good morning the committees will come to order i've asked to the real chairman of this committee to begin the proceedings so love from california judiciary committe thank you chairman conyers and i think this is an important and really i believe unprecedented joint hearing between the elections subcommittee of the house administration committee and of course the  constitution subcommittee of the judiciary committee i'm honored to serve on both the judiciary committee and chairing the elections committee so that we can focus on really one of the most important issues that faces our country which is to make sure that we have an election that make sure that individuals who are eligible to vote are able to vote that are american citizens come to the polls and are not disenfranchised the election four years ago and eight years ago left a very bad taste in the mouths of americans because there are people who were not able to vote they were disenfranchised if that happens again if half of america of america thinks that the election was not fair that people who had a right to vote were denied that right we're going to be in a real pickle in this country and so this hearing is to hear from election officials but also to make sure that we have the proper proactive effort to make sure that people are not disenfranchised again now how can you be disenfranchised in many different ways i actually personally spoke to people who waited eight hours to vote in in  a in a precinct in ohio now if you have to wait eight hours to vote you're disenfranchised now for students their classes were canceled so they could stand in line but if you're an employed person you can't take off eight hours from work to vote and you shouldn't have to and so we know that if that happens again americans are going to feel that something funny was going on with the electoral process and i i expect that we will identify those areas where problems are likely and proactively step forward and say this is the emergency effort you need to make if you need to have backup paper ballots so you can have your registration people go along the line and check in those voters and and vote so they don't have to wait  hours we ought to we need to plan for that equipment failures voter registration list and i want to talk about vote caging when when i think it was monica goodling appeared before this committee and talked about some of the justice department people who took time off to do vote caging and i remember saying what is it and i turned to another member of the judiciary committee i said what is that and he didn't know either well it turns out i've now learned that's a very racist and i think illegal activity that is intended to disenfranchise voters what has happened around the country is that registered letters have been sent in african american or other minority  communities and if they are not responded to then that person is a den of fide as not a real voter well there's a lot of reasons why people might not want to go down to the post office and pick up a registered  letter and to allow for that kind of systematic suppression of minority voting i think is a civil rights violation and i think ought to be proactively prohibited not only does it disenfranchise the american citizen who's a voter but the fight over this disenfranchise everybody else who's waiting in line so creating tremendous delays so that people have to give up and go back to work this this is so important for our country that we get this right but i want to hear from the witnesses what they are doing this is not the end of what we're going to do tomorrow the election subcommittee is having a hearing on the suppression of student votes that we've learned about where students have been told that if they actually register where at their campus which they are permitted to do that they will have their student aid removed that's false what are we doing as a government to prove to prevent that disenfranchisement so this is an important hearing mr chairman i'm glad to participate in it and i hope that the efforts that we will make will have a positive impact on having a fear  e this november and i yield back thank you so much for starting us i'm pleased to recognize trent franks and standing member house judiciary committee and ranking member on the constitution subcommittee from arizona well thank you so much mr chairman mr chairman it's been said so often that voting is the lifeblood of a democracy and certainly there are no legitimate leaders in democracy without legitimate elections and i indeed look forward to hearing from our witnesses here today regarding the good work that the voting section of the civil rights division has done and will do to protect voting rights and i'm told they may have their hands rather foolish year i say that because in recent years one particular organization has become increasingly embroiled in illegal voting activity that organization is called acorn which stands for association of community organizations for reform now let me read that again association of community organizations for reform now it seems that one very famous community organizer got that in his resume by being a community organizer an organizer for association of community organizations for reform now presidential candidate barack obama's resume is highlighted in this regard acorn as one of the organizations he helped organize and senator obama served as a lawyer for association of community organizations for reform now i think it's important to take a look at acorn's resume directly and as you will hear it almost sounds more like a rap sheet these days as john fund of the wall street journal has reported in seattle local prosecutors indicted seven workers for acorn a washington washington secretary of state sam reed once said acorn's campaign of phony registration forms is quote the worst case of voter registration  fraud in the history and of course he was speaking of washington state but of the two thousand names submitted by acorn only nine were confirmed as valid out of two thousand and nine were concerned confirmed as valid the rest over ninety seven percent were fake in missouri officials found that over a thousand addresses listed on voter registration list resulting from acorn effort didn't exist eight acorn employees pleaded guilty to federal election fraud there in ohio a worker for one acorn affiliate was given a crack cocaine in exchange for fraudulent registrations that included under age voters and dead people and just a few weeks ago acorn curtailed mor registration activities you know while after election officials announced that they were investigating it suspicious activities there acorn workers repeatedly often handed in the same name on a number of voter registration cards that show that person living at different addresses other times cards had the same name listed but a different date of birth still others showed a number of people living in an address that turned out to be a restaurant in march of this year philadelphia officials accuse acorn of filing fraudulent voter registrations in advance of the april pennsylvania primary also in pennsylvania another acorn worker recently questioned by dolphin county investigators about bogus voter registration forms is now a wanted man with regard for information into his capture he's accused by authorities of submitting more than one hundred fraudulent voter registration forms he collected and charged with nineteen counts of perjury making false statements forgery and identity theft in connection with the voter registration forms in february the fifth special investigations unit of milwaukee wisconsin police department issued a report that concluded eighteen people were sworn in as deputy registrars that were convicted felons under department corrections and undergoing department of corrections supervision of the fifteen felons who listed a sponsoring organization eight named acorn that is association of community organizations for reform now as their sponsoring agency and last month the milwaukee election commission announced that criminal investigations could be launched against at least six voter registration workers for acorn who tried to add dead imprisoned or imaginary people to vote rolls and the detroit free press just reported last week that quote several municipal clerks across the state are reporting fraudulent and duplicate voter registration applications most of them from acorn according to the michigan michigan secretary of state's office quote there appears to be a sizable number of duplicate and fraudulent applications and it appears to be widespread close quote as one county clerk points out trying to weed out all these fraudulent registration cases causes a huge slowdown in voting preparations and operations generally as you can see senator obama could probably filibuster a bill to allow more offshore drilling by simply reading acorn's extensive rap sheet on the senate floor a recent article in the new york times also reveals just how shady acorn's financial operations can be as well as the new york times reported acorn choose to chose to treat the embezzlement of nearly a million dollars as an internal matter and did not even notif whistleblower forced acorn to disclose investment which involved the brother of the organizations founder who embezzle nearly a one million dollars from acorn and affiliated charitable organizations but a small group of executives decided not to alert law enforcement still involved with acorn despite its vast history of corrupting the election process and even its own finances as recently was reported in the pittsburgh tribune review center of barack obama's presidential campaign more paid more than eight hundred thousand dollars to an offshoot of acorn for the services the democrats campaign says it mistakenly report misrepresented in federal reports the obama campaign initially reported that acorn affiliate that the acorn affiliate that received the eight hundred thousand dollars used all that money for polling advance work and event staging but what did the acorn affiliate really use the money for it used it for the same quote get out the vote projects unquote that has mired acorn in criminal investigations in at least twelve states now i commend the voting registry voting section act of the civil rights division for the work it's done to date and i fully expect it will prosecute voting rights violations that may occur before and during the upcoming election and with groups like acorn involved in this year's election the department of justice may well have to work overtime and mr chairman with that happy thought i look forward to maybe we'll our witnesses what the gentleman yield and question certainly because i i would like to know these twelve states what are the twelve states and what because this is news to me well i would be glad to to follow up with you put that in writing that you're right well i think you've made a rather inflammatory statement that i believe is falls and i think a person of a crime and if you can't back up well i quoted the wall street journal and the pittsburgh newspapers perhaps we should call them in here and she said well i can sell i i'm appalled that you would make a statement that you're unable to actually back up while our other rights are vulnerable for that reason the history of our countries when one of the filling the promise of the declaration of independence the constitution by progressive league standing the right to vote all citizens that struggle has gone on for generations but the struggle to ensure that the legal right to vote translates into an actual right to cast a ballot and have it counted remains far from fulfilled as we know we know that people waited in ohio for example probably in other places eight nine hours to  vote and they had their votes taken away from them we know that in two thousand the governor and the secretary of state of florida conspired to hire a private firm to purge the voter list knowing rate at that private firm was twenty percent meaning that they knew that twenty percent of the voters whose names would be birds were perfectly legitimate voters and that even if they were purging people who had no right to vote they were also purging twenty percent that is twenty percent of those they were purging had a right to vote and were being illegally disenfranchised by the deliberate act of the governor and secretary of state of florida and they got away with it we know that these kinds of things go on all over the time we know that certain politicians engag inflammatory campaign rhetoric about irrelevancies such as we just heard about acorn in order to cover up the deprivation of the right to vote of many people now let's take the case of acorn for a moment i'm not going to talk about any specifics is i don't know any better in this specific but let's assume that everything that was said was true what does that indicate it indicates that law enforcement are to be looking into them and prosecuting grab since whatever it does indicate assuming that there's a group out there that's deliberate lior or because they hire people don't know what they're doing inadvertently improperly registering voters it means that they registrars the elections the boards of elections the department whoever should be carefully monitoring that and checking the validity of does not mean that it justifies in any way all the the the vote caging in the voter suppression practices and the purging of legitimate voters that we know is going on and that we're here to deal with and it's really a red herring to distract attention from that certainly no one will justify anybody deliberately or even inadvertently registering people who should not be allowed to register although most  people who should not be able to be allowed to register obviously and a lot of this is simply a problem with proper identification especially with recent laws but the fact is the overwhelming problem is that legitimate voters are being denied the right to register or being denied the right to vote because of ok jinger because of improper purging or because of inadequate resources at the polls or because of improper clerical procedures that your name isn't there when you get there to vote we saw that the twelve nuns didn't have identification because they didn't drive and we know that many much of the effect of a lot of these new laws is to the private gym of voters of their right to vote so the question before us is how to make sure that everyone's right to vote is secured and to minimize any fraud or or or appearance of fraud and let me say one other thing here we have seen and i'm sure it will be m shouldn't say i'm sure perhaps it will be mentioned at this hearing i see it in new york i've seen a ledger new york i've seen other places that someone is registered in two places they're registered new york and florida registered in two different counties in new york whatever and this is evidence of massive fraud no it isn't what is evidence of is the twentieth century or one thousand a century technology that when you're registered let's say in new york city and you move to miami they don't necessarily remove your voting card till a couple of years go by in new york it doesn't mean that you're voting in both places that we have not seen them straight with a lot of loose rhetoric that people registered in two places we have not seen a lot of facts about people voting into  is a very different question so i hope that we will concentrate on how to make sure that people are enabled to cast the vote and have it counted when they're entitled to do so and that it seems to me we have fallen badly down on the job and when you can have a governor secretary of state knowingly deliberately and admittedly purged twenty percent of legit that is use a purge list which they know and don't deny and freely admit is inaccurate twenty percent and no one says why don't we impeach the governor know and criticize the government we just let it go by the board which shows that we do not regard voting rights as as with as much care as we ought to hope this hearing will go a long way toward ranking member of elections commission of the house administration committee and we'd like to invite you for any opening remarks or thank you mr chairman i appreciate you having us join hearing today and you know we're only forty one days away from the election and if i could start mr chairman i'd ask unanimous consent to submit some material to include in today's proceedings and without objection sort of part of this would probably answer some of the question to my colleague mr mrs last year and this section right here is just from the department of elections state of michigan already pertaining to eggcorn whereas some of these applicants fifteen years old seven years old lives in canada but could answer a lot of questions you had of my colleague mr frank as well but today this hearing and these panels really is something the house ministrations been looking at over the last two years we have had a contested election we studied we've gone through looking at voter fraud we have also looked at which i'm very interested in hearing in a second panel mr larry also those who are being denied denied their right to vote our servicemen  women you will find today and hopefully many will listen that a number of those votes are not counted they arrive too late these are brave men and women serving overseas and i think when you think about  defending this country in the right to participate in an election we can actually do a lot more we can do a lot better and we have forty one days to go we've had a hearing on a number of bills won the m v p act i think would solve a lot of the problems as we look forward but the hearing today we will look at the voter fraud and will also look at the eligibility of making sure all the votes are counted and that those serving in other parts of this world that defending defending this nation have the right to vote as well and i thank  chairman i yield back thank you very very much we also have our good friend from the judiciary committee jim jordan of ohio pennsylvania is also the chief election official and the president of the national association of state secretaries before that he was executive director of the pennsylvania governor's advisory commission on latino affairs and served with the pennsylvania state civil service we welcome you of yours testimony of  witnesses is included in the record and re invites you to begin the discussion today welcome to the committee thank you mr chairman good morning chairman ranking member frank's terminate ler ranking member mccarthy i'm honored to be here today to testify in two capacities as pennsylvania secretary of state and chief election official and us president of the national association of secretaries of state also known as snaps i would like to discuss the state readiness for the november two thousand and eight election including efforts in pennsylvania the nation's state chief election officials have been working hard to ensure eligible voters will have a positive voting experience and an election that is fair accurate accessible and secure there had been dramatic increase in voter registration figures and predictions of high turnout nearly fifty eight million americans voted in the two thousand and eight presidential primaries i am here to report that state election officials take their responsibility seriously and the states will be prepare for a potential record turnout in  actively conducted a survey of all states chief election officials are objective was to gain insight into the state's efforts to inform and prepare voters increase and facilitate voter participation ensure the polling places run smoothly on election day and communicate election results to the public the nasa report which is being released today is titled engaging the energized electorate nass survey of state preparations for the two thousand and eight presidential election i have copies of that report available with me the survey responses demonstrate the states have concentrated their preparations in three major areas one voter participation two polling place management and three election results report first to enhance voter participation states are conducting vigorous state wide public outreach campaigns to inform voters about everything from registration that lines to identification requirements and absentee or early voting options a growing number of states are using the internet and social networking sites such as you tube and my space many states including pennsylvania are also offering tools such as polling place locators ups and provisional ballots trackers others have targeted outreach efforts to mobilize young voters senior voters voters with disabilities military and overseas civilian voters and alternative language voters among others the second area of preparation polling place management on operations six to ensure the positive experience on election day efforts in this area include broadening the pool of potential poll workers by seeking students by legal citizens private sector and state employees maintaining consistency in poll worker training and stablish in standards to bright assurance that poll workers are properly equipped to administer voting handle emergencies and use election systems finally states are enhancing election results reporting features for two thousand and eight while maintaining transparency to boost voter confidence this is dawn of the new interactive websites and through last inactive for improving post election audit an audit procedures nasa also created can i vote dot org the associations nonpartisan website that serves as a portal to state and local elections sites in addition to voter registration look ups and polling place locat site to find state specific information on polling place hours voter registration that lines identification requirements and how to become a poll worker in my home state of pennsylvania election officials remain committed to eliminating barriers to voting and to conducting fear accurate accessible and secure lections the department of state working closely with the common will sixty seven counties is building up on the lessons of the primary to prepare for nov fourth one way we're preparing in pennsylvania is through the use of technology for example the commonwealth has benefited from the state white uniformed registry of electors more commonly known as sure sure it's a centralized voter registration and election management system used by the counties and the department to ensure pennsylvania also values voter education that he for many sprout of ready set vote an interactive voter education campaign that features television radio print online and out of home advertising the campaign school is to find information about voting rights and procedures located directions to their polling place and may even signed up for election related reminders sent directly to their mobile devices in august pennsylvania adopted and  own line tool offered by the federal voting assistance program at the department of defense that provides military and overseas citizen voters the option of requesting and or receiving absentee ballots electronically through the federal programs website  today thirty four counties including philadelphia and allegheny have availed themselves of this program these are only a few examples of the many election initiatives on their way in pennsylvania and throughout the united states based on these preparations i am confident that the nation including sylvania will be well prepared for the general election and that we will have a well informed