of its own.
  So I want to commend my colleague for understanding the gravity of 
this issue and introducing the bill H.R. 2239, which offers a very 
promising remedy. I am proud to be a cosponsor and join in this Special 
Order today to talk about this issue.
  The bill of the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) would require 
all electronic voting machines, also known as direct record electronic 
voting systems, or DREs, would require all the DREs that are used in 
the upcoming election to produce some kind of verifiable paper trail. 
This bill would thus create a way for American voters to ensure that 
their votes are counted accurately.
  There are very few things that are more important, I think, to the 
workings of democracy. You have got to be able to assume the legitimacy 
of election outcomes. If we do not act quickly on this bill, I am 
afraid we may face the possibility of having two Presidential elections 
in a row where the outcomes are contested.
  Often we get so caught up in the debate about electronic voting 
machines that we forget that there are other reliable and verifiable 
options to these direct record electronic voting systems.

                              {time}  1745

  Not all of them are particularly high-tech devices. This may be an 
area where at least for the present, high tech is not necessarily 
better. For example, in my district of North Carolina, we use what we 
call optical scanning systems. You take a piece of paper and take an 
magic marker and connect arrows on this ballot. You feed the ballot 
into the machine. The machine reads the vote instantly and produces an 
outcome at the end of the day instantly, but then there is this paper 
record if the outcome is contested. In case there is a malfunction, 
there is a paper record that could be consulted to back up the result.
  We may well have these more sophisticated, more complicated direct 
record electronic voting systems in our future. But the current 
counting mechanisms on many of these machines are not foolproof, as 
several elections in this past year have shown.
  I wonder if the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), I know he has 
studied this extensively, if he could elaborate on that a bit. What 
have been some of the problems that have been pointed out by the 
studies in terms of perhaps a potential for hacking, perhaps a 
potential for fraud, the potential for malfunctioning? Just what kinds 
of problems are we talking about?
  Mr. HOLT. These electronic machines are now in fairly common use 
around the country, and so we are beginning to get a number of stories 
of questionable behavior or real horror stories. There are cases where 
it appears that the electronic machines have actually counted backwards 
as the evening has gone along. There are other cases where, well, in 
one election recently, ironically in the State of Florida, there was a 
special election for a State office, several candidates on the ballot 
in a couple of counties. Some thousands of voters turned out for this 
single election. There was only one election on the ballot, and 137 
voters who showed up, signed in and went into the voting booth 
evidently did not vote. Their votes were not recorded.
  In other elections there are suspicious results where all of the 
candidates, all of the winning candidates got exactly the same vote 
total numbering in the thousands. So there are a number of instances 
where there are questionable results, and the point is you will never 
know was there something wrong because you cannot go back and audit 
them. There is no audit. There is no recount possible.
  So I am afraid that anytime there is a close election from now on, 
unless we have this parallel voter-verified audit trail, there will be 
a cloud hanging over every close election and the loser and the loser's 
supporters will wonders if they have been cheated out of the election 
by some sort or error or, at worse, by hacking, by theft, by fraud. And 
that cloud cannot be dispelled.
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. No matter whether we are talking about a 
malfunction intended by no one or something much more mischievous or 
fraudulent, a system like there where you have no way of checking, no 
back-up system, simply leads people to suspect the worst. And so it 
would appear to me that we would want to offer maximum assurance. As I 
said earlier, to move from these punch card systems which were so 
inaccurate and so problematic to move to high-tech electronic systems 
with all these bells and whistles which nonetheless have no basic 
capability to offer a back-up check, that would not seem to be the way 
we ought to be moving in election reform. Some of these low-tech 
alternatives might be better for the present.
  Mr. HOLT. Would it not be ironic.
  Let me refer to what a couple of States are doing, partly because 
Congress has been slow to address this problem. My bill has been 
sitting in committee for a year now. Some States have acted on their 
own. I have mentioned the studies that were undertaken in California 
and the Secretary of State of California has decided to act and has 
declared that in the future the California machines must have a voter-
verified paper trail.
  In past months, the Secretary of State of Nevada, Dean Heller, 
announced his decision to buy touch screen voting machines for all of 
Nevada's counties, and he also announced a mandated paper ballot be 
created through the use of a voter-verifiable record in all new DRE 
machines purchased in the State of Nevada in time for the 2004 general 
election. Said the Secretary of State, ``I did so because the voters of 
this State overwhelmingly supported the inclusion of a paper trail to 
protect the integrity of our election.'' Maybe it is time for the 
voters to let their county officials know how important a voter-
verifiable receipt printer is to them.
  Now, it would make sense for Federal elections that this be handled 
on a national level and not count on each county and each State to try 
to protect the integrity of the system for the voters. As the Secretary 
of State of New Hampshire wrote, ``People in other States talk about 
the unbelievable burden of recounts. They do not realize the costs of 
restoring legitimacy is far greater than the costs of maintaining it.''
  He gets it. He understands that we have to have an election system 
that is recognized as legitimate, that allows recounts, that gives 
voters confidence. New Hampshire uses paper ballots in 100 percent of 
its precincts; 55 percent of New Hampshire precincts use an optical 
scan system where you fill in a circle or a box next to the candidate, 
and then an optical scanner or machine will count those ballots. But 
you have the record that the voter has marked herself or himself so 
that provides a voter-verification paper trail. That is 55 percent of 
their precincts and 45 percent use paper and nothing else. And New 
Hampshire's system for a number of years now has been highly 
successful, in the words of the Secretary of State, and ``successful in 
promoting voter confidence and reliability.''
  In fact, to make the pointed that this is not a partisan matter, 
should not or need not be a partisan matter, I have here a resolution 
passed by the New Hampshire State Republican convention in 1988 no 
less. So it is not only not partisan; it is not all that new. They 
said, ``Whereas, the State of New Hampshire has computerized voting 
equipment that does not have the ability to recount manually, does not 
have the ability to recount at all, uses secrecy of internal procedures 
as a primary security strategy, does not give the voter the ability to 
ensure the computer has voted as instructed, now therefore, it be 
resolved,'' etc., etc.,

