[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9631-9632]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         TRIBUTE TO WENDY NOREN

 Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, fair elections and voting 
rights for all Americans are integral to our way of life. Today I wish 
to honor a dedicated public servant and great Missourian who has spent 
her entire career ensuring these principals for Boone Countians, 
Missourians, and people of the United States, Ms. Wendy Noren. After 39 
years in the Boone County clerk's office--35 as the Boone County 
clerk--Ms. Noren is resigning on June 23, 2017.
  Wendy began her service to Boone County as deputy county clerk in 
1972. She won her first election to county clerk in 1982 and won the 
next eight consecutive elections, only once having an opponent.
  In addition to registering generations of Missourians to vote, Wendy 
has worked tirelessly during the last 35 years to ensure smooth, fair, 
and accurate elections and results. She is a leading election expert at 
local, State, Federal, and international levels. Some of her 
accomplishments include serving as an international elections monitor 
in Albania in 1997 and again in Bosnia in 2001; in 2008, she hosted 
international election experts studying methods for conducting 
elections. As the legislative chair of the Missouri County Clerks and 
Election Authorities, she helped draft several Missouri election law 
reforms, assisted in writing the Help America Vote Act, and was a part 
of the reformation of national election policies after the 2000 
election. Ms. Noren has been reappointed to the US Election Assistance 
Commission every 2 years since first being appointed in 2004.
  Closer to Missourians' hearts, Wendy is implicitly trusted for her 
fairness and accuracy and her tireless devotion to ensuring all 
Missourians have the opportunity to vote. Concerned that rural counties 
couldn't afford election expenses prompted by the Help America Vote 
Act, she advocated that the Federal Government assist local election 
authorities to implement the law. She has been an early adapter of 
technology to assist voters to register, to be informed about 
elections, and to securely cast their votes. For instance, rather than 
using the existing software to join a federally required voter 
registration database, she developed her own, saving taxpayers 
approximately $125,000.
  I ask today that my fellow Senators join me in recognizing Wendy 
Noren, Missouri's own ``Empress of Elections,'' as a great Missourian, 
Boone Countian, and public servant dedicated to ensuring all 
Americans--and, indeed, citizens of the world--are able to participate 
in fair, free elections.

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