electorate on behalf of my colleagues hadn't asked thank you for your support in safeguarding our most fundamental right of citizenship i appreciate your invitation to testify today thank you survey of arse of all the states of fifty states in the district of columbia that report on the various steps that the states have are taking to first inform voters about their rights and the rules of voting and engaging those voters second ensuring that voters have a smooth and fair experience at the polls on election day and third to ensure increased on report on increased capabilities to accurately report res night thank you the deputy assistant secretary of state and the director of elections for ohio's secretary of state jennifer bruner is mr david perel we welcome you here today the overseas election section the campaign finance section and the field staff section he was formerly a member of the clark county board of elections for seven years and the chairman of the board for three years before that welcome to these hearings thank you good morning and thank you for the opportunity to offer testimony on ohio's state and local efforts to prepare for the two thousand and eight general election the state of election system in ohio has come a long way since secretary brunner took office in january of two thousand and seven between that time and now secretary brunner has taken substantial efforts to examine strengthen and continually adjust and make improvements to the election system evidence of our successes can be found by looking at ohio's march primary election where we had a forty six percent turnout and over five hundred thousand absentee voters despite experiencing severe weather problems and other emergencies chair lofgren i would like to offer into the record the march two thousand and eight ohio primary election report which fully details the significant advancements ohio has made in its election system since secretary brunner came into office without a thank you with november fourth approaching there is still great work to do and ohio in every county and we are getting that work done this will be a historic november election and in ohio where we can realistically anticipate a statewide turnout of eighty percent secretary bruner has focused on three objectives preparation partnership and success secretary brunner is focused on strengthening ohio's voter operations which is the nuts and bolts of elections and ministration she understands that given the technological advances made over the last decade and the implementation of the help america vote act of two thousand and two also known as hava getting voter operations right is crucial she has made great strides in this respect for example to equitably apply ohio's election laws to all voters secretary brunner implemented an aggressive statewide poll worker training program which includes an interactive online poll worker training component she created and made available a quick reference guide for all poll workers to use on election day secretary bruner also issued a directive which provides minimum standards for poll worker training for all counties in addition secretary bruner made compliance with the americans with disabilities act hundred ninety a priority for all ohioans while the has been law for twenty eight years secretary bruner was the first chief elections officer of the state of ohio to provide the eighty eight county boards of elections with an easy to use checklist that permits local boards to confirm their compliance we thank congress for providing a de a grant dollars to ohio and allowing us to make available five hundred thousand dollars in funds to address eighty eight concerns at polling places in two thousand and eight secretary brunner and local boards of elections are also preparing for any problems that may arise on or before election day in two thousand and four ohio became the unfortunate poster child for long lines at the polls and concerns about voter disenfranchisement secretary brunner has taken a number of steps to address long lines and a host of other issues that cut to the core of voter confidence in our elections first a key best practice focus has been back up paper ballots for counties using direct recording electronic voting machines also known as in the march primary election these backup paper ballots made the difference for polling places impacted by severe weather power outages and machine problem secretary bruner was very supportive of bill h r five eight zero three which would have provided funding for states to provide backup paper ballots although that bill did not pass in ohio we will utilize the funds to reimburse boards of elections for the cost of backup paper ballots equal to twenty five percent of the turnout in that precinct in two thousand and four for this november fourth election second we have also provided boards of elections with a formula developed by the ohio general assembly and based on hava for the equitable distribution of voting machines on election day this will help us find problems with distribution plans ahead of time and ensure a scientific facts based approach to allocating voting machines for ohioans secretary brunner's preparation efforts also include making sure that voting is secure this spring our office brought together a bipartisan working group to craft best practices for election security from the board of elections office to the ballot box and back again we have created a suite of directives that provide best in class security for ohio's voting systems those directives include security at the polling place and board of elections offices minimum storage security access and inventory control requirements for voting system equipment at boards of election voting equipment delivery requirements chain of custody for ballots and security for voting equipment supplies secretary brunner also required boards of elections to end the practice of so called sleep overs for voting machines in ohio and we are now phasing in secure machine transport for every county in ohio between now and november fourth we in ohio will all be focused on preparing for success we are confident that state and local election officials can address any new set of problems that may arise because we have established a partnership that works to get things done thank you in trumbull county we were good to have you here this morning thank you mr chairman distinguished members of the committee my name is roki so i'm in the second i'm the general registrar of the fairfax county office of elections in fairfax virginia i'm pleased to be here this morning to discuss election preparation for the two thousand and eight general election at the local level the two thousand a general election is not a single national event rather is a simultaneous occurrence of thousands of smaller local events i'm here to discuss the preparations of one of those local events fairfax county is the largest election jurisdiction in the commonwealth of virginia we serve one in seven of all the registered voter voters in the commonwealth preparations for an election like this do not happen overnight fairfax county has been planning for the two thousand and eight general election for several years as a matter of fact we are already making plans towards the governor's race in two thousand and nine redistricting in two thousand and eleven and the two thousand and twelve presidential election part of the difficulty preparing for an election such as this is the increase of new voter registrations our offices process nearly sixty nine thousand registration applications since our february presidential primary we have registered nearly forty one thousand new voters and updated or transferred into our county nearly twenty eight thousand registrations the offices also transferred over one hundred thousand voters to other jurisdictions in the state and remove twenty five hundred seat voters from the rolls by the time of the october sixth registration deadline our office will have handled nearly twenty percent of all of our registration cards in the period between the primary and general election some of this registration activity is taking place by college students there has been much debate in virginia as to students resident status when they're at a university it is the opinion of this office they have a student chooses to list their school residence as their primary residence they may do so they are testing this under penalty of felony so we take the application at its face if we are reasonably fit someone does not live at the address from which they are registered we will make an inquiry this election will not only see record registration but record turnout for our county in the two thousand and four general election fairfax county saw four hundred sixty seven thousand six hundred thirty three thousand registered voters participate in the process a seventy three percent turnout this november we're expecting nearly eighty percent of our expected six hundred sixty five thousand registered voters to cast about increases in registration participation strain the resources of our system we are expecting long lines at the polls this november fairfax county average is three thousand voters in the precinct where telling folks now to expect the lines they will exist we are also taking steps to process voters in an expedited fashion virginia passed a ban acquiring direct recording electronic also known as dairy equipment in two thousand and seven knowing that our county had an inadequate number of voting machines and were unable to acquire more the decision was made at optical scan ballots to the polls this november fairfax county purchased optical scan equipment in july our county has ordered enough paper ballots to serve over one hundred three percent of our voting population this november voters will be given a paper ballot but may vote on d n a equipment if they so choose we believe that we'll be able to process voters faster with the optical scan equipment thus reducing wait times this process does not come without significant planning and expense solving the pressure of lines is not as easy as adding optical sca e had to purchase security sleeves to hold the ballot before insertion in the machine ballot box says to hold the expected number of ballots and pens to mark the ballots security seals to secure machines boxes and locate a storage facility large enough to store the used in unused ballots for the required twenty two months we have backup equipment and batteries in case of machine failure should a polling place become available due to an emergency during the day we have equipment standing by to open up a secondary location within one hour th implementation increased my budget approximately twenty five percent this year another policy at the county was instituted to complement the optical scan system is the division of poll books normally precincts would have one of three poll books to serve voters with splits dependent on the precinct size this november our precincts will have two to five public splits more splits allow us to divide the incoming gropes groups of voters and process them faster this coupled with the paper ballot should help ease the pressure of turnout dividing the poll books also requires poll workers to man the tables in two thousand and four we utilize two thousand five hundred sixteen poll workers this election we are expecting to use almost three thousand one hundred twenty percent increase recruiting and training these volunteers takes time and money we are expecting to hold over seventy training classes in thirty days with a trainer folks and how to use the new equipment reinforce training on the older equipment and help them manage the turnout our poll workers must learn how to be technicians legal experts and customer service specialists off from a three hour class that some people may take thirty five days before the election fairfax county is also encouraging the use of absentee voting this election all over genia has one of the most restrictive absentee ballot requirements in the country we expect a record number of absentee ballots in two thousand and four almost fifty four thousand people voted absentee as of this saturday we had over seventeen thousand absentee ballot applications and nearly two hundred fifty people voted on the first day of in person absentee voting this friday we're utilizing e mail ballots that are overseas civilian the military voters receive their ballots faster adding to the complexity of the election is the electorate of fairfax county there are numerous languages spoken here among our citizens although we do not meet the threshold of the voting rights act requiring the availability of a minority language ballot we are offering several services to our voters we have native spanish and korean speakers on staff as well as staff trained in american sign language at the polls we offer television telephone translation service with over one hundred available languages each polling location will have a video demonstration of our new voting equipment and in precincts the high concentration of hispanic korean or vietnamese voters the video will be offered in both languages all of this comes an expands to our office staff are now working seven days a week processing registrations and absentee applications seventy hour work weeks are not uncommon as we get closer to november these days get longer voters call to inquire about polling locations registration issues ballot problems and general information voters will even call our office to find out where pick up a sign for a candidate second shift or an added just to process paperwork that accumulates during the day our staff now consists of our normal contingent of twenty full time employees and fifty six temporary seasonal staff with more arriving next week the long hours are necessary because we do not have the luxury of flexible deadlines no matter the level of work it all must be completed in time for them  election officials are expected to be one hundred percent accurate in their work and mistakes have the potential to disenfranchise a voter we take that responsibility very seriously not only that but it seems that everyone now is teams of lawyers waiting to pounce if a small mistake is made it's only adds to the level of stress i do want to take this time to thank you commit my staff the workload grows and grows yet staffing levels remain stagnant laws become more complex and require more service yet local budgets fear or feel revenue constraints we do not have everything that i would like to run in the election but we will be successful staff know that time spent at home will suffer we joke that our family should place our pictures on milk cartons but they still have smiles on their faces they truly love to serve the voters and although we  incredibly busy we are excited to see all the participation all of this effort occurs so the voter has as little difficulty participating as possible it is difficult the ask the entire nation to do the same thing on the same day it takes months of planning that one day so th lewis it's a nonprofit organization of election officials the trains informs and advocates for the election administration community we love to hear what you not try to read all of this ok you're known your mouth will point to some parts of it so that hopefully you all will be able to see the kind of preparation that is going on in america for election there isn't an election official anywhere in america that wants voters to have a bad experience there isn't an election official anywhere in america that won't voters to wait in long lines and yet the fact of the matter is is we're going to be hit with a tsunami this time we're go have waves of voters that we have not been able to see in our working lifetime i guess my mind is not all in or i'm not speaking right  into it just you know i come from from texas we just had a big hurricane blow through this is one year where we when you look at what happened to galveston who did all kinds of preparations for a big hurry expecting twelve foot waves and they got you know fifteen to twenty five foot waves they were overwhelmed we may very well be overwhelmed in this election we're going to try to do the best we can now this election we didn't start planning for this election in two thousand and eight we started in two thousand and one and two thousand and two and two thousand and four two thousand and six with all of the things that we saw happened in each one of those we have been working on planning for failure where are the failure points that can happen in an election how do we make this a good experience how do we make this work twenty seven million people voting age population in two thousand and four we had one hundred seventy eight million those as registered voters we're expecting a huge increase over that time in two thousand and four there were one hundred  twenty two million voters in two thousand and four we're going to have more voters this time we think by significant numbers and so we're looking at that you've got roughly seven thousand five hundred election jurisdictions in america scattered over counties and townships depending on how they run elections in america there are roughly eight hundred thousand voting device there somewhat less than two hundred thousand polling places one point four million poll workers and roughly average number of voters having to be handled by the full time employees like roky and even the secretary cortez you're looking at you're looking at maybe a ratio of one employee to every sixty two hundred voters  no business that operates like that in america there's no winner prize that operates like that in america on election day we're going to put with clint of several divisions of several armies in the field with three hours of training who are supposed to make this thing come all flawlessly it can't happen it will sometimes not be perfect but perfect is not what we're after here what we're after is an honest fair and accurate election and we need to remember that that when all is said than done the important part is the result an accurate reflection of the public will and we think that's where  folks will focus on what the in the and not on the hiccups that go along the process then we'll end up with a good election in america but we're also i'm going to you know i'm going to tell you i'm concerned about this when you look at the fact that we've got because the economy is doing a dipsy doodle we have county commissions and we have local budget authorities all over america who are cutting budgets in elections offices when we're expecting the largest election in our lifetime so elections officials are having to do more with less and is i think roky pointed out my goodness his jurisdiction alone has grown enormously over the last twenty years and yet i'm going to guess that his staffing level is probably the same or less than it was twenty years ago and so this is what we're faced with when you look at this election we want to be a good experience we want to be a good election what i'm going to say to all of you are also at the point where we have had so many allegations made about the process then i'm not sure we're not doing permanent damage to the process we've got to get to the point where we understand the process is more important than partisanship and we have to remember that because we lose partisanship if we lose the process and so i would say to you we're very concerned that we do this that we do it well that we do it well for voters that we make it a good experience for voters that voters are happy and we have some suggestions for that if you look in terms of what we think can happen time we certainly would encourage voters to be at the point where they check their official registration make sure you're on the voter rolls make sure you've done what you need to do make sure you know where your polling places the matter is on election day we're not going to be able to answer all those ability to spend hava money to get additional paper ballots in case of an emergency in the emergency could be anything from machine failure to you've got a huge line  that's really going to disenfranchise people are you and i'll ask this the same of pennsylvania and in fairfax county are your jurisdictions prepared to with a backup paper ballot if you are overwhelmed with the sheer numbers of people showing up do you think yes we believe we are we have issued instructions for polling place layouts which hopefully will guide boards and how to lay out the polling place so that there is clearly two options for voters so that in a scenario where it just happens to be a huge turnout and folks normally would just have the choice of one line for a touch screen voting machine they now clearly have the option of voting a paper about if they want to wait in line they can do that but the choice is theirs exactly in addition to that obviously i had mentioned poll worker training materials which incorporates this most elections are only as good as the people on the front line so we've invested a lot of time in technology and preparing them for this particular type of layout in polling places and we've given boards local county boards of elections some flexibility on how they lay that out as i mentioned in the primary just the fate we had power outages flooding ice storms and some counties in the primary found that paper ballots did save the day in extreme circumstances well heading into eighty percent turnout for this fall it could it could be that even without a power outage they could be in an extreme circumstance  comes the long lines what about pennsylvania and i'm sure i'm glad to report the pennsylvania is taking similar steps to prepare our voters we find that there's two necessary components to a good election experience first you the second component is to make sure that the poll workers are properly prepare we find that in pennsylvania many times our issues related to long lines are not related to deficiencies with the equipment it may have to do with an inefficient way of registering voters  checking them in at the polls we're encouraging and we are glad to say that most of our counties are going to be split in their poll books to have a line for lists a voters voted last name is a through l and then another one m through z pennsylvania law however buy that in order for jurisdiction a polling place that has direct recording electronic machines to be able to hand out an emergency paper backup ballot you have to have this all systems that are present in that jurisdiction have to minimize the chances that we will have long lines we're also trying to manage the expectations on the part of the voters reminding voters that you are you surely more likely to find long lines when we open the polling place at seven a from seven to eight fill nine and then when we close in the polls between five and eight and to the extend them voters are able to modify their calendar so we encourage them to do so all right and fairfax county i think we're going to have just an enormous turnout cent on a number that was four percent larger than the actual number of registered voters now that we had what about distribution because in the primary in some states for example my county in california we had such a huge turnout in the northern part of my camp and the county i live in that they ran out of balance and they had to get ballots from other places and they went out i mean it was chaotic the county did their very best but in retrospect talking to the county officials they wished that they had spent a little bit i mean i was in local government for fourteen years it's