[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 146 (Thursday, November 15, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6857-S6858]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. COONS (for himself and Mr. Warner):
  S. 3635. A bill to provide incentives for States to invest in 
practices and technology that are designed to expedite voting at the 
polls and to simplify voter registration; to the Committee on Rules and 
Administration.
  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, like so many Americans, I stayed up late 
last Tuesday night to watch the election returns come in.
  It was 11:38 pm on the East Coast when the Associated Press called 
the election for President Obama, but at that late hour, Andre Murias, 
an 18-year-old first-time voter in Miami-Dade County, Florida, was 
still waiting in line to cast his ballot. Andre had been in line at the 
South Kendall Community Church for nearly five hours by the time he 
voted, just before midnight. Five hours--that is appalling. Yet, some 
Florida voters waited even longer--as much as 7 or 8 hours--during the 
State's condensed early-voting period.
  Rashell Hobbs, another first-time voter, waited for five hours in 
Chesapeake, Virginia. ``This is just horrible,'' Rashell said. ``There 
is no reason it should take this long.''
  Rashell, I agree.
  Voting machine irregularities were experienced in States across the 
country by voters of both political parties. In Colorado, voters said 
they checked the box on the touchscreen panel to vote for Mitt Romney, 
but that the machine kept switching their pick to President Obama, 
while in Pennsylvania, voters reported the same problem in reverse, 
that their selection of President Obama was registered as a vote for 
Governor Romney.
  It wasn't just new technology that caused issues. Poll-watchers in 
Davidson County, Tennessee, could only stand by as would-be voters saw 
the long line of people waiting to cast their ballots and drove away. 
In Philadelphia, long-time registered voters who showed up to cast 
their ballots discovered their names simply weren't on the rolls any 
more.
  More than a dozen states, including Ohio, Wisconsin, South Carolina, 
New York and Montana, experienced some kind of breakdown in the 
administration of their elections.
  This is the United States of America. The right to vote is in our 
DNA. We have to get this right.
  That is why today, I am introducing the Fair, Accurate, Secure and 
Timely Voting Act of 2012--the FAST Voting Act.
  Making it harder for citizens to vote is a violation of voters' civil 
rights. Long lines are a form of voter disenfranchisement. Running out 
of ballots is a form of voter suppression. The fact is, access is 
denied when registration is cut off months before the election and 
where early vote and vote-by-mail options are not widely available. 
This particularly matters for the men and women of our armed services, 
who are currently stationed overseas and have no choice but to vote by 
mail.
  As widespread as the problem is, there are States that are getting it 
right. These states continue to be laboratories of democracy, and we 
need to learn from them.
  The FAST Voting Act creates a competitive grant program in the model 
of Race to the Top, which has encouraged states to aggressively pursue 
education reform. The states that demonstrated the most comprehensive 
and promising reform plans win a greater portion of the grant funding.
  Instead of spurring education reform, the FAST Voting Act would 
inspire election reform.

[[Page S6858]]

