good morning everyone and welcome all of you to our house administration hearing and i would like to call our hearing to come to order the morning members of the committee witnessing guests today's hearing will focus on problems voters have had at the polls the presidential election of two thousand and two like many troubles with our electoral process the problems with that election lead to the passage of help americans vote act have a crystal by this maybe today we should just thirty weeks away from the next presidential election and election which based upon the turn we have seen on the pre primaries to date will test our system of election administration more than any election in the country's history despite all the problems we learned about from recent more recent elections we're still having hearing about long lines machine  election officials need enough trained poll workers to help them run elections most elections officials are dedicated public servants are volunteers who work alone who work long hours for very little or no pay we are not here to blame these volunteers god knows we need them  ask you how we can help voters who have experienced problems at the polls open highlighting the important role poll workers play in helping people vote all this is will be inspired to volunteer to two thousand and four the my vote one hotline has worked with media outlets such as n b c news and the time tom joyner morning show to collect archive and analyze the already recorded a real voters in real elections said he's confronting real problems tom joyner's leadership as a national of election administration and reform recognize the list the list of concerns sure this is an eye because the voting incredible time and resources to improve the election process in growing and growing each day and i'm glad to have a few of these groups representing with us here this morning goals i would like to know any of our members like to have an opening statement and the statement is chairman i would just like to commend you for calling this hearing i think that we've learned some things so far in this election this is an excellent opportunity for us to be apprised of what these witnesses have discovered i would also like to ask unanimous consent to put in the record testimony from the see the my vote hotline as received over forty thousand calls in two thousand and eight i would like to play for the committee to take provided by mr jointed to give an idea of the problems his wishes have experienced a look forward to hearing from county they only have to express ballot machines to mckeever voting in the district once again each year we haven't had same problem able to find your name and is holding the voting process hello this is mr harper in atlanta georgia at the voting location there were only two what they call express polling  your address electronically activated the yellow card for you to go and cast your vote people were there at six thirty were still there except thirty in line and it's causing quite a  problem in the process i have major problems at these locations in georgia in the evening hours as people get off from work to go vote thank you much have a great day voting machines but three verification machines the barricades machines are not working correctly the spend an inordinate amount of time trying to had one machine that was working to actually get you before you went to vote the lines were in the street and people were leaving because the lines it took me an hour to get through a line and unable to vote saying that i had not voted i hadn't voted recently and i voted just in the last election for the governor of the state in the previous presidential election so i didn't even skip an election and if i was in that and upon me arguing or being willing to debate the fact they attempted to put my name through and my name went through and i was able to vote but that was an issue and had the potential to be if i was not willing to stay there and debate my point i would have been it would have made me unable to vote today  looked me up in the system again and found me and gave me some polling place in another area that i had never heard of before and wanted to send me there but instead i which did not allow me to vote in the primary me just put into the record in the interest of time i'm very concerned about anyone being denied the opportunity to exercise their franchise to vote that shouldn't happen i also recognize that we have a very complex voting system of fifty states and numerous different jurisdictions and impossible in my experience and i have some thirty years experience working on this it's really impossible to keep all the poll workers trained and on their toes all the time i have a number of instances i have encountered which were malicious in the sense that someone deliberately was trying to keep someone else from voting those are extremely rare there are a lot of errors made i shouldn't say a lot but there are a number of errors made by poll workers and b voters themselves and not either under the understanding the rules are following the rules and so i think it's important to keep in mind when we're talking about the situation if we can fact prove that there is a deliberate attempt to prevent people from voting that is a crime and should be held that way so i hope we will keep that in mind keep that in mind and be kind and th treatment of poll workers and those poor folks they only do this a couple times a year to get from one election to another many times they're elderly and they have to work twelve to fourteen hour days it's really a tough job and i admire their interest and their stamina in doing it and i'm very slow to condemn them for doing things wrong but they do make mistakes just as we make mistakes now so i'm interested in hearing the testimony and hearing what happened but let me say that i'm a little skeptical that someone claims someone deliberately and illegally stopped them from voting if that in fact it happened that today first time first panelist tom joyner host of the tom joyner morning show and has received dozens of honors for his work including be admitted to the national radio hall of fame strong advocate of civil rights and as the cat was voter registrations and get out the vote efforts his muckler president of info voted technologies which created and maintains the my vote one hotline we will be hearing from him today mr joyner i know you're probably not used to talking in front of a microphone but we need to push the button and all of you on the panel we we have a button in front of us when you're speaking we need to push it we have a little box up there that tells you we have five minutes that tells you when it's time to sum up sum up and when it's time to stop i am lenient with that i look people talk maybe sometimes too much but if you get read on that i will warn you that you have enough time to write numbers to join us my pleasure and again to welcome you and i thank you for your participation thank you thank you brady and committee members for the opportunity to talk to you about this very important issue affecting our voters i am time joiner and as a radio broadcaster ideal daily with theater of the mind so i'd like for you to join me in this exercise imagine yourself as a thirty year old working mother of two year range for your mom to take your kids to school on this day so that you can get to your polling place when it opens at seven anticipate being in line for forty five minutes to an hour and you have to be at work at nine you're not a regular voter in fact this is your first time voting in a presidential primary you get to your polling place said and seven o five and the polls have an open there more than a hundred people in line and when the polls do finally open at seven thirty you notice the line is moving at a snail pace the reason for the delay is that there aren't