good morning everyone and i will call the hearing to come the water and good morning members of the committee witnesses and guests will focus on the uniform overseas absentee voting act our men and women fighting overseas make many sacrifices to guarantee the freedoms why i called to find out what the department of defense and others are doing to ensure that every eligible man or woman who qualifies on the register with a ballot for federal office the government accountability office estimates that there are close to six improve military and overseas voting pacifically i want to appreciate the opportunity to testify regarding a bill i recently introduced to ensure our troops votes are counted also i want to thank my colleagues on the committee for joining in the discussion today to look into ways to protect the both of our brave men and women defending us abroad when i was first name of this committee i was proud to join a committee where republicans and democrats are known to work together to find solutions i want to be active in looking at our elections and working for solutions that rightfully give american voters full confidence in their vote to be counted and counted correctly last year i went to iraq and afghanistan and was honored to meet with our troops who told me how proud they were to fight for our country every day our troops fight for our country they fight for their mission most of all they fight to protect our constitution and the democratic ideas that have carried our nation forward for over two hundred years with that in mind after a recent study on military and overseas voting reported that only forty seven point six percent of absentee ballots requested by members of the military ended up being counted i was appalled at the fact that so many votes by our military servicemen and women were not being counted both because they were unable to get their absentee ballots as a server bro because their ballots were not counted because they might not have been received by the election officers in time moreover when votes are systematically and counted because of lack of dependability on ballot delivery both stateside and abroad our brave men and women serving our country cannot rely on the fact that their vote was not counted how ironic it is that our servicemen and women may not be able to participate in the very constitutional freedoms our democracy they are so courageously protecting i have introduced the military voting protection act in order to help address one problem that could possibly be addressed quickly according to studies twenty three percent of ballots arrive too late to be counted under deadline by state my legislation co sponsored by my friend ranking member and congressman wondering what i'm in you'll you'll call them to provide for expedient collection delivery of overseas uniform service members about this this bill would do so by directing the part of the defense to make additional provisions for collection transportation and tracking of absentee ballots of overseas uniform service voters it would allow the department of defense to do so by using private carriers and would ensure that service members have access to a tracking mechanism so they know that the arrived and was counted this expedient ng and this is is the least we can do for our men and women serving abroad defending our freedom like our democratic right to vote with that said i'd like to work with all members of the committee by no means a comprehensive our military servicemen and women that their votes will be counted however i believe it is a good first step that we can build upon in a bipartisan fashion so that our heroes abroad can participate in this year's historic presidential election and federal problems that are faced by military personnel in our overseas and i also want to knowledge of the hard work of my colleague kevin mccarthy and representative who have likewise introduced legislation to improve over i know that we all agree that regardless of political affiliation all american citizens should be able to exercise their right to vote i became interested in this issue through the where we were working in a bipartisan way americans abroad both in the military and i know our workforce and as we move to more of a globalized economy we have out of necessity status quo for the federal voting assistance program for example only thirty three percent of military absentee voters were aware of the federal post card application form used registration or absentee ballot request prior to election day and allowing the state department to help transmit the ballots of over in countries with an adequate mail service third world i don't want to question our colleagues but i would like to thank them both for taking the initiative to think about people overseas and how they can vote certainly our military is absolutely essential we do that first within the military mobility and speed with which our armed forces can and does respond to national security challenges so they are often forward deployed somewhere on the battlefield but also many of our civilian overseas voters i know my wife was a peace corps volunteer in korea well before the development of that country into a modern characterized by partnerships with anyone who can help that state and local election officials united states postal service that's nonprofit partners that you'll hear from today and other federal agencies partnerships progress and we must be mindful that the mail does work for a large number of voters more remains to be done in this regard the internet does seem to hold some promise in reaching many of the hardest to reach voters the internet can be however a dangerous place i call your attention to statements in the june two thousand and seven  report