Congressional Record, Volume 154 Issue 30 (Monday, February 25, 2008)

[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 30 (Monday, February 25, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H1016-H1017]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

DISMISSING THE ELECTION CONTEST RELATING TO THE OFFICE OF
REPRESENTATIVE FROM THE 13TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT OF FLORIDA

Mr. GONZALEZ. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that it shall be
in order at any time to consider in the House, House Resolution 989;
that the resolution shall be considered as read; and that the previous
question shall be considered as ordered on the resolution to its
adoption without intervening motion except 10 minutes of debate equally
divided and controlled by the chairman and the ranking minority member
of the Committee on House Administration, or their designees.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
Mr. GONZALEZ. Madam Speaker, pursuant to the previous order, I call
up House Resolution 989 and ask for its immediate consideration in the
House.
The Clerk read the title of the resolution.
The text of the resolution is as follows:

H. Res. 989

Resolved, That the election contest relating to the office
of Representative from the Thirteenth Congressional District
of Florida is dismissed.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of today,
the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gonzalez) and the gentleman from
California (Mr. McCarthy) each will control 5 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas.

General Leave

Mr. GONZALEZ. Madam Speaker, I would ask unanimous consent that all
Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks in
the Record on this resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
Mr. GONZALEZ. Madam Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may
consume.
On February 12, the Committee on House Administration unanimously
recommended dismissal of the election contest relating to the 13th
Congressional District of Florida.
The late chairwoman, Juanita Millender-McDonald, established a task
force to investigate this contested election in which over 18,000
ballots did not show a vote cast in the United States congressional
race in Sarasota County, Florida. The task force consisted of
Representative Zoe Lofgren and Representative Kevin McCarthy of
California, and I had the honor of serving as the Chair of the task
force.
After the task force established the need to conduct an
investigation, every vote by the task force to determine the scope and
direction in the investigation was, in fact, unanimous.
I want to thank the members of the task force for their dedication to
the investigation and the Government Accountability Office for a
systematic investigation of the voting equipment. I would also like to
thank both the majority and the minority staffs, along with the House
recording studio.
The task force authorized the GAO to investigate whether the voting
machines used in Sarasota County contributed to the unusually high
number of undervotes. The task force also directed the GAO to evaluate
whether additional testing was needed. After the GAO recommended
further testing in October, the task force directed the GAO to design
and execute testing to determine the reliability of the Sarasota voting
equipment.
The GAO presented its final findings to the task force on February 8,
2008, when the GAO reported the Sarasota County voting machines did not
contribute to the large undervote in the congressional race for the
13th District of Florida.
The GAO acknowledged that the undervote could have been caused by
other elements, such as voters who intentionally did not vote in the
race or voters who unintentionally did not cast their ballots because
of poor ballot design.

=========================== NOTE ===========================

February 25, 2008--On Page H1016 the following appeared: voters
who intentionally did not cast

The online version should be corrected to read: voters who
unintentionally did not cast

========================= END NOTE =========================

However, because the contestant's central argument claimed voting
machine malfunction caused the abnormal undervote, the GAO's analysis
was limited to the voting machine malfunction issue. Due to the GAO's
determination with a high degree of certainty that the voting machines
did not cause the undervote, the task force unanimously recommended to
the full committee, and the full committee has unanimously recommended
to the House, that the contest be dismissed.
I urge Members to vote in favor of this resolution.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McCARTHY of California. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the
ranking Republican on the full committee, the gentleman from Michigan
(Mr. Ehlers).
Mr. EHLERS. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Madam Speaker, this is the third time I have served or been involved
with a task force dealing with contested elections, and I believe this
is by far the best procedure that has been developed and can help serve
as a model for future decisions of this sort.
I congratulate the two gentlemen before you, who, representing the
majority and the minority, did the yeoman's work on investigating the
issue, deciding to pull in the Government Accountability Office, which
I think was a good addition to the entire process. A careful
examination has made it very clear that there was nothing wrong with
the voting machines in this particular election; and, therefore, the
contestant's claims that the undervote was caused by faulty machines is
just not valid.
What the real reasons were, we will never know. It could have been
ballot design. It could be several other factors that we have
considered.
But the simple fact is that Mr. Buchanan did win the election, and
the results of our vote tonight will demonstrate that. He did, in fact,
win the election and will remain as a Member of the Congress.
I want to once again compliment the individuals here. Chairman
Gonzalez of the task force was eminently fair, thorough, and complete
in all his evaluations and discussions. Mr. McCarthy, in his first time
on an assignment of this sort, has carried it out very carefully, very
thoroughly and contributed a great deal to the discussions and the
decisions.
I am just very proud that the House Administration Committee has
completed this task which can be, I can assure you, a very onerous and
difficult task; but the committee has completed it very competently,
thoroughly and fairly; and the result, I believe, is beyond question.
This will serve as a model for future situations of this sort.
Mr. GONZALEZ. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McCARTHY of California. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of
this resolution to dismiss the election contest related to the results
of the 13th Congressional District of Florida race in 2006.
Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate the chairman of this task
force, Mr. Gonzalez. It was a three-member task force with
Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren and myself. Every bit of this contest, as we
went through studying it and spent the hours on it, was a unanimous
decision. This was a bipartisan movement, a bipartisan investigation;
and I just want to thank the chairman for his professionalism, his
respect and the ethics in which he carried this out.
In my former life, I was actually a staff member to a former chairman
of House Administration, and I was an individual that investigated some
contestant elections. I will tell you this is probably the most
thorough investigation we have seen.
We knew after the last election that there were races in this body
that were even closer, within 100 votes; and we