enough machines there isn't enough manpower there aren't enough id verification machines or they have run out of bal you want to wait in line until the problems of six but if you do there's no way that you'll make it to work on time maybe you'll have to hand the vote afterwards if your boss let you leave on time and your mom agrees to pick up the kids from daycare but if they didn't have enough machines at seven thirty in the morning they most certainly won't have enough at six o'clock in the evening so the lines will be even longer and move slower than they did in the morning so you have you pass on this election my show the tom joyner morning show reaches nearly eight million mostly african american people every week and since so many african americans due to an antihero show along with being called the hardest working man in radio i'm sometimes called the voice of black america when c n n and c span or any major t net work a president of the united states or a presidential candidate wants to speak to or hear from african americans they know that i'm the person to come to it's a huge responsibility and i take it very seriously it's all a part of my ongoing goal to super serve my audience that means to be in touch with what they want and need and to provide provide that by entertaining educating and empowering our listeners the best way to empower our listeners is by registering them to vote and through our partnership with the end up with a c p a voting fine as of friday we have registered nearly twenty one thousand people and received in total more than forty five thousand phone calls at one eight hundred six my vote one a lot of a lot of those calls were about poll locations but most of the calls were complaining about problems that they experienced at their polling places on tuesday february fifth super tuesday we received nearly ten thousand calls throughout my radio show before our show and throughout that day we monitored those calls and many of those calls came from voters in atlanta at one point during the radio show we were receiving up to three calls a minute they were calling that tell us that they were having problems voting that the voter i d machines were not working then as some cases that weren't enough voting machines in other cases they called us to complain about poll workers who didn't know how to fix problems when they were happening and that's why i'm here this morning i know about the problems my audience knows about the problem now you need to know about the problems and you need to do you need to do what it takes to fix the problems if i'm concerned about making sure people register and actually getting the opportunity to exercise their right to vote you really ought to be concerned we aren't talking about apathetic people who won't take the time to vote we're talking about people who have registered and have shown up at the polls ready and willing to cast their ballots voting irregularities either kept them from voting or made the process a lot more difficult than it should have been we kept good records of these irregularities and are passing them along to you my listeners are counting on me to do something about these irregularities and i'm counting on you sadly we don't know how many people were turned away and how many people will not return to the polls in november because of their negative experience many of them start believing that these problems are designed to keep them from voting they look back at the presidential elections in two thousand and two thousand and four and wonder what kind of trickery is going to steal the election this time around they call me and i hear frustrations and the anger of my radio show the anger of my radio audience on our one eight six six my vote one hotline so here's what i'm urging you all to do before we get to november one get more voting machines to these polling places to do a better job of training poll workers so that they know how these machines work and how to fix problems and three in georgia get more voter id id verification machine and finally a stablish a national voting standard to avoid so much confusion in every city a every election year we want people to register to vote but we're making it too difficult for them to vote and keeping with the election year let me just say that i'm the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization is celebrating its one hundredth anniversary in february of two thousand lines of civil rights advocacy and the vodaphone sole purpose is to promote voter registration expand voter registration and protect the rights of voters seeking t are still in the process of voting in states like pennsylvania and others it reminds me of a cold by dr king a freedom fighter who tragically gave his life forty years ago fighting for the right to vote and the civil rights of all americans regardless of race religion or income dr king spoke of the fierce urgency of now and the one of his earlier books entitled why we can't wait he talked about the importance of our government taking positive action now to do with the problems of discrimination and disenfranchisement so what have been easy for this committee to wait until november fourth to see what voting disasters await us in florida and ohio or is more probable another state that would experience major problems were problems mr chairman that could have been avoided if we had simply stopped to analyze what we discovered during this first round  primaries so thanks i want to thank the partnership between the vodafone and the tom joyner morning show on the my vo one hotline developed by inferable technologies that allows us to analyze this data through academic institutions and advocacy groups like voter action another more important the data can be analyzed by the house ministration committee and hopefully by the election assistance commission and also by election officials across the country before november fourth there are those who believe that protecting the right to vote should be reserved to election officials and county governments but we believe that people like tom joyner can play a very useful role in this effort as well as civil rights advocacy groups and during the two thousand a primary voters have had an opportunity to receive further assistance through this that was launched on november nineteenth the since the first week in january we saw the basic explosion the venturous and this number overwhelming response and tom gave me the numbers already on the registration numbers twenty thousand eight hundred  and that number of people calling about elections twenty thousand eight hundred thirteen we are grateful for tom and his entire reach media family for waking up at three o'clock in the morning every day to spread this word on his radio program about the importance of voting and encouraging his listeners to get involved in the process eight million listeners as he mentioned are listening to his show and that more people will listen to his children will ever read these pamphlets that are produced by boards of elections or secretary of state offices and this information through this number is putting this information right at their fingertips our analysis of the hotline reveals a seventy two percent of respondents are calling searching for their poll locations because they don't know where they should vote for this demonstrat the my vote one how line is providing very important information to voters because it's easy for many first time voters to not know my son is here today greg jr who voted for the first time also this is his first congressional hearing as well many of us in the population move twenty percent of us every year and even a higher number a percentage of african americans and low income people move creating a vulnerability for voter purges it's important at this michael number is able to service tens of thousands of voters who have moved