[[Page H2257]]

``computerized voting equipment must either produce a manually 
recountable ballot for the voter's inspection prior to electronically 
casting the voter's ballot or use as its input a ballot which can be 
used in a manual recount.''

  The Republican Party said, we must have a voter-verified paper trail.
  I am pleased now that we are joined by our colleague, the gentlewoman 
from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), who has given a great deal of thought and 
energy to this question. I yield to my colleague.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Holt) for his outstanding national leadership for his question of the 
integrity of our vote and wish to join him in support of H.R. 2239, his 
measure to instill voter confidence and increased accessibility of 2003 
by requiring a voter-verified permanent record or hard copy under title 
III of the Help America Vote Act that we passed back on October 29, 
2002.
  The bill does need perfection, and it is to the gentleman from New 
Jersey's (Mr. Holt) great credit that over 132 Members of this House 
already signed on as co-sponsors of this measure.
  It is a pleasure to join the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Udall), 
the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price) here this evening, and 
the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown) in supporting this 
measure.
  Let me just say that the goals of the original act were to provide 
funds for new voting equipment and training and that the Election 
Assistance Commission that was established as a national clearing house 
for Federal elections was expected to do many things that they have not 
done to date, simply because they were appointed too late. In fact, a 
year late. They were not confirmed in their position until December 9 
of last year. And the first public meeting of the commission was just 
about one month ago on March 23. Therefore, when counties in our 
congressional district looked to the Federal Government for information 
about secure voting systems, and which electronic voting devices can 
really be trusted, guess what? There is no advice, because the 
commission has not completed its work. And in fact as we meet here 
today, the public comment period on the various State election plans 
that have been submitted to the Federal Register for comment which will 
end on May 8 allow for the States to self-certify. Those comments are 
just given back to the Secretaries of the various States and then 
Federal money begins to kick in, $2.3 billion for election training, 
$650 million for equipment; but the point is that there are not Federal 
standards by which we can judge this equipment. This has never happened 
before across our Nation.
  There are many delays associated with those appointments to the 
commission, and several deadlines in HAVA have already been missed in 
that act. I will submit those for the record tonight. It is important 
to say over two dozen States have requested and granted a waiver for 
compliance with the HAVA voting equipment requirements until the first 
election after January 1, 2006.
  I would say to many elections officials across this country and 
across my own State of Ohio who have asked me, go to the act. We can 
provide this to you. You do not have to buy this equipment this year if 
you do not believe it is secure. If you do not believe the smart cards 
are trust worthy, you do not have to buy those machines under the act 
that we passed here. There are no Federal standards in place yet so you 
have no guidelines. So why make decisions prematurely?
  We want to make sure that that equipment works once you bring it on 
line, and you have to think about the long-term costs of the 
maintenance of the electronic equipment. Right now the act does not 
provide for storage costs at a certain humidity, which many of those 
electronic systems do require. You have to also think about the 
training of the booth workers who will be working this year. The 
training money has not gone out yet. Who will do the training? What 
kind of training? Will we be sufficiently trained on this new equipment 
by November or should you use your traditional system that has been in 
place through this year and then move the HAVA legislation and then the 
equipment and so forth on board for elections after January 2006?
  I just wanted to mention the gentleman from New Jersey's (Mr. Holt) 
tremendous work in this area, specifically as regards the paper trails 
and how you recount from a device that sends its votes into cyberspace.