  This bill authorizes a federal program that would award grants based 
on how well states improve access to the ballot in at least nine ways: 
flexible registration opportunities, including same-day registration; 
early voting, at a minimum of 9 of the 10 calendar days preceding an 
election; no-excuse absentee voting; assistance to voters who do not 
speak English as a primary language or who have disabilities, including 
visual impairment; effective access to voting for members of the armed 
services; formal training of election officials, including State and 
county administrators and volunteers; audited and reduced waiting times 
at the poorest performing polling stations; contingency plans for 
voting in the event of a natural or other disaster, such as Superstorm 
Sandy, which impacted voting in New York and New Jersey, and would have 
only needed to take a slight turn to dramatically impact my home State 
of Delaware.
  The stakes are high, and the importance of achieving these electoral 
reforms is paramount. When tens of thousands, or even hundreds of 
thousands, of Americans have their right to vote denied or compromised, 
we have to take action.
  The implications of these voting irregularities are felt far beyond 
our shores. I am the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee 
on African Affairs, and I worked and studied in South Africa during its 
apartheid regime. One of the most inspiring sights I have ever seen was 
during the first ever free and fair election in that nation, when South 
Africans stood in line for up to two days to cast their votes. Members 
of our subcommittee meet regularly with African heads of State, and all 
of us, Democrats and Republicans alike, stress with these leaders the 
vital importance of free and fair elections. So when we still have 
substantial voting issues in our own elections, that is a cause for 
deep concern.
  We have the opportunity to send a message to first time voters here 
at home, as well as those fighting for democracy overseas, that every 
vote counts and every voter will be counted.
  When States prevent their citizens from exercising their fundamental 
right of ballot access, whether deliberately through the law or 
regulations, or accidentally because of incompetence or lack of 
preparedness, it is a violation of voters' civil rights.
  The FAST Voting Act is one way to try to fix our elections and make 
sure what happened across our country last week does not happen again. 
I look forward to working with my colleagues of both parties to move 
this important solution forward.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleague and 
friend, the Senator from Delaware, Chris Coons, in introducing 
legislation that would make voting faster and more accessible to all 
voters. Here we are, barely a week after a historic election in 2012. I 
can't speak about North Carolina, but in Virginia it is remarkable that 
in 2012 people had to wait for hours in line to vote. In Prince William 
County, folks waited for up to 3 hours. In Chesapeake, VA, folks waited 
for up to 4 hours. It was remarkable that it was 5 days after the fact 
before we even knew the results in Florida. In the 21st century, in the 
greatest democracy in the world, voting should not be this much of a 
burden.
  In many ways, when you have those kinds of extraordinary lines, 
particularly when you are working, what we have in effect created is a 
21st-century poll tax. Those of us in the South have a history where 
poll taxes were used to restrict voters. What you in effect have by 
having these extensive lines is when, if you work on an hourly basis or 
can only get off a bit of time, you cannot afford to wait 3, 4, or 5 
hours in line to vote.
  This legislation, the Fair, Accurate, Secure and Timely Voting Act of 
2012--the so-called FAST Act--creates a competitive grant program to 
encourage States to aggressively pursue election reforms. It would 
provide incentives for States such as Virginia to invest in practices 
and technology designed to expedite voting at the polls and simplify 
voter registration.
  The FAST Voting Act addresses this issue in a responsible way. It 
doesn't add new mandates; it authorizes simply additional resources for 
those States which step up with commonsense reforms to make voting 
faster and more accessible to voters. This is a relatively very small 
program, but a few dollars spent to both improve the access and 
increase the number of voting machines at those polling places which 
are so restricted would, I believe, remove some of the embarrassment 
Virginia and so many other States saw last week when people had to wait 
so long.
  I encourage Virginia's elected leaders to embrace this opportunity to 
improve access for Virginia voters, who should not have to wait in line 
for hours to exercise their most basic constitutional right--the right 
to vote.
  As I mentioned, this bill authorizes a Federal program that would 
award grants based on how well applicant States--again, States will be 
the decisionmakers on whether they would want to apply for this 
program--are able to improve access to the polls in at least nine 
specific ways. Let me mention three of those.
  No. 1, provide absentee voting, including no-excuse absentee voting. 
We in Virginia still have restrictions on absentee voting.
  No. 2, provide assistance to voters who do not speak English as a 
primary language. Virginia and North Carolina and other States are 
becoming more diverse, and we need to accommodate those voters.
  No. 3, audit and reduce waiting time in polling stations. No one in 
the 21st century should have to wait 4 or 5 or, as in some reported 
cases in Florida, up to 7 or 8 hours to vote.
  This voluntary grant program also requires the establishment of 
performance measures and reporting requirements to ensure a State's 
progress in eliminating statutory, regulatory, procedural, and other 
barriers to expedited voting and accessible voter registration.
  This is a relatively small bill. I commend my colleague from 
Delaware, Senator Coons, for taking the lead. I join him as a 
cosponsor. Regardless of which side of the aisle you stand on in 2012--
and surely before 2016--we ought not to have a repeat of this 21st-
century poll tax that is imposed on folks all across America by not 
being able to exercise their vote, having to pay too high a price, or 
having the kind of embarrassment where it takes us literally days and 
days for the public to get the results.
  I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this legislation.

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