since they last voted because of many families as we all know who are being displaced by foreclosures by hurricanes by floods by tornadoes by wildfires and other natural disasters as people are more victimized by these disasters they will need this type of assistance and finding new poll locations and many of us in the election business get information about polling data but for many of us we know that this information is not readily available in the little time  have left i just want to make a couple of quick point that the hotline has kept a seventy five thousand audio recording since it was began in two thousand and four e v a s you've just heard some of those samples so i won't give all the mice that i want to give you pulmonary finding suggests that this is a serious problem that plagues voters in every community in every state because calls came in from all fifty states when callers make a decision to call they do so with the hope that someone is listening the somebody is go to stand up and do something about these problems that they are encountering too often they see the election procedures as too bureaucratic to participate in and despite the fact that we know that there is heavy turnout there are still problems with not enough ballots in some of these  elections so now instead of billy clubs of german shepherds or our problems at their grandparents face many of our new voters particularly young voters are turned away by long lines by intransient poll workers who are not well trained or their data m up my vote one is not the only hot line zinah help voters there are legal hotlines that help governments and government sponsored hotlines what makes my role one unique is that it captures and preserves a voices of those voters have these problems arise and what  my vote from other election hotlines is its ability to reach voters through the medium of the tom joyner morning show another networks these calls provide this type of assistance that has not really been done this early in the process during the primaries and so let me just close by saying we've seen this primary an all woman number of voters turn out to vote we have every reason to believe that if we had four hundred thousand calls in two thousand and four that with the trend that we're looking at now we could easily be seven hundred fifty thousand people looking for  help i wouldn't be surprised if even had one million people on election day or leading up to election day looking for this type of hell so i applaud you for inviting the election officials here today to respond to some of this data as well we respect the work that they do and we are know they are s enormous task of different laws to change and being underfunded but i think there's a useful role for both election officials advocates the and the federal government to play in helping to remedy the many problems that we have identified here today i'm gratified that this committee has chosen to lift up the work of tom joyner in our partnership and i made all the noise around this election there is good news that a new town crier will be on the air throughout the remaining primaries and general election continue to register voters to revive voters with information that will ensure their voices will files thank you mr chairman ranking member allard and members of the committee i thank you for holding this hearing on this critical matter and for the opportunity to testify before you today my name is john i serve as the legal director of voter action a national nonprofit non ours an organization dedicated to protecting our elections and our right to vote voter actually emerged in early two thousand and five following questions which arose in the two thousand four presidential election concerning the reliability and accuracy of our vote counting process since that time voter action is the forefront of the election integrity movement in the united states to ensure that our elections remain in the public domain controlled by the voters through legal advocacy research and public education to protect an open and transparent election process one in which our elections at the federal state and local levels are excessive a verifiable in two thousand and six voter action initiated to watch the vote program an original effort to provide legal and organizational resources and lead monitoring activities in the two thousand and six election with state and national partner can play a critical role in protecting the integrity of our elections the data collected via the hotline thus far in the two thousand and eight presidential election cycle highlights in part a growing concern with a new phenomenon in our democracy election privatization jurisdictions across the country are increasingly outsourcing to private vendors election functions and in the process compromising the transparency and public control of our elections a powerful example of this can be found in what happened this past february in the georgia primary as with a number of states georgia uses privatized electronic poll books manufactured by election systems now known as election solutions whole books determine whether or not a voter is able to access the ballot whether or not a voter's able to exercise a franchise during the february  two thousand and eight primary the my vote one hotline received numerous calls and we've heard some of them today from voters in at least five georgia counties reporting that the electronic books were crashing and operable leading to long lines and citizens leaving polling sites without casting ballots this is unfortunately not an isolated matter the new mexico presidential caucus for the democratic party on february fifth two thousand and eight a flawed voter registration database prepared for the state by the election systems and software company led to thousands of voters having to cast provisional ballots when their names did not appear on the voting rolls voters in other states including arizona louisiana maryland new jersey and utah have report similar problems with accessing about this primary election season and today thirty three states are slated to use electronic voting machines this november for the counting and recording of votes despite a growing body of evidence that such citizens systems are unreliable and do not meet basic security standards with this growing influence and control by private companies in how we conduct our elections in this country our democracy at serious risk what can we do to address this danger and protect the integrity of our elections first citizen led monitoring of our elections such as the effort is critically needed to identify election concerns and to collect the data from voters  direct oversight is not currently fulfilling its statutory duties as set forth by section two of the help america vote act of two thousand and two section two zero two rather as a national clearinghouse and resource quoting from books because the agency claims electronic hole books are not part of a voting system to carry out its duties related to the certification the certification and recertification of voting system hardware and software date has not certified a single voting system in the united states to the new voting system standards issued in december two thousand and five finally we must reclaim public control of our public elections this means that the election process must be transparent accountable and verifiable when private companies deny independent investigation review of their voting systems as they recently done in new jersey and in florida the  election process is undermined when voting systems including privatized voter registration databases an electronic poll books are found to be unreliable election officials are to discontinue their use and employ safer and more accurate systems more than a century ago state supreme court stated in the cases that the right to vote is a fundamental