[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 100 (Wednesday, June 9, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4002-S4004]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Election Security

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, the right to vote is the most fundamental 
and essential feature of our democracy. As Abraham Lincoln said, a 
government of the people, by the people, and for the people would not 
be possible if it weren't for citizens who cast their ballot at every 
available election.
  From city councils, to school boards, to Presidents of the United 
States, the American people have a right and, I would argue, a duty to 
make their voices heard. In 2020, a record number of voters did just 
that. Nearly 160 million Americans cast their ballot, accounting for 
roughly two-thirds of all eligible voters. If you compare that to 2016, 
just 4 years earlier, 17 million more people voted in the last 
election. This included higher turnout across all racial and ethnic 
groups--African Americans, Caucasians, Hispanics, Asians. Each had a 
higher turnout this election.
  When Congress originally passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965, the 
goal was to eliminate common discriminatory practices that were in 
place at that time. It was and it is a landmark piece of legislation. 
There is no question it has been an overwhelming success, and I think 
that is something we should celebrate as a nation.
  In 2012, for the first time on record, turnout among Black voters was 
higher than for White voters. In 2020, both Asian and Hispanic voters 
turned out at the highest rate on record. We certainly have come a long 
way, as the preamble to the Constitution says, in our effort to form a 
more perfect Union, but we should not tire, nor falter, nor fail in our 
progress to make sure that everyone who has the right to vote has an 
opportunity to cast their ballot.
  Before every election--and 2020 was no different--there is a 
widespread effort to register new voters and encourage more citizens to 
participate. In Texas, we set new records in registering and turning 
out voters. We turned out 11.3 million voters, 66 percent of those 
registered. In the years to come, I hope we will set new records and 
get more voters to the polls. I think that goal should be shared by 
every American.
  But in addition to this work, we have a responsibility to protect the 
integrity of the ballot. This became a focus in particular after the 
2016 election when we actually saw Russia try to interfere with the 
Presidential election that year.
  In response, Congress provided hundreds of millions of dollars to 
shore up State election security measures and to help local officials 
safeguard future elections. Our intelligence community and particularly 
the National Security Agency and Cyber Command made sure that there 
were no cyber attacks or minimized the impact of potential cyber 
attacks on election voting systems, including voter registries and the 
like. The postmortem reviews were that they were pretty successful in 
deterring those sorts of attacks that occurred in 2016.

[[Page S4003]]

  But it is not just up to the Federal Government; across the country, 
States are also fighting to make sure that those who are legally 
entitled to vote can do so and ensure the integrity of their own 
elections. They are looking at ways to make it easier to vote and 
harder to cheat, which I think should be our goal. But those election 
security efforts have been mischaracterized, unfortunately, by many of 
our Democratic colleagues and many in the news media who falsely claim 
that somehow there are efforts underway at the State level to suppress 
minority voters.
  We saw this play out in the case of the Georgia election law in 
particular. Our Democratic colleagues tried to frame this legislation 
as a way to suppress minority voters, but that was completely contrary 
to the facts, and it was completely contrary to the election laws in 
their own States.
  The Georgia law, for example, set a deadline of 11 days before an 
election to request a mail-in ballot. In the home State of the 
Democratic leader, Senator Schumer from New York, voters only get a 
week--11 days in Georgia; a week in New York. And in New York, you have 
to give a reason for voting absentee. In Georgia, under the proposed 
changes to the State election law, you don't even have to give a reason 
to vote absentee.

