[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 35 (Thursday, March 1, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Page S2503]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. OBAMA:
  S. 737. A bill to amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 in order to 
measure, compare, and improve the quality of voter access to polls and 
voter services in the administration of Federal elections in the 
States; to the Committee on Rules and Administration.
  Mr. OBAMA. Mr. President. I am proud to introduce the Voter Advocate 
and Democracy Index Act of 2007 with the goal of having the Act help 
inform voters and State officials on how well their States are doing on 
a basic set of procedural standards for making polls accessible to 
voters and making the right to vote as easy to exercise as possible.
  The Act would establish an Office of the Voter Advocate within the 
Election Assistance Commission that would be charged with creating a 
Democracy Index. The Index would rank States according to a system of 
measurable, basic state election practices. With that information, 
States could identify weak spots in their process, and voters could 
push for better performance.
  The concept is based on a proposal that Yale Law School Professor 
Heather Gerken published this January in Legal Times. It focuses on 
issues that matter to all voters: How long did voters spend in line? 
How many ballots got discarded? How often did the balloting machinery 
break down?
  The Act would constitute an important first step toward improving the 
health of our democracy. We are all familiar with the problems that 
have recently plagued our elections: Long lines, lost ballots, voters 
improperly turned away from the polls. These are basic failures of 
process. Until we fix them, we run the risk in every election that we 
will once again experience the kind of chaos and uncertainty that 
paralyzed the Nation in 2000. We can do better. We must do better. But 
to do better, we need more than anecdotal information. We need better, 
nonpartisan, objective information.
  This bill would provide that information. Some voters have personally 
experienced problems in casting a ballot; others see stories on the 
news about election results tainted by malfunctioning machines, 
inadequate registration lists, or poorly trained administrators. I 
believe that these issues are merely the visible symptoms of a deeper, 
systemic problem in the way our election system is run. But voters need 
a yardstick for evaluating the full extent of the problem and what 
needs to be done to improve the election process in their State.
  Toward that end, this bill would charge the Office of the Voter 
Advocate with creating the Democracy Index and specifying the success 
or failure of States in meeting the criteria that the index is going to 
measure. The bill also ensures that the Office of the Voter Advocate 
will draw upon the experience and knowledge of experts and citizens in 
thinking about what information voters would want to know in evaluating 
the health of their State's election process. And it requires the 
Office to establish a pilot program for the 2008 election, use the 
lessons learned from that experience, and make the Index a reality 
nationwide as soon as possible.
  The Democracy Index would encourage healthy competition among States 
to improve their systems. It would allow states to engage in healthy 
experimentation about how best to run an election. In short, the 
Democracy Index will empower voters and encourage States to work toward 
the goal we all share: an election system that makes us all proud.
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