political right which is preservative of all rights in two thousand and eight we must remain ever vigilant in committee my name is to celia martinez i'm the executive director of the reform institute we appreciate you inviting the reform institute to participate on this panel we are a five one c three educational organization we're a multi issue think tank and we work to strengthen the foundations of our democracy and build a resilient nation we believe that an informed citizenry is a major component to building a resilient society we've worked on election administration issues since our inception in two thousand and one and thanks to the carnegie corporation of new york we've become involved with eight six six my vote one consortium in the two thousand and four presidential election since two thousand and four we've collected hundreds of thousands of records and the evidence clearly shows that the two largest barriers to voters are one that they lack the basic information about co location they simply don't know where to go to vote and to when voter show up at the polls many find that their names do not appear on the registration rolls despite the fact that they did register to vote oftentimes they then vote provisionally as you know the hotline received both co location questions on one end and it gives opportunities for color callers the opportunity to register a complaint let me begin with the whole location the majority of the calls coming into the hotline are from voters looking for their polling site the numbers of folks looking for a poll location has increased exponentially in the two thousand and four election for example half the callers that were calling in to the hotline were specifically looking for their poll location in the two thousand and six midterm elections that number increased to sixty five percent so far in the two thousand and eight presidential primaries that numbers tha has increased to seventy eight percent there are practical solutions to increased voter awareness of their poll location elections officials can implement certain strategies well in advance of the election some of these practical solutions can include employing inexpensive basic education tools like post cards e mails text messages robo calls much like a political campaign elections administrators can also engage in public private partnerships with consumer service elections officials to reach out to those who may be difficult to reach on election day voters can use hotlines like the one to call and look for their poll location keep in mind that eighty two percent of americans have cell phones when you go to the polls to vote in the morning or in the afternoon you have your cell phone with you it's really easy to go ahead and call hotline and find out where your poll location is as to registration issues to date in the two thousand and eight presidential primaries forty percent of the callers are saying they had registered to vote but did not appear on the on the voter rolls at the polls this is consistently since two thousand for the largest complaint in our hotline occurring twice as often as the other complaints discussed here today the timely communication by voter registration operations and their respective local officials is one way that we can help solve this problem part of the issue is that the five zero one c three the five twenty s political parties that are out registering people to vote need to be working and communicate and communicating with their local elections officials to give them the heads up that they're out there doing the work that they're giving the heads up on the numbers this is often what happens with  officials that they just don't have the capacity to handle the onslaught of voter registration and it's in our best interests that the groups working on that voter registration that they talk to the elections administrators and keep them in the loop about what's going on another solution should be to establish a tracking system for registration so that voters can see where their registration form is in the system many of calls on the hotline i register to vote at the grocery store in my community center but i don't know access to basic information must be the cornerstone of our efforts to improve election ministration the technology is there we need more collaboration between elections officials and the private sector to take advantage of innovative solutions like the hot line congress has a role to play in providing the leadership necessary to bring the relevant actors together effectively utilizing technology i want to thank you again for the opportunity and i look forward to your question  hotline when you receive these calls to rectify that other than i know you can speak on the air and you can speak to those problems but specifically when somebody calls in do you get anything you can do to try to rectify a problem then especially with a polling place location or something like rectify the problem a good example was in fulton county georgia when there were when it was obvious that the lines were long and moving slow that people were standing in bad weather for as much as two hours the voter finally got in touch with the election officials and and and tried to get the election officials to keep the polls open because of the slow lines and the problems that were counted at the polls we run across that problem time the time in the city of philadelphia we need a judge to order that you know we have to go in front of a judge they asked the judge to keep the polls a little open a little longer that has happened we were able to do that on your show well she could you help us but i know it's critical for election workers to be trained and it's critical for the election process and we don't have enough of them maybe you could put a commercial out there from time to time letting people know that they would do it we do need their participation where they can go out of to contact their local elected officials the violence here or some and some cases to pay for working on election day we plan to do just that  come out of pennsylvania so it's just one state and there's other times or other states are of up does your one have the ability and you have the cooperation from the local people when you hear a complaint coming in have but surely that is a problem like it once a certain area d chairman my experience since since two thousand and four is that with election officials it's a mixed bag there are some very good election officials out there who work with us throughout the year to provide poll locations to the hotline since we build a national zip nine to poll location file we're working with election officials all throughout the year trying to keep updated poll location information some are very good some frankly are lacking my my experience on election day however and i've said this on the tom joyner morning show is a number of election officials treat incident problems on election day like baghdad bob treating the invasion which was which is the bombs are falling but nobody is saying that it's happening and frankly the only thing that one of the most important things that the hotline does is it allows us to show election officials from out of the voice of voters what is happening on election day prior to this prior to this system being set up most of the information that election officials were responding to were spotty anecdotal pieces of information very difficult to respond as an election official to that kind of information this data which drives voices of voters directly to the election officials now forces the election officials to confront problems as they happen in a much clearer and much more mature a cool way and i think that's one of the greatest benefits of having data like this it  has forced election officials to at times own up to the problems that are current on election day what we have