  We currently have several places in the country where elections have 
been conducted on this equipment and the votes cannot be recounted 
because the votes are in space. There is no paper record. There is 
nothing in the machine you can go back to. It only repeats what it did 
before. There is no paper record. And I totally support your efforts to 
try to get an auditable, verifiable paper trail. With all of the money 
we are spending, well over a billion dollars in this country, why can 
we not get it right the first time and make sure that whatever is 
necessary to provide that machine with intelligence so we can audit 
that trail is available? In the State of Ohio, I will end and just say, 
we have a State requirement that if an election is within one half of 1 
percent, we must recount. It is Ohio's statute. We must do this. If we 
have votes in cyberspace, there is no way that we can accomplish this 
state-mandated test.
  So I want to thank the gentleman for taking on this major effort. And 
believe me, you have my support in the Committee on Appropriations and 
in any other way to try to get these machines to function the right way 
and to get our poll workers the proper training before the election in 
which any of this equipment is brought on line.
  Rush Holt has introduced H.R. 2239, the Voter Confidence and 
Increased Accessibility Act of 2003, to require a voter-verified 
permanent record or hardcopy under title III of the Help America Vote 
Act. The bill now has 132 cosponsors. Congressman Holt will speak more 
about his bill later.
  HAVA was signed into law on October 29, 2002. Its goals were to 
provide new voting equipment in those communities where it is needed 
and wanted; to provide training programs for election workers and voter 
education programs for the public; and to establish an Election 
Assistance Commission to serve as a national clearinghouse and resource 
for the administration of Federal elections.
  Under the Act, the four Commissioners were to be appointed by 
February 26, 2003. Their nominations were not even sent to the Senate 
until October 3, 2003, and they were not confirmed until December 9, 
2003. The first public meeting of the Commission was just about 1 month 
ago, on March 23rd. As we meet here, the public comment period on State 
Election Plans is underway. At the conclusion of this period, State 
Election Plans can be self-certified by the States and they will begin 
to receive more than $2.3 billion for election training and assistance, 
in addition to the $650 million that has already been put out to the 
states.
  Due to the delays in the appointment of the commission, several 
deadlines specified in HAVA have already been missed:
  Recommendations and voluntary guidance on Section 302 provisional 
voting requirements (October 1, 2003);
  Recommendations and voluntary guidance on Section 303 provisions on 
computerized statewide voter registration list requirements and mail 
registration requirements (October 1, 2003);
  Human Factors Report to the President and Congress (October 29, 
2003);
  EAC adopts voluntary guidance recommendations relating to Section 301 
Voting Systems Standards Requirements (January 1, 2004);
  First Annual EAC report to Congress (January 31, 2004);
  A report and recommendations to the President and Congress for 
facilitating military and overseas voting.
  Additionally, 24 states have requested and been granted a waiver for 
compliance with HAVA voting equipment requirements until the first 
Federal election after January 1, 2006.
  Testing by NIST 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 underway. But 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.
  Over the course of the past year, there have been many concerns 
raised regarding the security of new voting equipment. Will there be a 
paper trail that can be used for recounts? Can the summary data stored 
on the memory components of equipment provide a source for a recount in 
which voters can have confidence? Expert opinion is divided, and 
several

[[Page H2258]]

states, including Ohio, California, Maryland and others, are looking 
into adopting state legislation that will build upon HAVA's minimum 
requirements.
  The Commission itself is scheduled to hold a hearing regarding 
concerns about election equipment and other start-up issues on May 5th. 
The Technology Subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee, 
which had planned to hold a hearing on similar concerns on April 28th, 
has now delayed their hearing until May 12th.