on electronic voting page eleven quote we found that broad application of internet voting presented formidable social and technological challenges in particular we noted that challenges to remote internet voting involve securing voters and ensuring that voters secure the computers on which they vote we also reported that because voting closed the year two thousand and five national defense authorization act laid out a path to overcoming these challenges and we are now engaged with the election assistance commission and the national institute for standards and technology on this work these words so eloquently written expressing exactly how i feel and the heart and soul of today are not my words ironically they are the words of president harry s truman in a letter to congress five years opportunity to vote is a travesty of justice throughout the years of democracy has ensured racial and gender equality and for those with disabilities however it has failed to make the name of the very one to fight for democracy there are three companies located in america that are already providing secure internet voting in other countries america is not accustomed to being anything and now is not the time to start from our greatest vulnerability our greatest sound among members of our military should have the opportunity in two thousand because they created the internet therefore i think we can trust them to use it securely as they do every day through their common access card army knowledge online internet where they check their bank account their retirement benefit e mail their families and other business of a confidential nature members of our military unlike other citizens abroad provide ways to stop this injustice and help our military there are only one hundred and forty four business left until this country elect a new president there must be some urgency among us today mobile forward operating bases and we know where they are you know that's where they get their mail unfortunately they can be gone from that location maneuvering in the field sometimes three weeks during thank you i miss your mind i want to welcome my secretary of state here today and i was chairman neither mr chapman nor i have a genuine alabama accent so we will endeavor to get in alabama and with broader vowels in either one of us we can forgotten that in the ones who do their job well day in and day out remember it so i thank you for remembering that i want to only ask you one question and as you recall before you became secretary of state alabama and a few other states were sued by the department of justice because our one off election procedure in primaries bumped up against the timetable for getting absentee ballots from overseas service  alabama remedy to that was to extend our runoff period now it so happened in two thousand and six this was kind of a tree falling in the for us a lot of people missed it because it's you know a lot of incumbents ran for reelection in two forward to two thousand when there is a certainty of the governor's race being open and likely contested battles in both parties a likelihood because of the governor's race being open to various other offices opening up as people run  governor there could well be as many as eight or nine state run offs in both parties and a number of criticisms have been raised and they tend to go along to a somewhat different but interesting lives one argument is that the six week run off period is very burdensome to the candidates as someone who won my seat in a runoff can certainly tell you a three week period requires you to raise enormous amount of money a six week period only more so and frankly the voters often aren't happy because in a six week lot of campaign essentially start from scratch the other argument that people raise is along a different track and it deals with the fact that people just don't tend to come out to vote on a runoff and in jefferson county for example there were in the democratic side brady runoffs in two thousand and six legislative level house districts are roughly twenty to twenty five thousand people in alabama there was a turnout of seven and a half percent and one of those districts someone won with eighteen hundred votes to fifteen hundred for his adversary and another district that was a turnout of twelve and a half percent and i think the high turnout was twenty percent all of those abysmally low and people raised a valid concern and i think that when you have a six week period especially in a state that's not accustomed to that you get very very low turnout or there are any remedies the alabama legislature could adopt for two thousand and ten that would enable us to go back to our three week one off campaign collect california what i can find that out immediately i can't find out from the post office if we're worried about getting our vote on time for men and women in uniform around the world fighting to preserve our ability to vote we ought to make every effort and if it means competing with the post office again i'm not against the post office putting competition out there until they have a life that's what we  in order anyone else buys and sells overseas is their own volition even if they're a government employee they don't have to take the assignment even quit when you sign up and you put on that uniform there's no saying no so i think there's a distinction so let's start off with that basic point they don't have a choice the second observation is just the noninvolvement the count or whatever problems you may have whether you do have the military vote or exercise in vote or vote for whatever reason it's not there in the percentages it should be and when they attempt they're frustrated in greater percentages than should be i think we probably can agree on a