on coming up in pennsylvania and those are my hotline number one my vote number one hotline hopefully will be in play a then the most a joint will be on the radio and maybe is not an elected official but somebody who is involved in the political process of the city for the who will be listening for you and you can have my number to call me and i will get the right people to try to rectify any problems that happen to make sure that people do get the opportunity to get the right to vote that they show these are of thank you mr chairman one question for you mrs mortimer's you talked about the people not being in the binder so to speak or not being on the rolls to be able to vote and in this in the state of pennsylvania city for the for particularly we have a provisional ballot that has just been brought into use which is really a great tool because if you are supposed to vote in a certain area you can go your provisional ballot a day or two later finding out that it is accurate that it could have been a cleric that you weren't in a bind there and then as mr jointer said the you know the disadvantage and the interest of people you know causing the giving is for them if they have to go to a police station to go to city hall you know it's a whole two three four hour thing that the provisional ballots have a tremendous ballot for voters a major key to this is for voters to understand what the process is to plan ahead and understand that if things don't go the way they think they're going to go what are their rights and the provisional ballot is important we've s well you also have to assure every voter not only that they have that fundamental political right but you also have to assure them that the right will not be removed but by  votes tend to negate the vote and that's just my political philosophy and some say there is no fraud there is fraud various sorts not so much on the part of the individual on the part of organizations or n as you know elections are run by states and localities not by the federal government in fact we have probably in the last five years intervene more in the operation of local state actions ever before in the history of this country but nevertheless it's still the responsibility of the localities and the states issue of training for workers i'm always a little skeptical about that because it's awfully electronic age is that many of the poll workers don't know how to run a computer don't know how to run the equipment and that's a higher level of training in my community and i think a number across the country  college students who are computer science majors or even who just knew how to run computers and that solves an immense number of problems just just by doing nothing and the kids love to do it even if you high school kids who are capable of doing it but i i wish we really had hotlines in every community to deal with problems every there should be i think a big sigh and every polling place if you have any difficult call this number and it rings directly in the city or county clerk's office so they can deal with it directly and immediately because no one should be denied their opportunity to vote but i question i have and i don't know which of you would be best able to answer this first of all poll watchers parties have always provided poll watchers aren't there anymore they're usually the ones who have an interest and make sure everyone votes are they not fulfilling that function any also monitoring elections we have a big plan for pennsylvania with voter action a number of other groups so that monitoring has happened on the nonpartizan side i believe that the state parties also do have a lection monitors that are time and time again down there suffering through that through committee had the meeting at the meeting we thank you for that i'm sure you are an expert in answering questions as well as you can ask well you're very generous mr chairman i'm not really sure if everybody shares that glowing analysis but no i think the florida situation was resolved it and i think in a way that it should have been but i do have a question mr smuggler quickly  vote to hot hot line how do you get the information out there how is that disseminated to the voter that that's the number they should be calling if they have any problem we try and develop partnerships with  organizations and that's and the partnership with tom joyner has given us a promotional platform in two thousand and four our partnership with n b c news gave us a promotional platform i will say quite frankly i have reached out to christian radio broadcasters to try and broaden the radio platform and try and get into every market it's not so but but but  i will say that what i think we've shown with my vote one is there are media organizations like tom joyner that are willing to promote a hotline number and use a hotline number to service their listeners or service their viewers it does give us some insight into how to promulgated a hotline number i spent a fair amount of time going across the country to secretaries of state asking them if they would consider a hotline most of them told me that they in fact have hotlines but the but the dirty little secret in this game is if you have a hotline and don't have resources to service the hotline there's no incentive to promote the hotline so a hotline the secretary of state has that is not promoted is just a voice mail system going nowhere  that let me get some because they were limited and i want to get to a couple of other witnesses but quickly i think this martinez may have touched on it it always seemed to me if you want to read just about everybody out there is what does everyone have in common that's usually a utility bill a phone bill and so on and i would think i know in my in my city i think it be an easy task and i think the individuals that service and provide those services those companies i believe would be very cooperative in i just have always thought and it's good to have media whether it's c b s rooms or join or whatever that's incredibly important but i'm thinking given that into the houses where you've got a little printed it said you've got a question on election day this is the number that you're going to call and i've never understood we've really never followed on that the other things i've gone through with a flow chart of calls made to my vote one and how that you do not get a live person in told the end of the process and that live person is going to be somebody let's say in san antonio would be the elections administrators office my concern is as these problems are developing now mr joyner was able to identify some of those and say we've got problems that in such such area and such and such city they don't have ballots the lines are too long and such but if we didn't have that kind of oversight of whatever who is pretty to the information that you're accumulating it's going to be really after the fact is what i'm getting at how do we plug in to this information that is coming through the hotline so that we do have those organizations whether they're governmental or private such as mr moore's organization or ms martinez's or and i know that so laughlin had lawyers committee our people for the american way is there some way that we can actually plug into this information rather than after the fact yes in fact it is easy to plug into the information via a website where you can drill right into the data as it's coming in all of these organizations and many of the organizations that you have that you have cited have the capability has the capability in two thousand and four to directly access the database as the data was streaming in real time to it in fact i would be thrilled if secretaries of state would be willing to drill into this database as well but it's you know it's a big task for what are some aggressively in their area but they had no idea exactly how many were coming