                              {time}  1800

  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman and since she speaks 
about appropriations, it is worth pointing out that the Help America 
Vote Act, which was passed to bring voting up-to-date and to remove 
uncertainties, dimpled chads, pregnant chads, hanging chads, butterfly 
ballots and all that and to provide greater access for people with 
physical disabilities, to provide greater voting rights for minorities, 
that bill is a very important step, but it is terribly underfunded. The 
appropriations have not come close to matching what the authors of that 
bill said was necessary.
  But to the other point that my friend from Ohio raised where in Ohio 
if an election is very close there must be a recount, let me speak from 
personal experience.
  A few years ago, I was involved in a close election. My opponent 
asked for a recount. In one of the five counties in my District, there 
were then in use electronic voting machines. No surprise, several weeks 
after the election, when the judge asked for a recount, those machines 
gave exactly the same numbers that they gave 5 minutes after the polls 
closed. They call that a recount but it is meaningless. If there was an 
error, if the voter's intention was not properly recorded, no one will 
ever know. Each time you interrogate the computer, it will give you the 
same answer. I do not call that a recount because you are not testing 
against the voters' intentions.
  Let me quickly just read a few comments from the press around the 
country. The New York Times: ``Even a cursory look at the behavior of 
the major voting machine companies reveals systematic flouting of the 
rules. Software was modified without government oversight; machine 
components were replaced without being rechecked. And here's the 
crucial point: even if there are strong reasons to suspect that 
electronic machines miscounted votes, nothing can be done about it. 
There is no paper trail; there is nothing to recount.''
  Anchorage, Alaska: ``Alaska law,'' and by extension the Federal law, 
``should require electronic voting machines to produce a paper record 
of each vote.''
  Bangor, Maine: ``Paperless voting machines and those that transmit 
results over the Internet are vulnerable to glitches and manipulation 
by hackers. Yet election officials in many States are tempted by a 
slick technology.''
  Asbury Park Press: ``There's no good reason for Congress to delay 
mandating that electronic machines produce paper records.''
  Los Angeles Times: They say, ``Machines, too, can lie.''
  Boston Globe: ``It's the computers' turn to mess up elections.''
  Newsday says, ``Elections flawed.''
  Palm Beach Post, Orlando Sentinel: ``The electronic voting machines 
are better than dimpled chads but need back-up.''
  Eugene, Oregon, The Register-Guard: ``Voters need a record.''
  Sarasota Herald Tribune: ``A paper trail would increase faith in 
elections.''
  I could go on. In newspaper after newspaper, in town meeting after 
town meeting, in letter after letter sent to probably every Member of 
this House of Representatives, the public is calling for a voter 
verified paper trail because, I am pleased to say, the American public 
cares about their votes. They believe their votes are sacred and we 
should preserve that sanctity.
  Someone who can speak with authority about this, about the importance 
of the franchise, how important it is that we extend the vote to all 
eligible voters and we make it as easy as possible for them to vote 
thoughtfully and that we ensure the integrity of those votes is the 
gentlewoman from the great State of Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown), which, 
I am sorry to say, the State has become the poster child of voting 
irregularities, but that is just because the vote was close in Florida. 
If it had been close in other States, we would have found voting 
irregularities in other States, too.
  We have to do everything we can in every State to restore the 
sanctity of the vote, the integrity of the vote, the reliability of the 
vote, and with that, I would be pleased to yield to my friend, the 
gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown).
  Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to 
thank the gentleman for holding this meeting today to discuss the 
elections and how we are going to ensure that we have a fair election 
in 2004 and how we are going to make sure that people in America get a 
chance to vote but also that their votes will count, but I do have to 
correct my colleague on just one thing because Florida is not just 
known in the country, it is known throughout the world, because of this 
last election.
  I just returned from Eastern Europe and I tell you, anytime I 
mentioned that I am from Florida, there is a sympathy in the look that 
I receive because they wonder how in the world that South Africa could 
get it right and we could not get it right in the great State of 
Florida.
  The correction I want to make is that the election in Florida was not 
close. It was not close at all. Statewide, over 150,000 votes were 
thrown out, but I want to talk to you about what was very up close and 
personal for me in that in my District, in the 3rd Congressional 
District of Florida, in Duval County alone, in precinct 7, 8, 9 and 10, 
over 27,000 votes were thrown out, 27,000.
  I have here on my right the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price) 
who came to Duval County at a hearing where all the problems that 
Florida experienced was discussed and the depth of the seriousness of 
throwing out 27,000 votes. Why were they thrown out? Because they had 
old machines, and the machines, when you vote, they just spit the 
ballot out, and we never counted them. To this day, 27,000 ballots were 
not counted.
  The sad part about it is that the supervisor of elections did not 
inform us. By law, you can ask for a recount in 48 hours. They did not 
even tell us until at least four days after the election that they had 
thrown them out. By the way, I was watching television. The supervisor 
of elections came on television, and the reporters were asking him how 
many votes were thrown out in Duval County. He said, oh, 27,000. I 
mean, 27,000. So we have to make sure that that never happens again 
nowhere in the United States.