hard financially but it would have been cheaper for them to actually proactively provide more ballots than what they ended up spending on election day because they were just caught short and so moving around within the county i you know i think there's a level the excitement in your purchase over one hundred percent about paper ballots for their that for the for that reason local governments were under serious budget budget and i know that and and it's odd too when you're deciding how to purchase paper ballots well if you only have seventy percent turnout why did you buy a hundred percent you waste that money if you only had sixty percent turnout why did you buy a hundred percent anyway and that money been there done that but then you can use hava money for this yes yes yes and you know we're going to look into that but with the low government's we just figure that it's my opinion that this is one point where you can blame taxpayer spending or blame waste on the taxpayer because we have to repair for voter to show up and if a voter would call us and say i'm not going to vote on tuesday don't buy my bout we'd be happy to do that but we have to assume that they're going to show up so we have enough ballots if somebody makes a mistake on their ballot they can get a second ballot and we believe are we well prepared for th turnout could i just ask one final question i'm going to have a hearing on this tomorrow in the house administration committee but we've all read about problems with voter registration it was i think it was virginia tech where but i mean students are reading this and if you don't if you come from a state where you can't do by right absentee voting the only way you're going to be able to vote on election day is if you register where you are in college and what proactive steps are being taken by the registrars in for genya to correct the misinformation that students who residents is at their college are going to lose their student loans that they register and vote for i believe the state board of elections has put out some press releases to all the universities stating that you are allowed to register from your your your dorm if that's your residence and you can sort out your domicile in the state of virginia and you are allowed to register from that point there was some misinformation  being bandied about across the state by some registrars who i believe were just being well meaning and trying to be i'm not suggesting they went to there was a no wrong intention but there would always remain misinformation and i believe they're just trying to be good moms and dads when they're when they're looking out for the students and i believe the state board is taking the lead on that notified all the colleges to direct a final problem thank you mr chairman we've been joined by vern ehlers from grand rapids michigan the ranking member on house administration committee turn to trent franks well thank you mr chairman mr chairman i know that in election season sometimes there are partisan considerations and comments on both sides and i certainly don't deny that i am a partisan republican but i was one make sure that everything i say is absolutely accurate and just to respond to one of the questions and earlier related to acorn i just want to just briefly say that in two thousand and eight alone acorn's activities are prompted calls for investigations in louisiana connecticut new mexico texas nevada and north carolina in my opening testimony i cited public newspaper reports  counting specific acorn relate it related criminal activity in washington missouri ohio pennsylvania wisconsin and michigan those reports concern the last few years alone the number of twelve states decided in the pittsburgh tribune review specifically adding colorado to that list and other examples are cited in john's funds article in the wall street journal in his new book called stealing elections and certainly to be discussed in the second panel now as i say in my opening  statement i simply focused on the public reports in the last in six states as they occurred in the last few years but i would be very happy to see a hearing exploring a acorn activities over the last ten or twenty years across the nation and if that hearing suggested i have overstated anything i would be more than happy to apologize publicly to the committee and to miss lofgren but i'm afraid that he would only show that i understated the situation far more than m overstated so with that said my question is first i guess to mr lewis and i give the others an opportunity in seattle local prosecutors indicted seven workers for acorn that last year and in the last year had registered more than five hundred and forty thousand low income and minority voters nationwide and deployed more than four thousand get out the vote workers the acorn defendants stand accused of submitting phony forms and what secretary of state sam reed says is quote the worst case of voter registration fraud in the history close quote of the state given that the state doesn't require the showing of any identification before voting it's entirely possible people could have illegally voted using those names local officials invalidated one thousand seven hundred sixty two acorn registrations felony charges were filed against seven of its workers some who have who already have criminal records and prosecutors say acorn oversight of its workers was virtually nonexistent to avoid prosecution acorn agreed to pay twenty five thousand dollars in mr restitution and mr lewis i just i think that you have at least expressed a tone of wanting to make sure that our elections are honest and i believe that do these reports concern you at all however i don't know specifics about the one that you're talking about and certainly i know that sam reed is one of those who is not prone to overstatement but let me say to you we're concerned from administrative standpoint about third party registrations older gather we will i come we want to do a good job in many cases bringing people into the process and that's always healthy for democracy but but this centered bounded regulated use of third party registration to the point where they sit on those registrations right until the end and try to turn them all in at the very last minute it just screws up the system it disenfranchises voters one of those things that just is frustrating to us as elections officials that voter that was  solicited by a third party registration outfit may have signed up with them six weeks ago eight weeks ago twelve weeks ago and yet that card had been turned in to the election officials so you had  on we hope that they will be turned in within three days if they're turned in within three days of contacting the voter then we have a chance to get them on the roll and if there's more information that's needed to be able to get that information back in time so they vote a legitimate ballot they wrote a real ballot not a provisional ballot and so those are those are our real can let me let me follow up one last question mr obama has sued on behalf of acorn acorn later invited mr obama to help train its staff and mr obama would also sit on the board of the woods fund for chicago which gives funds to obama to acorn and its registered registration efforts of course have been scandal prone st louis missouri officials found that in two thousand and six over a thousand addresses listed on this registrations didn't even exist later federal thirty's and forty's indicted eight of the group local workers and one of course has already pleaded guilty that's got to concern you too as well correct we're always concerned as elections administrators that elections not only real integrity but also have the appearance of integrity because for voters when when they begin to perceive that the process is too loose or that it doesn't adequately protect the system altogether then that then they lose faith in it too but how do you know truth of the matter is how do we as elect officials other than with our limited resources and the a limited amount of time that's allowed to us how do we find out about only find out about them quite frankly if they occur in the normal course of business and we have the resources to be able to do that well thank you thank you mr chairman thank you very much charles gonzales texas thank you very much mr chairman let me pose now well first of all i think the most obvious observation from this side it's refreshing to hear someone on the other side calling for more oversight and regulation may be too late and they may be the wrong subject but regardless i'm going to ask the same question of the individuals  that have testified and that is so that we walk away with here something that is relevant to the hearing today what is the number one challenge that you identify as being the greatest to you in conducting a successful election knowing priest numbers on november fourth and prior to and what are you asking us to do to assist you and i'll start off with this thank you congressman the biggest challenge that the states are going to face is just the large number of voters who are registering and will participate in terms of the registration that's he was noted is processing those applications in a timely fashion i know that in pennsylvania  many of my colleagues have taken the steps necessary to communicate with any group that is doing third party voter registration and sure those applications are turning into the voter registration offices as quickly as possible but the bottom line  is preparation for operation on the part of the voter one of the main messages that i'm taking out to all pennsylvanians is if you register no matter which way you do so third party on line  in person you should be receiving within two weeks fourteen days of that registration a confirmation from your county this says to register this is where you vote reparation on the part of the voter alleviates many of the issues that we face on election day so like to take that message a preparation how can you help us financial resources are always needed it was noted here already very eloquently by the racer from virginia that we are in in a situation where we don't have enough financial resources and too that you're going to human resources which oftentimes will require money to bring in so you can help us with resources you can also help us with understanding as mr lewis noted it is a complex process and that we have gone through a number of reforms since two thousand which i support and very needed give us time to work through those reforms before we enact even more on top of that because that creates frustration on the part of election administrator well this won't be the first time you've heard this but our number one challenge is funding and it's specifically relates to the machines themselves the new machines do wear out more quickly than the old style levers did  in ohio we conducted a study and found there were some serious deficiencies in the voting machines but with no funding there was no way to replace those which is why we implemented a plethora of security practices and procedures and chain of custody and other items to try and offset that but even that required local boards to unfortunately spend more of their funds to make sure these machines that they had enough that they also were operating properly and the other challenge is training and as you heard on the front lines of these poll workers with the idea of requirements and trying to make sure that everything is followed properly and training costs money as well so funding would be ohio's number one priority thank you to sound like a broken record funding i've got a litany of of issues that i could correct in my office with with a much better funding mechanism we sent we were very proactive with our voters this year and sent each voter a new voter registration card to let them know they're in their polling location and to give them an updated voter id to bring to the poll so that would ease along the process and that alone cost three hundred thousand dollars that we have been able to replace in our budget i could have better poll worker training in ohio i had one of the first counties didn't went online poll worker training and i don't have the resources to do that in virginia i'm not an educator but i'm or i'm charged with training my poll workers i don't know how well they're learning if i had the software package i could track their learning see where the problems are and change my policies and procedures funding to to purchase more privacy booths to allow more voters to vote paper ballots will move the lines along funding solves the majority of our problems and m  and training issues are indeed key to this process but we keep changing the process faster than we can adapt to it and we have had since the help america vote act states and locales and administrative decisions legislative decisions most state legislatures that we keep changing and changing and changing you're not going to have google elections as long as we continue to force the pace of change at such a rapid that we can never get to the point that it's stable and so to me that we have to start taking on the attitude that we want a certain kind of in result in the process without trying to bandaid each of the pieces we need to look at how do we do this is an overall process to make sure it truly works for voters that is in the probably going to cost more money in some respects but our concern right now is that if we don't stop the pace of change if we don't stop this constant assumption that we can manipulate each and every part legally of all of the processes then we're going to be in for real trouble because this system is close enough now to where we were overwhelmed we're at a point now where in my test want to point to you know we've had about half the people in this business retire because they have gone through all of this excel or we need time we need time and stability and then obviously the answer is we also need money but local jurisdictions you know i don't know i don't know what the right answer is here but if you're a county commissioner and you've got too many competing goods for available dollars what do you do and yet at the same time we're on the receiving end of that as elections administrators we've got more and more voters coming in every election cycle and yet we're asked to do less and ranking the election committee i thank you mr chairman i think all of you for your service and the work you're doing you have to do a lot of preparation and i don't know if it's coincidental on purpose but you have pennsylvania ohio virginia you're all battleground states so you've got a lot of work before you have a few questions mr cortez if i could start with you that you're not only secretary of state pennsylvania you're also president of the national association secretary states that correct and you have thirty nine states in your association is that we have all jurisdictions are within our membership secretaries of state not only oversee elections but we do corporate filings we do professional license sure records managements or association comprises whole fifty states district of columbia recall the virgin islands american someone wants everybody's covered so you were big you got to not only look at your state but everybody else's and i would tell you in my home state i have found that every election things have kind of changed that people want to have a greater ability to vote make it easier to vote one of our colleagues from california ms davis and i have worked on absentee balloting which is continued to grow in california you'll find in some districts more than half the people vote for election day now part of that work of what we've done and in working on legislation it's also the greatest ability to have fraud because you're outside moving through and then we've heard from our colleagues before here as well the fraud and voter registration we've got to be able to repair and that takes time just like preparing before an election with someone sends in the application you've got to do the due diligence to make sure that person is live there not seven years old as we show this before what type of work do you do in pennsylvania for preparation if someone turns in an application or first does a voter registration you check that before someone gets the absentee application by the by mail devote or can they get it on the same day in pennsylvania you must register to vote thirty days prior to election day so there is a requirement of registration forgive me but i'm going to ask you to rephrase the question i'm trying to follow if i walk in and i register to vote ok so i register to vote with you could i get an application to vote by mail on that same day or do you do do you do any checks and balances to make sure what i say in my voter registration that i'm a citizen what i say my age is there any checks and balances on there that they are own congressman yes you can submit a request for both but the voter registration process is handle first in other words you don't have to put an application and come back a week later for an absentee ballot you can submit them both at the same time however the process where the ability to have greater transparency and duplicate checks and the checks and balances that i i believe you're alluding to so jurisdiction where receive an application will go through their due diligence check everything including verification i'm trying to  a check up with either in pennsylvania driver's license number comparing the information on that application to our department of motor vehicles registration records or the last four digits of a person with the social security mission so those check ups and the very find the person is not race or elsewhere happen first once that is verified then the application for absentee ballot can be process in pennsylvania however we have what is known as excuse absentee voting at voter fraud in others but you bring the word transparency on election day you allow people in from the outside to watch right counting the votes and others yes well i'm concerned about i listen to mr farrel and he talked about was it preparation partnership and what other excess success the secretary of state jennifer brunner of ohio her new advisory that prohibits observers during the thirty five thirty five day period where person votes in person she doesn't allow people to observe during that time so if you're in ohio you can't do which you can do something you can't do in pennsylvania i could walk in i could register to vote and i could vote in person exact same day and no transparency where someone could actually view it from the outside because of this new advisory and i'm just asking and all the hats that you wear what was your opinion on having that activity well i guess  answer to that congressman will be the one that applies to the sometimes suggestion that us once i fit soul for our country we recognize that we have a rich history of diversity within our nation not in a position nor will i comment on the decisions of my colleagues in ohio for the whole or all their state for that matter i believe the decisions made by that state's chief election official i would like to think is being done with due diligence and with the application of the law many times what creates the difference in the way we approach and we handle elections are constraints that are in law either federal most of the time state that the chief election officials have to abide by people ask me frequently to defend even the help america vote act and the merits of that act and we are the implemented or not the body that created the law but i will say that the processes that i have have within them hair and checks and balances that take into account those potentiality what i was saying terms of voter fraud most of our states by the way have stablished one eight hundred toll free hotline that people can call in to report fraud when we have instances of fraud we go to those issues and attack them vigorously in fact the state of alabama and west virginia have created election voter fraud task forces to address that so i will say respectfully that i believe that the states are operating with their legal constraints and acting in the way that they believe has best fit for their election electorate i appreciate the time you've given me and the one thing i would say is we have contested elections here and we said on the panel there was just three of us the did it once someone cast that ballot and the ballots and counted have a hard time going back through and finding out which one it is and i appreciate the due diligence that you do in the transparency that you do and i do believe maybe one size doesn't fit all but i also believe that having a checks and balance across the nation makes a much safer election and a more honest election at a greater partner back thanks mr voting and i appreciate the fact that my colleague has started some of that discussion one of the reasons that i think it's so important that so many people in this country are voting absentee today and in fact there are areas where it's projected that about a third of the country might vote by mail and in this election so we need to certainly be very aware of what's happening and as we know states vary tremendously in the way they approach this issue and i wanted to talk  juniors laws or on absentee voting are quite intriguing really and there are many excuses that happen to be ballot but it looks like the forms are fairly complex for folks and certainly there's some invasion of privacy as well i've got that form here if you're sick or you have a disability you have to specify the nature of your illness if you work you need to indicate your hours and give the name and address of your employer if you have a religious obligation you need to describe it if you're taking care of an ailing relative you need to name that person and describe their illness if you're on vacation you need to say where you're going and if you and you also need to tell the state if you're pregnant now could you tell me why all that is necessary what do you do with that information how much time does it take to verify that does it cost more to check these excuses than it would to go to no excuse no excuses voting like california or ohio why is all this necessary i think that's a question for the virginia legislature  works the forms are very restrictive i'm denying forms every day for voters that are not filling out the forms properly i don't like doing it but i don't have the option to not do that i don't have the ability and what does it cost what about the personnel required personnel my mc department right now is a large department that i have which i'm probably of about twenty people and it's probably a quarter of my budget  personal budget this time i can't give you an exact number of expense but the cost of denying this form sending the form back to a voter saying that you missed this part of the form or this wasn't checked properly or you didn't you didn't list your employer on the form when you're working sending that that back to the voter and having it sent back in the cost in time and postage and monies as economically thank you  farrell you went to no excuse voting and you had some forms that were pretty complex as well but you've changed that how is that affected your ability to do this part of that your job well it's interesting that even with ohio's fairly recent no fault absentee application process meaning that you really don't have to have a specific reason there still been some challenges because under ohio law certain information must be provided what's