couple of those basic facts the trouble i have is why don't we utilize the internet more extensively why can't congress and i know in your testimony in your written testimony miss kavanagh chapman you do point out that i think the governor has a commission or a study group and yet you say that sooner or later we will have internet voting and such well i think the time is now we agree on that my staff also told me though that i do believe that mr doing this might have a reservation as to the potential  a really believe in a military situation with military personnel how great a threat is fraud in the context of using the internet which is probably the most efficient way of casting the ballot and counting the ballots i think we need to sort of think in those terms and we struggle and we have our differences of opinion on where fraud may be happening and what we do to prevent that without impacting the legitimate voter  accommodating the exercise of the vote by a greater number than we have presently in this country today in especially by what is the problem with fast forwarding and utilizing the internet as the fed ex the world's largest transportation company is a sponsor of the nonprofit foundation and i don't quite understand all what they're doing but are you familiar with this or are they partnering up and they say they're partnering using their global network fed ex will deliver ballots from hundred forty four business days to go i think the one thing that we can achieve is making sure the vote count twenty three percent do not and being able to track and go forward i think that's something we can achieve this election and i would really like to work with you and the secretary of state as well with this committee to make sure we can do that knowing that talking to postal service but here we have set x actually offering but it's not a military personnel it's chairman members of the house of ministration committee it's with extreme pleasure that i come before you today to testify about military and overseas voting my name is kimball brace and i'm president of election data services a company that i started more than thirty one years ago for the past four decades i've been heavily involved in election and ministration issues including working with dr richard on whose newsletter election ministration reports is a stable in the field over the past three decades my company has been retained by federal state and local governments around the nation to do a wide variety of studies we have since one thousand nine hundred eighty been the only one as i say crazy enough to keep track of what kind of voting equipment is used in every single county in the nation we collect and analyze election results and we have published for the past twenty years the well recognized election result poster that i'm sure is in a number of your offices that we do with roll call after each election in addition we do we are heavily involved in redistricting all around the country having worked in more than half the nations in helping them in that process in short mr chairman i'm a numbers guy and it's because of that background that we have been the contractors for the u s elections commission for the past four years we've been in charge of compiling analyzing helping create their reports to congress on a wide variety of subjects including the one that we did on you a cava voters that has been cited already these reports for conducted after each election before i talk about the results of the you accomplished study it's important to lay a framework of election and ministration in this country there are ten thousand and seventy one jurisdictions in this nation that conduct elections on a regular basis using a wide variety of different voting equipment slightly more than thirty one hundred counties that kind of conduct election but there's more than twice that number of local towns townships and cities in the six states of new england as well as michigan minnesota and wisconsin as a result half of all jurisdictions in this country have less than fourteen hundred registered voters there's only fifteen counties in the nation that have more than a million registered voters in short most of the elections in this nation are conducted by small jurisdictions that have small numbers of staff and very small budgets this fact has been a problem in terms of the survey and trying to get responses from these jurisdictions the two thousand and six reports were better than those produced for two thousand four especially the one dealing with you aqaba voting but it was not complete nor was a perfect while over you a cava voter is important should also be noted that they are but a small element in the overall election and voting process the survey found that more than seventy eight percent of the ballots cast or counted in two thousand and six came from voters at the polls on election day overall absentee ballots make up another thirteen point eight percent of the vote and you acaba voters contribute less than one half of one percent of the ballots that were cast or counted in two thousand and six while small in number of voters still constitute a significant voting bloc that suffers unique problems in grappling with the american election system overall the nation states and counties reported for two thousand and six a slightly less than one million acaba ballots were requested in that election but that amounted to only sixteen point five percent of the nearly six million eligible citizens cited by g a o to be covered by you a while reaching you acaba voters and getting them to participate in the election is one problem in which my colleague on this panel has been instrumental in helping to solve the survey also unveiled a more significant problem of the more than