[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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