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95–896 2004

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE ELECTION 

ASSISTANCE COMMISSION 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON HOUSE 

ADMINISTRATION 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, JUNE 17, 2004 

Printed for the Use of the Committee on House Administration 

( 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION 

BOB NEY, Ohio, Chairman 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

JOHN LINDER, Georgia 

JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California 

THOMAS M. REYNOLDS, New York 

JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut 

Ranking Minority Member 

JUANITA MILLENDER-MCDONALD, 

California 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

PROFESSIONAL STAFF

PAUL VINOVICH, Staff Director 

GEORGE SHEVLIN, Minority Staff Director 

(1) 

ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION 

THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 2004 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 11:05 a.m., in Room 

1310, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Robert W. Ney 

(chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Ney, Ehlers, Linder, Doolittle, Larson, 

Millender-McDonald, and Brady. 

Also present: Representative Hoyer. 

Staff present: Paul Vinovich, Staff Director; Matt Petersen, 

Counsel; George F. Shevlin, Minority Staff Director; Thomas Hicks, 

Minority Professional Staff; Matt Pinkus, Minority Professional 

Staff; and Charles Howell, Minority Chief Counsel. 

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. The committee 

is meeting today to hear from all four members of the Election Assistance Commission regarding the implementation of the Help 

America Vote Act of 2002. 

It has now been 20 months since the Congress voted overwhelmingly in favor of, and President Bush signed into law the Help 

America Vote Act, known as HAVA. 

I am proud to have been the chief architect of what I think was 

a very historic bipartisan legislation. Legislation that holds the potential to fundamentally improve the health of our Nation’s democracy and strengthen the right of every eligible citizen to cast an accurate ballot, and have that ballot counted—providing much needed resources to States and localities in putting into place safeguards to protect the integrity of our elections process. 

HAVA will help ensure that our democratic republic has election 

systems in which its citizens can have confidence and pride. As we 

have always said, we make it easier to vote and harder to cheat. 

At the core of HAVA are three primary components. There is 

much more to the bill, but, first, HAVA establishes a bipartisan, 

four-member Federal agency: the Elections Assistance Commission, 

known as the EAC, whose purpose is to help States and localities 

implement HAVA’s provisions by developing voluntary standards 

and guidance, issuing studies and reports on various election-related issues and serving as a clearinghouse for best-election-administration practices. 

I think that the motto when we created it is that we are here 

from the government and we are here to help. I think that the energy level and the idea that was crafted into the written part of 

the law is becoming reality through the citizens that are serving 

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on this commission. I think that has been the tone of the law and 

the tone of our commissioners. 

Second, HAVA establishes new voter rights, providing for secondchance voting, provisional ballots and enhanced access for individuals with disabilities, specifies new voting system standards, obligates first-time voters who register by mail to provide some form 

of identification before casting their ballots, requires each State to 

implement a computerized State-wide voter registration database, 

and sets requirements for certain voting information to be publicly 

posted at every polling place. And, third, HAVA authorizes $3.86 billion in election reform 

spending to assist States and localities in meeting their new obligations under this law. This is the first time that Federal funds have 

been made available to assist State and local Governments in 

shouldering their election administration responsibilities. So far, Congress has appropriated roughly $3 billion out of that 

total amount authorized by HAVA. The EAC is responsible for distributing the bulk of these funds, and there is still some more to 

go and we are always working toward making sure this is not an 

unfunded Federal mandate. Again, there are a few people I definitely want to publicly thank for that. 

Through the Help America Vote Act, I think we have achieved 

a landmark legislative achievement in which Members of Congress 

may continue to make tremendous strides with legislation we can 

take pride in. We also realize that HAVA’s passage represented a 

beginning, not an end. 

Once President Bush put his signature on HAVA, the heavy lifting began. We are therefore privileged, I believe today, to have 

with us all four EAC commissioners. I want to thank all four of you 

for being here to provide us with details on the heavy lifting that 

is currently going on, because you all are doing that heavy lifting. 

Please give us your thoughts, your comments, positive and negative, whatever you want to say today, so that we can have a review. 

In the half-year since the commissioners were installed in their 

current position, they have been confronted with a large number of 

tasks. For instance, the EAC has been responsible for distributing 

approximately $2.3 billion in payments to the States to assist them 

in meeting the requirements. Moreover, the EAC has had to deal 

with the issues of electronic voting systems security, which has 

been the subject of a great deal of media attention. 

I will also note that we will have another hearing that will deal 

with a wide variety of issues, including electronic voting systems 

security and other issues we need to talk about with HAVA and 

how it is implemented. So I expect advocacy groups, people with interest, to be here as we will schedule it with our ranking Member’s 

office in a short period of time. 

The first public hearing conducted by the Commission related 

specifically to that issue—the voting systems security. And the 

chairman recently issued a series of recommendations for maintaining the integrity of electronic voting systems. We look forward 

to receiving more information about that issue and of course also 

during this hearing. 

We are also very interested in hearing how well States and localities are doing in implementing the HAVA requirements that went 

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into effect this year, as well as those that will go into effect in the 

2006 election cycle. Thus, it is our hope that today’s hearings will 

provide an opportunity for the Members of this committee to become more informed about the current status of HAVA’s implementation as well as to learn more about the issues and challenges currently facing the EAC. 

And in summing up before I close—and the timing of Congressman Hoyer, the Democratic Whip, is very perfect. Actually, I was 

going to make some comments and tell you I said good things, but 

now you will be here to hear them. 

But I said earlier I wanted to conclude with something. This was 

a bill, frankly, that Congressman Hoyer approached me on and 

said, ‘‘We need to do something,’’ and everybody talked about the 

hanging and dimpled chads that were talked about. 

This—it looked at that issue, but it went far beyond that. It became a piece of legislation that—I don’t want to miss anybody, but 

it just, I think, generated into a wonderful situation. 

My secretary of state, Ken Blackwell, got together with other secretary of states, such as Secretary of State Priest, and many others 

were involved; Connie McCormick on the Board of Elections, and 

a lot of other people involved with advocacy groups. They came forward to bring their input to the table, groups that cared about voting, groups that cared about disenfranchisement. 

The issues went far, far, far beyond a hanging chad, and Congressman Hoyer had the diligence. He worked with us. Congressman Blunt was another Member that put a lot of time into it, and 

on an overwhelming bipartisan basis, Congressman Conyers was 

involved. We passed this on the floor of the House, went to the conference committee, and through Senator Chris Dodd, Senator 

McConnell, Senator Bond, and other Members of the Senate, we finalized this bill. 

It was a bill that had a real conference committee. Congressman 

Hoyer can tell you that. I mean, we really had one where we sat 

until 5 o’clock in the morning. Members participated and the staffs 

worked diligently, and some people said, ‘‘Why it is taking so long?’’ 

It was a very complicated bill, and we didn’t want to get it wrong. 

We envisioned, without knowing what your names would be, what 

the Board would be like. We felt that the way the Board was structured, you could put decent people onto it, it could be appointed, 

and we could begin this process. 

I want to thank Congressman Larson for his support of that bill 

but also, as ranking member, for his ongoing support to work with 

us. 

I think this hearing is important, and the next hearing we are 

going to have will also be important. This is our ability as a Congress to listen to what you have to say, to see how the bill is progressing, to see where we need to step in or where we need to not 

interfere, what we can do, and basically how everything is going. 

I am going to stop with that and yield to our ranking member. 

But, again, I want to thank all of the Members of our committee 

for being here, Congressman Larson for following through with 

this, as his responsibility as ranking member to oversee Federal 

election law. 

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But, again, we couldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Congressman 

Hoyer. He was our partner on this committee for quite a while, on 

this bill, led the charge, had the integrity, and wanted to do what 

was right. That is why I think it was a good model with a great 

working relationship on this bill. I am just very pleased to be here. 

With that, I will yield to our ranking member, Mr. Larson. 

Mr. LARSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me, at the outset, 

associate myself with your remarks and add to the accolades, first 

and foremost, to recognize the enormous legacy that HAVA has created. And it is a demonstration of what bipartisan cooperation can 

yield. Both you and our distinguished Democratic whip deserve a 

tremendous amount of credit for the way in which you marshaled 

the resources, the energy and the votes to make this come to fruition. 

It is a hallmark, in terms of what it means and how we can function and operate as an institution. More importantly, I can’t think 

of a more important and essential function than securing the franchise of our citizens. 

I would also like to acknowledge all of our distinguished panelists. Indeed, you know, we are pinning our hopes on your great integrity, your zeal, and your desire to carry out the mandate of 

HAVA. 

And that is why, Mr. Chairman, these hearings are so vitally important. And again, I commend you. I know of your deep concern 

to make sure that we have a body of law that is functional and 

working. And I have written remarks that I would like to submit 

for the record. 

[The statement of Mr. Larson follows:] 

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The CHAIRMAN. Without objection. 

Mr. LARSON. I am very interested in hearing the testimony from 

the commissioners. 

I am also very concerned about a couple of articles that appeared 

in the New York Times and editorials that I have read in the past 

week. But I would like to submit them for the record. 

[The information follows:] 

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The CHAIRMAN. Without objection. 

Mr. LARSON. And also a response by the American Association 

for the People of Disabilities. 

[The information follows:] 

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Mr. LARSON. And at some point, I would like to hear from the 

commissioners, if you are familiar with those articles, to get your 

personal response. 

I want to say that I have personally met with Members of the 

civil rights and disabilities communities and heard from concerned 

citizens around the country pertaining to voting issues. 

I would like to hear clarification from our Commissioners on 

where the EAC is on making sure that this and future elections 

run as smoothly as possible. The Nation obviously is watching very 

closely. And I am concerned at where the commission is on providing to the States best practices on provisional ballots, the new 

voter ID requirements, voter registration lists, absentee ballots, 

military and overseas voters and absentee ballots as well. 

I also hope to hear from the commissioners concerning funding 

issues, particularly in the area of research and development of new 

voting equipment and procedures. 

One of the hallmarks of HAVA is that it does not mandate voting 

equipment. We don’t know what technology tomorrow might bring. 

Today’s cutting-edge technology could be tomorrow’s museum piece. 