interesting is ohio for absentee ballot applications does not actually require a form a citizen or a voter i should say can even hand write the request as long as it has specific components so boards of elections in ohio face similar challenges but are very used to someone who request an absentee ballot maybe did not have all the required information they have a process or procedure where they notify the voter of what's missing and have them turn that in so there's a lot of extra time involved in that there is a lot of extra time and unfortunately some some cited is that you're turning back a lot of those forms not because people don't have a valid excuse but because they somehow read the forming correctly how has it affected your vote in pennsylvania this has been the law for so many years that our administrators are well attuned to handling the application so i like to say that we do so with fairly expediently the issue of the no  fuller the no excuse absentee voting was covered in a commission that i chair back in two thousand and five it was the united missed recommendation of our body that we do without the excuse absentee voting we don't see it as in the case of ohio we don't necessarily see the value as much anymore there isn't a style you have all voting in person but we recognize that the complexities of today's life people may want to vote by absentee voting it is  found to to misrepresent that decision but we believe that for the proper administration of elections there's enough checks and balances and i think that we can do and we should relax those requirements but you should relax them yes ok thank i thank my colleague from michigan and thank you for holding this hearing i will repeat the monter which i said numerous times in the house and ministration committee what i hold of what i hold dear and voting number one every legal voter should be assured of the right to vote and be assured that their vote will be counted accurately and correctly that's number one number two every we've done very well in the past several years in fact quite a few years of ensuring that legal voters are able to cast their vote legally and to be assured that it is counted counted legally we know of a few instances throughout the nation where this is not always happened but by and large i think we do pretty well there i think we're not doing as well in the other part and that is stopping the fraud of people who are voting illegally in other words  diluting the votes of people voting legally and i and there are lots of ways that this can happen and part of my cynicism comes from having served on contested hearings in various parts of the country where we observe behavior that was certainly not appropriate and some of it is not at all the thought fault of the voter the ones that disturbed me the most was an organization that was telling undocumented aliens that of course they had the right to vote and helping them become registered and telling them vote now first of all this is not only illegal but it is a huge danger to the committed alien because i've discovered they are automatically deported and i think that's one of the most egregious examples i'm very bothered by the behavior of acorn mr lewis gave the example of  dumping everything on you that may not be particularly egregious but it certainly makes your work more difficult and the question is why would it be done if you're not trying to confuse a process or overload there are other examples of many of us have heard it why do these organizations exist why are they trying to break the law i'm delighted to have an organization that's trying to to register more voters that's what we need that's what we should have but why do they feel the necessity to resort to responsible here or perhaps illegal behavior and i'm just wondering if any of you can enlighten me on that and are there other organizations that you see attempting to do the same thing just go down the line mr curtis i would say that all state and local election officials share  views in terms of the that what you had express every legal vote should be counted no legal bill should be diluted and nobody that i know condones fraudulent activity in any of his manifestations i would say that based on personal experience and what i read in my discussions with the department of justice and district attorneys and those are prosecuted fraud most groups that engage in third party voter registration do so for all the right reasons and friendship and make sure that every voice is heard there's always a bad apple so to speak in every group and i can tell you that for one and all of my colleagues  always eager to learn of those instances if the information those surface that you have individuals that are acting on becoming we want to know about that we would work with the proper law enforcement out florida nice to see that the law is that i could not comment more thoroughly with regards to acorn and some of this information is coming to me as news today about this me as you seem to be deliberately trying to subvert the process and there's no need for it if they want to register voters register them properly and mr farrel in the comments well prior to working with the secretary of state's office i was chairman of the clark county board of elections and springfield ohio and interestingly enough we had a fraud case it was not with acorn it was with another group out of dayton ohio and a couple of things that were interesting because we actually had a hearing and took testimony to try and work with the prosecutor's office in clark county on this subject from what i recall there was a group that wanted to register voters and they subcontracted with an agency to do the hiring and the training of these folks that would go out and register what they believe were registered voters well they paid these folks based on the number of registrations that would come in well it didn't take long before one or two employees quickly figured out gee will make more money if we claim we signed up more people as voters and that in that particular and stents seem to be what led to the fraud if i recall the prosecutor pursued and the agency itself there wasn't any any type of conviction for but obviously the individuals that did this they were punished so it caused me to kind of think about who's really at fault here where's the real blame is it folks just trying to make a living that kind of overstepped or is it the come in periodic seem to be have it just dump a bunch of registrations on you at the last minute why would they do that well first let me say i think i've seen that happen on both sides of the out here in terms of dumping it on the last month the problem is that these groups i think all think that they're going to surprise the other campaign with how many people they register  the truth of matter is if it's if it's valid registrations that we're after as groups i'm in we welcome all the groups to do this but they need to turn those in as they collect them as they get them from folks so that there's an orderly process here and so that we can indeed make sure that the voters done everything the voter needs to do to be on the roads if they'll do that then we've got legitimate voters we're communicating with well in advance of an election but by dumping registrations they may be turned in but those voters those those fake registrations are never put on the voter books they're they're caught through our checks and balances that we have as local officials that we find them and then we say ok these are fraudulent they don't go on the rolls those people don't show up to vote so so in that instance the system does work i have personally instigated six cases of elections fraud and gotten four convictions when i was in ohio and the petition the fraud occurred at the petition level when as mr farrel said when organizations pay people to go out and get signatures for referendums or initiatives or for campaign aides and they're paid a dollar a signature or two dollars a signature they tend to pick up the phone book and fill out the forms and they tend to be the unluckiest human beings in the world because they pick dead people that we discover that are still in the phone book so there is some fraud that exists but i believe it exists more at the petition level than at the voter registration level we catch the fraud at the voter registration level and i think we're doing a pretty good job of preventing fraudulent voters i'm from michigan and they were very suspicious of fraud in apologize to the members of this panel for not being here we've been trying to deal with the financial crisis in which we have found ourselves but assure you that it was because of that crisis that i was not here because i think we could having in an impending crisis around this election and that would be devastat equally devastating if that were all or people in the united states walk away from this election believing that it has not been administered fairly has not been you know in the machines have broken down the people have been standing in line for ever and you know so this is a serious serious concern especially given the level of interest in this especially given the level of new registrants and when i walked hear that we need to lower the expectation of voters this is a democracy that at least until until recent is was was a symbol of democracy around the world and we should have the very highest expectations the last couple of elections we really had some serious problems actually being from north carolina and knowing the level of undercount that have historically taken place going back not decisive outcomes potentially but certainly in indicative of real serious problems in our election system have high expectations because this is america so i hope that that we can conduct in the election this time and one of the concerns i have been used in the past and i don't think that's going to work in this election we know that turnout in various communities is going to be much much higher than it has been and  for us to be using the same models that we've used in the allocation of machines based on historical voting patterns in my opinion would be irresponsible  i can't say to my voters to lower your expectations about being able to get into into the voting booth to cast your vote in some reasonable time and i shouldn't be asking my constituents to lower their expectations i should be doing everything i can to to to  live up to those expectations because i believe that's what america is and i'll democracy should be expected and that's what we're expected to do around the world is going to recognize german from ohio mr jordan thank you i thank the chairman and i want to thank our witnesses for being here today and for the work you do back in your respective states to help our election process i want to focus on my comments to our my fellow buckeye from the county just south of the one i live in mr carroll mr and i want to pick up where where congress mccarthy was just a few minutes ago and talk about this this overlap that is going to be there in ohio law starting next tuesday where early voting can start and registration can can still be done and you can you can do it on the same day ohio law as it was pointed out and mr mccarthy is questioning how laws like most of  pennsylvania's law got to be a citizen you got to be eighteen years old you got to live in the state you got a vote in the precinct in county you reside in and you have to be registered to vote for thirty days prior to prior to voting next tuesday the absentee ballot voting can start in our state and it's my understanding that on earlier this month on the eleventh the secretary of state issued a directive saying that in fact you can do just what mr mccarthy described about in the potential problems that are associated with that in my judgment and frankly in his judgment you can come in and she's going to allow people to come in and register and same day vote is that is that the case mr  i believe she advised boards to follow the past practice and yes allow that to happen and explain to me how that complies with the ohio law which when i read it says the citizen of the united states eighteen years old and has been registered to vote for thirty days how can how can we allow someone to come in and register and vote on the exact same day how that how they comply with being registered thirty days well first let me point out i'm not an attorney sol i'll try and tell you what i have heard from some of the election attorneys in our office i think what this hinges on is is the term vote is that when the ballot is turned in or is it when the ballot is counted absentee ballots in ohio are counted on election night so one of the things that can happen in between the ballot actually being counted on election night and when that absentee was cast regardless of whether it was during the five day window or six days prior to the election is a voter registration there is a process to check and safeguard and detect someone that maybe is not eligible to register with that in person absentee ballot it goes into a non below and can be polled if you will prior to by the board or if someone wants to challenge it and say we have reason to believe this voter registration wasn't what do you do when someone comes in in this situation what are you going to do to verify that that they are in fact a residence i mean what you going to do to check and make sure they're an eligible voter well boards have a couple of things that they usually do to check one is my colleague from pennsylvania had mentioned there is a statewide voter registration database they instantly look up to see if that person registered somewhere else and the other thing is they do have a window of time to process and mail a notice to this person if that notice were to come back as undeliverable or there were some sort of flag regarding residency again because that ballot is in a novel open and set aside and not to be counted until election night the board then could have a decision made on that voter registration which would disqualify that through because the vote actually count the election day that's or understanding that's my understanding what if let me give you a scenario then what if what if find a poll worker and assigned to work at the republican polling station on a primary election day and knowing that i'm going to be busy that day i get an absentee ballot before the primary election and i and i asked for a democrat ballot would and i and i both that and turn that in would  would that disqualify me from being a poll worker on for the republicans on that primary day i'd have to check on that i don't know the answer right off the top of my head i apologize my guess it would  you know if i pull a democrat ballot i'm signed to work as a republican poll worker my guess it would disqualify me for that day but according to your logic it shouldn't because that that vote won't be counted till the end of election day later and i'm not officially a democrat until that's that's actually counted that's my concern with the ruling the secretary of state's put on a plate it doesn't make sense to me doesn't square with the law but more importantly it's the issue that's in our reps and mccarthy brought up can we really do the due diligence had the tran transparency that we need to make sure we're having fair elections and now that you've mentioned that i do believe under ohio law a person's party affiliation is determined by the ballot they cast a in the primary and i believe that affiliating happened i would say most and i would say most of the highways most americans think you vote when you vote not thirty five days later whenever when it's counted when you vote is when you vote and you should have been according to a higher law a an elector for thirty to register for thirty days prior to doing that that's the problem with her ruling and it's my understanding too she did this in a directive on september eleventh ohio law says that directives that for a while and don't have to have public notice public comment after september september after september twelfth they do she issued this before there could be the public comment and notice and all the things that are that are required under ohio law that's true i'd have to check the dates are and i don't know if this was an advisory you're referring to when it doesn't mean what it was it's directive two thousand and eight dash ninety one issued on september eleventh regarding this very issue this this overlap and when absentee voting and registration can both take place and because  upcoming election particularly in light of the supreme court ruling that upheld the in skin this is an issue of great debate throughout the nation and again i stand by the the belief that every state you know adopt lawson procedures that are suited for their state in pennsylvania we don't have a photo id requirement we do want to make sure though that we can verify the identity of voters for first time voters so we do have an id requirement but includes not only photo identification but also forms so non photo identification such as a recent bank statement paste up utility bill that shows a person's name and address other states again the issue has been debated at length and the belief is that having the photo id city turned to fraud and i respectfully just will comment that again those states have believe that that's in their best interest and they believe that their what they have ways to mitigate the use of the requirement of a photo id without disenfranchising voters but again that i think that's a question that is best suited for states that have that type of requirement battle is going on for forty years in terms of elections and there are some who honestly feel that we should indeed have photo id on every one of them there are those who say that by doing that you're really disenfranchising votes and  not had it for a long time are a laboratory and at this point so far the allegations that it will that it will slow down the process or cause administrative problems for the process see not to have pared out on the other hand it still doesn't solve the age old argument whether or not it may or may not be fair to certain elements of society i think as long as the governments of the states that do it actually make sure that they take care of paying for it if they if they're going to order it if they pay for it so that everybody that needs one has got one then it seems to work ok know my thought was that for the states that have those kind of requirements again i'm on record as being very much against those requirements but for the states that have chosen to do that i think it's important for them to do some public comment and notice so that people don't arrive at the ballot box and not not have the proper equipment id i agree with you know you don't you don't want folks showing up not knowing that they  registration if they did we'd have a whole lot less likelihood of them being in the wrong place but the photo id thing at least so far all i can tell you is just from what the experience has been so far seems not to have been a major problem that doesn't mean it won't be or that that we because what happened in indiana there was the story about the ninety eight year old nun who was turned away from the ballot box  some of her colleagues were too and some of other folks were not is true this is the first time it was implemented and it's maybe it won't be as bad in the general election but i think it's important for the record to be clear there were people who were turned away in indiana who would be otherwise eligible voters what i think i want to think we were really confronted with first time voters and experience voters and first time voters in those are to two distinct categories because you've got some that are occasional voters because they this is not a habit for them they don't know what to do in each instance in particular if they change residents of the state they were in they are going to be the ones that we have the most difficult time explaining the folks yeah but you needed this in order to do this and so that's always an issue for us it's one of the reasons that i think you heard secretary curtis saying that you know in pennsylvania he's pushing very hard to make sure that every voter knows what is expected of them before they get to the polls and that's one of those things that we wish we just had money so that we could advertise  god give us some great relief just not to see a presidential ad once in a while so i had about voting you know what about that though i mean what about the i mean elections are public in nature i mean madoff and thought to myself that might be a good public service announcement some of these states to say hey look you know this is what you need in order to vote and again you know in indiana and other states that have these requirements my thought is look while i'm against these requirements i think they're  that we hadn't had in the past what ordinarily happens and i can't say this in every instance because i don't i haven't looked obviously the whole sudden thousand five hundred years directions but what ordinarily happens is that the elections officials are in the they're trying to tell you publicly in public moves announcements they're mailing you know with the with the voter registration card of telling you where your polling place is also what you need to have with you in order to vote  sometimes that's gets there sometimes it doesn't sometimes people read it sometimes they don't remember getting it you know this is where we are we try to notify but truth matter is we don't have the funds on the administration's election administration side to do what would really be most effective which is radio and television advertising to tell folks what they know well i'll take that as we need to start thinking about mr lewis thank you net my next question in will be my last one is you know one of the things that also i think is somewhat disturbing is that in the last election there were a number of jurisdictions in which before the election people got flyers that were stating improper and actually inaccurate information that was i think designed to discourage them from voting for example in milwaukee there was something that flyer that had milwaukee black voters league you cannot vote in less you have if you have any outstanding child support if you have any unpaid parking tickets and then the course this is just that was just milwaukee these flyers were found all over the country and they were different and  people can call to get that quick voting information and if you find out there's this sort of voter suppression campaign going on what can you do about it congress congressman i'm happy to address that issue nasa is releasing today a survey of all the states in terms of our preparedness and that's one of the issues that we cover and i'm happy to report that thirty six states have toll free hotline that they utilize to report not only concerns that they may have but to have questions answered as well as to receive general voter information there also number of groups common cause in the league to have those hotlines available and we encourage people to report and to contact the state election officials or county election officials for clarification if i could and in fairness to our colleagues in indiana michigan georgia that have the photo id requirements i just want the record to reflect that those states are making id requirements central to their voter education and outreach so that it's taking place as we speak so thank you i think i think the real issue here  is one