  Georgia also expanded early in-person voting to 17 days. In 
Massachusetts, represented by two of our Democratic colleagues, early 
voting lasts only 11 days.
  The President's home State of Delaware won't even offer early voting 
until 2022. In other words, you can't even do it now, and it won't be 
available until 2022, and even then, voters will have only 10 days.
  Well, I think this demonstrates the hypocrisy of some of the debate 
we are hearing and seeing.
  New Jersey, represented by two Democratic Senators and a Democratic 
Governor, recently passed a law that expanded in-person voting to 9 
days. As a reminder, Georgia just expanded theirs to 17 days. But the 
New Jersey Governor had the temerity to criticize Georgia for 
``restricting the rights of Georgians to vote'' when it is more 
expansive than the voting laws in his own State.
  We have heard similar lines of attack from many across the aisle who 
falsely try to brand this law as a form of voter suppression. Once you 
play the race card, it is hard for people to think clearly because it 
tugs at our emotions. It tugs at our collective, frankly, guilt, 
emanating from the earliest days of our country that we have come a 
long way to try to rectify.
  But here is the bottom line: Each State has the authority to 
determine the ``times, places, and manner of holding elections.'' Where 
does that come from? Well, that is article I of the Constitution of the 
United States of America. But our Democratic colleagues insist on 
pushing for a one-size-fits-all mandate that turns federalism, 
including the Constitution itself, on its head.
  Senator Schumer, the Senator from New York, has said that this month, 
the Senate will vote on a bill called S. 1, which is the Democrats' 
effort to commandeer control of elections from the States. The bill is 
so radical that Members of his own party have lined up against it, and 
it is easy, on superficial inspection, to see why.
  In order to vote in person, 36 States require some form of voter 
identification. That was the recommendation of the Commission that 
former President Carter participated in, along with James Baker III--a 
prominent President, a Democrat, and a prominent Republican. They made 
a recommendation for voter ID, but this proposal, S. 1, would eliminate 
it.
  In my State, Texas, there are several options to present voter 
identification. You can present a driver's license, a passport, a 
military ID, a citizenship certificate. If you don't have any of those, 
you can get another one issued by the State at zero cost. Those all 
work.
  This Democratic proposal would stop States, would actually block the 
States from requiring voter identification--something you have to do 
when you buy a six-pack of beer or cigarettes, for those who still 
smoke, or get on an airplane or even enter a Federal building. You have 
to produce an identification to do so. But S. 1 would prohibit the 
States from making that requirement when exercising your most sacred 
right as a citizen. What would they require? Well, you sign a piece of 
paper saying you are who you say you are, and nobody can ask you any 
questions.
  The invitation for fraud doesn't stop there because this proposed 
legislation also legalizes something called ballot harvesting. That 
means that mail-in ballots could be collected by political partisans, 
whether it is paid campaign staffers or anyone who has a stake in the 
outcome of the election--not an impartial third party but a partisan 
who has a stake in the outcome of the election. They could harvest 
those ballots.
  It goes so far as to specify that the States ``may not put any limit 
on how many voted and sealed absentee ballots any designated person can 
return.'' So there are no limits on how many ballots a political 
operative could harvest and turn in and count in the election. Well, it 
doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how this can go wrong. 
Maybe the ballots get turned in with thousands of others. Maybe some of 
the ballots are altered. Maybe some are falsified. Maybe some end up in 
the trash. It is tough to know exactly what might happen.
  S. 1, this Federal commandeering of State-run elections, is rife with 
opportunities for fraud. It mandates things like automatic voter 
registration and ballot drop boxes, while making it more difficult for 
the States to maintain accurate voter lists.
  It would even go so far as to make it harder for the States to remove 
dead voters from their rolls. My State, like many States, has an 
unfortunate legacy of having candidates and political parties cast a 
ballot on behalf of voters who are no longer alive--box 13, for 
example. Arguably, that is the way Lyndon Johnson beat Coke Stevenson, 
by voting the cemetery vote. And that is not unique.
  Why would Senator Schumer and Speaker Pelosi be pushing this takeover 
of State-run elections? Well, it is pretty obvious. They think that our 
Democratic colleagues will reap the benefits of hijacking State 
election laws. That is really their goal here. They want to put a thumb 
on the scale of future elections. They want to take power away from the 
voters and the States and give themselves every partisan advantage they 
can.
  Those are just some of the features of S. 1. There are others. It 
would make changes to the Federal Election Commission, which currently 
has six members, three from each political party. This is intentionally 
designed to protect the Commission from partisan politics. Regardless 
of which party controls the Senate or the White House, the FEC 
will always be fair and balanced. Well, that doesn't serve the 
interests of our Democratic friends, so they want to change it. The 
election takeover bill would remove one of the seats held by a 
Republican and turn the Federal Election Commission into a partisan 
body--no more equal representation, no more consensus building. Why 
bother with that when you can steamroll an agenda with no opposition?

