[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16705-16706]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             VOTING RIGHTS

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, after a prolonged debate, a lot of 
television commercials, robo-calls, and literally tons of political 
literature, the 2012 campaign is finally over. America can breathe a 
sigh of political relief. When it was all said and done, more than 120 
million Americans participated.
  As we know, the American people have returned a divided government to 
Washington. We have a Democratic Senate with an increased majority, a 
Democratic President, and a Republican House of Representatives. Yet by 
a margin of 3.4 million popular votes and 126 electoral votes, 
President Obama was reelected.
  Now that the dust has settled, we begin the time-honored tradition of 
inaugurating the President, swearing in new Members of Congress, and 
beginning a new session. The peaceful transfer of power and start of a 
new legislative session are what we are all about in a democracy. We 
don't anticipate any new obstacles with new Members of Congress 
assuming power. However, we can't say the same about many citizens who 
tried to vote in this election. Unfortunately, we know there were far 
too many voters who ran into obstacles and obstruction and unreasonable 
delays at the polls.
  In his address to the Nation on the night of the election, President 
Obama said: ``We have to fix that.'' He is right. As we move forward, 
we must look back and thoroughly examine the problems so many Americans 
have encountered when they tried to exercise their legal, 
constitutional right to vote. Many of these problems were traceable to 
new voting laws enacted by Republican-controlled legislatures across 
the country who were trying to make it harder for Americans to vote.
  The ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, is a group of 
businesses that put millions of dollars together to create obstacles 
and obstructions for people to vote. Their idea was to diminish the 
vote among the poor, minorities, and the elderly because they believed 
those groups leaned Democratic. So if they could keep them away from 
the polls and discourage them from voting, it would help the Republican 
candidates.
  It didn't work, but they sure tried, and they made life miserable on 
election day for millions of Americans who were just trying to do their 
civic duty. Too many people stood in long lines. Too many people were 
unable to vote because they could not wait in long lines.
  For example, in Florida published reports indicate some voters waited 
in line for as long as 7 hours. They could not cast their ballots until 
2:30 in the morning. Why would a voter hang in there? Some of them were 
just mad. They were mad that the State of Florida and this Republican-
inspired organization, ALEC, were doing everything they could to deny 
their right to vote. They were darned determined to vote even if it 
meant staying there 7 hours to vote.
  Too many people were required to cast provisional ballots when they 
were, in fact, eligible and should have received a regular ballot. For 
example, Pennsylvania issued double the number of provisional ballots 
than it did in 2008. The provisional ballot is given to a voter when 
there is some question as to their eligibility. In many cases that 
question was raised because voters showed up at their polling place 
only to find their name missing from the registration books.
  In Arizona more than 174,000 provisional ballots were cast. That is 
7.4 percent of all ballots. That is higher than any previous election. 
According to a recent analysis by a leading Arizona paper, minority 
precincts--those with African Americans and Hispanics--submitted a 
disproportionately high number of provisional ballots. Arizona has 
declared war on those minorities who were voting, and they saw it when 
many of them could not get their ballot counted on election day. It was 
put in a separate box to be looked at later.
  Across the States with new voter ID requirements, hundreds of 
thousands of people could not vote because they didn't have or could 
not obtain the required ID.
  In Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Wisconsin many voters were 
confused by these new ID requirements and the extent they were enforced 
on election day.
  In Pennsylvania, for example, even though a court ruled that the 
State's voter ID law could not be enforced during this election, some 
voters were still asked for an ID, and in some cases they were denied 
the right to vote.
  Too many eligible voters were unable to register. On election day too 
many voters who thought they were registered learned that their names 
were not actually on the voter rolls. For example, Florida imposed 
owners' requirements on third-party groups, such as the League of Women 
Voters and individuals who traditionally have conducted voter 
registration drives. Those penalties were so awful, the League of Women 
Voters in Florida stopped registering voters for the first time in more 
than 70 years.
  High school teachers faced fines of $1,000 under the law if they 
helped their students to register for the first time and didn't follow 
the exact letter of their new statutory law. As a result, new voter 
registration in Florida actually dropped 14 percent. That is bad news. 
Overall voter turnout was down compared to 2008.
  If this is going to be a healthy, growing, vibrant democracy, people 
who are eligible to vote should be given that opportunity, not 
penalized and denied. These problems--and other problems--encountered 
by voters at the polls were not limited to one State or region. These 
problems were experienced by voters across the country. Many of the 
problems that voters encountered on election day were foreseeable and 
could have been prevented.
  Last year I started raising concerns about these new State voting 
laws and