in and so one of the things that i talked about earlier was i think it's incumbent upon all of our groups that do voter registration whether it's part of the nonpartisan is to communicate with the elections officials so that think i was one of the organizations and people who worked on the past of massive voter registration that for over six and a half years many of our groups want to do voter registration and want to do it more effectively our problem is that every year through voter purges hundreds of thousands of people are taken off and so it's not like you can register to vote at eighteen and then stay on the books if you move as most people do young people low income people there's this constant cycle being taken off the list so i don't think there's too many people doing voter registration i think there's not enough but we can't compete with the dollars that are out there that are given to officials to remove people from the list and very few dollars going to help to affect the voter registration  so we are not a very rich organization but we try to do the best we can but i can't compete with the hundreds and thousands of people who were taken off of the list and still say that we're expanding our democracy when two hundred thousand coming off in one state and outsourcing to private companies for functions including the voter registration database and there's no real oversight of that process and so when you see the kind of flaws that occurred as i highlighted in new mexico  committee but more more likely as a result of the work of the communities in the state really taking your complaints and our concerns seriously thank you very much for being thank you we have a vote coming up in a couple minutes we is being created to make sure that every vote counts and is joining you know over the years that you've been pushing this in every year refining it even more and i'm glad that  endeavor and many of you have hooked up together in trying to make it better but what i do see based on the trends of voting throughout the country need to be blue or red states that they're off the charts they're to the point to where that their general election numbers and beyond so i'm wondering what happens when we get to november because i don't think government can move fast enough florida case in point we can't have another vote in florida because the machines around or the machine there are not enough machines and are never enough machines and so how do we get the public ready set go miss mightiness you brought up a very interesting point as it relates to knowing where one's registration is in the process voter registration cards are getting the sometimes days prior to the date of voting because you know what have you procrastinate or what have you but throughout the country like in miami dade county they're cutting the registrar's office ability to be able to process these voter registration forms so mr chairman my question is going to go along the lines of for the entire panel how do we get folks prepare for getting their selves straight i mean now if they miss the primary season and what have you how do we get them excited about moving through the process and building that i think you missed and joining us are your friends and hard for me to call a constituent how do we get local coordinating committees together to say that everyone in every community communities of goodwill need to be white or black or whatever the case may be how do we get them working towards working with the voter now because i don't think government's going to be and move fast enough and to be able to get that information out there what are some of the plans that you'll see is a correlation how we're going to get there and how we can get elected officials involved in making sure that happens to give the kind of muscle this needed to get the registrar's office at the table to get the need to be the secretary of state at the table to make sure that these individuals are right there registrations right and they know their precinct well in advance before it even comes down to voting day or early voting how do you how do you get government to talk to election officials and get them prepare for this onslaught of new and excit voters that have never voted before have never participated in this process that is the question i don't know how to answer that that's why we're here today to say that this is this don't we don't get calls about conspiracies all fraud but we get calls of suspicion of conspiracy and fraud because we're looking forward because of the two thousand and eight two how to get that across best why we're here these these these election these election boys weren't prepared for these record number of people that show up at the polls they were prepared they didn't have enough machines they didn't have enough people before in primary elections they may have had a fraction of the number of people that showed up and and if we want to if we want the election process to be as exciting for them as it you know it has to be a very pleasant experience and that's why we're here today to find out how we make that happen thank you sir we have a vote on and would like to dismiss this  give might be pissed mr joiners bedtime he's got to get up at three o'clock but i want to thank all of you thank you for your participation thank you for enlightening us and we will go further with this to make sure that we can probably come to some type of perfect to election arizona board of elections and i'd like to commend all three of you for your public service and know firsthand the for those to be at the ministry of elections and i look forward to your testimony today so without any further ado missed by and ranking member and the members of the committee on house administration thank you for the opportunity to testified today regarding the feb two thousand and eight presidential preference primary election in fulton county i bring you greetings on behalf of the fulton county board of registration and elections and the fulton county board of commissioners my name is april pie and i am currently the interim director of the fulton county department of registration and elections and i have been serving in that position since january of two thousand and seven the mission of fulton county board of registration i watch is is to ensure that the registration and elections process is officially and effectively provided to eligible citizens of fulton county hording to applicable laws and rules and to meet those needs a rapidly growing voter base county we have sought to adhere to the rules and regulations forth by hava and the state of georgia fulton county is the largest county in georgia with an estimated population of nine hundred  sixty thousand nine hundred fifty two thousand six hundred thirteen registered voters we have three hundred forty two operate a total of two hundred sixty six pole locations on election day with a staff of twenty four permanent employees and approximately eighty temporary staff during elections we generally process one hundred to two hundred thousand new voter registrations during major election years it's important to note that elections in georgia have been under a constant state of flux the two thousand general election with election officials having to make quick adjustments based on changes state law and the introduction of new technology the electronic overhaul of elections brought  has been a challenge because most governing authority do not see the immediate need until major elections as a result improvements in terms of purchasing additional equipment or hiring additional permanent staff has not kept pace with the growth in voter rolls and the changes in the law georgia election officials are contending with very tight budget constraints very depressed economy during what will be one of the largest opportunity to exercise their right to vote a great