I am further interested in whether or not there is sufficient funding for your partnership with the National Institute for Standards 

and Technology and for the HAVA mandated reports and studies 

and equally as important, the funding levels of the EAC itself. 

I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, again for conveying this important hearing. I want to thank our distinguished majority whip, 

who I know has a deep concern and vested interest in this issue 

as well, for availing himself and joining us this morning as well. 

And I look forward to the testimony from our commissioners. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I thank the ranking member. 

Also the ranking Member has asked for unanimous consent that 

Congressman Hoyer be able to participate in this hearing. Without 

objection. Congressman Hoyer is more than welcome to participate 

in this hearing. 

Any opening statements? 

Mr. DOOLITTLE. No. 

Mr. LINDER. No. 

Mr. BRADY. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Just briefly. 

I guess I need to note for the record, I am a party chairman in 

the City of Philadelphia, have been for the last 20 years. My main 

responsibility on election day is any and all. Anything that has 

anything to do with election day operations, I am responsible for 

it. 

That includes poll workers, election day workers, a place to poll, 

a physical place where the machines can go and the responsibility 

for getting the machines there and, at the end of the day, responsibility to make sure that they are totaled up and the votes that 

were cast were cast properly and for the right person. 

My main interest is in fairness. And probably more so than that, 

a lot more so than fairness, but also is accessibility to every voter 

that has a right to vote, that should have a right to vote, make it 

as easy as possible for them to vote. 

In our modern day, with the voting process as it is, we don’t get 

enough participation as it is. We are not like in some countries, 

where they get 100 percent participation, or most, where they get 

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lined up to vote. We have to—we have a problem with people, when 

they register, to actually get them out to vote and vote for whoever 

they want to vote for. 

And I think the main thing you need to make much more easier—I understand that there are some fail-safes that we have to put 

into place to make sure that nothing happens, that the vote is done 

accurately and, again, not to have what my good chairman had 

made reference to, the hanging chads or the pregnant chads. 

I didn’t even know what a chad was until the Florida election. 

But we just need to make sure that—not to be so zealous in making sure that we hinder people when they come out to vote, make 

sure it is accessible. We want to let them know that we are there 

to try to make sure that they can have their vote cast properly the 

way that they decide to have it done. 

I thank the Chairman and ranking Member for having this hearing, bringing it to light, and letting people know that we are interested, that we do want to make sure that it is done in a bipartisan 

fashion, and it is done in fairness. 

And as always, I would like to thank Steny Hoyer for all of his 

participation, having hearings. We had hearings in the City of 

Philadelphia, which he conducted, to make sure that all of our citizens that are eligible can vote in a proper way. So thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Other opening statements? 

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, first of all, thank you. 

I want to thank the committee for giving me this opportunity to 

participate with you. I enjoyed very much my service with Bob 

Ney. Bob has indicated that we considered this in a bipartisan 

fashion. That was absolutely correct. 

In fact, in the last Congress, the speaker and Leader Gephardt 

both pointed to this as the best symbol of bipartisan working together, both in the House, particularly in the House, and I think 

in the Senate as well. 

It was a historic bill. It was a historic civil rights bill. It was a 

historic federalism bill. From 1789 to 2002, essentially the Federal 

Government did not contribute at all to the management or conducting of Federal elections. Clearly, the States and localities funded their own elections, but they also funded our elections. 

As a result of it being easy to defer technological advances in the 

election process and expenditures for election administration, to 

some degree they became the stepchild of State and local Government funding. One of the things that HAVA did was to refocus the 

necessity, and the 2000 election, of course, focused us, not just in 

Florida but throughout the country, on the necessity of having a 

system in what we believe is the world’s greatest democracy that 

assured its citizens of access and accuracy and confidence in their 

vote. 

We made a number of changes. And, Mr. Chairman, I want to 

thank you for having this hearing and subsequent hearings. In 

fact, Mr. Larson and Mr. Brady, and Mr. Linder and Mr. Doolittle 

and other Members of this committee—Mr. Ehlers is not here, but 

he made a very valuable contribution to HAVA in ensuring that 

NIST was a partner in the process of determining not what we 

would mandate but the advice and counsel that we would give to 

17 

States and localities on the technology that was available to run 

elections. 

I believe that the commission, although for no fault of your own, 

you started very late, has been very vigorous in the undertaking 

of your responsibilities. I am working with Mr. Ney and Mr. Istook 

and Senator McConnell and Senator Lott to assure that we get you 

some more money pretty quickly. And Mr. Ney and I have been 

talking about that. 

But I want to congratulate you for undertaking your responsibilities with a great deal of vigor and a great deal of responsibility. 

Mr. Chairman, I had the opportunity to read your statement that 

you made in Maryland. I talked to Linda Lamone about that statement. I think you made some very good suggestions. 

We obviously have some controversy. We have some controversy 

in California and throughout the country about the new technology, 

the DREs, the computer voting, touch screens and whether or not 

we can assure the fact that they will be credible reporters of the 

decisions that citizens make. That obviously is an important question for us to resolve so the confidence of voters can be established. 

In addition, one of the very important things we did, Mr. Chairman, as you know, is that more people were disenfranchised because of registration problems than were disenfranchised because 

of technical difficulties in the voting process. 

And one of the things we have done, as you know, is to provide 

for Statewide registration with local election interface, critically important. That will not be accomplished by this election. And, indeed, technological change will not be accomplished. But, we have 

a great responsibility to act as vigorously as possible so that, in the 

next few months, come September there will be a much greater 

confidence level in the media, in the groups, with the disabilities 

group to assure that they have access, which has been denied to 

them. 

One of the hallmarks of the American democracy is the secret 

ballot. And too many of those with disabilities were denied that secret ballot. Technology now allows that. And we need to assure it. 

So, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to participate with you. 

Commissioners, thank you very much for pursuing this. And together, I think we will see that HAVA resulted in a much better 

system in which our citizens much greater confidence. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. 

STATEMENTS OF HON. DeFOREST B. SOARIES, JR., CHAIRMAN, 

ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION; HON. GRACIA 

HILLMAN, VICE CHAIR; HON. PAUL DeGREGORIO, COMMISSIONER; HON. RAY MARTINEZ, COMMISSIONER 

The CHAIRMAN. We will get to why we are here today, first by 

introducing Commissioner DeForest B. Soaries, current chairman 

of the EAC. 

Commissioner Gracia Hillman, current EAC vice chair. Commissioner Paul DeGregorio, Republican Member of the EAC, and Commissioner Ray Martinez, Democratic Member of the EAC. 

We will start with Commissioner Soaries. 

18 

STATEMENT OF HON. DeFOREST B. SOARIES, JR. 

Mr. SOARIES. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and ranking 

Member, and Members of this committee, Mr. Hoyer, for this opportunity to come and share with you an update on the work of the 

EAC. 

We have submitted a 20-page written testimony, and in the interests of time, I will not read that to you. We have many appendices. I will simply summarize the contents of that testimony, allow 

my colleagues to have introductory remarks and then dedicate as 

much time as you have to answering specific questions about our 

work. 

The presence of all four commissioners should represent to you 

our commitment and respect for this body, for this committee, for 

your leadership, Mr. Chairman, and for this process. 

Let me begin by thanking you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership, along with your partnership with Mr. Hoyer and his leadership on the creation of the Help America Vote Act of 2002. We have 

discovered that throughout this country, peoples’ hopes have been 

lifted and expectations have been expanded as a direct consequence 

of this legislation. 

When people ask the question, what is different in America between 2000 and 2004, the critical answer lies in the language of 

the Help America Vote Act of 2002. And so thank you on behalf of 

the country for this great product. 

In our written testimony, we summarize some of the highlights 

of our having gotten started. As you know, we had the unenviable 

task of creating a brand new agency during a year when we have 

a Federal election. And I need not go into the details as to the complexity of that matter, but the testimony describes the process that 

we engaged in hiring some staff, in publishing State plans, in securing detailees from other agencies to assist us in our work, meetings with civil rights groups, coordinating functions with the Department of Justice, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Office of Management and Budget. Certainly we received 

administrative support from the General Services Administration. 

And we even had meetings at the Environmental Protection Agency, just taking help from where it existed to craft our strategy and 

our process to get about our mission. 

We also describe to you in our written testimony what we consider to be accomplishments about which we are quite proud. We 

visited over 20 primary elections personally as commissioners. We 

held a public meeting in March where we conducted the first business of the commission. 

We created our budget for 2005, while we were still negotiating 

our budget for 2004, and appeared before our subcommittee in this 

body to justify our budget for 2005. We were able to manage the 

transfer of the Office of Election Administration from the FEC to 

the EAC. We were able to get up an office space not far from here. 

We were able to launch our website. We issued a Human Factors 

Report, which we would like to discuss in whatever detail you 

would like to today. 

And we held two public hearings, the first on the use and reliability and security of electronic voting devices, and the second on 

19 

punch card and lever machine voting devices, which will be used 

throughout the country in 2004, and on provisional ballots. 

Our written testimony also has new information, information 

that has not been disclosed before, and we would like to focus just 

for a minute on what that is. 

In the first category are three things that are germane to our generic mission under HAVA. The EAC has some deadlines and some 

responsibilities that are very explicit in HAVA, and I would like to 

share with you three updates on those responsibilities. 

In the first instance, it is our task, after having published the 

State plans and received 45 days of comment as a result of that 

publication, to distribute Title II funds to the States to assist them 

in a manner that Mr. Hoyer described. 

As of today, 25 States have self-certified their compliance with 

HAVA, consistent with the language of the law, and today, I am 

happy to announce to you that we are in the process of releasing 

$861 million to 25 States, and they should receive those checks by 

next week. 

The second responsibility we have under HAVA is the creation 

of standards and advisory boards, which will give an inclusive aspect to the development of the standards that ultimately will guide 

the States in the use of voting equipment. 

The Standards Board is now in place. That board under HAVA 

has 110 members, and the first meeting will be in Houston, Texas, 

on the 29th of this month. 

The Advisory Board consists of 37 persons under HAVA. That 

board is in place, and that board will have its first meeting in 

Houston, Texas on June 28th, of this month. 

The third update I would like to provide is pursuant to another 

committee that is very critical to the outcome of our policies, that 

relates to the use of any particular voting device, and that is the 

Technical Guidelines Development Committee. 