of fairness bareness is what democracy is about and any group or organization that seems to me to mis direct folks in terms of their rights as citizens of this country ought to be deplored every where this is just not right voting has to be fair and we cannot be your folks who we don't like or don't agree with show up at the polls if they're legitimate voters they're entitled to be there and we ought not to have anything that misdirects them in ohio the secretary of state's office is working closely with the attorney general's office if there are situations that occur such as you describe we would definitely want to work with them see what the options were and terms of possible prosecution thank you very much mr olson we were running under some time constraints and we have the next panel is seven but i know that mr jordan has a request for an additional question now which is as my colleague it's going to be really brief the reasons we got to get to the next panel is members come back the weight of law and must be followed by boards of elections and advisory is pretty much just advising them of here's what the law is and i want to be clear a directive prior to september twelfth doesn't require notice and public comment a directive after september twelfth does under high law i'm sorry could you repeat that directive issued prior to september twelfth doesn't require public notice or notice in public comment a directive issued after september twelfth of this year part you know close to the election does require a notice in public comment that drew from my understanding yes that's correct to the directive on this overlapping voting was issued prior to the requirement that we have noticed in public comment if there was indeed a a directive issued prior to the twelfth then yes it would not require a matter active issued by the secretary of state after september twelfth up until today i'm sorry could you repeat that there been any directive issued after september twelfth and through seems to me a logical conclusion which she's trying to avoid any chance for notice and public comment by issuing advisor pinions after that date i'm i'm assuming the reason the advisories were issued was in response to additional here and they excuse the first battle and want to welcome our second panel of witnesses and ask them to come for let me thank our second panel the witnesses and given the size of the panel i will introduce each member of the panel separately and then ask them to make their five minute statement since there are a number of you our first witness will be gr welcome back the acting assistant attorney general in the civil rights division of the department of justice prior to her current position she was the deputy assistant attorney general the civil rights division as a former prosecutor in the criminal division of the heard from the first panel voters registering in record numbers and record turnout is expected at the polls and although the first panel witnesses in the constituencies that they represent have the primary responsibility on election day for administering elections there is an important role for the justice department to play and we are preparing our part i'm fortunate to have a tremendously talented and hardworking team of about forty attorneys and forty nine attorneys in the has no role in our decision making in this election year i know that members of this committee are particularly concerned about voter intimidation the division takes a multifaceted approach to combating and preventing voter intimidation first we've successfully brought lawsuits under section two of the voting rights act that have included allegations of voter intimidation based on race color or membership in a language minority group who brought cases in new jersey pennsylvania georgia boston florida and mississippi for example we have addressed situations in which voters were subjected to hostile and discriminatory remarks and unfounded in discriminatory challenges that they've had their ballot choices improperly influenced or changed that entrances were blocked at polling places that attempts were made to bring him to eligible voters from voting that voters were challenged on the basis of race and that the subjected to hostile treatment another way to prevent voter intimidation is to empower vulnerable voters for example we're brought ten of the twelve cases ever brought under section two zero eight of the voting rights act to ensure that voters have the a sister of their choice in the voting booth in addition we've brought twenty nine cases under the language minority provisions of that act translated voting materials and bilingual poll workers empower naturalized american citizen voters and can prevent the intimidation from occurring at the polls third the divisions election monitoring program also helps to ensure that voters are not intimidated so far during calendar year two thousand and eight we have sent three hundred ninety seven federal observers and a hundred fifty eight department personnel to monitor fifty one elections in forty seven jurisdictions in seventeen states on november fourth hundreds of federal government employees will be deployed in counties cities and towns across the country the department will have a toll free hotline with interpretation services will have a fax number an internet based mechanism for reporting problems as part of our pre election outreach efforts we've heard concerns over the longstanding practice of using small numbers of criminal prosecutors as monitors on election day and while we've not heard of any actual intimidation resulting from this practice and have never received complaints from voters about it we nevertheless take these concerns very seriously therefore out of an abundance of caution have determined that no criminal prosecutors will be used as monitors on election day i know that the committee has also been concerned about voter i d laws and while the supreme court has decided that indiana's voter identification l constitutional on its face it's important to emphasize that the court also held consistent with the department's position that individuals can sue if a voter id law is applied to then in an unconstitutional manner in addition the civil rights division is prepared to take action if it if an idea law or any voting law is being of in force in a discriminatory manner for example this summer we filed and favorably settled a voting rights act section two case in pen's grove new jersey that included allegations that hispanic voters were required to show more identification than white voters and this is even though the state law did not require any voter identification in conclusion the department stands ready to take any appropriate law enforcement action whether civil or criminal response to voter intimidation statutes that we enforce remain committed  forcing all of our statutes where warranted by the facts in the law thank you very much thank you mr beck second witness today this panelist paul hancocks who is a veteran voting rights litigator he was one of the litigators and bush versus gore at the i've addressed this issue as a department of justice official i've worked on complying with the voting rights act as a deputy attorney general for the state of florida and i was involved in one of the most contentious voting rights cases in the history of our country and i think the  overall theme that i'd like to state here today is is that presidential elections are not rerun so when we talk about preparing for this election what we need to do is have a procedure in place a program in place for done a filing the problems before the day of the election and correcting those problems before the day of the election or at least promptly as the election is taking place that differentiates this election from any other election that is conducted the voting rights section of voting section of the civil rights division also often has had two observers in place designed to monitor the election to decide whether problems existed in work to correct those problems later that doesn't work in a presidential election the problems need to and corrected before the election is held the only legal authority for the department of justice to observe the election process at the polling place arises from the voting rights act and the sole legal basis provided by the voting rights act for department of justice officials or federal observers to enter the polls to observe the process of the department billie's as a reason basis for believing that there may be a denial of the right to vote on account of race color of the language minority guarantees of the voting rights act that's the only reason for being there the voting rights act was passed after a really sorry history in our country of voter intimidation and suppression directed at blacks and it was directed under the color of law by law enforcement officials by state government officials we've come a long way since then and this is the candidates prove that in this election but the act is been in effect for only forty three years many americans who will turn up to vote at this election and many of them who have been away from for many years have lived through this oppression in the intimidation that was effectuated under color of the law department is under must apply a difficult balance here of having monitoring to make sure that there's not a denial or bridgeman of the right to vote count of race color or language minority status at the same time making sure that ron foresman isn't used in a way that will will have a countervailing effect of intimidating people from voting i'm pleased with what ms backers said a minute ago that criminal prosecutors aren't being used to monitor the election process this year because that reflects the consideration that needs to be given to the problems  arise at this election likely as we said will likely have the largest turnout and certainly the largest black turnout in the history of our country and we can expect that they will be confusion on the polls on the day of the election and i suggest that preparations be made to avoid that would like to just state some disagreement with what mr lewis said in the first panel and that is i believe that election officials do have a responsibility to direct voters the right polling place in that is important in the context of the way the provisional ballot law has been implemented by the states let me just take a minute to explain that one when florida and acted it's election reform legislation after the two thousand problems a provisional ballot provision was in that election reform legislation in the florida law like the law of many states provided that a provisional ballot would be counted as a valid vote not not it wasn't necessary wasn't complete it wasn't to be counted merely because a person was properly registered to vote it would only be counted if the person was properly registered in actually appeared at the proper precinct so if the voter was supposed to be at this table and went to that table in their given a provisional ballot that ballot isn't counted in florida and it isn't counted in many other states that's the department of justice was very concerned about the that provision of florida law in the course of the section five review process and granted section five pre clearance only on the condition that election officials would be forgive before they gave a provisional ballot to any voter would first look up the proper precinct for the voter and direct that voter to the proper precinct before they gave him a provisional ballot i suggest to you that in many states and it's not uniform but in many states including florida provisional ballots are an  promise they often most often aren't counted most often aren't valid votes in the reason most frequently that they're not valid votes as the person is just voting at the wrong table they showed up at the wrong schoolhouse however now requires that that state officials maintain a master list of registered voters and there should be no issue with election officials before giving a provisional ballot first direct voters to the proper precinct the  and leave it for questions thank you mr hancock our next witness is karen narasaki who is the president executive director of the asian american justice center has been a long i'm advocate for the asian american community and as a leading expert on immigrant civil liberties and human rights here right now five minutes thank you mr chairman i ask that our longer written testimony be submitted for the record without objection thank you according to the census more than four million voting age citizens who are latino asian american or american indian and alaska native and who speak english less than very well lived in section two or three covered jurisdictions in two thousand and eight years ago many naturalized citizens as you know who are also racial minorities face discrimination when voting and limited english proficiency systems can have difficulty understanding complex voting materials and procedures too often they face  impatient poll workers or denied needed or lawfully required assistance unfortunately section two or three noncompliance continues to be a problem as a result the department of justice has had to bring in forstmann actions against cities like the city of walnut in california on behalf of asian american voters in king county illinois on behalf of latino voters similarly the native american rights fund and the a c l u successfully sued alaska on behalf of alaska native to provide effective languages assistance to citizens who speak you pick the primary language of the new or to voters in the bethel region in the last with elections less than two months away we are urging that d o j remind jurisdictions about their obligations under section two and two of three offer technical assistance and continue to pursue the enforcement action they must work to ensure that these jurisdictions are ready for the tens of thousands of new asian latino native american voters who are being urged to come out this year some poll workers are reluctant to help language minority voters maybe they're unaware of how to help or they're suspicious of the bilingual poll workers or the voters in includes sending limited english proficient voters to the back of the line because they're taking too long or segregating them from the english speaking voters even more problematic or poll workers who are openly hostile and discriminate against these voters who are not completely fluent d o j should urge jurisdictions covered by two or three to do a better job of recruiting screening and supervising poll workers these poll workers who are hostile or unwilling to assist should not be tolerated and d o j accountable for not properly supervising and managing them problems also exist with poll workers who are under training for example many were aware of section two or three or the existence of provisional ballots in the last election poll workers are also confused as to what id requirements are required and this can result in racial net that profiling and wrongly asking minorities for i d s that are not required additionally many poll workers do not know section to w which allows minority voters to take a person of their choice into that voting booth d o j must continue to monitor for such problems a reminder stiction stood train specifically on these issues anti immigrant sentiments and rhetoric have been growing unfortunately and consequently asian american latino voters face hostility because of the erroneous assumption that they could not be citizens including unwarranted challenges their registration or at the polls or even intimidation we hope that the d o j will actively engage and closely monitor ears where they have been particularly heavy anti immigrant son immense or acrimonious policy debates to ensure that local election officials are doing all they can to prevent that kind of behavior from creeping into the polling sites finally a j c requests that department justice looks into why there's been a decrease in bilingual poll workers and santa clara and quitting the santa clara county's registers methodology for determining how many the workers are needed and whether or not there is section two or three noncompliance occurring we applaud the department of justice for bringing section two cases against your stiction such as the one that the assistant attorney general mentioned j also successfully brought an action against boston on behalf of chinese and vietnamese voters we urge them to monitor boston during the upcoming general election as they did during the recent primary we also urged them to continue to press the massachusetts secretary of state to fully transliterate candidate names in chinese language ballots in boston we believe that a fully bilingual ballot for chinese american voters includes these translated transliterated candidate names finally the congressional ition pacific american caucus has asked the department about its plans for upcoming election a letter dated august twenty eighth two it raises specific questions about several specific sites such as  d o j pre clear plan under section five that will reduce the number of chinese and korean interpreters poll sites in new york new york we're hoping that they answer these quickly in time for the elections so that corrections can be made thank you thank you and next witnesses brian alluring who is a graduate of the united states naval academy and a former f eighteen hornet pilot mr o'leary after you finish this time serving our country participated in helping the department please investigate the department of defense's voting harry truman wrote to congress regarding military absentee voting he said at a time when these young people are defending our country the least we at home can do is to make sure that they are able to enjoy the rights they are being asked to fight to preserve over fifty years later military voting remains of burdensome bureaucratic process that prevents our military men and women from being able to enjoy their rights as citizens i experienced this broken system firsthand as a marine when i was not able to vote despite my lack of success i was picked to be the voting assistance officer to help all of my brains vote my story is not unusual i'm voting officers have little or no training they're not jag lawyers the frontline officers oftentimes commanding soldiers sailors airmen and marines in battle it's absurd to expect that a young lieutenant who's commanding a platoon of marines in helmand province in afghanistan or ramadi in iraq is going to succeed sifting through local state and federal laws and regulations that are all different deadlines and ballot requirements that are all different in order to ensure his or her marines can vote while at the same time fighting a war in a remote austere environment clearly this is almost an impossible task even if that lieutenant could figure out all the different deadlines and rules it is unlikely that those marines would get their ballots in time to have them returned and be counted because of long delays shipping ballots to and from war zones for the votes of our men and women deployed to iraq and afghanistan to count today is their election day our military postal system has warned it deployed soldiers that they should send in their ballots no later than september thirtieth in order to be counted on time however unfortunately many states and counties will not even print their ballots in send them in till october and if those ballots do finally reach the correct local election official they are greeted by political party operatives and lawyers who are determined to rollout every military ballot that is not perfect throwing out a military ballot that was prepared in a war zone is shameful both political parties and both presidential campaigns should condemn any legal attacks or challenges challenging the validity of the ballots of our military men and women the evidence continues stack up that the d o t has failed our military men and women just last week the pew center on the states released a report that further documents that failure of those seventy seven percent of the military said they were very interesting in voting only twenty point four percent voted in two thousand and six that's half the rate of the general public in two thousand and six for the general public eighty five point eight percent of absentee ballots requested were cast versus only twenty six point five percent of military ballots if the military rates match the general public rates there would be roughly a half a million more military votes cast and counted mr chairman i would like to ask unanimous consent that he report being included in the record without objection sadly the election assistance commission results were even worse of the estimated six million military personnel dependents and citizens eligible only nine hundred ninety two thousand requested a ballot only three hundred thout thirty thousand of those were cast and we also know that forty eight thousand six hundred twenty eight were rejected this is a shocking rate of only five point five percent voter participation for military and overseas citizens this problem could have and should have been solved years ago that our industrial age bureaucracy has failed to embrace the information age technologies available today to securely encrypt and electronically transmit blank ballots to military men and women around the world congress directed the d o t to execute such a program in two should stop accepting those excuses and force action to fix this problem thank you for allowing me to testify today and look forward to your questions thank you mr leary are next witnesses james terry who is the chief public advocate for the consumer rights league and he and his organization have a long history of not only helping americans register to vote but also facilitating the participation in the political process terry five minutes but this mr chairman members of the committee i appreciate the opportunity to be with you today and i ask that my extended remarks be entered into the record without objection the consumers rightfully supports aggressive efforts to educate motivate register and assist all citizens in voting so long as those efforts are legal unfortunately there are some groups that don't seem to share that concern firsthand accounts from current and former employees of major news stories and court cases across the country expose corruption at every level of the association of community organizations for reform now or acorn to truly grasp the potential impact that acorn's activities may have on the upcoming elections in future elections it is important understand their structure acorn is a massive organization with one hundred  fifty subsidiary organizations an estimated one hundred ten million dollars budget this year that essentially controlled from the top down thus there should be no distinction between crimes or alleged crimes perpetrated by personnel from affiliates like project vote or those from acorn a careful observer will note a ten year record of voter registration fraud on the part of acorn and project vote ten years and five election cycles is not a series of mistakes it's a pattern in fact rather than showing any signs of improvement all signs point to increase lawbreaking a quick snapshot of acorn's record from one thousand nine hundred eight to two thousand seven alone includes thousands of false or fraudulent registrations in missouri at least two convictions of ex acorn employees following colorado's two thousand and four election the two thousand and