deal of planning and preparation is required in executing the many components involved in conducting an election from registering voters to conducting election on election process in preparing for the presidential preference primary in georgia in fulton county which was moved forward a mom change in the two thousand legislator our projections for allocation of equipment and supplies was there a larger turnout than expected we were pleasantly surprised with the forty seven percent turnout in the primary was a good indicator for us and for other election officials throughout job as to what it will be vital all media outlets and election offices to work together to ensure voters receive accurate information about the laws in their respective state and county our focus is integrity insurmountable amount of work to conduct a county wide election the belief is that once the election is over that there's no activity for two years not understanding that it takes a minimum of twelve months to plan for county wide election this doesn't include the fact that many of many of us provide election support to our local municipality it is something so important is grossly underfunded and understaffed yet we are expected to flawless election another major challenges voter education and when i say voter education  to voter responsibility in managing voter expectations we and prince george's county maryland specially after the two thousand presidential primary election day we need to do more in the area of educating voters we as election officials have to come up with a strategy to get voters to think and inquire about their vote their registrations prior to election day many voters went to the polls didn't know their party affiliation they were not aware of the closed primary laws in the state of maryland to make matters worse there were more than one call during the our polls were not there the polls our presidential primary was on february twelfth that that the reality of how informed uninformed sorry some of our voters are we received complaints about long lines in any election you have a large voter turnout you're going to have long lines i can't speak for any of my colleagues but i welcome long and i say that because it shows that the voters are engaged we have historically complained about a low voter turnout and but when voters go to the polls and rolls we complain we can't have it both ways we just came we do recognize their voters get discouraged and that's where managing voters voter expectation comes to play during  presidential primary election we were told we told the poll workers actually if there are long lines that keep the voters informed give them approximate wait time also poll workers were instructed to find out if each person in line was listed on the precinct register voted they would not get frustrated by standing in line only to find out that they weren't registered or at the at the wrong polling place also we want the voters in the state of maryland to know that our election process is transparent and i'm sure that's the case in many jurisdictions around the country we conduct public demonstrations prior to every election to determine the accuracy of the voting unit and although we advertise public participation is minimal the election return process the absentee and provisional ballot camp is open to the public we want voters to understand the elections process the wet when they go to the polls they feel confident in a process when voters hear words like trickery knology over the airways from various media they they naturally become cynical and that's why i'm making a personal plea to all of the media venue's to you they're power in disseminating information to assist election officials in educating the voters and encouraging them to volunteer and become a part of the process and to make my last point there has not been any consistency in elections  ministration every election since two thousand the local boards of elections in maryland have either been required to a new technology or a new process and any time technology is instituted election officials must develop new business processes when new business processes are developed there has to be a means to test prior to the election so that it can be refined if election officials are not given adequate time to test the testing is done on election day and we've seen in many instances around the country with where those types of results were less than desirable in conclusion election officials are professionals who are deeply committed to conducting fair and accurate election again we want voters to walk into the polling place and have a good voting experience in feel confident about the integrity of the process based on our experience in the two thousand and eight presidential election we've learned that there must be stabilization in consistency we cannot continue to change technology and process every election cycle without adequate time to train poll workers educate the voters and expect positive results we've learned they we need monetary and human resources to perfect the current system the american public deserve a democracy that works thank you thank you mr chairman many members voter is the most important part of the election process having a direct connection to an operator and not a recording at our call center has made a huge difference to our voting public we are county of one point five million registered voters the fastest growing county in the nation as a result newly arrived voters come to america county from every state in the country with them comes your expectation of the how the laws and the elections process worked back in their experience with their former state or county at first we tried to answer the calls ourselves that was an unmitigated disaster we were so busy answering the phones we could not concentrate on the business at hand of conducting the election in one thousand nine hundred sixty six a stark call center was created by a decision of the county recorder the treasurer the assess or and the county board of supervisors to combine resources one call center to answer basic questions and route callers to the appropriate agency personnel on complex matters the star call center has now answered more than twelve million calls in twelve years two million of those were election call they have thirty three permanent staff workers and they bring on seventy temporary workers during their peak season our reporter helen purcell has testified before you in the past she has the total responsibility of the elections process in maricopa county with more than want to have a million voters we had to create a system to give priority to the calls being placed by the voters we also created separate hotlines one for the polling place workers one for our troubleshooters and one for the lawyers one group that i manage is a hotline set up for calls from the polling place workers those phones are man from noon the day before the election through the close of the polls on election night there are eleven hundred forty two polling places in maricopa county we keep in touch with each and every polling place through our troubleshooter program if a call comes from a voter or a political party with an issue a troubleshooter is dispatched to that location the final hotline is for the lawyers they have staff assigned to enable them to respond to any field situation that might arise by having the three separate that work separately from our general call center number we can rapidly respond to voter calls the call center has live operators not just an automated system a brief recording at the beginning usually answers most questions if not the caller can request a live operator the average wait time is three minutes as a management tool the elections director in the county recorder have a banner visible on their computers indicating how many calls are in the queue