  Then there is the taxpayer funding of elections. Instead of political 
candidates going out and making the case to prospective voters, instead 
of supporters voluntarily backing their preferred candidates with their 
hard-earned dollars, this bill would force taxpayers to bear the 
financial burden, even to the point of channeling dollars, your tax 
dollars, to candidates whom you disagree with who support policies that 
you do not support. And it is not even a dollar-for-dollar match. I 
don't know who came up with the idea of $6 from the taxpayer for every 
dollar that is raised from voluntary donations, but that is the 
proposal. What a deal. That means if somebody gives a candidate 200 
bucks, the Federal Government could match it up to $1,200.
  Our Democratic colleagues even managed to get on the wrong side of 
the American Civil Liberties Union. This bill would implement a new 
disclosure policy that the ACLU says ``could directly interfere with 
the ability of many to engage in political speech about causes that 
they care about.''
  But as bad as this proposal is, S. 1, if that doesn't work--and it is 
looking like, from reading the news recently, it is not likely to work 
because of defections, even among Democrats--our Democratic colleagues 
have a plan B.

[[Page S4004]]

  I want to remind you of what I said at the outset, that the Voting 
Rights Act of 1965 was one of the most important laws passed in modern 
American history. It has been reauthorized a number of times over the 
years, most recently in 2006. I proudly cast my vote in support of 
reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act. But a new bill introduced by our 
friend the Senator from Vermont, the senior Senator, sometimes invoking 
the name of that civil rights icon, John Lewis, his proposal would 
radically change the law as well, this time putting the Federal 
Government, not the State, in charge of new voting laws again.
  Just a reminder: Back in 1965, part of the Voting Rights Act required 
States and jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to receive 
Federal preclearance before they could put new laws into effect.
  In 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down the 
portion of the law that set the formula for which States were included 
in that requirement. The Court ruled that it was unconstitutional 
because the coverage formula was outdated. The Court said history did 
not end in 1965.
  Indeed, what happened when the Voting Rights Act was reauthorized in 
2006, the proponents of that bill made no accounting for the tremendous 
progress in minority voting turnout that we have seen since that time. 
In other words, the Voting Rights Act worked. It worked miraculously, 
and thank goodness it did.
  But the Supreme Court, in striking down the 1965 formula as opposed 
to the current-day rate of minority voting, the Court said the Congress 
based the law on 40-year-old facts having no logical relation to the 
present day.
  Here is an example: The formula in 1965 required States to receive 
preclearance before they could put their own voting laws into effect if 
they had any test or device, as it was called, that restricts voting. 
That included things like literacy tests or subjective determinations 
of moral character. But thanks to the Voting Rights Act, those 
practices are nowhere to be found today.
  The bill introduced by Senator Leahy, the senior Senator from 
Vermont, would change the formula with language so broad that virtually 
every State in the Union and every local jurisdiction would have to get 
their election laws precleared by the Biden Justice Department before 
they could put them into effect. The trigger for that is a vague number 
of voting rights violations that wouldn't even require a finding of 
intentional discrimination. Nevertheless, these State and local 
governments would be required to get the sign-off of partisan 
bureaucrats at the Department of Justice to exercise their own 
constitutional authority.
  I think it is important to keep in mind that the Framers of the 
Constitution wanted the States to chart their own course in elections, 
not Washington bureaucrats. To quote the Supreme Court of the United 
States, ``The Framers of the Constitution intended the States to keep 
for themselves, as provided [under] the Tenth Amendment [to the 
Constitution], the power to regulate elections.'' Yet, in any instance 
where your local election official wanted to make a commonsense change 
in the way your elections were actually carried out, you would have to 
ask ``Mother May I'' to the Department of Justice.
  Based on this proposal, you would think there have been countless 
unenforced instances of voter discrimination that cry out for this sort 
of remedy, but you would be wrong.
  The Department of Justice already has authority under section 2 of 
the Voting Rights Act to prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, 
color, or membership in a language minority group. During the entire 8 
years of the Obama--the Obama--Justice Department, they filed only four 
enforcement cases in the whole United States under section 2--four.
  So the narrative of widespread voter suppression is nothing but a 
propaganda tactic designed to support a political outcome. The push for 
a Federal takeover of elections is not about voter suppression at all. 
It is about unconstitutionally seizing power and never letting go.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Wyoming