HAVA assigns to this commission the responsibility of creating 

standards that become guidelines for the States to use in Federal 

elections. The Technical Guidelines Development Committee is a 

very specific committee under HAVA with representation from various bodies. I am happy to report today that that committee has 

now been appointed, and that committee will have its first meeting 

in the next 30 days. 

And so those developments position the commission for its longterm mission that hopefully will result in the entire country reflecting practices in Federal elections that were envisioned by HAVA. 

But as we began our work, it was obvious to us, based upon 

meetings that we had and, frankly, based on commonsense, that we 

still had to figure out what kind of impact we could have this year, 

in November. 

HAVA assumed in its origin that, by 2007, that its vision would 

be fully manifest in the way the country operated. But commonsense said that people needed to know, and we were required to respond to the question, what impact can you make as an EAC on 

this November’s election? 

There are three areas broadly that our report includes and we 

would like to discuss today. One has to do with the best practices 

or what we call our HAVA tool kit. There are certain things that 

20 

will be different this year than ever before. And we are now in our 

third draft of completing best practices as it relates to both HAVA 

mandates, provisional ballots, ID requirements, signage in the polling place and the complaint procedure, so that we can distribute 

that information by mid-June to every election official and every 

community and advocacy group in the country, to ensure that we 

are on the same page as it relates to HAVA requirements in 2004. 

The best practices focus primarily on equipment usage. And its 

not our job to tell jurisdictions what equipment to use, but it is our 

job to give jurisdictions guidance on the use of those products. We 

will have, by the time we meet with our Standards Board, a final 

draft for the Standards Board to review, that we can distribute 

throughout the country to ensure that local jurisdictions have as 

much information as they can on the use of the variety of voting 

devices. 

We also are concerned about the issue of poll workers. We know 

that, beyond some of the technical issues, we need about 2 million 

people to work on election day for a Federal election. We also know 

that, in jurisdictions around the country, we have information that 

suggests that we are understaffed. 

It is very difficult to recruit poll workers. We have an aging population of poll workers. The complexity of voting devices makes it 

even harder for the existing poll workers, and we just don’t have 

enough numbers. We have begun talking to national corporate 

leaders. We have begun talking to national organizations, fraternities, sororities and others, and we are preparing now to roll out 

a national poll worker initiative where, for the first time in the history of the country, the Federal Government is helping local jurisdictions recruit and track poll workers that they can train to work 

on election day. 

We have on our website today an opportunity for any American 

to sign up through their local State election director to be a poll 

worker in their jurisdiction. We think that will help the small districts, like yours, Mr. Ney, that only need a handful of poll workers, and larger, like Los Angeles that requires almost 25,000 poll 

workers. 

The college program, that we should have some real sense of timing about tomorrow, we have a critical meeting tomorrow on the 

Help America Vote Act College Program, where we think we can 

partner with organizations that already have access to mobilizing 

college students to link into this November, sufficient to give college students an opportunity to work on the polls in November. 

Finally is the issue of security. We have received probably more 

mail and more phone calls on the issue of security for electronic 

voting devices than we have received on any other subject. I have 

proposed, as a result of conversations with commissioners, meetings with groups, research and the public hearing we had on May 

5th, a strategy that appropriately positions this commission to address the issue of security in a proactive way. 

I have to remind the committee, Mr. Chairman, that when we 

talk about security and electronic voting devices, we are not attempting to fix a problem that has been demonstrated to undermine any previous election, rather we are attempting to prevent 

21 

problems that we acknowledge exist on a potential basis due to 

vulnerabilities that have been discovered. 

In that sense, we think there are some proactive steps we can 

take, one of which is asking vendors to register their software at 

the National Software Reference Library. Another is providing— 

from the vendors to the local election officials—the source code that 

can be analyzed and verified as being authentic. Another is by asking every jurisdiction to do something that they have never done 

before to enhance security, in some districts, it is simply the chain 

of custody for the equipment. 

We have met with the Department of Justice, because we want 

to remind people that tampering with elections is a Federal crime, 

and the Justice Department has assured us that they will work 

with us to prosecute people who have been identified as suspects 

in tampering with Federal elections. 

And the final thing we want to do is to broadly publish the fact 

that we will collect data on election day that identifies problems in 

voting devices. What that does is acts as a deterrent to ensure that 

vendors take more seriously the fact that we will know about malfunctions, but also for the first time, provide through our clearinghouse function a central repository of information that gives us 

some sense of which machines and which devices are working well 

or not. 

So I think that we have positioned ourselves for the long term 

mission of HAVA to get us where HAVA intended to go and the immediate needs to get us through this Federal election in a way that 

gives the American people confidence that the outcome has integrity. 

And so thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity to be here 

today to report to you and other Members the progress that we 

have made, the plans that we have made, and I would like now to 

call upon my colleagues to give their opening remarks and then answer any questions that you have. 

[The statement of Mr. Soaries follows:] 

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The CHAIRMAN. I assume we will go to the vice chair. 

STATEMENT OF HON. GRACIA HILLMAN 

Ms. HILLMAN. Thank you. Good morning. I join my colleague in 

thanking you for the opportunity to be here this morning to talk 

about the work that we have been doing, the challenges that we 

have faced, the accomplishments we have made, what we see needs 

to be done short term and long term. 

I will focus my remarks this morning on some of the challenges 

we faced getting started and talk a little bit more about the Standards Board and the Board of Advisors. And I think that any expectations of the Election Assistance Commission have to be within 

the reality of our circumstances, that being, when we were first 

designated as appointees for the commission, naively—and I say 

naively from lack of information—we focused on what the bill authorized and the authorized numbers. And we were ever so thrilled 

to note that there would be sufficient funds for us to do research 

and conduct the operations of the commission. 

We were very mindful that we would be somewhat late in being 

appointed, but felt that we could catch up quickly. And it was a 

rather rude awakening when we realized that our 2004 appropriation was only $1.2 million, and we really had been focusing on the 

bigger number of the amount of money that it turns out were requirements payments to the States. And so very quickly when we 

took office, we realized that we were going to have to do some very 

careful and strategic planning in order to get ourselves organized 

and to address the issues that were immediately in front of us, the 

needs of States, for us to move quickly so they could get their requirements payments to implement their plans, as well as to accept 

the responsibility of the transfer of the Office of Election Administration from the Federal Election Commission. 

And so in the end, we were able to get some things done between 

January and March because the Federal Election Commission was 

willing to give us temporary office space and because we worked 

very closely with General Services Administration to be able to get 

a rent waiver so that we could occupy offices. 

Quite candidly, we were faced with the decision of, do we hire 

staff or do we rent office space? And so, what good is it to have 

staff and no place to work? What good it is to have an office and 

no staff? We were able to work through that, so that we could occupy our offices as of April 1. 

And in many respects, some of what we were going through was 

a little bit like being in two kinds of amusement park activities, 

one a maze and one the house of mirrors, where we really weren’t 

sure, you know, which direction was going to lead us to where we 

had to go. We explored many recommendations that were made to 

us about detail staff and perhaps pursuing supplemental funding 

and so on and so forth. 

And we quickly decided that the best we could do was take the 

$1.2 million, figure out how we could spend it to implement our activities and move forward. We have had to do a staggering of the 

hiring of staff so that we still are in a position where we don’t have 

a general counsel and don’t have an executive director, but we believe that we can fill both of those positions this summer and will 

43 

have sufficient funds to carry us through, assuming that after the 

end of the fiscal year, when, as we are told 99 percent certain, we 

will have to operate under a continuing resolution, that the appropriate steps are taken to make sure that we can continue operating 

during the CR at the level where we are now, and not take us back 

to the $1.2 million. 

And certainly, Mr. Hoyer, if additional funds are able to be made 

available to us this year, it would increase our capacity to have 

more rapid response to inquiries from State and local election administration officials as well as to be able to disseminate more information much more quickly and to do some of the public hearings 

that we would like to pursue. 

The chairman talked a little bit about the challenge we had in 

making sure that the requirements payments could go to the 

States. And again, it was through a very good cooperative working 

relationship with the General Services Administration that we 

were able to get that accomplished. 

For the Fiscal Year 2005 appropriation, we did, as the Chairman 

mentioned, have our hearing with the Appropriations Subcommittee. And we were describing the work that we could do 

within a $10 million operating budget, having to find ways to find 

money to do research. I mean, we know that we cannot responsibly 

fulfill all of our mandates without having research, some evidencebased information, on which we could formulate standards, adopt 

guidelines. Those are not the kinds of things that we want to do 

based on anecdotal information. And so we talked with the subcommittee about our need for money for research. 

And Mr. Larson, I am very happy to address any specific questions you might have. And we are having those discussions with 

the Administration, about our needs for FY05. 

We did have to spend some time understanding just what our authority was as an independent agency, what that independence 

meant. We know it means that we don’t have the authority to come 

directly to ask for funds. We do have to do it within the context 

of the Administration. So we are having those discussions. 

Outlined for you in our written statement are the accomplishments that the chairman addressed. And we, quite frankly, are 

very pleased that we have been able to move forward. We were 

able to get detailees from other agencies through training programs 

and the like. And we did receive five staff people when the Office 

of Election Administration was transferred to us, effective April 1. 

So we are beginning to put some things in order and do expect 

that, when we are able to hire an executive director and general 

counsel, we will move forward. 

At the end of this month, there will be the first meetings of the 

Board of Advisors and the Standards Board. It will be an interesting time, because they are all important stakeholders in the 

work that we are doing under the Help America Vote Act. 

There are 110 members of the Standards Board, and that will be 

broad geographical representation, because there are two people 

from each State, the District of Columbia and the territories. The 

EAC has no input over who is appointed to the Standards Board. 

That appointment is made by the chief election official of each 

State. And so we are hoping that, along with that broad geographic 

44 

representation, that there will also be good diversity with respect 

to racial diversity and language diversity, so that we will receive 

broad input from a diverse group. 

The Board of Advisors also within HAVA is very explicit about 

the representation. And these are not individuals that the EAC appoints, but the EAC is responsible for providing administrative 

support and working with those bodies. And so at the end of this 

month they will be organizing their work. The Board of Advisors 

is to elect a chair. The Standards Board will select a nine-person 

executive committee, and then both committees are to—I mean 

both boards are to appoint committees to help us recruit, interview 

and identify candidates for executive director. And so that is a 

process that will be ongoing through the fall and I would expect 

into early 2005. 