four arrest of a former acorn employee in minnesota with three hundred voter registration cards in a struct the two thousand and diet of seven workers in washington state which had been cited earlier as the worst case of voter registration fraud in the history of the state and april two thousand and eight hundred eight former acorn employees in missouri pled guilty to voter fraud in a two thousand and two thousand and six election each time acorn is accused of faulty registrations the organization blames a handful of its supposedly rogue workers it promises to clean up its act and impose tighter restrictions yet after ten years they've not been able to do so in two thousand alone acorn's activities have prompted calls for investigations in nearly a dozen states louisiana pennsylvania connecticut new mexico texas nevada ohio wisconsin michigan north carolina and just as recently as yesterday you can add florida to the list in july pennsylvania officials charged a former acorn employer with nineteen counts of perjury making false statements forgery and identity theft in new mexico bernalillo county officials are currently investigating eleven hundred possibly fraudulent cards in texas about forty percent of the twenty seven thousand registration cards gathered by acorn from january to july have been rejected or placed in limbo i michigan a case that was cited earlier secretary of state said problems appear to be sizable duplicate fraudulent applications in widespread and acorn i mean and ohio acorn pattern of voter registration fraud apparently includes the seventy three registration cards turned in this year for just one individual hoga county election boards officials have compiled a binder of evidence of suspicious activity that binders more than an inch thick in wisconsin by the end of august milwaukee's election commission executive director had referred over forty nine individuals to prosecutors perspective voter registration fraud them thirty seven were acorn employees and just last week durham county north carolina's election officials asked for an investigation of dozens of cards submitted by and one was for a fourteen year old boy acorn routinely says it will clean up its act given its decade long history of voter fraud in belgium and misuses of taxpayer funds acorn pattern of fraud can no longer be dismissed as a series of unfortunate events we know about the thousands of fraudulent voter registration cards turned in by acorn and caught by officials but given the size of acorn's efforts and the fact that the abuses appear to be systemic we believe it is fair to question how many more fraudulent registration registrations have not been discovered and furthermore as this mega organization with a decades long history of bilingual law is turned to get out the vote efforts we believe it is fair to question how many fraudulent registrations may lead to fraudulent votes or what other activities they may be willing to undertake to influence the election these are serious questions especially in light of recent election results which show that just a few votes can change the outcome of an election while we do not presume to tell this committee how to address this problem we respectfully submit that our nation's election system is facing a concerted campaign that raises serious issues that merit the committee's oversight and attention thank you for the opportunity to speak today and look for your questions thank you mr chairman our next witness is vasyl and benson who is an assistant professor of law several years ago i served as a law clerk to the honorable damon j keith a federal judge in the u s court of appeals judge keith famously cautioned us that democracies die behind closed doors democracies also die i believe when the doors that lead to political participation and enfranchise men are pushed to close they die when americans lawfully seeking to cast a legal ballot are deterred or disenfranchised and they die when government actors fail to ensure that pathways to democracy are free from the congestion of challengers who block lawful voters from participating in an election this role of election challengers whether they be representatives from political parties or other groups in the polls on election day has increased in prominence in recent elections today i would like to detail a recent controversy in michigan over the use of foreclosure lists to challenge the residency and thus eligibility of voters on election day two weeks ago a website called michigan messenger reported  republican party challengers may be using list of foreclosed homes to challenge the eligibility of voters when they arrive to vote michigan demographics may suggest that voters on the list may be disproportionately african american now these allegations denied and i'm not here today to challenge those denials i instead wish to highlight the resulting confusion in michigan over whether voters facing foreclosures wonder now whether they would will still be entitled to vote in november the fact is that under michigan law voters cannot be challenged without good cause and under michigan law only residents who have moved outside of their city or township to another county prior to september fourth are required to reregister at their new address voters who move within a county according to the michigan secretary of state are permitted to vote one last time at their old address thus the listing of a voter's residence on a list of foreclosed homes does not in and of itself provide sufficient information to indicate that that voter has moved to a new home outside of that county prior to september fourth two thousand and eight nor should any list acquired from mailing sent to those foreclosed homes that bounce back as undeliverable lead to similar conclusions to the voter confusion that i've observed in michigan since these stories emerged been in my view compounded by a lack of clear clarification of the law from election officials in the state for that reason first recommendation today is that in michigan and in any other state dealing with voter confusion the state's chief election authority issue clear directives to local election officials and the public on the law that ensures that voters and election officials are empowered with the full understanding of the law my second recommendation is similarly that election officials and gauge an extensive public education efforts and outreach that are focused on explaining the how's and mechanics of voting in addition to press releases public service announcements mailings phone calls and also posters in the polling place that simply state the law in its entirety are i believe required to ensure that this education campaign is successful in addition i believe in education campaign is best coupled with my third recommendation the development of collaborative relationships with community based organizations these organizations i believe know best what the needs of their communities are and a collaborative relationship between elected officials and these organizations can help ensure that both are perceiving in the best interest of the voter my last two recommendations deal with training and regulating challengers and poll workers i believe that mandating training for challengers in michigan and other states and also improving training for poll workers will ensure that both are equipped with the knowledge of the law and ensure that the law is followed on election day i also recommend the use of comment cards in the polling places on election day that would empower voters to interact with poll workers and evaluate and offer feedback on their experience thank you for the opportunity to rights law firm that has served as legal counsel for african americans over the course of the last several decades l d s has provided testimony in support of the voting rights act of one thousand nine hundred sixty five another federal voting rights laws and core voting protections the last two presidential elections have significantly undermined public confidence in our political system so what i'd like to do today is take my time to identify some specific action steps that the department of justice can and must take to help restore that lost faith and confidence and help ensure that this election is a smooth one first d o j must deploy federal observers to protect minority voters in those areas of the country where we're hearing complaints of potential voter intimidation and suppression tactics that might rear their head on election day second d o j should terminate its use of criminal prosecutors as poll monitors and i want to take a moment to recognize acting assistant attorney general attorney general backroads recent decision to to cease this practice but let me take a moment just to provide some context about why this is been a very important issue for us that the legal defense fund criminal prosecutors at u s attorney's offices have been at the front lines of aggressive vote fraud investigations that have been taking place around the country in recent years and there certainly is a very long history that has shown that law enforcement officials and prosecutors who lie at the heart of their efforts can have the effect of intimidating minority voters at the polls we are pleased that the department of justice has decided to reconsider its practice and shift course here and certainly hope that this will become a permanent policy on the part of the justice department third the justice department should divel up an action plan for election day an action plan to respond to the serious problems that might emerge both on or mediately prior to the election we want d o j to be proactive and we're in a position where we can forsee and anticipate some of the problems that are likely to arise we know that there will be high turnout we know that there may be long lines we know that we face the potential of seeing situations that we've seen during the two thousand and two thousand and four presidential elections emergency election day litigation may be necessary to ensure that all voters receive a fair and equal opportunity to cast their ballot although the relief that would be sought in any emergency litigation will vary depending on the facts  hand we certainly know that an extension of poll hours may be appropriate in those jurisdictions that are not equipped or prepared to handle high turnout or in areas where machines malfunction or where polling sites open late by way of another example a court order may add value where poll officials are failing to offer provisional ballots to voters pursuant to the help america vote act in recent elections it's been the advocacy community and civil rights organizations that have largely borne the burden here d o j should construct and publicize its own plan for turning to the courts on election day where local and state officials prove unwilling to voluntarily take steps necessary to quickly resolve the problems that might emerge forth the justice department's goal should be our goal making sure that everyone who wants to vote in this election cycle gets to do so and what does that mean that's making sure right now that there is compliance across the board with the mandates of the national voter registration act making sure that d m v than other state agencies are offering registration opportunities it's mandated by state law making sure that those agencies are timely transmitting those forms to election officials so that the forms can be processed but above and beyond d o j statutory enforcement responsibilities i also think that d o j can use it leverage to encourage state and local officials to make every effort to go above and beyond their ability to reach historically disenfranchised population in the state of alabama a local activist by the name of reverend kennet glasgow recently initiated a nonpartisan voter registration drive aimed at reaching eligible but not yet registered voters inside of local jails although the registration drive was initially supported by the alabama prison commission or the dr was terminated after receiving complaints from the state's republican party leadership to the extent that these eligible voters a disproportionate number of whom are african american mayor already the and the and this committee to consider a post election oversight hearing that measures the success in the administration and conduct of the november election against a series of very good recommendations that have been offered during  quickly during the first panel there was a lot of conversation about a particular group called acorn and mr terry made some statements that were shall we say on a flattering with respect to that group so may consult the record to your knowledge there any pending federal and or its membership and activities connected with acorn that's a very important issue that is an issue which is typically handled by criminal prosecutors in the ninety three u s attorney's offices around the country but do you know of any consultation  of the election crimes of the public integrity section of the criminal division and they would be the ones that would be in the best position to know that we in the civil rights division are focused primarily on the voter access and the voter intimidation and suppression arm of it understanding is that frankly i'm not familiar with that instance i know of one instance where there was men died when that was brought after the zero four election my understanding is that it was at the federal level my understanding is that that a diet was dismissed and very unusually it was dismissed with prejudice meaning that the government couldn't come back and bring the claims again so i simply want to make that observation given consistent references to a corn a day but i want to move to another lot of questions professor benson talked at ms bakker about allegations regarding my believe the state of michigan and regarding efforts in michigan to prevent people who may have been foreclosed from casting about when you hear professor benson's testimony what's your reaction to someone who's in charge of enforcing the voting rights laws does that send up a red flag to you people trying to limit the vote for folks we've been foreclosed if those allegations were true that would be something that would be of concern to us in the civil rights division of notice of foreclosure doesn't necessarily mean is you know that somebody is no longer living in their particular home doesn't mean that they've been evicted or the homes been repossessed and so that is something that  to continue to monitor closely we would be focused primarily on civil rights division if that information is being used to challenge voters at the polls in a discriminatory fashion on the basis of race color or because their intimate language minority group that would be something that we would be looking for we also be concerned if they were using those lists improperly removed voters from the voter registration list to the extent they may implicate some of the statutes that we enforce here in  the you know page you're concerned about it there have been various newspaper reports and you have a lot of witnesses here today who appears to be knowledgeable on the question what steps is the department of justice your particular division taken since you've heard about the nile is what you're here for the facts are reduced second set of questions there was extensive reporting in the metro washington region about erroneous information given out by a virginia registrar which suggested that college students could if they voted in virginia their parents could lose their ability to claim them as a deduction that they could lose their financial aid you're aware of those news reports as i am does that concern you that is also something that has been of concern to the civil rights division and what steps have been taken based on that concern the rules determining when college students can register to vote in their particular jurisdiction vary from state to state and certainly as we heard from the from the first panel there has been some action taken at the local level or the state level to address the situation but it's primarily a state law matter as to whether or not the students can register and whether or not  y are being improperly was a state law matter upon residency a state law matter but the voting rights act obviously covers state law yes and our concern here would be along exactly along those lines  congressman davis in that if it implicates one of the statutes that we enforce if if we're seeing that these allegations are resulting for example in improper rejections of voter registration lists in violation of one of the friend from arizona and i'll extend him additional minute as well what you just said triggers the last question i want to pose to you the d o j web site there's a question and answer section of the question is what responsibilities as the justice department have with regard to voter fraud or intimidation and the answer on the web site says and some exceptional cases where voting fraud or intimidation of love and racial bias there is a local state or elections federal criminal charges may be brought by the criminal section the civil rights division i understand but you don't run that division but help me understand what that means in some exceptional cases because my understanding of the statute is that the statute confers upon the department of justice jurisdiction involving voter fraud or a temptation of valving racial bias in any local or state election i don't think a dilemma is between the exceptional the garden variety so tell me what exceptional means i don't have the website  in front of a boy and my understanding is as i have testified which is that voter fraud prosecution from all prosecutions are handled by u s attorney's offices around the country in consultation with a criminal division we have limited criminal jurisdiction in voting matters related to voter intimidation and voter suppression when race color or national origin or religion are implicated and that is set forth by regulation under twenty eight c f r section zero point five zero point three five so your position well thank you mr chairman and mr chairman and all sincere respect i wanted to address one of the questions you did ask related to federal indictments pending most of the indictments or potential indictments or investigations  or pending indictments that i was referring to in my opening statement would probably be pursued or probably are being pursued on the basis of state law and i think that that's an important consideration mr becker the pew center for the states military overseas citizen voting project just released a report confirming the fact that military voters cast votes at roughly half that of the general population eighty six percent of the general population who are who request absentee ballots actually cast those ballots but only twenty six percent of military personnel who request an absentee ballot cast their ballots very clearly those members of the armed forces who want to vote they obviously want to vote but they are not able to due to the tragic shortcomings in the system about delivery and that that has got to change it is a tragedy so how do you suggest that congress go about changing that injustice congressman thank you for that question reason a very very important issue as someone who's worked in the pentagon as a civilian for the united states army and for the department defense i think that this is a very important issue i can tell you that the enforcement of that statute the uniform and overseas citizens absentee voting act you acaba is shared between the department of defense and department of justice our role in the civil rights division is to ensure that states are giving adequate time  for sending out the absentee ballots to our men and women in uniform overseas as well as overseas citizens and providing enough time for it to come back just in the last week either prove to you recall the lawsuits and working with the jurisdictions try to resolve those issues this is the time period where we work very actively in that area to make sure that there's adequate time well before the election some of the issues that were raised by by mr earlier very important issues those are issues that fall within the jurisdiction of the department of defen and i have shared those concerns with department thank you very much respect for mr leary maybe i can turn to you first of all thank you for your service i know that individual such as yourself don't go out into wars to fight because they hate what's in front of them they do so because they love what's behind them and i honor you in every way sir as election day approached in two thousand and four there were stories circulating about parents of service members holding campaign headquarters on election day to complain that their son or daughter wanted to vote in the election but had not received a requested ballot and your opinion is department of justice doing enough to monitor the defense department's efforts to make sure that those dedicated citizens who are serving our country and their families have every opportunity to vote by absentee ballot in a timely manner to ensure that their votes count thanks congressman first of all i would be remiss if i didn't applaud that the d o d s work to hold the states accountable  unfortunately i mean you really have a broken system and we need to hold the department of defense accountable you know we've we've made it so that this broken system can be in effect where there are different rules and different requirements in every state for years the department of defense has said it's going to take forty five days ballots need to be sent forty five days prior in order to get there on time and we haven't we haven't changed anything the department of defense is not facilitating it this year there were two minutes on the national defense authorization act on the senate side that failed to get a vote to expedite ballots coming back but you know when when we say over and over again that it takes forty five days and there are still states that aren't printing and sending their ballots until october in these in at the same time the military postal service is saying the ballots need to be sent from afghanistan or iraq on september thirtieth we have a problem we have a civil rights issue and it's a civil rights issue that's worth litigating over well mr larry my guess my last question you know obviously this is got to fact every one of the committee i know you know i'm just going to be there's a pink elephant the room and that is a lot of the military favor republican candidates and certainly that might be part of my motivation here but the ultimate and the deepest motivation here is to see those people who rather than talking about freedom as we do on this panel are going out and giving their lives to defend it and if they don't have the opportunity to vote it just seems like the the it's a disgrace to the entire system so if you could say any one thing that you could could do to the courage congress to do or the department of defense to do what would be one thing that you would do to try to solve this issue well i would urge congress to to call on the secretary of defense to immediately  ensure that military ballots get urgent handling now if that takes contracting with fedex or u p s to to get overnight shipment of those ballots back from theater you know then that needs happen whether the and frankly one of the problems with that on the senate side is the is the postal unions that didn't think that was a good idea well you know what i think our troops should take