  When I travel around the world and I go to places like Haiti, they 
did not have 27,000 votes thrown out. When I go to Africa and monitor 
their elections, I mean if we are going to be the voice of freedom, it 
starts with the election.
  Let me just say that I supported the initiative on the Help America 
Vote Act that was passed back in 2002, and I thought it was 
particularly important that the law provides money to help States 
replace and update their old and outdated voting machines. Now we can 
see why this is so important because of what happened in Florida, just 
during the last primary.
  During the primary even though voter turnout was light, serious 
problems occurred. For example, voters were incorrectly given computer 
cards that let them vote only on local issues and not on the issue that 
they came to vote for, the presidential primary. So the fact is that in 
many counties, the machines did not work, and even the experts, the 
computer scientists, warned that votes and entire elections, in fact, 
could be stolen by rigging the codes that run the machines, and the 
only defense against this is a paper trail, in every vote count, so 
that a paper ballot could be counted if the machines tallies are 
brought into question.
  To me, after what happened in 2000, I think of all places, Florida 
definitely needs a paper trail. We need a paper trail. Nothing has 
changed in Florida. We still have the same governor. Jeb Bush is the 
governor of Florida, and we still have a system in place where the 
governor paid a firm out of Texas $4 million to verify felons. Well, it 
did not matter whether you were a felon or not. If your name was James 
Brown or

[[Page H2259]]

Corrine Brown, we just took all of the similar names out of the system, 
and you were not even notified so that you could correct it before the 
election.
  So when you went to the supervisor of elections office, where you 
have been going for the past 30 years, you were told that you could not 
vote because you were a felon and you had no recourse. We had nothing 
in place that you could cast your ballot and later we could rectify it, 
and so all of those people, thousands, was turned away on election day.
  About three weeks later, they got a letter from the supervisor of 
their elections saying, whoops, we made a mistake, and we in this 
Congress and we in this country are still suffering from that mistake, 
and we have to be committed that what happened in the 2000 election 
will never happen again in this country. We have to make sure that we 
put the credibility back for the American people and for the world 
because the world looks at us as a beacon of light, of hope, and yet 
they wonder why we cannot get it right in the United States. Maybe the 
reason why we cannot get it right is because we do not want to get it 
right.
  I enjoy a good campaign, but the end result is we have got to make 
sure that when the American people go to the polls in November that 
they can vote, that their vote will count and there is verification of 
the vote.
  I thank the gentleman very much for having this opportunity to talk 
to the American people about a system that is still broke, and if we do 
not put the money, the oversight and the security into the system, then 
shame on us.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for those remarks.
  Let me again quote from Anthony Stevens, the Assistant Secretary of 
State of New Hampshire: The cost of restoring legitimacy is far greater 
than the cost of maintaining it. When there is an error in the election 
or when there is uncertainty that there might be an error in the 
election, it hurts democracy. The winner is compromised; the loser is 
compromised. Democracy is compromised.
  So the fact that there is so much uncertainty about what happened in 
Florida three-and-a-half years ago is certainly no cause for 
celebration by the Republicans that they won because there is a cloud 
hanging over our democracy, and it cannot be resolved.
  The HAVA Act, the Help America Vote Act, does take care of some of 
the problems that my colleague from Florida raised. A voter now can 
demand a provisional ballot. If when you show up at the polls you are 
told, well, we cannot find your name on the registration list, you can 
vote provisionally. You must be allowed to vote provisionally under the 
Help America Vote Act.

                              {time}  1815

  And then later they will determine whether that ballot is good. They 
will not turn you away.
  It also increases accessibility, it increases compliance with the 
Americans With Disabilities Act, it strengthens the Voting Rights Act 
of 1965, it provides for a centralized database in each State of 
registered voters, and it helps replace the old machines.
  Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will 
yield for just one second, he is absolutely right, the provisional 
ballot is in place. But to this point you have no assurance that they 
are going to count it.
  Mr. HOLT. That is right.
  Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida. So that is a major problem.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, there is one more point I want to make quickly 
before I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.
  Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida. If the gentleman will allow me one 
other quick comment.
  Mr. HOLT. Certainly I will continue to yield to the gentlewoman.
  Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida. The other thing is that the handicapped 
citizens sued Duvall County pertaining to access to the election, 
making sure that they have an opportunity to vote in private, and they 
won. So I want to submit this for the Record for the membership to 
review.

