[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 114 (Tuesday, September 21, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Page S9419]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           VOTING IN AMERICA

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I want to comment briefly on the statement 
of my dear friend from New Mexico about voting and all that he thinks 
is wrong with our system. I would be happy to look at his legislation. 
But it seems to me around here what we should be dealing with is giving 
people the opportunity to vote more easily rather than making it more 
difficult.
  I think it speaks volumes that when you look at the States that have 
same-day registration, the turnout is much bigger. We have one State 
where there is no registration, and the vote there, of course, is even 
higher. In those instances where you have same-day registration and you 
have no registration, with all the modern computerization, all the ways 
of checking, there has not been a single case of fraud reported, to my 
knowledge. So I think what we should try to do is make it easier for 
people to vote, not harder. I heard my friend, if I understood his 
statement, say that there are some people out registering lots and lots 
of people. Well, good. Good. We need more people like that.
  I am very disappointed in the State of Nevada. I have tried for years 
to get the system changed. But, in Nevada, we cut off registration a 
month before the primary election, and then we cut it off a month 
before the general election. Just when people are interested in voting, 
we cut them off. And the county clerk says: Oh, it's so hard for us to 
get all the records in order. That is silliness. With all the modern 
technology we have, it is easy.
  The reason it is hard is people like to know who they have who voted 
for them last time or voted against them. They do not want to make a 
big impression on getting new people into the system. It is easier to 
deal with what you have, and it is wrong.
  We started off after the Civil War with rules to keep people from 
voting. We need to get out of that mindset.
  We need to make it easier for people to vote, and one way to do that 
is to have either same-day registration or even no registration. There 
are plenty of ways of checking to see if people are trying to vote 
fraudulently.
  In the State of Oregon, people vote by mail. They do not have polling 
places in Oregon, and it works out just fine. The State of Washington 
also does a lot of their balloting by mail. It works out fine. Those 
two States decided they wanted to do what they could to increase voter 
participation, not cut back on it. We need to do more of that rather 
than all these laws that are going to throw people in jail if they 
register wrong people. I think there are so many different ways of 
checking to make sure you have an honest election that you do not need 
to have all these punitive measures that are proposed.

                          ____________________