a higher priority than the postal unions well thank you sir and thank you for your service and thank you mr chairman thank you thank you our next question there will be the distinguished share of the full judiciary committee before i recognize questions i simply want to make one quick addition to my friend from arizona his comments our remind us of al gore's excellent example in two thousand when he had an opportunity on a closely contested election to challenge military ballots he and his running mate declined to do so and i to make sure the hearing doesn't include without saluting them for that mr chairman i will leave the discretion to you they've just called about if you would like to proceed or if you'd like us to recess now and we come back and you pick up questions after votes  well i'm not so happy that he didn't challenge develops i mean why are we so i have to talk to both of you members after this hearing but anyway we're all here to learn  this may be one of the most important hearings that our committees together have ever had because the recent history in the department of justice where we can take care that and you've been before so i guess this is your third time before us we met i mean how long have you been in this position i've been with the civil rights division since march of two thousand and six and i've been acting since december of two thousand and seven  ok well you don't have much time because mr overton has written extensively on the subject that brings us here today  i think is most recent book is stealing democracy the new politics of voter suppression and just to make sure that you start in on it right away we're going to give you a copy of it well i suppose i should loan you a copy since we bought it through the government resources please again and that's about the same subject now review agreed before the committee hearing with the congresswoman so last grant and i'd like to add any of our colleagues of the two committees that want to join us we're going to be meeting extensively on this mr chairman you know we tried to have the department of justice the hearings there formal there's still the five minute limitations digressions the vote and there's a lot to be said and talked about if you've got two branches of the federal government trying to improve the voting system and we're only almost walking distance apart  why can't we meet more frequently without the stuff for and television and all that and so i'd like to i'd like for us to do that from this point on especially since we're not happy with with the way we've had only two or three meetings between staffs and there they were markedly insufficient know you're not responsible for all the problems that the committee has with the department of justice but we were all in this together that's the way i feel about it it's not going to be after november the fourth they'll be saying why didn't the department of administration committee doing with the whole subcommittee on elections and we're all working together everybody on both committe facilitate the vote we want to create open this we want to provide security we want the vetter the armed services to get into this we want to preclude fraud there's a whole range of activities that are at pro bono groups and nonprofit same goal now we're in a democratic system what is to prevent all of us from working very closely together over and above the committee hearings which they're not likely to be any more anyway to work together toward this great goal where we're anticipating perhaps the most numerous election participation in the history of the country in many ways it's a momentous election so i'd like to invite all of us who are willing and i understand that chris coats is here today is that where wh o is chris coats here ok i mean so what we want to do is work on these issues that there be a transcript  dozens and dozens of problems have been raised some have been adequately responded to but we can make this the most  improved election process like the gentleman in the first barrel who said we're not we're not seeking perfection all we want to do it is make it as efficient as reasonably intelligent people can make it so i'd like to in this not only miss becker who has already agreed to this but but to all of our panelists  we need to get their election system on track there are some things we can do like we can increase the funding the to the level that it should be i wish we could maybe do there is a way that we can but other than that we will need to be working together as well as we can and i feel better about this in closing mr chairman than i do than i did the last hearing about election i mean there were not very pleasant it seems to be we were want we're going to kind of figure out our housekeeping a mama's back or but before i do that i want to make one other observation i think i asked you about a question on the website and i think you clarified for me which you may in the language just say i want to ask you  staff to give you a copy of this because at a minimum we have a reference to an exception or front of the clause or front of a subject of reference to may and no matter where you are they can raise confusion so it's certainly not the most elegantly drafted sentence i've ever same and i'll ask you to look at changing this section but i reference so it says what you mean it to say and we have approximately seven and a half minutes left on a vote mr mccarthy my friend from california assures me that he will take less than five minutes so i recognize him thank you mr chairman my comments just mr larry because what you raise is one to me very very important we had a hearing and and i have a bill up and the companion bill over in the senate side mr souter corn as well what it does exactly what you recommend that contract out and allow where it would be traced delivery back and forth we send stuff across the sky three around the world you go on the internet you can see exactly where it is you know where it's located and i believe that would be a very good answers going forward and i'd like to work with you in the future on how to get this through because we had a hearing on it and i think there's some opposition on the other side because they're afraid somebody in the who might win the contract might not be union and i rather just see the men and women have the right to vote but i appreciate your service and if the chairman would indulge i would just yield yes or only thank i appreciate the gentleman yielding to thank you thank you and we're going to recess the hearing we have probably five minutes left in a vote the hearing will resume after approximately twenty five minutes in real time as we have about three votes hearing is a d going to call the committee back reconvene at this time i know we have maybe a couple of witnesses i'll be walking back in to await for their arrival but i can i can least tell you new holds for you and that will be just a couple of us here there may be others who will be filtering in but we do appreciate the patience that you have shown in your testimony is important and as you are aware your written statements are made part of the record as well as your your testimony this morning your responses to the questions at this time of who chair is going to recognize my colleague mr jordan from the great state of ohio and i want you to know that i was pulling for the buckeyes against u s c is he in turn out there dennis and we're of course will welcome back professor benson  when she arrives but i've been told that the question being posed by mr jordan is not to professor pence and so accordingly we proceed at this time i think the chairman i want to thank our witnesses for coming today and for your service particularly mr leary for your service to our country my question is actually going to go i'm going to go to mr hancock and mr kerry and i'll start with mr kerry and i want to just highlight what ohio is planning on doing what our secretary of state is planning on doing and this is raising the first panel when we had someone from the high was secretary of state's office here but starting next tuesday you can begin to vote absentee no fault absentee we have in ohio and you can also our law requires you register thirty days prior to be registered you know the simple thing to be qualified elector so there is going to be one week window of time where our secretary of state has said that is going she is going to allow  registration and voting same day registration of voting for this this week time time period starting next tuesday going through october sixth i believe there's real potential for mischief and problems there  want to get your thoughts what you think about that possibility and the ability to make sure that we have fairly actions make sure that we have qualified voters to make sure it's fair and i actually liked it when i looked at mr hancock's testimony you had a few sentences in bold print president elections simply are not a rerun even if you can't do i'm over it talk about potential problems must be identified resolved prior to election day heard we know this is going to be a record turnout election so with all them play it just i can't figure out why that and i think our law is clear that you shouldn't have to do this but nevertheless that's the decision of our secretary of state like your thoughts on that and certainly not an expert on ohio elections but i think anytime that you have a loophole or at least an apparently poll of that size with that kind of an overlap it should be concerning but i think from the respect of acorn and perhaps similar  groups is what would be even more concerning is the size of their effort if you look at you sort of ask the question you know how much damage can be done in a one week time you're looking at you know they've already produced hundreds of thousands of registration in the state of ohio and have you know hundreds if not thousands of individuals on the ground and i think that you would want to look at you would hope the research controls within their organization and controls within the state of ohio to sort prevent that overlap but i think the size of a loophole in the size of the operations that are going out there should be of great concern to me that you know one said vote is cast it's in it's in the form that they keep it at the board elections they're going to have this huge turnout it's going to be tough to to  really thoroughly check and make sure this individual was in fact qualified voter and we all know what happens on election night count the vote count the vote we haven't thoroughly checked out the vote and i think there's real problems for hancock like your comment  i would point out that the voting rights act women dated residency requirements for voting in the states laws that you talk about were all enacted in in accordance with that and it basically the structure is people who are probably properly registered and move shouldn't be denied the right to vote so they can either vote at their new location of their old location depending on the timing of when they move in that thirty day requirement is the federal standard that they as long as there are thirty days before the election they should be entitled to register and vote in of that if it's shorter than that they can vote where they were before so it is there are i share your concern about what happens at election day and there's going to be a lot of confusion on election day and  reiterate what i said before i think we will have a fair election if we try to address these issues before election day rather than trying to address them on the day of election but i do think that on the day of election that it's there will be a master list of all registered voters and where they should be voting the precinct that they should be voting in and a provisional ballots should be a last resort not not the first resort but only the last resort and the first step that should be made would be to look at that polling list to see if the people are not on the list of the of the precinct where they showed up are they properly registered in another precinct and they should be directed to that precinct before they're given a provisional ballot advanced and i think the department of justice can play a role in this just as it did with us in florida when i was with the attorney general's office and the department at that time was very active in making sure that as we implemented the new provisional voting procedure that we would do it in a way that that tried to make sure that people were properly registered but let's not this is a presidential election in many respects it should matter what table you go to you're entitled to vote for president if you're properly registered but we don't want to vote nullify just because they want to the wrong precinct in the department was very tough on us in florida at the time when i was with the state to make sure that we were going to do that right and i would hope that partner does the same thing with other states e actually we no longer have hostilities between north and south and in the state of california one time that did exist i'm interested in what the department of justice is going to do between now and election day we had a chance to talk briefly informally before this hearing began there were a number of problems in the two thousand and eight primaries that emerged  we know the problems that occurred in two thousand and four and i think it's wise for us to assume that some of those problems could present again director muller from the f b i was before the committee i think it was last week or earlier this week time flies at this point in the congressional session and ms waters asked what the f b i was doing to  investigate violations of the voting rights act i mean you know we have i have a couple of lawyers on the election subcommittee staff you have the entire f b i to find out about wrongdoing he didn't seem to know what they were doing on this can you tell us thank you very much for raising that important issue on the voting rights the f b i is certainly an important partner of ours in our criminal investigations both in the criminal division of the just department and when there's specific civil rights crimes that occur on an unrelated voting or all until all rights crime the voting rights act is a civil statute where we do not utilize the f b i our investigations of the voting that's within our jurisdiction to do with respect to the voting rights act we have filed a number of losses which are set forth in the written statement that i provided to the committee on the voting rights act in addition we done training to officials in all ninety three u s attorneys offices who will be at their offices on election day so that when they receive calls about potential violations of the voting rights act they will be able to direct it to the civil rights division we've done outreach with both state and local officials and with civil rights organizations to inform them about the statutes that we enforce but let me just ask you what about eleven b isn't that a criminal statute eleven b of the voting rights act is a civil is a civil provision that prohibits voter intimidation there are criminal statutes that also prohibit voter  intimidation for example eighteen u s c section five ninety four might be one potential statute that would be enforced by the section of civil rights division let me ask you about what we might do before secretary of state of arizona which has a very strict voter i d law that for those who did not have id that they did not have to offer a provisional ballot well that wasn't true i mean that was know what the impact was certainly wasn't a positive impact in terms of our opinion what is going to go out unsolicited from your department and how are you going to make sure that the advice given is correct and nonpartisan congressman i think it's very important for us to inform the jurisdiction of the statutes that we enforce have sent out letters on for example the uniform the over voting act because there are certain time frames where they need to get those ballots out forty five days before an election to those letters have already gone out and tend to send a did another letter to state local election officials to talk about the statutes that we enforce including the language minority provisions of the voting rights act which has been raised by other panelists here as well as other issues involving the wide variety of statutes that we enforce in the civil rights division so that they know what the federal law requires many of them are very experienced they've worked with us in the past or they've been sued by us in the past hopefully that will help inform some of their decisions now the attorney general has told civil rights groups that having a smoothly running out of election that was did not violate the civil rights of americans was very top priority for him and as we discussed before the hearing i am concerned that some practices that have been engaged in  have had not only the effect but i clearly the intent of suppressing or disenfranchising minority voters specifically vote caging programs that target neighborhoods that are minority primarily inhabited by minorities what is your department doing to stop that there are four different things that we can do in the civil rights division when we hear about allegations of vote caging if these vote ca lists that are compiled are being used to challenge voters at the polls in a fashion that's racially discriminatory and that's certainly something that we can bring a lawsuit under the voting rights act in addition if those lists are being used to improperly remove voters from the voter registration list that may be something that we can look at under the national voter registration act which under the m b are a way that for specific criteria in terms of when voters can be removed and if you look at five of the eight cases that we've brought under section eight of the m t r a ensure that voters who should be on the list are on the list either because jurisdictions of improperly allegedly improperly removed them or failed to include them when they should have included but let me ask you this there if if i don't know what kind of an investigative  effort is being made by the department but we have had in past years a ample evidence of vote caging efforts that were directed entirely to african american neighborhoods would that do you think that's proper and the other thing that we can what we can do if we find out about these alligator before election day we can send monitors and observers out to the polls but what are you going to do to stop the practice the racially motivated practice of suppressing african american vote votes oftentimes our presence at the polls on election day will ensure that those lists are not used at the polls you work with state and local election officials oftentimes they've cured the problem and they hear about allegations of if one of the federal statutes that we enforce or implicated we certainly are prepared to take any appropriate action i see my time is expired mr chairman thank you thank you very much mr i've been going to recognize myself for a couple questions quickly and grant the same question of each of you but i'm asked for a yes or no whether you agree with me or not i believe that the greatest greatest impediment or challenge to conducting fair elections robust elections and the fission elections in this country would be the following as far as of a hierarchy of concerns first and foremost would be the logistics of conducting the election and all that that would entail from polling place to the machines to the ballot including ballot design and then of course personnel proper training and competent personnel next i imagine a great impediment is going to be voter intimidation and rules and such that make it so hard so complex and misreading of those rules in such that deny people and then the ugly kind of disenfranchisement that some of macao leaks have referred to such as the caging the intimidation that was referred to in the written testimony by mister lewis of the poll watchers appearing to be officials when they're not and lastly but of concern and which has been brought out prominently in today's hearing is going to be the potential the potential for fraudulent registering and i use that word very carefully registering a vote not necessarily the casting of the votes but just voter registration and fraud do you agree with my analysis that that would be the hierarchy of impediments and challenges to the way we conduct elections today in attempting to achieve fair robust and efficient elections simple yes or no obviously you know this is a lawyer question where you just want to yes or no and i appreciate your patience with that and i'll start with attorney general back i think they're all very important concerns resources if you were a doctor and someone came into the emergency room had a serious head wound serious chest injury and a hangnail would you be getting all your resources to treat a hang no and that's our responsibility as elected officials as well as individuals in the different departments and agencies mr hancock your own experience i would say that that's a pretty comprehensive list and i wouldn't quibble with that i would say for this oversight hearing however that focuses on the voting section in the voting rights act that that suppression of minority voters is a very important issue in this election and in the previous colloquy here racial animus is not a necessary element of a claim under the voting rights act of people are targeted because of their race they may be designed maybe to achieve a partisan political but it still implicates the voting rights act and my friends in the department have always been put in a difficult position of enforcing the act when it might be viewed as having some partisan result we heard today about how overseas voters military voters might be more apt to vote republican that doesn't mean have any impact on how that all should be enforced we've heard how efforts to challenge suppression of black voters might benefit the democratic candidate that's not a factor in deciding whether the case should be brought if there are efforts to suppress voters in violation of the voting rights act the department has an narasaki i very much agree with your hierarchy of issues it strikes me i'm very excited because there is so much excitement among immigrant americans who have worked hard to be able to meet the requirements of citizenship and will be voting for the first time and anybody who had the opportunity to see someone be able to exercise for the first time the true mark of being a citizen in the u s has to be concerned about whether that person will be able to exercise and as you know as a minority you're never really can never really take for granted that you'll be welcomed at anywhere at the polls and i think the  heated debates about immigration are going to make it very challenging for many of these new immigrants to vote and i'm very concerned that their first experience would be one where they are made to feel not welcome whether it's because of intimidation or confusion lack of training i think all of those things would be quite a shame for this nation i do find that the allegations of voter fraud are very overblown and there are some very good studies said  i would like to submit to the record of possible one it's called the myth of widespread non citizen voting which was done by truth and immigration which is a project of the mexican american legal defense education fund and the other is the brennan center for justice