                [From the New York Times, Mar. 14, 2004]

                      Florida as the Next Florida

       As Floridians went to the polls last Tuesday, Glenda Hood, 
     Katherine Harris's successor as secretary of state, assured 
     the nation that Florida's voting system would not break down 
     this year the way it did in 2000. Florida now has ``the very 
     best'' technology available, she declared on CNN. ``And I do 
     feel that it's a great disservice to create the feeling that 
     there's a problem when there is not.'' Hours later, results 
     in Bay County showed that with more than 60 percent of 
     precincts reporting, Richard Gephardt, who long before had 
     pulled out of the presidential race, was beating John Kerry 
     by two to one. ``I'm devastated,'' the county's top election 
     official said, promising a recount of his county's 19,000 
     votes.
       Four years after Florida made a mockery of American 
     elections, there is every reason to believe it could happen 
     again. This time, the problems will most likely be with the 
     electronic voting that has replaced chad-producing punch 
     cards. Some counties, including Bay County, use paper ballots 
     that are fed into an optical scanner, so a recount is 
     possible if there are questions. But 15 Florida counties, 
     including Palm Beach, home of the infamous ``butterfly 
     ballot,'' have adopted touch-screen machines that do not 
     produce a paper record. If anything goes wrong in these 
     counties in November, we will be in bad shape.
       Florida's official line is that its machines are so 
     carefully tested, nothing can go wrong. But things already 
     have gone wrong. In a January election in Palm Beach and 
     Broward Counties, the victory margin was 12 votes, but the 
     machines recorded more than 130 blank ballots. It is simply 
     not believable that 130 people showed up to cast a nonvote, 
     in an election with only one race on the ballot. The runner-
     up wanted a recount, but since the machines do not produce a 
     paper record, there was nothing to recount.
       In 2002, in the primary race for governor between Janet 
     Reno and Bill McBride, electronic voting problems were so 
     widespread they cast doubt on the outcome. Many Miami-Dade 
     County votes were not counted on election night because 
     machines were shut down improperly. One precinct with over 
     1,000 eligible voters recorded no votes, despite a 33 percent 
     turnout statewide. Election workers spent days hunting for 
     lost votes, while Floridians waited, in an uncomfortable 
     replay of 2000, to see whether Mr. McBride's victory margin, 
     which had dwindled to less than 10,000, would hold up.
       This past Tuesday, even though turnout was minimal, there 
     were problems. Voters were wrongly given computer cards that 
     let them vote only on local issues, not in the presidential 
     primary. Machines did not work. And there were, no doubt, 
     other mishaps that did not come to light because of the 
     stunning lack of transparency around voting in the state. 
     When a Times editorial writer dropped in on one Palm Beach 
     precinct where there were reports of malfunctioning machines, 
     county officials called the police to remove him.
       The biggest danger of electronic voting, however, cannot be 
     seen from the outside. Computer scientists warn that votes, 
     and whole elections, can be stolen by rigging the code that 
     runs the machines. The only defense is a paper record of 
     every vote cast, a ``voter-verified paper trail,'' which can 
     be counted if the machines' tallies are suspect. Given its 
     history, Florida should be a leader in requiring paper 
     trails. But election officials, including Theresa LePore, the 
     Palm Beach County elections supervisor who was responsible 
     for the butterfly ballot, have refused to put them in place.
       Last week, Representative Robert Wexler, a Florida 
     Democrat, filed a federal lawsuit to require paper trails. He 
     relies on the Supreme Court's holding in Bush v. Gore that 
     equal protection requires states to use comparable recount 
     methods from county to country. Florida law currently 
     requires a hand recount in close races. That is possible in 
     most counties, but the 15 that use electronic voting machines 
     do not produce paper records that can be recounted. Under the 
     logic of Bush v. Gore, Representative Wexler is right.
       After the 2000 mess, Americans were assured they would not 
     have to live through such a flawed election again. But 
     Florida has put in place a system, electronic voting without 
     a paper trail, that threatens once more to produce an outcome 
     that cannot be trusted. There is still time before the 
     November vote to put printers in place in the 15 Florida 
     counties that use touch screens. As we learned four years 
     ago, once the election has been held on bad equipment, it is 
     too late to make it right.
                                  ____


              [From the Florida Times-Union, Apr. 20, 2004]

                Judge Stays Own Order on Voting Machines

                            (By Paul Pinkham)

        Duval County may not have to buy handicap-accessible 
     voting machines for the August primaries after a Federal 
     judge's ``Reluctant'' stay of his own order so the county can 
     appeal.
        Lawyers for blind and manually disabled voters said they 
     will ask the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta 
     this week to expedite the appeal. But even if they are 
     successful, City Hall attorneys said, little time will be 
     left to implement Senior U.S. District Judge Wayne Alley's 
     order that optical scan voting machines with audio ballots be 
     placed in 57 of the county's 285 precincts for the Aug. 31 
     primary elections.
        ``It'd be virtually impossible,'' Assistant General 
     Counsel Scott Makar said, ``Right now, we have four months to 
     implement the judge's order. What could we do in two 
     months?''