one million or slightly less than one million new acaba voters who requested absentee ballots ultimately only one third of them were cast or counted one answer to this  be found in the reasons for the ballots to be rejected the survey found that over seventy percent of the ballots were rejected because they were undeliverable in other words they were sent out by election administrators but never reached the voter due to problems with the voters addresses this is the top problem for you a comma ballots reported in twenty six states in addition federal law the voter has moved or in the case of the military been relocated it's understandable that ballots don't reach the voters domestic civilians have the advantage of the u s post office with the mail forwarding service but foreign voters do not as a result one of the recommendations from the u s congress study dealt with this problem of undeliverable undeliverable ballots mechanics need to be set up it said by the military whereby a military transfer generates a move notice to the local registrar additionally military bases need to set up programs with state and local election offices whereby an unbelievable registration or ballot generates a rapid notification perhaps by e mail to the individual voter so that they can respond in a timely fashion another possibility would be providing forwarding exemptions for overseas military ballots in conclusion mr chairman i'd like to take this opportunity to thank this committee for conducting an outstanding series of hearings on elections in the last two years and i'm pleased to see you continue to listen to local election ministers from around the country for the past eight years election ministers have been questions criticized second guessed and short changed having worked with them for more than forty years however i can attest that they are one of the most dedicated and hard working individuals that i've known they continue to be asked to do the impossible with fewer resources less said they would already do the military i think we'd have a concert here listening to secretary of state chapman or she would not be able to accept it as an individual working to solve this problem and when you think about one just the concept the idea that the bill i introduced brought forward would actually do what you were talking about is an individual's gone out and i guess in a way that we have an ability to have a solution for at least twenty three percent of those that weren't counted last time but only a hundred forty four days to go and i think this is something maybe this could maybe should adopt in pursuing to make sure it's able to happen i'd hate to see all this work not come to fruition as well that morning others just simply have to be postmarked by that date and can come in over the next you know you have a couple days after days afterwards but one thing you found in some of your research twenty three percent not and going to electronic count real fast and then give you a shorter time period but i'm not sure mr chairman maybe some task force working well because it seems as though we have a solution out there with all the individuals working that i think we could act quickly to least solve a ten thousand seventy one jurisdictions in this nation that conduct elections on a regular basis and then a total of seven thousand six hundred fifty four jurisdictions have less than ten thousand registered voters that's correct and i'm just thinking when you have information gathering when you try when you strive for uniformity you're going to run into problems just because of resources that may be available to those jurisdictions that truly just don't have that kind of so i'm going to be asking about the internet because it seems to me that we put so much stock on the traditional way of doing things the absentee ballot and mail then it's being delivered by you know as a postal service but we do acknowledge maybe could be a fax maybe it could even be a fax that is transmitted by e mail and reduced back to then sent by fax and i keep saying how is that any still using the internet and i just think that we have so many fears of gaming and hacking and such that frustrate our efforts to probably do it the most effective way that that is out there it is variable to us and to deny that technology and still have the safeguards and i know there are certain safeguards but if we were to move into the internet age when it comes to voting what problems do you think are posed by the very observation that we have these small jurisdictions out there let's say you know at a scotia county outside of san antonio my brother is a deputy sheriff he'd like to run for sure and he is he going to try i just think that how does he game the system it was internet versus the way it is today with an overseas ballot gonzales i think one of the things that you do have to recognize as you noted the smallness of the jurisdictions and you need to keep in mind that not all of them have the internet not all of them in fact have a computer in their office there are still a number of jurisdictions that just don't have that technology as much as we've had it for  long but it's not all there now things have gotten better with the implementation of the statewide voter registration systems have begun to get computers into these offices where they didn't have it before but certainly getting that coupled together with the possibility of ballots coming back to them that's a foreign entity truly and figuratively but it's something that at i would think would lead off with that is that we're looking at ways of improving the system that which is probably being utilized in every other aspect of american life in underutilized circumstances of overseas voting i understand what people are