[[Page H1017]]

did not contest those as they went. But we wanted to make sure, as
Christine Jennings moved this debate and this argument, as we were
going through, that we looked at every single one.
I want to thank the State of Florida. Before we even went to study
it, they went through analyzing all the machines. We had the GAO look
at every ability of the machines, even miscalculating the machines as
they came forward to make sure they were still correct.
The American public can be very proud to know that every vote in the
13th District was counted. The outcome was correct, and Congressman
Vern Buchanan was elected on that day and still elected today. I want
to congratulate the work that was done by the task force.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. GONZALEZ. Madam Speaker, I just do want to have some parting
words to the members of the task force, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, and,
of course, my colleague from California, Congressman McCarthy, because
they really worked very hard. As I indicated, all decisions were
unanimous, which made the process go smoothly.
I also want to recognize Congressman Dan Lungren from California, who
is not an official member of the task force but was present during some
of the briefings and was very instructive.
The last thought is, of course, that the task force and the full
committee simply were acknowledging the responsibility that is laid
before this body, and that is to determine the qualifications and who
actually will sit and take the oath and have the great privilege of
joining us here in what is often referred to as the people's House.
Mr. BRADY of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of House
Resolution 989.
Madam Speaker, on February 12th the Committee on House Administration
unanimously recommended dismissal of the election contest relating to
the 13th Congressional district of Florida. The late Chairwoman Juanita
Millender-McDonald had established a task force to investigative this
contest election in which over 18,000 ballots did not show a vote cast
for the U.S. Congressional race in Sarasota County, Florida. Former
judge, and our colleague, Representative Charles Gonzalez was appointed
Chair, along with Representatives Lofgren and McCarthy as members of
the task force. After the task force established the need to
investigate, every vote to determine the scope and direction of the
investigation was unanimous.
The task force engaged the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to
explore whether the voting machines used in Sarasota County contributed
to the unusually high number of undervotes. GAO also was instructed to
assess whether additional voting machines testing was needed. When GAO
recommended further testing in October 2007, the task force directed
the GAO to design and execute testing protocols to determine the
reliability of the Sarasota County voting equipment.
Last week, the GAO presented its findings and conclusions to the task
force. They found that the Sarasota County voting machines did not
contribute to the large undervote in the Congressional race for the
13th District of Florida. The GAO acknowledged that the undervote could
have been caused by voters who chose not vote for that race, or by
voters who did not properly cast their ballots because of poor ballot
design. In any case, the machines were not the culprits. Since that
time, some groups have attacked the GAO study as imprecise for a host
of speculative reasons. However, the Contestant's central argument in
the election contest before the committee was that voting machine
malfunction caused the abnormal undervote, and GAO's focus of analysis
was directed solely to the voting machine malfunction issue.
Under the Federal Contested Election Act, a Contestant must submit
allegations that, if proven, would have altered the election outcome.
The task force and the Committee on House Administration have conducted
a thorough investigation and believe that the findings of the GAO are
compelling. Therefore, the Contestant's argument that malfunctioning
electronic voting machines caused the 18,000 undervote in Sarasota
County was not supported. For this reason, I urge members to support to
passage of House Resolution 989 to dismiss this election contest.
Mr. GONZALEZ. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired.
Pursuant to the order of the House of today, the resolution is
considered read and the previous question is ordered.
The question is on the resolution.
The resolution was agreed to.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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