And so with that, I will conclude my remarks and, again, am prepared to and pleased to answer any questions you might have. 

The CHAIRMAN. Other statements? 

Now, we do have two votes, one 15-minute vote and a 5-minute 

vote. 

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Chairman, if I may just interrupt a moment. I 

apologize for being late. I had another meeting I could not get out 

of. But I do have an opening statement. And I would just ask unanimous consent to enter that in the record. 

[The statement of Mr. Ehlers follows:] 

45 


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46 

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection. 

STATEMENT OF HON. PAUL DeGREGORIO 

Mr. DEGREGORIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Chairman Ney, 

Ranking Member Larson, Members of the Committee and Congressman Hoyer, thank you for giving me this opportunity to come 

before you to join my distinguished colleagues seated with me at 

this table. 

Before I begin, I want to thank the Chairman and Members of 

the committee for their leadership in passing the Help America 

Vote Act. Obviously, without it, we would not be sitting here today. 

However, more importantly, without HAVA, there would not be a 

Federal role in the national leadership we have today on the way 

elections are conducted in the United States. 

As one who conducted elections in Missouri’s largest county for 

8 years, I can attest to the fact that this Federal role in providing 

assistance to States and local election officials was sorely needed, 

and long before the 2000 election, I might add. Furthermore, as one 

who provided technical assistance on elections to the Russians and 

19 other countries for 9 years prior to my appointment as a commissioner, I am grateful to have the opportunity to provide assistance to my own country. 

I would like to briefly update the committee on our important 

work in several areas. Our work on best practices guidance for this 

November’s election, the formation of our Technical Guidelines Development Committee and our work with the National Institute for 

Standards and Technology. More details regarding this activity can 

be found in the written testimony submitted to this committee. 

As part of its clearinghouse responsibility, the EAC is committed 

to gathering information regarding best practices and lessons 

learned and to disseminate this information to election administrators, advocates, other interested parties in a timely and informative 

manner. 

The EAC believes there are many things that election administrators can do to increase the likelihood of reliability of voting 

equipment and systems for the November 2004 elections and decrease the likelihood of an irregularity. 

The EAC serves as a repository of useful information which enables it to provide critical guidance and resources to election officials as they prepare for upcoming general elections. The EAC is 

developing a HAVA tool kit that will offer guidance to election officials. The first set of guidance will be issued in the next few weeks 

so that it can be of practical use in time for the November election. 

Then, as the EAC progresses in its work, the tool kit will evolve 

in 2005 to include guidelines, guidance, resource materials and 

other publications that will be helpful over the long run to election 

administrators, elected officials, advocates, scientists, academics, 

the media and other parties interested in the administration and 

integrity of our election systems and progress and certainly the 

Congress. 

The EAC recognizes that there are many aspects of election systems and practices that have nothing to do with how voting machines function. These areas of election administration which are 

covered in HAVA also need examination and guidance. Two glaring 

47 

examples are poll worker recruitment and training, which the 

chairman made reference to earlier, which are major challenges 

that confront most election officials. 

Also important to be included in the HAVA tool kit would be information and guidance on voter registration requirements, provisional ballots, absentee ballots, especially for our troops and our 

American citizens who work outside of the U.S., and other aspects 

of election administration and voter education. 

Pursuant to HAVA Section 252, the EAC will soon issue to Congress a report on best practice for facilitating voting by U.S. citizens covered by the Uniform and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, which is being developed in consultation with the Federal 

voting assistance program of the U.S. Department of Defense. 

However, Mr. Chairman, we know that, in the midst of many 

HAVA mandates that need our attention, the one that cries out for 

immediate attention is the growing concern about the use, reliability, accessibility and security of the various voting systems that 

will be administered in 2004. 

As noted earlier by our chairman, we believe that there are 

things that the EAC and election administrators can do now to increase the likelihood of reliability of voting equipment assistance in 

the November 2004 elections and decrease the likelihood of irregularity. 

To that end, our best practices guidelines published in coming 

weeks will be critical components of our tool kit, and based on testimony we received at our May 5th and June 3rd hearings and 

with thoughtful input over the past few weeks from election official 

advocates, academics, vendors and other experts from across the 

country. 

As noted earlier, HAVA established a 15-member Technical 

Guidelines Development Committee that is charged with the responsibility of developing voluntary guidelines for voting systems 

and voting equipment that will be reviewed by the EAC Board of 

Advisors and Standards Board and ultimately adopted by the four 

of us. 

As established by HAVA, the TGDC, as it is known, is chaired 

by the director of the National Institute For Standards and Technology, Dr. Arden Bement. He currently serves as the director of 

NIST and will chair the committee. 

In consultation with NIST, the EAC has appointed the 14 other 

members of the TGDC, which, by law, includes representatives 

from the American National Standards Institute, the National Association of State Election Directors, the Institute for Electrical and 

Electronic Engineers, the Access Board, the EAC Standards Board 

and the EAC Board of Advisors. 

These are individuals with technical and scientific expertise as 

well as dedicated election officials and public representatives. EAC 

plans to hold the first meeting of the TGDC on July the 9th. HAVA 

provides that the TGDC will have a 9-month time table to draft 

voting system guidelines. 

These draft guidelines will be reviewed, as stated earlier, for 

final disposition by the EAC. With all certainty, the public hearings 

will be conducted on this important issue by the TGDC during the 

process to ensure adequate input by officials and voters alike. 

48 

HAVA provides that the voting system guidelines will be voluntary, but the EAC is well aware that most States and jurisdictions will follow these guidelines as they develop their own standards for election equipment used in their States. 

Now I would like to talk just briefly about our work—— 

The CHAIRMAN. If I were 10 years younger, I could let you go another 2 minutes and get over to that vote in time. I can run, but 

I can’t jog. If you don’t mind—— 

Mr. DEGREGORIO. Chairman, let me just add, in our statement, 

we talk about the work with NIST. NIST has provided tremendous 

support to the EAC over the past 5 months. And we are going to 

work with them in the next coming months with the technical 

guidelines development that we are going to do. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. We have about 6 minutes left, and 

the vote will occur, so we will go over. 

If we can recess, come back with any additional comments Commissioner Martinez has and then open it up for questions and 

thoughts. We will be in recess. 

[Recess.] 

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. Thank you. 

We will begin with Mr. Martinez—or we will complete with Commissioner Martinez. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF RAY MARTINEZ 

Mr. MARTINEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member Larson and members of the 

committee, I am pleased to be here to join my colleagues this morning to give an update on our progress with respect to the implementation of the Help America Vote Act. I will be very brief in my 

comments so that we can get to some questions and answers and 

talk in greater detail about our work. 

As you know, Mr. Chairman, HAVA creates new mandatory minimum standards for States to follow in several key areas of election 

administration. For example, HAVA provides funding referred to as 

requirements payments to assist States in implementing several 

uniform nondiscriminatory election technology and administrative 

improvements. These include new voting system standards, provisional, and voting information requirements, voter identification requirements, and the creation of computerized statewide voter registration lists. 

To be eligible for requirements payments under Title II states 

have to submit to the EAC written State plans indicating how the 

requirements payments would be used. All 55 States—and, of 

course, the four U.S. territories and the District of Columbia are 

referred to in HAVA as States—all 55 State plans were published 

by the EAC, as Chairman Soaries has reported, in the Federal Register on March 24, 2004. And following that, there was a 45-day 

mandatory comment period that ended on May the 8th of 2004. 

And at that point States began submitting statements of certification as required to the EAC. 

Over the course of the last several weeks, the EAC has attempted to provide appropriate oversight and due diligence to the 

distribution of these Federal funds. For example, the EAC has been 

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garding the certification process and distribution of the Title II 

funds. 

In addition, the EAC has worked closely with other Federal 

agencies such as the Office of Management and Budget to resolve 

issues pertaining to procurement, reporting, and auditing protocols 

that are normally applicable to the Federal funds awarded to outside entities such as State and local governments. 

In short, Mr. Chairman, this has already been reported by Chairman Soaries, in the 5 weeks since the end of the 45-day comment 

period, the EAC has now processed statements of certification from 

25 States. And, accordingly, by next week GSA, at the direction of 

the EAC, will begin making requirements payments to these 25 

States totaling well over $800 million. We expect to process additional statements of certification from States in the days and weeks 

to follow, and, in fact, we have some already in the pipeline that 

we are trying to process today. 

Another critical responsibility of the EAC is to serve as a national clearinghouse for the compilation of information with respect 

to the administration of Federal elections. In order to successfully 

fulfill this requirement, Mr. Chairman, the EAC has worked diligently in its first 6 months of operation to develop close ties not 

only with our main constituency, which are election administrators 

and supervisors throughout the country, and, of course, other State 

and local government organizations, but, equally as important, 

with advocacies, civil, and voting rights organizations, and other 

interested parties that are interested in assisting us with implementation of the Help America Vote Act. 

Shortly after assuming office last December, all four EAC Commissioners traveled to various local jurisdictions throughout the 

country in order to personally observe the administration of primary elections, to visit with election administrators, poll workers, 

and voters, and to see firsthand the implementation of various 

HAVA requirements such as provisional voting. One of the States 

that I visited was Oklahoma, which was implementing a type of 

provisional voting for the first time as a result of the requirements 

in the Help America Vote Act. 

Moreover, the EAC has held, as we know, two public hearings, 

one here in D.C. covering DRE machines and another just several 

weeks ago in Chicago, Illinois, where election officials, representatives of advocacy organizations, and members of the general public 

were invited to submit oral and written testimony regarding HAVA 

implementation issues. 

In addition to travel and public hearings, Mr. Chairman, the 

EAC Commissioners as a group and through the individual efforts 

of each of the Commissioners have been attending various functions, meetings, and annual conferences in order to educate and inform the public regarding the important mission of the EAC. Since 

various advocacy and civic organizations have also worked hard on 

issues central to HAVA implementation, the EAC has also made a 

concerted effort over the course of the last several months and 

since we have been appointed in December to be informed of their 

experiences and perspectives regarding HAVA implementation. 