[[Page H2260]]

        Last month, Alley found Duval County Supervisor of 
     Elections John Stafford in violation of the Americans With 
     Disabilities Act because visually and manually disabled 
     people are unable to vote without assistance on the county's 
     optical scan voting machines. But late Friday, he granted 
     Stafford's request for a stay pending appeal, an unusual step 
     for a trial judge.
        The judge said he was doing so reluctantly because he 
     doubts the county will prevail on appeal. But he said if the 
     county did happen to win on appeal, without a stay money 
     already would have been spent on new voting equipment. 
     Estimates range from $275,000 into the millions.
        ``Clearly the citizens of Duval County would be greatly 
     impacted to the potential expenditure of monies to purchase 
     voting machines that might be rendered useless in the event . 
     . . Stafford prevails on appeal,'' Alley wrote. ``Although 
     the court feels there is a public interest in preserving the 
     rights of all citizens, including plaintiffs, the more 
     pointed public interest in this case is fiscal, blue-lighted 
     bridges notwithstanding.''
        The bridges comment referred to evidence presented at 
     trial about money Jacksonville spent putting decorative blue 
     lighting on the Acosta bridge.
        Despite the stay, Alley said he was ``puzzled'' at the 
     city's aggressive defense of the case.
        ``Plaintiffs are citizens whose rights are entitled to 
     protection,'' he said. But he noted that, though the voting 
     ``method in place is not the preferred one . . . their 
     substantive right to vote will not be abrogated.''
        Douglas Baldridge, attorney for the American Association 
     of People with Disabilities in Washington, said he has asked 
     city attorneys to join him in asking the 11th Circuit for an 
     expedited appeal to resolve the case.
        ``My hope is that they just don't have a desire to run out 
     the clock on disabled citizens,'' Baldridge said.
        Makar said city attorneys are considering Baldridge's 
     request but are looking more toward 2006, when the federal 
     Help America Vote Act takes effect, requiring all U.S. 
     counties to have the necessary equipment to allow disabled 
     people to vote independently.
                                  ____


             [From the Florida Times-Union, Mar. 30, 2004]

                       Judge Smudges Duval Voting

                           (By Paul Pinkham)

       Duval County election officials are violating the Americans 
     With Disabilities Act and must buy 60 new voting machines 
     accessible to blind voters in time for the August primaries, 
     a federal judge has ordered.
       The machines also must be usable by manually disabled 
     voters and placed in 20 percent of the county's 295 voting 
     precincts under a court-approved plan according to population 
     density and the availability of transportation, Senior U.S. 
     District Judge Wayne Alley wrote.
       While Alley's ruling isn't binding on other jurisdictions, 
     the case was the first of its kind in the nation to go to 
     trial and will have far-reaching implications for the rights 
     of disabled voters to cast their ballots independently.
       ``It is truly a landmark decision,'' said Doug Baldridge, 
     attorney for the American Association of People With 
     Disabilities in Washington. ``There is now a well-respected 
     judge making a well-reasoned decision. . . . That's 
     powerful.''
       City Hall attorneys were caught off guard by the order, 
     which they received Monday morning. Though they anticipated 
     an adverse decision based on Alley's previous comments, they 
     expected the judge to wait until the May 14 deadline he set 
     for the state to certify handicap-accessible touchscreen 
     machines made by the vendor the city does business with, 
     Assistant General Counsel Scott Makar said.
       They haven't decided whether to appeal.
       ``We really want to get a fuller reading of the judge's 
     order and its impact,'' Makar said. ``The remedy is not going 
     to be known until after May 14th.''
       If the state certifies Diebold Election Systems' 
     touchscreen machines with audio balloting, cost of installing 
     them according to Alley's order would be about $180,000, not 
     including training and software considerations, Makar said. 
     Diebold and the Secretary of State's Office are working 
     toward certifying the machines for use in Florida elections.
       But if the state doesn't certify Diebold's machines, or if 
     those machines don't allow a manually impaired voter to vote 
     independently with a mouth stick, Alley said he will require 
     the city to buy similar units elsewhere. The cost of 
     integrating a new system could run in the millions, Makar 
     said. Alley ordered Supervisor of Elections John Stafford to 
     keep the court apprised of the status of Diebold's 
     certification efforts.
       The judge also gave Stafford until April 12 to submit a 
     plan for distributing the machines in precincts around Duval 
     County. The plaintiffs will have an opportunity to comment on 
     the plan, Alley ordered.
       Visually and manually disabled voters sued Stafford in 2001 
     after he bought optical scan balloting equipment from Diebold 
     instead of touch screens with audio balloting. Alley, a 
     visiting judge from Oklahoma, heard two weeks of testimony in 
     September and indicated in January he planned to rule in 
     favor the plaintiffs.
       ``At the time the city purchased the optical scan system, 
     it was technologically and financially feasible to employ a 
     voting system readily accessible to visually impaired 
     voters,'' he said in his order.
       Makar said Stafford ``has taken painstaking efforts'' to 
     meet the rights of disabled voters and has been working 
     toward mandatory compliance with the federal Help America 
     Vote Act. That law requires all U.S. counties to have voting 
     systems in place by 2006 that allow disabled people to vote 
     without assistance.
       ``Buying the equipment now is basically like buying an 8-
     track when the DVDs are coming off the presses any time 
     now,'' Makar said.
       But Baldridge said Alley's decision is legally sound, and 
     disabled voters shouldn't have to wait two more years.
       ``Obviously it'd be great to have [audio balloting in] 
     every precinct, but we were there to make sure that the 
     violation was proven and to get some relief for these 
     disabled citizens,'' Baldridge said. ``It's an absolute 
     victory.''