a truth about voter fraud which documents a case after case that when you're talking about really a handful of votes a handful of registration that really does not impact the election but the issue for him and minorities who are made to feel unwelcome and unable to really cast a vote that will be a legacy that will hurt us for years to come well in this in our psyche let me clarify something you have something that you want to submit for the record is i correct yes sir ok without objection let the chair and then i will at this time i was unfortunately had to have a meeting with the speaker which prevented me from being here to receive the testimony although i've had a chance to read it and i was so anxious to ask ms becker the questions that i asked that i  didn't have a chance to say thanks to karen for being here all the way from you know she does wonderful work not only in california but throughout the united states and it's it's a pleasure to see someone from home who's here and i just neglected to say that and i also did why i'm advised by counsel that eleven b of the voting rights act although in the civil section is actually a criminal statute so i think we should find you know get to the bottom of that i don't want to get in an argument here today but maybe we can pursue that and reach a conclusion together on that on that point after the hearing and i thank the gentleman for your welcome retiming my time mr o'leary i know you're you're not here to give maybe this kind of opinion but i think you've had enough experience with logistics and how we do things but i want to make one comment i appreciate everything that you're doing you're now a resource in my book with my staff because we are getting responses from d o d and others that are not satisfactory as to why we can't start do and some boating projects and pilot projects with the military overseas via the internet so i will really welcome some of your important i'm not going to quibble one way or the other about priorities but really i think you know fundamentally what this gets fans who is a is a matter of will to do the right thing for the country thinking in the long term and not thinking in terms of what our partisan benefits are going to be if one group you know if we work for one group or work for another group we need to we need to think to the long term to the to the good of the country and i would hope that congress has an attention span that goes past the november election did i keep reminding us that thank you mr chairman mr terry i certainly agree with the list i think that they're all perhaps equally important because i think they're probably very in a related i mean if you and it takes all of them to i think what we've all agreed that the goal is that of fair elections and if you take for instance the voter registration component i think you can see where it will affect every other item on your list the logistics if you're talking about in cases where you're talking about twenty seven thousand  potentially fraudulent or erroneous even registrations the logistics of trying to deal with that at the polling place on election day the personnel it takes to do that certainly on the voter intimidation manipulation of registrations is sort of the  so they're all equally all equally relevant and should be addressed you know to to achieve a fair election yeah and i would agree with you conceptually the problem is to the degree and the extent that you have any of these factors actually existing not just the potential but the reality and so i'm saying we need to be dealing with the reality and i want to go on with the professor benson thank you i believe in data driven decision and based on that anything that blocks any eligible voter from voting and disenfranchise them is a problem and to your list i would add in that regard of voter education and clarity which i believe is the responsibility of the government to ensure that every voter is aware of her rights and that in that case what they arrive at the polls and they intimidated or told they can't vote that they are aware that they can and they are able to produce anywhere necessary evidence to ensure that they vote so i would add voter education on the qualifications of voting and the requirements on election day where the polling places and i would emphasize that i do believe it is the responsibility of of election officials in the government generally to ensure that every voter knows how to vote thank you very much the one thing that i would add to that with is the failure of a lot of states to put in place a contingency plan for the problems that we know are going to happen are going to emerge on election day we've got to be prepared to put in place a plan b for when plan a fails us we've got to be prepared to turn to the courts to get orders to extend poll hours or to the relief that's necessary that will make sure joining us to committee think it was quite productive today and of course i'm indebted to the witnesses for their stamina first and their contributions secondly the rhetoric that comes from the symbolic and actual importance and significance of voting can really quite remarkable i mean everybody agrees it's important sacred the basis of a democratic representative government what i wanted to ask as we close do any of you have any recollections of the history of voting in america i mean it is not the most beautiful picture you would want to teach young people going into the that are looking at the voting process this election is marketed for the young people that have been brought into and caught up in and engaged in the electoral process in numbers never before recorded but they're a long list of unsavory incidents in the history of the electoral process in america does anybody remember them besides me not that i was there but i have i've been around for a little longer than most everybody in this room  but using the gonzales technique let's go to the rural what do you think mr clark we were talking about the history to come into this as if without any full knowledge of what's going on before i can leave you in a rather elevated aspiration citizens in our country have the ability to exercise the fundamental right to vote so we at the legal defense fund continue to fight and will continue to fight and and expect that the other is here on the day as including the justice department will do everything in its power to make sure that all voters can cast their ballots in november thank you for reminding us of the very important history that came before all of us i'm a former resident of montgomery alabama and spent some time a lot of time in selma and so i in fact every march would go when i was down there to the bridge and take my students down there every march now to go to the bridge so i think it's crucial to remember that and back to what i was saying with regard to election administration i do you fully believe in data driven decision making with regard to the priorities for election administration and i believe in historical data as well in that regard i think voter intimidation and any ongoing efforts to disenfranchise any voter need to be taken in light of the context of history in the way that seemingly innocent policies in the past have been used to disenfranchise voters particularly historically to disenfranchise populations like african americans and latino voters and voters of asian descent and native american voters and so i think it's a priority for all of us to ensure that our election system encourages the participation of everyone disenfranchised is no one and that we move forward based on dressing any limitations that we know block voters from voting on election day thank you to the chairman i think perhaps the word recollection of my recollection is probably very different from yours probably more based on the things i've read in the books but i think that what we have as a country come a very long way through some very bad times but i think that there's one thing that we can probably all agree on leaving here today after the discussions is that we still have a long way to go and we certainly appreciate the committee's time in addressing this thank you mr chairman i think we can all agree that we all need to  fight to create a more perfect union but in that in that regard i think from women's suffrage to the civil rights movement this country has come a long way and we have a lot to be proud of and i know that it's the business of this body to look at the ways to make things better but at the same time we should recognize how great a system we have mr chairman my recollection begins actually even before you get to vote my grandmother immigrated in the one nine hundred twenty s from japan and by law she was not allowed until the one nine hundred fifty s to become a citizen because she had come from that all of these things are still happening and and when we had the hearings and when we reached out and heard from tribal leaders in south dakota who just four years ago were talking about how they were being deprived of their right to vote i think it's important for nailed it i would add that our preparation for this election has to be implemented in the context of that history and i would i would give you one example from our in florida in two thousand and i would add to what you said that the  discrimination was effectuated under color of law by government officials so when in two thousand police officers outside of tallahassee set up a driver's license checkpoint near a plaque polling place it was it was it was viewed as harmless by white citizens but southern blacks were intimidated because of what they lived through so this is not ancient history we're going to have a lot of voters who live through this and that's why it's particularly important as we balance this issue of vote fraud with the right to vote or the voting rights act that we not we do it in a very delicate balance so that in effect to a criminal laws we're not intimidating people from voting in that i think this department took forward with this year's plans to not use criminal for that reason so we we have a very i mean we've made remarkable progress in the in the candidates on this ballot show that progress but we still live in a context of very sorry history of discrimination in this country that we need to make sure as we plan for this election that we understand that and give you one other example in the housing cont someone in your generation who reads a housing ad that says housing is restricted might do that differently than it any younger african american person so we have to go forward with this plan for this election recognizing how discrimination can be effectuated in very subtle ways and it's not as i said before racial animus is not a prerequisite for a claim under the voting rights act the question is people being singled out or targeted because of their race or national origin or language minority status that's not a difficult standard and some of the things we're hearing about now certainly raise issues under the voting rights act that i suggested part men should be looking at actively with investigation thank people doing it believe that the persons are targeting or more likely to vote for the opposite party and the question is what's their reason for believing that the detroit county incident and i'm not going to discuss the merits of that i'm just going to discuss the allegations but if people who face foreclosure notices are being targeted to be challenge the question is why does someone believe that people who had a foreclosure notice are most likely to vote for the other party and if you look at foreclosure statistics they would show that they're disproportionately minority so there becomes a link there we know in this election that people could be targeted for suppression based on the cover of their skin because of the candidates that we have in this election so yes i would say that those allegations raised claims under the voting rights act i'm not commenting whether they can be proved or can't be proved but i think that they certainly raise issues that implicates the voting rights that bravery a woman who was just a regular person like so many americans are today and while progress has been made i agree with the other panelists that there is more work to be done  looking at just a little bit different dimension we have also in the history allegations of a lot of unsavory practices in voting for half a pint of whiskey if you vote and vote right whatever that might have meant to the which the ward boss would go into the polling place but the voter to make sure he or she voted the right way there wasn't any no one was depending on anyone's integrity and we've had i hate to raise this with the chairman and the sea air but in texas we've had some elections that involve former president lyndon johnson that have been written about and from different perspectives indeed even the kennedy election within memory  was highly debated and contested for many many years louisiana you could write volumes about voting practices there that i can only hope have been and it and throughout the south in its entirety so what are you suggesting chairman conyers well i'm suggesting that that we keep these things in perspective as the  and the whole notion of war by any other means people this is a great way to duke it out and america is to win office i think it was time or newsweek magazine said it will mccain when nasty everybody knows what that means they could put ins anybody michigan or else well and of course that at michigan state it's just reverse and so it is across the country i mean sports is a great way to get it off your chest let's pulverize these guys let's win and in our system it translates over into voting but i haven't heard any discussion of that in other words if we just ignore that and say well everybody is honorable and ethical and everybody wants everybody factor into what it is we're richer in to get the best for selection we can in forty two days so what about that fact there are people that are saying we got i think that some of the the examples that you raise are you know may very well be true and and are isolated frankly the the examples of persons who are seeking to buy votes seeking seeking to fraudulently cast votes seeking to impersonate the dead i think those those incidents are few and far between in our country and what i think we're we're seeing today is a real struggle where people are trying to overcome very real barriers that stand between them and the ballot box trying to overcome the burdens imposed by restrictive mandatory government issued photo identifier identification requirements trying to overcome tactics like what we're seeing in mccomb county and although party officials have since backed down from their plans to use foreclosure lists to challenge voters the the chilling effect remains and who knows how many voters may be discouraged or deterred from turning out on november fourth because of mccollum county officials unnecessarily sidetracked by these isolated examples of vote buying that you hear about from time to time well the only problem is though that some of the intimidation and coercion is not coming from citizens or other groups it's coming from the government i mean citizens didn't dream up  the these incredible barriers to people who don't even drive and can't even get to a place and couldn't afford it if they  could the foreclosure list may have been dreamed up by a political party but you know the thing that's beginning to make me think a little bit more about this is that there seem to be two classifications of people in this country there's some people that honestly wan restrict the right of the ballot they want to make it tough tough as they can exclude as many people however you can and there are other people that want to make it as can you gotta get you've got to hope the weather's good all of this but nobody says well look why don't we do that why don't we just have a day off for voting which many modern notion that's to make it tough as you can if you if you're a student how how do you how can you vote from your dormitory y you're signed up in ann arbor you live in ann arbor you know you care vote in lansing i mean that's that's these are government initiatives i'm not talking about a few bad eggs floating around in the community what about that that's government directed strategies that do not encourage voting and do not make it any and congressman if i could just add as you may know i live in the city of detroit where a state legislator named george papa george in two thousand and four was quoted as saying if we do not suppress the detroit vote we're going to have a tough time in this election and that was something that he talked about and was covered in the new york times and other places and so from my perspective and if i tried to make clear in my testimony denials or denials you know acorn is also denied think the discussion still needs to go forward around clarifying the issue for voters ensuring that that voters know they are welcome and encouraged to participate on election day and also recognizing that there is at times a pattern of statements that are made as you said by government officials about suppressing the vote  emphasized i think one of the one of the core elements that i could sort of took out of your remarks is when you talk about sports and you know do anything to win is at the core of human nature human nature to wed and human nature you know we all have morals and values and things that got us to sort of away from those more natural instincts but when those aren't enough we build laws in this to some structures in government and you talk about a lot of examples of where government is doing this and in this country we are government by the people and very often the government gets it wrong and that's why it takes other people to fix the government and so i don't you know i don't have any solutions for those things but it did strike me that you know the human nature being being bound by rules malls and laws and government being bound by the people and that's ultimately the solution mr chairman i think i don't need to tell you this after three years of service to your country but i think what this all comes down to is the difference between running for elected office for power or running for elected office because you want to serve your country it's about power you're willing to do anything if it's about service you're only willing to do the right thing  one of the things i finally have figured out after about twenty years of doing this is one of the challenges and i think we really need to be rethought about our system is we rely on the candidates and the parties to get people out to vote and what we've seen with the immigrant community is does there first time voters and no one's sure how they're going to vote there's actually no incentive by many of the parties or the candidates to actually get them out to vote and i think government really needs to take a much more active role and responsibility in the realm of how do we make sure that people get the information they need know what their rights and responsibilities are and get that real opportunity to vote and we shouldn't rely any more private actors because what it spawns is what you saw the example that came to mind when you were talking was the department of justice had to intervene and by you all about alabama now there's a vietnamese community and by you how about triall a bomb on the coast and they're shrimpers and for the first time a vietnamese american was going to run for local office well the incumbent decided the best way to prevent him from winning was to challenge the voter rolls of everybody who had an asian name assuming of course the asians would vote for him the department of justice intervened what was i found so striking about the story was that the people who challenged it were then supposed to be the main poll workers in the general election and that's the problem we have to really take this more out of the hands of the teens as you will and put it more in a neutral form so that  refers to the the focus is on what the greater importance of democracy is for america and not on the short term wins and losses  i guess my comments would be that first of all i could argue about the propriety of certain laws that we have but i mean if you're going to vote for president why does it matter where you go everybody can vote for president but at the same time we're not going to change those laws before this election and they're going to be enforced and we're going to have to live with them and there's room for principle disagree as to what the best result is but there is no room for any disagreement that the national policy reflected in the voting rights act in that is that while partisan politics can drive conduct partisan politics cannot utilize race to drive that conduct so that to the extent and emphasize this repeatedly because i think it's so important given the election that we're facing that people are going to be identified as possibly supporting a particular candidate by the color of their skin and suppression efforts likely are going to be directed just like the example that was given earlier based on that factors so although the people doing it may claim that their motivating factor is partisan politics that does not absolve them from liability under the voting rights act because they're using race to carry that out in this congress passed the law forty three years ago that said you can't do that and i would hope that that would be enforced stringently as we proceed to this election and having been in the department for many years i spent twenty seven years in the civil rights division of the department of justice i know that there is a great reluctance to get involved in a issues at the time of a presidential election because it might appear to be partisan but over the years the department has always address partisan issues they've pre cleared redistricting plans that might favor one political party over the other or they've objected to put redistricting plans that might favor one political party over the other so that even though  particular vote caging effort that's directed at african americans a remedy for it might favor a political candidate that's not a reason for the department not to act and they've they've always been under a burden to act in a non partisan way and enforcing this law i recognize that it's very difficult for them to do it but i would urge you to demand that they do it and i i'd like to emphasize something that i said in my opening remarks which is that i have made clear as mr hancock has suggested to everyone in the division who works on the voting issues that that we handle that we need to enforce all of the statutes that we have where the facts and law where we have sufficient evidence and the law is there for us to bring a case and to do so without regard to politics and just let the chips fall where they may at the end of the day if we do our job which is to vigorously enforce after this hearing thank you you're more than welcome thank you mr chairman thank you sir i don't believe that we have any other members seeking recognition without objection all members will have five legislative days to submit to the park  committee additional written questions for the witnesses which would then be forwarded and asked witnesses to respond as promptly as they can so that their answers may be made part of the record without objection all members will have five legislative days to submit any additional materials for inclusion in the record this hearing is now adjour