Finally, because coordination with other Federal agencies is critical, members of the EAC have held planning sessions and various 

50 

meetings with agencies such as the Departments of Justice and Defense, and the Administration on Developmental Disabilities within 

HHS. 

The EAC remains firmly committed to continuing this important 

outreach and to soliciting input from the general public. The valuable information we receive will inform us as we make critical recommendations to State and local governments regarding election 

administration, and as we give guidance on implementing the various election reform measures required by HAVA. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to say a few 

words. And of course I would welcome your questions on this or 

any other issues regarding HAVA implementation. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Normally we are pretty relaxed here about the time, but I am 

going to hold myself to the 5 minutes, and that way we all 4 can 

get 5 minutes in, in case members have to come and go. There are 

other questions I want to ask, and I know others do, but we will 

just hold to the 5. That way everybody gets a round in, and then 

we can continue with no problem. 

Again, I appreciate your testimony. As far as my question, when 

do you anticipate—anyone can answer if you want to or decide who 

wants to answer. When do you anticipate issuing the best administration practices with respect to electronic voting equipment? I 

mean, do you have a date or a guesstimate? 

Mr. SOARIES. Commissioner DeGregorio is working closest to that 

process. Our expectation is to be prepared by mid-July to distribute 

that information. 

The CHAIRMAN. I think one other thing that also concerns me, 

and we can go into this later in the rounds of questioning, is that 

we had an issue with the Defense Department. They were supposed to have this program, and it was all pooled—I think it was 

roughly $20 million. I am not sure that—I don’t know what happens after that. I am not asking for an answer now in my time, 

but I think I will come back to that. 

I am assuming you plan in the near future for the provisional 

ballots—to issue some guidelines for those. Do you have an idea of 

the time frame for that? 

Mr. DEGREGORIO. Mr. Chairman, those will be issued at the 

same time we issue the best practices for voting systems in early 

to mid-July. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. As far as most States, I am assuming, 

have asked for a waiver from the implementation of the computerization until 2006. Is that correct? 

Mr. SOARIES. Forty-one have asked for waivers. 

The CHAIRMAN. Do you think the other nine are going to do it, 

or do you think they will be asking, too? 

Mr. SOARIES. No. I think in varying stages. We have some States 

that have already had computerized voting databases, but they had 

to upgrade their hardware. In another State, we have an upgrade 

of the software. I think they are in various stages of implementation, but most, if not all, will be doing some work to get to 2006. 

No one is in a perfect state yet. 

The CHAIRMAN. As far as the poll workers, and I know the Chairman mentioned it and a few of the other Commissioners, I think 

51 

that is a real critical part of this. It is something we looked at, it 

is something Congressman Hoyer, Senator Bond and Dodd and everybody, McConnell and everybody all looked at that issue. One of 

the reasons we also devised the high school and college bipartisan 

program—and Congressman Hoyer came up with the college end, 

and I came up with the high school end—was to encourage the participation. Maybe the students get the day off and they can go to 

the polls and help, and then you are getting people that are going 

to be poll workers down the road in their communities, so I am 

hoping that program gets started. 

Now, I know from our end, I don’t believe that the head of the 

high school program has been appointed yet, which we need to take 

care of that. That is going to be our duty to push that. I would hope 

that is an integral part, I would assume, down the road. Any comments on those two programs? 

Mr. SOARIES. The poll worker initiative both for high school students, college students, and corporate support is critical to the future voting in this country. I have not met a jurisdiction yet that 

believes they have sufficient numbers of poll workers. Again, the 

complexity of the voting process requires even more poll workers. 

And it is just—it is not in the culture that being a poll worker outside of the partisan political apparatus is important to do. 

We are attempting everything we know to do, including trying to 

get some celebrities who have high name recognition to volunteer 

to be poll workers. If we don’t put this on the map and make it 

a part of the culture, then voting in the country is at risk. 

The CHAIRMAN. Also, I think when we start to talk about DREs 

and machines—and I am of this era. If I hook up a VCR—my son 

Bobby or my daughter Kayla, they hook up the VCR. I won’t even 

talk about computers and what happens, but younger people, they 

don’t have the fear of it. I think, too, as we go down the path of 

equipment and technology, I think having these younger people 

now who don’t fear machines as much—that is not to say that people who are older can’t learn. I mean, we have talked to poll workers, and they are starting to become comfortable now with the idea. 

When they first heard about it, they were fearful of it. They are 

becoming comfortable. But I think as time goes on, having the 

younger people in there will—I think will be a very good thing. 

In my remaining 39 seconds, also, how about the—it is very, very 

important—the persons with disabilities, who have a form of disability, and they push so hard for the one machine per precinct. 

How do you think that is going, the one machine per precinct? 

Mr. SOARIES. We are finding local jurisdictions’ willingness to cooperate, participate. Again, the controversy surrounding the use of 

DREs in general is beginning to weigh against some of the advocacy for accessibility for people with disabilities. And I think a 

proper role for the EAC is to make sure that we keep that balance, 

that we have maximum security and maximum accessibility. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

The gentleman from Connecticut. 

Mr. LARSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And, again, 

let me thank the panelists. 

52 

Let me also recognize that in the audience today we have Joe 

Crangle from New York, who is on the EAC Advisory Board as 

well, and I just wanted to acknowledge his presence. 

And let me cut right to the chase with respect to, I think, one 

of the overarching concerns that I have is whether or not you have 

adequate funding for the administration of the EAC. And as was 

pointed out both in testimony and by Mr. Ney and Mr. Hoyer, this 

is an ongoing concern of mine. And given the broad tasks that you 

have been given, do you feel that you have sufficient funding? And 

where are you with asking for additional funding for research? 

Mr. SOARIES. I am going to ask Vice Chair Hillman to explain 

my one-sentence answer. 

The EAC is best described as being fiscally challenged, and Vice 

Chair Hillman will break it down for you. 

Ms. HILLMAN. The short answer to your first question is, no, we 

do not have sufficient resources. As the committee knows, EAC is 

authorized to have up to $10 million for operating, and for 2004 we 

were appropriated 1.2-. When we received the transfer of the Office 

of Election Administration, along with that came the balance of 

their funds, which was about $500,000. So what we scaled out was 

that we are operating in fiscal year 2004 with a budget of—annual 

budget of about $2 million. 

And so we quickly began exploring whether there was any possibility to get supplemental funding, and we always identified that 

somewhere between 1 and 2 million dollars in additional funds 

wouldn’t do for us what 10 million would have, but it would have 

at least enabled us to be able to respond a little more quickly to 

some of the challenges. 

With respect to money for research, we—I don’t want to say that 

we gave up on money for research, but we recognized that with the 

time remaining, we couldn’t do the kind of research that would 

allow for analysis, testing, and so on and so forth. But the National 

Institute of Standards and Technology did give us for $1 million 

what they could do right now this summer that would be available 

to jurisdictions in time for the November elections. So we do have, 

you know, in place programs that could be immediately implemented if we had additional funds. 

For 2005, we identified what we could do with $10 million in research funds. Now, there were authorized up to $30 million that 

could be available for research monies, none of which has ever been 

appropriated. And so we were saying to the subcommittee and the 

Administration, you know, we really need the $10 million. What we 

had originally done was be so modest as to come in and say, okay, 

well, if we only get 10 million for operating, we will take 30 percent 

of that and apply it to research, and we can do a little bit. We were 

encouraged to ask for what we thought we could use and need. So 

what we are discussing with the administration is 10 million for 

operating and 10 million for research. 

And the research would be programs that we would be working 

with NIST on, looking at the equipment and coming up with recommendations for standards that we should adopt. And we are behind on that because I think that was supposed to happen within 

9 months, you know, after the TDGC had been formed. 

53 

Mr. LARSON. Well, as Mr. Hoyer noted in his opening statement, 

this is something that Mr. Ehlers was critical in both providing the 

impetus and the influence of having the relationship with NIST. 

And to say that you are fiscally challenged is an understatement, 

I would say, and it is important that the committee hear this so 

that we can seek to help address these critical areas that are so 

important to us. 

Another question. You had a hearing back in May, and I would 

like to know where the EAC is with respect to DRE security and 

the debate, and where do you see that all going? And, most importantly, because this is a question I get asked all the time, even if 

legislation such as the Holt legislation were to be embraced, could 

it be effective by—put in place and be effective by November for 

this election? 

Mr. SOARIES. I will take the latter question first. 

The answer is no, that the expectation that legislation passed 

would result in every DRE voting device in the country being retrofitted with a printer is—it is beyond what is practical. One, we 

don’t know the cost, and we don’t have sufficient projections as to 

the reliability of printers. We don’t know the protocols for training 

poll workers. We don’t know the implications for backup systems. 

We just—we don’t know enough yet. And on May 5th, when we 

talked to experts with various perspectives on this issue, we came 

away with the understanding that we just don’t know enough yet. 

But the larger—the larger answer to you, Congressman, is that 

when you frame the debate the way it has been around paper 

verification, you create an assumption that paper is the solution to 

the only security risk involved. Experts have told us that if one can 

manipulate the results of a DRE that doesn’t have paper, one also 

could manipulate the results of a DRE that does have paper. 

And then we have the issue of verification being one that is more 

complicated than paper. There is a school of thought that you have 

a voter-verified paper trail, but then there is another body of research that talks about the voter-verified audit trail. And the audit 

trail without paper can be made possible by cryptography, and that 

a cryptographic solution is much more secure than a paper solution 

because we have had such a history of paper. 

What we have said is that all of these varying views compel us 

to get the technical process in place, get the money to do the research. 

Mr. LARSON. Which is why the funding is so important. 

Mr. SOARIES. Exactly. And the position of HAVA was that the 

Commission would be in place by about March of 2003, that the research would be done by December of 2003. And so when the 

States got the money, along with the money would come the guidance. We were in the position of having to release the money without having the money to do the research, and so the States will 

have over the $2 billion in Federal funds before we can study sufficient to give them guidance on using the money. 

Mr. LARSON. In keeping with the admonition of the Chair, I will 

get back with other questions. But thank you, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. We will come back. 

Also, I just wanted to note, I know the gentleman from Connecticut was putting something in the record, I think, for one of 

54 

the—I don’t know if it was for the American Association of Persons 

with Disabilities. 