[[Page 16706]]

what they were going to do. As chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee 
on Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights, I chaired the first 
hearing to examine the potential impact of these laws in both Florida 
and Ohio. In both States we heard from experts and election 
administrators who warned that these new State laws would result in 
fewer registered voters, long delays on election day, confusion about 
ID requirements, and an increase in provisional ballots. This is just 
plain wrong.
  In a country where we want every eligible American to get out and 
vote and we want higher percentages of participation, we have State 
legislatures inspired by ALEC dreaming up obstacles and ways to 
discourage voters. It is sickening to think of how many lives have been 
lost by patriotic Americans to protect our right to vote, and then to 
have these lobbyists, for their own political purposes, denying that 
right over and over to thousands of eligible American voters.
  One of the strongest tools we have to ensure the right to vote and to 
make sure it is not denied on account of a voter's race, sex, or any 
other discriminatory basis is the Voting Rights Act. As we work to 
continue to perfect our Union, the importance of this law cannot be 
overstated. That is why the Voting Rights Act enjoys a broad spectrum 
of support.
  In 2006 the Senate voted unanimously, 98 to 0, to reauthorize it. 
Just this year the Department of Justice used its authority under 
section 5 of the Voting Rights Act to object to new voter 
identification laws that threaten to disenfranchise hundreds of 
thousands of voters.
  In Texas, according to the State's own data, more than 795,000 
registered voters did not have the ID required under their brand-new 
law. In South Carolina the State's data indicated 240,000 registered 
voters were without the required ID and would not be able to vote under 
the State's law. In those two States alone, over 1 million people were 
going to be denied the right to vote, even though they were registered 
voters, because they didn't possess the newly defined voter ID in each 
of those States. That is more than 1 million registered voters, I 
repeat, who would have been turned away. Well, thanks to the Justice 
Department and court decisions, that didn't happen, but it would have. 
That was the plan.
  Since the civil rights movement, women's suffrage movement, and other 
historic fights to expand the right to vote are now in the history 
books, some people think our generation's responsibility to protect the 
right to vote is over. They are just plain wrong. When groups such as 
the ALEC, with businesses, corporations, and conservative groups behind 
them, have an all-out effort to deny and discourage the right to vote, 
we have a job ahead of us. We shouldn't be surprised that people all 
across America are angry about what happened in this election. These 
State legislatures, instead of encouraging people to exercise their 
civic duty, were doing their best to discourage them. It is time for us 
to get serious about this. So next Congress, after the first of the 
year, I am going to hold additional hearings on voting rights in my 
Judiciary subcommittee.
  I am committed to thoroughly examining this issue. There is no excuse 
in America for standing in line 7 hours to vote, for goodness sake. 
Other countries that do this by paper ballot don't make people stand in 
lines that long and they calculate the results the same night. We 
should be embarrassed by what is going on, and the States should grow 
up and pay attention to what they are doing to this great democracy in 
America. They are undermining the right to vote just as surely as if 
they attacked it openly, by using these new obstacles they are 
creating--these IDs, limiting the early voting.
  Listen, States such as Oregon and others have figured out people can 
vote by mail without fraud, people can have opportunities to vote 
extended through early voting and absentee voting and give people their 
voice in this democracy. If we want to restore the confidence of the 
American people in our government, we have to give them their voice on 
election day. Standing in line 7 hours is an embarrassment in every 
State where it happened, and we have to make sure it doesn't occur when 
it applies to Federal elections.
  I know the tradition. State laws determine election standards. That 
is the way it goes. But when it comes to Federal elections, we have a 
voice in the process and we have to make sure we come together on a 
bipartisan basis to deal with it. I am pleased Chairman Leahy and I are 
going to be able to work together to hold a hearing of the full 
Judiciary Committee next Wednesday, December 19, to continue to explore 
this issue, and then into the new Congress we will be proposing 
specific legislation to deal with this issue. Although another election 
season may have ended, our work to protect our Union and preserve our 
democracy has not.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Colorado.

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