how many operators are available and the time the longest call that's holding more than twenty six thousand people called on general election day in two thousand and six the evening prior to the election the call center remains open until midnight to answer questions from voters the call center begins taking calls before the polls open and remains open on election day until the polls have closed the recorded message at the first reading is the times of the polling places are open i remind everyone that if you're in line by seven m you are unable to vote if spanish language is always an option information is given on how to access our website where the voter can view their sample ballot they can find their polling location and they can get directions  map to their location because the system is dynamic we can ask the call center manager to change the message as necessary to fit evolving situations in the past we've had emergencies arise and that we have been able to deal with them rapidly by changing that message on our call center line voters can request an early ballot by a phone call the call center the call center also mail voter registration forms and provide instructions on how voters can register online voters requests braille ballots or large print ballots and they can inquire about military and overseas voting after any election voters can call in and find out if their provisional ballot counted most questions are easily answered by the call center operators we listen to our voters and take their suggestions and their complaints seriously arizona's presidential preference election was held on february fifth we experienced our highest turnout since one nine hundred ninety six that was over fifty four percent the arizona presidential preference election was a close election open only to voters registered in the democratic or republican parties in the days leading up to the election fifty percent of the calls to the call center were from voters registered as independent or without a party affiliation the call center averaged three thousand calls a day prior to the election on election day the call center received more than sixteen thousand recall it is important to note that all issues brought forward by the call center go into our award winning reporting database after the election we continue to review the issues that were presented and determine how we can better handle similar situations in the future we can always l education process over and over and over i'm sure you have a turnover i'm sure there's some turnover but yeah there is a turnover and again there is a process of training over every every election cycle what is your turnover roughly is a fifty percent actually adds they are turnover is about i'd say it's about thirty five percent because this way you train a thirty five percent instead of and that's a one day kind of thing and you know to go to work election day to take off or whatever that's relatively easy but the problems we face is with the county board just not there for just a clerical kind of and i were just a mistake this be made because the new people and people to register may not make the binding you talk about provisional ballots you talk about education process and i heard you waiting in line to vote for an hour then by the time you get up there somebody tells you that you know you don't vote here you go someplace else and then they get made at the election worker who's that is for her for you know and they need to take it on somebody and they take it out on that person but the most important thing they take it and i take it out on their process of voting they probably don't go vote they probably want to wait another line so we need to try to figure out like what you say about the election workers when there's a long line in the city for the future it's eight o'clock my seven o'clock that if there's a line to an election worker supposed to stay in the back of the line at eight o'clock and nobody behind that can vote we've had polls open to an hour hour and a half because a big election but those people that are waiting in that light can't go anywhere else now if they're not in the right place and not in the right spot so it's a good idea that you kate there was there waiting in line and i'm going to school on you too you know and not people know that our people know that that's not a bad idea to do that you know but it's a it's a problem you know uniformity is a problem will be great to have everybody's machines the same everybody's primary the same everybody's bat was kind of the same we're in a city state of pennsylvania we have all kinds of missing power these everyone is different and they're old and it's you know i myself i run into districts i run a city philadelphia i run in delaware county i got two different numbers different machines different ways to work but look we've got to do  got to do and you do a good job trying to allow all of the people given the opportunity to exercise their right to vote and that we applaud you for that we'll just hope to get some of these better our own over here to make it that we don't have the complaints that everybody that does come to vote can vote the problem with coming up with the november election is going to be on the end of voter registration there will be a large number of groups out there who are registering people to vote and in the past with large elections some of those groups do not get the information to the county offices in time to get those people registered in georgia we don't have registration so there's a deadline and if we kroger store or whatever location field out a voter registration application with someone they know they're registered i know that that will be a major problem and we will have a long line and i  in atlanta to reach out to people and to help in getting the proper information from voters when they register and to getting the information to us in a timely manner so the election to the best of their ability with the resources that they have i know that one of our issues is always getting polling place workers many of our workers are elderly and are getting to the point where they can no longer work for us of coming along aren't as interested in public service or community service and that sort of thing and we all know we can't pay dollars to those workers they're doing a sacrifice to be there  but we try to work closely with our voter registration groups in maricopa county we have a staff member who works with them and with our observers our political activist groups so that we can educate them on arizona laws when they go out and do their registration drive and they will get those registration forms and we are very fortunate that voters can register when they come into arizona when they get their driver's license and then  that will come to us through an electronic pass which is a lifesaver when it comes to staffing so we do have some advantages along that line but i can assure you we're doing our best to be ready for november  our the motor vehicle individuals going to the motor vehicle registering to vote and however for whatever reason the our board of elections does not receive that voter registration are getting involved in the process however there needs to be closed communication that i don't believe that there has been in the past with the local election administrators because we are the ones who conduct elections and let me give you an example in the help america vote act of two thousand and two requires that we in prince george's county change our voting system approximately six months to a full implementation change of technology fortunately by the grace of god we were able to pull it all o we get some insight into what goes on with their committee hearings and so forth but i think we definitely need uniformity and that helps contribute to it when you have federal oversight and the other comments