Also, without objection, I want to put something in the record. 

I think that the New York Times article written by Jim Dixon was 

over the top on impugning the integrity of the association of the 

National Federation of the Blind and one of our U.S. Senators, who 

I hate to even print the names because I don’t want to have them 

again impugned—I think it was impugning—it is okay in this democracy to have a difference of opinion. I think it just simply impugned them over them having an opinion. Therefore I am going 

to, without objection, put some further remarks in the record. 

[The information follows:] 

INFORMATION TO COME? 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Michigan. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank 

you for having this hearing. 

Just for background, in case you didn’t know, I happen to be the 

scientist on the committee and the person who wrote the part of 

the bill dealing with the technical aspects. That bill came out of 

our Science Committee and then was folded into this. 

I have to confess to a lot of chagrin about what has happened. 

Obviously, the research should have been done first before we buy 

several billion dollars worth of voting machines, and that was the 

intent. And I had advocated originally that we have a set-aside out 

of the money for the computers. That would automatically fund 

your operation. That got lost in the appropriations process. The authorization we did was sufficient, but the appropriations weren’t. 

I do want to add also that I also attempted to persuade the re- cipients of the $3 billion approximately that they should be willing 

to let us use a portion of that, and I will never forgive them for 

saying no when we were giving them that much money for their 

purposes and their job, and they said, no, we don’t want you to use 

any of it for research. And that is, I think, a gross error on their 

part and unforgivable. 

The points I want to make. I think the issues that have to be 

dealt with in voting are usability; in other words, the human factors. Make sure it is easy to use. And I have rebelled against the 

people who say all we have to do is train the voters. That is not 

the point. You cannot train people who are going to do something 

once, maybe twice a year and expect them to remember it. The machines have to be good enough so that no training is required, literally idiot-proof. And so usability is very high on my scale of 

things that have to be achieved, 

Accuracy, of course, is very important, and that is relatively easy 

to achieve using electronic devices. It is actually fairly easy to 

achieve using punch cards if people simply operate them correctly. 

And that relates to maintenance and testing. And punch cards are 

fine if you maintain and test them, but every system has to be 

maintained and tested. 

Verifiability is very important, and that gets to the point you just 

raised a moment ago, Mr. Chairman. I have not joined in sponsoring the bill to require a printout even though I think it would 

be a good thing, because it was on the basis that this would someVerDate Aug 04 2004 23:52 Feb 03, 2005 Jkt 95896 PO 00000 Frm 000056 Fmt 06633 Sfmt 06602 E:\PICKUP\95896A.XXX 95896A
55 

how verify that the vote was cast accurately. And I personally can 

program a computer to print out precisely what the person put in, 

but store in the memory something different, and that is where the 

opportunities for fraud come in. 

I have been surprised in serving on this committee that fraud is 

still a very viable issue in this Nation. I have been led to believe 

as I was growing up that once we got rid of Tammany Hall and 

all the other various machines, that elections now were just slick 

and clean. They may be slick, but they are not all clean. It depends 

on the part of the country you are in. And fraud is still a problem 

in a number of ways, and you can commit fraud more easily with 

electronic machines in many cases than you can with the old system. And so we really have to emphasize the security, and that 

means, as part of the testing procedure, you really have to, before 

each election, test and make sure that the machines are recording 

accurately and verifiably. 

I think a key factor is going to be also to have skilled technical 

help available in the polling places. Now, that is very difficult. It 

is hard enough to find poll workers, but to find poll workers who 

understand electronic instruments and can verify they are working 

accurately is very difficult. And I really think we—and Mr. Hoyer 

has mentioned this, too. I think it is an excellent idea that we 

should simply call upon the high-tech industries in this country to 

donate employees with full pay to be in the polling places, to ensure that the machines are working properly and accurately, and 

not simply depend on the poll workers who frequently do not have 

a technical background. 

All of these have to be done, but above all you have to have the 

money to do your job right, because I think yours is the most crucial part of the entire enterprise. And if the work is done properly 

and setting standards for all the factors I have mentioned, we are 

going to have fair and free elections and with equipment that operates properly. If your background work doesn’t get done right, and 

you don’t have the resources to do it, we are throwing several billion dollars down the drain again, and we will come back with the 

same problem a few years from now. 

I have thrown a lot at you, but I would appreciate, even though 

the time is basically up, any comments you would like to make in 

response. 

The CHAIRMAN. If we could, because I want to do that. If we 

could go to the gentlelady, and in 5 minutes, if you could come back 

and answer that. 

Mr. EHLERS. Okay. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And it is 

very critical that we have this hearing this morning. Thank you 

and the Ranking Member for convening this. 

And I thank you all for being here and in your positions as you 

are starting out on a deficit yourself in terms of lack of funding. 

I think the Chairman stated that there were 41 States—our 

Chairman raised the question, and I think you responded, Mr. 

Chairman, that there are 41 States that have opted out of the computerized system. Am I correct in that? Because I was kind of reading and then listening. Is that a fair assessment of that question 

he raised and you answered to that? 

56 

Mr. SOARIES. The question was, how many States have asked for 

a waiver for this year to construct their statewide computerized 

voter registration database? 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Okay. 

Mr. SOARIES. And the deferment is to meet the 2006 deadline. So 

that—— 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. That is what it was. And it is 41. 

Mr. SOARIES. Forty-one. Yes. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. So would they be perhaps going 

back to the paper ballot, I suppose? Is that what they are going 

back to? 

Mr. SOARIES. No. This doesn’t have to do with voting devices. It 

has to do with the management of the voter lists. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. I got you. Okay, fine. 

In terms of polling places, that has become extremely problematic especially in the minority communities. Are you—and you stated that, Mr. Chairman, insufficient number of persons, a lot of illtrained personnel. How does this Commission work in that regard? 

What will be your role in that? 

Mr. SOARIES. In the selection of polling places? 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Selection, training, ensuring that 

there is not disenfranchisement because of what we saw in Florida. 

We see it in California, and you see it in Texas and a lot of other 

places. 

Mr. SOARIES. Our role formally is to establish the areas of great 

concern and areas that are legally mandated, and share immediately best practices with election officials around the country and 

communities that can hold the election officials accountable to 

these best practices. In other words, if you are going to use provisional ballots, which every district is, here is how you get it right; 

here is how you ensure that it is consistently executed in a legal 

way and in a fair way. If you are going to train poll workers, we 

have in our best practices where—a section on the training of poll 

workers. If you only train for about 20 minutes, you probably won’t 

get it right. If you train for 45 hours, you will probably get no one 

to sign up. And so what we are doing—— 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. And may not get it right either. 

Mr. SOARIES. Exactly. 

Commissioner Martinez and I met with a group of disability 

groups last week to talk about how we as a Commission can encourage election officials to identify more polling places that are accessible for disabled. It is one thing to say that the machines have 

to be accessible, but the question is, what about the polling place 

itself, whether or not it is accessible? And so in a larger role we 

have more of a bully pulpit where, because of our legal mandates, 

it puts us in a position to raise other issues that may not be in the 

legislation, but have to do with the effective management of election practices. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Either one of you can answer this 

question. So, have you had meetings with registered recorders, 

clerk, or have you had meetings with city clerks who handle some 

of this, or State personnel? Have you had those hearings, meetings? 

Are you anticipating that, what, 5 months out? Certainly you had 

57 

such a short window getting started, it seems to me it is rather 

late. 

Mr. MARTINEZ. To answer your question, Congresswoman, yes, 

we have had lots of meetings where we have tried to make ourselves very visible and available to election administrators, to folks 

who have direct responsibility for the administration of our elections, but also, as I said in my opening remarks, to other interested 

parties, to advocacy groups, for example, who have a history of 

monitoring the administration of elections. We want to make sure 

that we garner as much experience and perspective as possible as 

we implement the Help America Vote Act. 

The other answer to the question that you raised is that, you 

know, as the Chairman said, the power of this Commission is really the power of persuasion, the power of the bully pulpit. We are 

essentially a nonregulatory agency, but it is important for us to remind States and local governments that they are coming into a lot 

of unprecedented and really historical Federal funds for use of improving the administration of Federal elections. It is incumbent 

upon us to use our bully pulpit to make sure that this is not about 

just replacing technology, it is also about the people side of election 

administration. 

So the money that is flowing, the Title I money that has already 

been out there for a while, section 101 and 102 money, and now 

the Title II funds that are about to flow can be used for the things 

like poll worker training, nonpartisan voter education, so that if 

you purchase new technology in a jurisdiction, you want to make 

sure that the folks who are going to be using that technology are 

comfortable with that technology and not intimidated by the fact 

that they are using a brand-new voting system. 

So, appropriately some of these Federal funds can be used, again, 

on the people side of election administration. It is not all just for 

the technology, as important as that is. So I think it is important 

for us to use our bully pulpit to be able to educate the public and 

the election administrators about the use of these funds. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Mr. Chairman, I don’t know who is 

running my clock, but that is a quick red light that I saw. I did 

want to raise one more question. 

Mr. EHLERS [presiding]. Actually I think it was no quicker than 

mine. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Really. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. I will let you have another minute. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Please. 

I just wanted to raise the question about the last election. We 

know that the Justice Department had some of their personnel 

going out, monitoring, overseeing elections, and rightfully so, because we did not anticipate but did have the Florida debacle. Do 

you have any oversight monitoring role in this as well, and will you 

enforce such laws as civil rights laws and the Disability Act? 

Mr. SOARIES. We have a very cooperative working relationship 

with the Justice Department. One of our early meetings in January 

was with the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. We 

probably speak with them every single week. Because the Justice 

Department under HAVA has enforcement authority for the implementation of HAVA, we have some responsibility as it relates to 

58 

auditing the use of funds and ensuring that States are compliant 

with HAVA in the use of those funds, and so it is more of a cooperative relationship than it is oversight. 

But HAVA does explicitly state that States have to be in compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Americans with Disabilities Act. And to the extent that we are working with the 8,000 

election officials and we have information about possible violations, 

we have established a methodology for triggering the Justice Department to investigate and, if necessary, prosecute. There are a 

few consent decrees that have already been entered as relates to 

HAVA violations, and we have collaborated with Justice over those 

issues. 

Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you. 

And I will return to my questions and ask for your reactions and 

comments to my statements. 

Mr. SOARIES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

We worked with the National Institute of Standards and Technology from day one. And as you know, HAVA requires that we release a human factors report that would be conducted by NIST. 

NIST gave us the draft of the human factors report for us to ultimately pass on to this committee, and I think I can speak for all 

of us, we were alarmed at the paucity of research that has been 

done in usability. I don’t think the average American knows in 

comparison to other industries how weak the usability research is 

on voting devices. And as you rightfully state, one can be secure, 

a machine can be accessible, but if no one has studied font size, positioning of ballots, whether vertical or horizontal positioning affects the outcome of an election, then we really are groping in the 

dark as relates to usability. 

The human factors report lists 10 recommendations, which we 

accept. We pass it on to Congress. But all of them require the funding that is needed to do the proper research. And we have been 

challenged, as it were, because on the one hand we are responsible 

as public officials to inform the public as often as we can and as 

honestly as we can. On the other hand, if we say everything we 

know, it could frighten people to death. And so we are constantly 

looking for the kind of support that your questions lead to to ensure that we can do the work that we have been charged and 

tasked to do to make sure we have integrity. 

The maintenance and testing, though, is something I want to 

mention for a moment. If you take away the EAC and remove 

HAVA, the fact is technology is advancing more rapidly today than 

it ever has, and no one has been able to assess the true maintenance needs, the true testing procedures, and ultimately the true 

cost of replacement for the new voting technologies. If we, the EAC, 

aren’t in a position to offer the country that kind of information, 

we may find that the money the Federal Government is spending 

today will commit the States to technologies and upgrades that 

they don’t have the resources to sustain over the long haul. If you 

buy a personal computer today, you buy it knowing that 3 years 

from now you will need a new one. And we have yet to even begin 

to discuss the 10-year, 15-, 20-year impact, fiscal impact, that is 

59 

generated by the use of the $3 billion that we will use to seed voting technology upgrade in the country. 

So there are so many unknowns that those of us who felt we 

might only serve a year or two probably now understand that this 

is probably a 10-year mission. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you. And, frankly, the good news part of it 

is that because these do not have to be very sophisticated machines, that you probably don’t have to replace the machines every 

3 years, but you may have to upgrade the software every 2 or 3 

years. That is a generally less expensive proposition. So if you get 

some good basic computers to begin with, I think you can then 

probably get a 5- to 7-year lifetime out of them simply by upgrading the software. But it is still an important maintenance and testing problem; every election you are going to have to go through it. 

Any others wish to respond? Yes. 

Ms. HILLMAN. On the issue of poll workers, just getting back to 

the issue of high school and college students. I just want to note 

that one thing we are keeping an eye on and collecting information 

on is that in some States and local jurisdictions, law requires that 

the poll worker be a registered voter in that jurisdiction, age 18 or 

older. And so in some places it precludes the involvement of high 

school and college students. But there are many areas where they 

certainly can get involved. 

Mr. EHLERS. Yes. And in fact, that is why I suggested getting 

high-tech companies to donate employees for a day, which presumably they would be old enough and wise enough. 

Any other comments? 

Mr. DEGREGORIO. Mr. Chairman, if I might add to our Chairman’s comments. I know you are talking about testing and maintenance of election equipment by election officials, but there is also 

the testing and certification of election equipment itself, which we 

know a lot of new election equipment will be purchased. And we 

have a crisis in that area because we really only have three labs 

in this country that are doing it, one to test and certify hardware, 

and two to test and certify hardware—software. And we are working very closely with NIST on this problem to try to move the process forward to certify more labs in this country that can test equipment, because there is a bottleneck developing, and it takes many 

months for these labs to certify this equipment. 

And so we are moving forward, but, again, the funding shortage 

has made it difficult to move that as fast as we would have liked. 

Mr. EHLERS. It is a very valid point. And when we wrote the bill, 

we would have been quite pleased to allow NIST to also do it until 

enough private supplies were up, but of course the private sector 

objects to the government taking away business from them. So we 

will see whether the private sector comes up with the requisite 

number of certifiable labs that do the work, and we may have to 

readjust if they don’t. 

Mr. MARTINEZ. I will simply speak very briefly to the overall 

point that I think that you made, Mr. Chairman, and that is that 

the lack of funding has many implications for our Agency. One of 

the statutory obligations that we have under Title III of the Act is 

to issue guidance to States and local governments that are implementing the various administrative and technical requirements, 

60 

the election reform measures that are in Title III of the Act. And 

one of the consequences of our being fiscally challenged, of course, 

is that while we are doing best practices and we are developing as 

much guidance as we can within the context of our budget and limited infrastructure, the fact of the matter is that there are some 

Title III requirements that have to be put in place and that started 

January 1 of this year, provisional voting, voter ID requirements, 

voter signage, and administrative complaint procedures. But there 

are other big ones coming up now that States have asked for a 

waiver on that you are very familiar with, the computerized voter 

registration database, and the various election—the various standards for election equipment that are in section 301 of the act, that 

we are unable to do anything more than at this point, as Vice 

Chair Hillman has stated, than really recite anecdotal things that 

we have heard as opposed to giving research-based guidance to 

States on how to implement the various election form measures. 

That is a critical point. We just don’t have the means at this point 

to do anything other than how we are going about it, which I think 

is a very responsible and the best possible way that we can, but 

it is within the context of some very severely limited funds. 

Mr. EHLERS. Well, we all recognize the problem, and none of us 

are happy about it. We tried to prevent it, but the vagaries of writing law sometimes lead to strange results. But we will continue to 

work on and try to improve it. 

My time has expired. Mr. Larson, do you have further questions? 

Mr. LARSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes. 

First, just to so I am clear on this, from an administrative standpoint, how much more money would be needed in this current year, 

in the year 2005, in order for you to be able to perform your functions? And has there been a suggestion of bringing up a supplemental in order to make that happen, make that a reality? 

Ms. HILLMAN. Sure. For 2004, the administration will not introduce the supplemental on our behalf. We estimated that, given 

where we are in the fiscal year, 1 million—somewhere between 1- 

and $2 million would enable us—and this, of course, assumes that 

NIST is still prepared to do the work that it had scoped out—would 

enable us to respond to the needs of the States and local jurisdictions. But that really is predicated on when the money comes. I 

mean, obviously, if the money came in August, it would be very, 

very difficult for us to do justice to that kind of money. And for fiscal year 2005, what we identified was the need for $10 million in operating, plus an additional $10 million for research. 

That would allow us to do some catch-up, to try to catch up on 

what didn’t happen in 2003 and what didn’t happen in 2004, but 

needs to be in place in 2005 so that the States can meet the mandates of the law. 

Mr. LARSON. So, ASAP, you would need a supplemental, for 2004, 

between 1- and 2 million; and approximately 20 million, 10- for administration, 10- for R&D, going forward. 

How does this relate to the questions, Mr. Chairman, as you 

raised earlier? I think everyone is concerned, and I can certainly 

understand everyone’s desire to have a paper trail given the results 

of the 2000 election, and general concerns about making sure that 

your vote counts. Obviously every citizen wants to see that. You 

61 

pointed out that the—even under the best circumstances, the Holt 

bill, for example, could not be implemented in time for this election. And also, there is a myriad of problems that are presented 

with that as well. 

I was intrigued by the notion of encryption. I think that that 

clearly interests me, but that also brings the point, the fact that 

we don’t have the money to go through this process to take a look 

to see how that is going to work. 

Having said all that, and given your charge and given the election in November of 2004, what steps are we taking to assure voters that their vote is going to count? 

Mr. SOARIES. Here is the direction that we are pursuing as it relates specifically to security and electronic voting. One, we are asking every jurisdiction that uses these devices—which is about 700 

in the country—to identify security measures that they have never 

taken before that they can take now. Parallel monitoring is one 

such step. In four counties in California, we had parallel monitoring, and everyone was happy with the results, including the secretary of state. In some areas, it is the chain of custody that needs 

to be upgraded to ensure that the voting devices are more secure 

than they had been. And so that is one. 

Two, we are preparing to ask every vendor, every manufacturer 

of voting software to make the source code available to the contracting authority so that any election official in the country can, 

with the assistance of the computer science community, analyze the 

source code that is being used in their jurisdiction. And it is kind 

of a halfway step between the open code, which some people have 

said should make every source code public, and the proprietary interests that the vendors have said is theirs. And we believe the 

vendors will cooperate, so it is the analysis of source code. 

The third is brand new also, and that is that we are prepared 

to ask every vendor to participate in the NIST National Software 

Reference Library. Every other software manufacturing industry in 

the country does that. Here is what that accomplishes. It means 

that the Federal Government will have on file the software being 

used by every certified vendor. That software can be analyzed so 

that you can do pre- and postanalysis. And if anyone suspects that 

a different software was used on Election Day than the software 

that was certified, then having hashed that code means you can 

analyze and compare the code to what was submitted and what 

was used. And if we detect that there is a difference, then you can 

investigate the implications of that difference. We have heard from 

NIST as of yesterday that two vendors have contacted NIST to say 

they would like to participate. 

The fourth thing we have done is begun talking with the Department of Justice. While many—— 

Mr. LARSON. Excuse me, I didn’t mean to interrupt. And if the 

Chairman will allow it, in the Times editorial—and when they did 

the analogy between slot machines in Las Vegas and voting, part 

of what you are saying would go a long way towards addressing 

some of the voter protection concerns that were raised in that analogy; would it not? 

Mr. SOARIES. It certainly would, because what it does, it makes 

available to the public information about software certified and 

62 

software used. It would be similar to a human fingerprint analysis. 

But in all—— 

Mr. LARSON. Should we mandate that? That was my question. 

Should we mandate that, or should we, as was—— 

Mr. SOARIES. We believe the industry will respond favorably and 

will participate in our request. There are signs already. NIST is already negotiating two nondisclosure agreements with vendors who 

have voluntarily said this is a good idea. The vendors have an interest in having a more transparent process to protect the image 

that they have invested heavily in. 