  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will 
yield, before our colleague from Florida leaves, I do want to make one 
note.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. What the gentlewoman from Florida said 
about this purging of supposed felons, these purges were exempted from 
protection under the National Voter Registration Act. So many districts 
purged, as I understand, their voting roll before the election without 
notifying the people who were purged.
  Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida. That is right.
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. So the problem is that thousands of 
Floridians were purged who had no felony convictions. They were 
unjustly denied their right to vote. Just think about how frustrating 
and disillusioning it would be to show up at the polling station and be 
told you could not vote when you have nothing to compromise your 
eligibility.
  So I want to inform my colleagues that I will be introducing a bill 
next week that will deal specifically with this problem. And I 
appreciate my colleague underscoring this unsolved problem from the 
Florida debacle.
  My bill would ensure that no American is ever denied the right to 
vote in a future election because he or she is mistakenly labeled as 
having committed a felony. It would require States to send that 
notification that our colleague says was never sent, send that 
notification no later than 30 days prior to an election, informing 
people convicted of a felony that they have been removed from the voter 
list and explaining the reasons why. And then the person who is 
notified can respond. This would let them know about their rights to 
appeal the decision. It would require the State rule on the appeal. And 
if the appeal is still pending at the time of election, my bill would 
say they can cast a provisional ballot.
  That is legislation that I believe would fill a remaining problem 
from the Florida experience.
  Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida. And, Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from 
New Jersey will continue to yield for just 30 seconds.
  Mr. HOLT. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida, Mr. Speaker.
  Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida. Let me just mention that there are only 
five States now that will not allow ex-felons to vote. And that is a 
bigger issue. Because once someone pays their dues and serves their 
time, you want them to be productive citizens. And part of being a 
productive citizen is participating in the voting process. So that is 
something that we need to take a look at.
  This is something that has been held over from the old Jim Crow days.
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. That is a larger issue. My bill would 
simply deal with these purges and the fact that there often have been 
mistaken purges. It would give people who were purged the chance to 
respond.
  I again want to commend the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) and 
all the others today for being part of this. We need to take these next 
steps in election reform. We have gotten rid of the unregulated soft 
money, and we have made certain that candidates are going to have to 
stand up and take responsibility for the content of their ads. We have 
made some headway. But this legislation that the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Holt) has introduced in addition to the bill I have just 
described I believe would take us several steps further to restoring 
faith in our democracy, and I look forward to working with my 
colleagues on this.

[[Page H2261]]

  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to working with the gentleman 
from North Carolina also.
  Each of these pieces of legislation deals with one aspect of the 
problem. One of the lessons of the election of 2000 was that many 
millions of Americans learned how complicated the voting question is. 
But we certainly can take care of these two matters in a 
straightforward way.
  Again, my legislation would require that all voting systems produce a 
voter-verified paper record for use in manual audits. It would ban the 
use of undisclosed software. It would require that all voting systems 
meet these requirements, a voter verification, in time for their 
November 2004 election, this year. It requires that electronic voting 
systems be provided for persons with disabilities earlier than under 
the Help America Vote Act, and it would require mandatory surprise 
recounts in one-half of 1 percent of all jurisdictions.
  I think that would go a long way. Now, some of my colleagues here on 
the floor say, oh, that is not necessary, let us let HAVA work. I tell 
you one way we can let HAVA work. Each State has submitted to the 
Election Assistance Commission a plan of how it will comply with HAVA. 
That has been published in the Federal Register. Public comments on 
those State plans are due by May 8, and members of the public are 
invited to comment to the Election Assistance Commission.
  That is one way that the process will work. Because ultimately it is 
the public, not the 435 of us here, who own this democracy and who 
ultimately must ensure that it works as it should.

                          ____________________