[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 25 (Thursday, February 11, 2016)]
[House]
[Page H760]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             VOTING RIGHTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Mrs. Watson Coleman) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.


                             General Leave

  Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and 
include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from New Jersey?
  There was no objection.
  Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Mr. Speaker, before I start, let me extend my 
condolences to those who are mourning the death of our former 
Congressman. That was 60 minutes' worth of very, very nice tribute.
  As I am sure all of my colleagues are aware, we are now in primary 
election season. This year the American people will elect a new 
President of the United States. Unfortunately, there is a great 
possibility that hundreds of thousands of Americans will be barred from 
casting their vote because of this body's failure to act.
  In 2012, I watched, horrified, as voters were forced to stand in 
outrageous lines at their polling places. Meanwhile, States across the 
country have set up new barriers to voting, cutting back on early 
voting hours, and adding difficult new identification hurdles that 
limit young people and communities of color more than anyone else--and 
this as we call ourselves the model of democracy for the whole world to 
follow.
  Instead of embracing every possible opportunity to improve and 
facilitate one of the cornerstones of our democracy, we are allowing it 
to crumble. There is quite a bit to fix, yet Congress isn't willing to 
do anything about it.
  Mr. Speaker, our States have wildly different voting systems. Early 
voting is allowed some places but not others, same-day registration is 
offered in one State but not in the next. I can think of few better 
tasks for Congress to take on than to set standards for Federal 
elections, at a minimum, and to provide the biggest possible 
opportunity for our constituents to pick the people that represent 
them.
  We have Americans that have made mistakes in their pasts but have 
completed their sentences for nonviolent convictions. They have put in 
their effort to change and have come back to society as tax-paying, 
law-abiding citizens. Unfortunately, we ban millions of these Americans 
from the ballot box despite their rehabilitation. It seems to me that 
Congress should get involved in offering individuals like those one of 
the most fundamental rights that we have as Americans--but we are not.
  Mr. Speaker, there is also a conversation for this body to have about 
technology. Smartphones and other mobile devices have fingerprint 
sensors. I can wave a key fob over a terminal and pay for lunch without 
swiping a credit card or even signing my name. I acknowledge that there 
are very real challenges we face in bringing technology to the ballot 
box, but we should be talking about how we can use digital advances to 
expand access instead of trying to manufacture excuses to limit access.
  Right there alone, there are three steps we could take on voting 
rights in our Nation.
  Unfortunately, we can't even begin these discussions because we seem 
to have traveled back to a dark place in our Nation's history when it 
was both legal and common to limit access to polling places. Despite so 
many opportunities to move forward, we are rolling backward.
  Since 2010, 22 States have passed laws that make it more difficult 
for Americans to vote, most commonly in the form of voter ID laws that 
disproportionately impact communities of color, women, seniors, 
students, and low-income individuals.
  Unfortunately, the Voting Rights Act, which had previously curtailed 
these dangerous restrictions, was gutted in 2013 by the Supreme Court. 
In the so-called first-in-the-nation primary held this week in New 
Hampshire, voters encountered new ID laws for the first time, a law 
that allowed poll workers to vouch for voters without approved IDs and 
gives them the leeway to discriminate against some voters while 
validating others. Laws like the one in New Hampshire were passed to 
protect elections from voting fraud--a specter that Republicans have 
used time and again to scare Americans into thinking that some dark 
figure is hijacking their election, a notion that has been discredited 
and disproved time and again.
  Between 2002 and 2005, the Department of Justice made prosecuting 
voter fraud a top priority. In that timeframe, hundreds of millions of 
votes were cast; yet only 38 cases were brought to trial, and then only 
one involved impersonation fraud, which is what photo ID laws protect 
against.
  More recently, a professor at the Loyola University Law School has 
tracked every allegation of voter fraud since 2000 and has found just 
31 cases--just 31 cases--of impersonation. That is 31 ballots out of 
more than 1 billion that have been cast. The fact of the matter is the 
kind of intentional shady voter fraud these laws were based on simply 
did not exist.
  Mr. Speaker, of the many tasks this body has, protecting the right to 
vote, the foundation that built our democracy, the right for which 
countless Americans have fought over the course of a more than 200-year 
history, protecting, expanding, and strengthening that right seems like 
it should be one of our greatest priorities.
  I hope that my colleagues can begin to see that also and to join me 
and many of my colleagues on the Democratic Caucus in taking action 
that will facilitate, expand, and provide opportunities for every 
eligible person who can vote to be able to vote.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________