But on that point of the software, you know, in many ways comparing voting technology software to slot machine software is apples and oranges if for no other reason that the money—not the 

money that comes out of the machine, but the money that the industry has to do the research. And these machines are used 24 

hours a day, every day, and it is—I think the media is responsible 

for helping us not spread fear. 

Mr. LARSON. But that is why I was asking about the need—and, 

again, these are all attached to money—for us as a legislative body 

to consider putting in as we move, as we get more technologically 

advanced, what safeguards—again, a problem which will require 

study, but some of which seem to be common sense and practical. 

And you seem to be—— 

Mr. SOARIES. But we can do the software registration today with 

no extra money in time for November to assure America that we 

are looking more carefully at the software, the technology, and thus 

the voting than we have ever looked before. 

The other thing I think we have to remind people, Congressman, 

is that tampering with elections is a crime. Congressman Ehlers 

suggested that he was hoping fraud would disappear. In my other 

life I am a clergyman. Should fraud disappear, I would be unemployed, so I—I need some fraud. But the fact is fraud is a crime. 

Tampering is a crime. And I will be addressing all of the assistant 

U.S. attorneys later next month on an initiative that the Election 

Fraud Division of DOJ is launching with us, and that is to motivate people to let us know when they detect crimes. 

It is interesting to find the vulnerabilities in voting software in 

the classroom. That is an appropriate academic exercise. But when 

you leave the classroom and you come to the community, that is 

a crime; and a person can go to jail in this country for 20 years, 

and we intend to remind the country that violators of that law will 

be prosecuted. The way we deter crime in this country is through 

prosecution, and we don’t want that part of the discussion to be left 

out, because the fact is vulnerabilities may exist, but to the extent 

that they do, you can go to jail if you exploit those vulnerabilities. 

And then, as I mentioned earlier, the collection of data is critical. 

We think that many vendors have had the luxury of this, of nondisclosure. And so if you buy a car or any other kind of device, 

there is data somewhere that tells you the likelihood of that car 

having certain problems in certain areas. We have no such data 

with voting devices. And the fact that we don’t have the data allows certain problems to fly beneath the national radar, and we 

would like to put it on the national radar. 

Mr. LARSON. I agree. 

63 

Ms. HILLMAN. Mr. Larson, I would also like to note that we want 

the American voters to know that we are working to issue best 

practices on the other machines as well, because 37 percent of voters will be using optical scans, and 15 percent will be using punch 

cards, and about 15 percent using lever machines. And issues regarding maintenance, storage, you know, training of poll workers 

with respect to those machines, we know the punch card story 

very, very well. And, in fact, about 46 percent of counties in this 

country will use the optical scan as compared to 22 percent using 

electronic voting machines. So in addition to the work we are doing 

on the DREs, we are keeping an eye on the information on the 

other equipment as well. 

Mr. LARSON. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. One other question, and I will be glad to also 

yield to Members who have additional questions, but one question 

that I have, and I apologize, I had to make a phone call, but I don’t 

know if this was brought up. However, about the military voting, 

I just wanted to hone in on it a little more. I was recently over in 

Afghanistan, I spent time in Kabul and I have been on board an 

aircraft carrier with my colleagues in Bagram twice, and the issue 

came up time after time after time with our men and women in 

uniform about what is going to happen to them. 

In the Help America Vote Act, we had focused some language— 

I remember that I had each State have a designated person that 

would be focusing on those ballots. It was one designated person. 

Then we had the voting assistance officers where we stressed to 

the Defense Department to have those officers over there, or wherever our soldiers are stationed to make sure they again assist. I 

wondered what, with the Federal Voting Assistance Project—and 

although the technology part of it just absolutely vanished, we 

know what happened with that—but with the Federal Voting Assistance Project, do you have any comments on that? Do we need 

to do more? Or do we have to see how this runs? I mean, it is important, because we are at war, and of course a lot of questions 

come up, are their votes going to count? 

Mr. DEGREGORIO. Mr. Chairman, let me answer for my colleagues on this issue, because I have focused on this. Early on we 

met with the Federal Voting Assistance Program folks at the Department of Defense to talk about this issue, because, as mandated 

by HAVA, there is a report that was due on April 29th to the Congress just on this issue of best practices. And we are hopeful to get 

that report out in the coming weeks. 

I have been disappointed that it has taken so long to do this. We 

certainly don’t have the staff to do it. But the Department of Defense Federal Voting Assistance Program certainly has a lot more 

funding than we have had to do this work, and I have impressed 

upon them the need to get this done and get it done quickly so it 

can be utilized this year by election officials throughout America. 

And I met with them just Monday of this week to go through the 

second draft, and we are hopeful that that report will be issued to 

the Congress and to the President by the end of this month. 

But it is a very important issue, and the research that has been 

done certainly shows that there needs to be more in this area, because there actually are very few States that have appointed a coVerDate Aug 04 2004 23:52 Feb 03, 2005 Jkt 95896 PO 00000 Frm 000065 Fmt 06633 Sfmt 06602 E:\PICKUP\95896A.XXX 95896A
64 

ordinator to focus on this issue statewide, and I think that is 

wrong. And one of our best practices recommendation is going to 

be to impress upon the States that they need to do this and do it 

now. 

The CHAIRMAN. Do you have the ability to basically send out a 

notice to the States, to the Secretaries of State that you need to 

appoint someone? Do you have the ability to do that. 

Mr. DEGREGORIO. We have the ability to recommend to do that. 

We don’t have any rulemaking authority for the States, as you 

well know. But we do have the bully pulpit authority. We will use 

that in our Best Practices Report to encourage the States to do 

that, because it has been done in several States very successfully. 

I think it is incumbent upon every State in this Nation to do that. 

Also, we are going to recommend that each local official have a 

point person that is focusing on the military and overseas voters, 

because it is—I know it is, as a director of elections, that we always in my office had a person to do that, to make sure that we 

were getting the ballots out on time. You may recall in 2000, that 

election did show a very lack of concern by many election officials 

to get those ballots out in time so the military voters can get them 

back to be counted accurately, counted on a timely basis. So we are 

focusing on that issue. 

The CHAIRMAN. I mean, we want no one left behind. The provisional voting, I think, is one of greater things, that way, you know, 

you walk in, you are not told, ‘‘Well, your name is not on the list, 

go away,’’ and therefore being disenfranchised. As you know, the 

vote is held. If it is deemed that the mistake was made, you are 

accurate, it is counted. If not, it is shredded. I think that goes a 

long, long way to stop anyone from being disenfranchised. 

But in a time of war, of course, you can also understand with our 

soldiers over there, those men and women are asking over and 

over, too, because of the distance away they are. So I do want to 

mention that. 

I want to see if there are other questions. I also want to comment, I know Congressman Hoyer has been working with Senator 

McConnell and Congressman Istook. And you need the money. 

That is something we need to push. You need the money. I think 

you are doing a great job under horrifically thin resources. We authorized $10 million. We authorized it. That gives you $10 million. 

That needs to be, I believe, pushed to make sure that check is written, and you can get the resources to help you. So I think you have 

done a remarkable job, all of you, under very strained resources. 

Mr. LARSON. I would just like to follow up with a question that 

I—again, I want to thank Vice Chair Hillman for pointing out as 

well, with regard to the 37 percent that will use optical scan; and 

15, punch cards; another 15 percent with levers. 

And I want to commend the chairman for talking about the need 

to enjoin the Justice Department with regard to fraud. I would also 

hope that we are able, with the Justice Department, to focus on 

those who were intimidated from coming to vote, and exercise their 

franchise and working with them, whether it is through a memorandum of understanding or otherwise, and would be interested in 

your comments on how you see that unfolding as well, because I 

think they are two important aspects. 

65 

Mr. SOARIES. Certainly, Congressman. 

The overarching theme, as we see it, of HAVA is balancing this 

issue of access and fraud. And while much emphasis is put on 

fraud, equal emphasis has to be put on access, and we know there 

are various barriers to access. 

One of my personal concerns is that, as we approach November 

with a heightened sense of security for the country, that our response to securing the country does not have the unintended consequence of being perceived as intimidation at the polls. In my 

community, I guess all of my life, every election day there has been 

some assertion of intimidation. Members of my church often complain about intimidation. And some is explicit, and some is implicit. 

And so we, in our talks with Justice, are attempting to ensure 

that the Justice Department is poised to support all of those issues 

that we have to wrestle with that guarantee free and fair elections 

throughout the country. 

Mr. LARSON. Anyone else care to comment? 

Mr. MARTINEZ. I would make a quick comment on this topic. 

That is that it is also incumbent upon—I mean, I agree with our 

chairman that we have been working closely and building an appropriate partnership with the Department of Justice on these very 

important issues. 

You know, it is also important that DOJ and that, to the extent 

that we are involved, that current—that new provisions that are as 

a result, that the result from the Help America Vote Act are properly implemented. So, as I have said, there are some election reform requirements in Title III of the Act that States could not 

waive, which are very important. 

For example, provisional voting, which we talked about already, 

we have talked about voter signage, where jurisdictions have to put 

up a notice at every polling place now that essentially says—it is 

not a voter’s bill of rights, but in a sense it kind of is—that you 

have an administrative complaint procedure that you can seek redress if any of your HAVA rights are being violated, and it is related information. 

So it is important that DOJ is working with jurisdictions to ensure that these new requirements are properly implemented. And 

I have every confidence that DOJ is doing that and making sure— 

and another provision would be, for example, jurisdictions that are 

under certain sections of the Voting Rights Act, so if you have to 

have certain signage, for example, in Spanish or in a different language, that those voting rights provisions apply to the requirements that are now part of Federal law as a result of the Help 

America Vote Act. 

So my experience and I think our collective experience in working with DOJ is that they are moving aggressively to make sure 

that jurisdictions are implementing the laws that are currently on 

the books when it comes to access like provisional voting and related issues. 

Mr. LARSON. Well, thank you for performing the yeoman’s tasks 

that you are about. 

Do you intend to have any more hearings yourself? I know the 

hearings you have had have been very successful. 

66 

Mr. SOARIES. We would like to have one more hearing between 

now and November focusing specifically on the poll worker issue. 

We would like to put a face on the issue. We would like to demonstrate the need. We would like to give poll workers a chance to 

discuss the experience, elections officials an opportunity to talk 

about their gaps. And then we would like to get some of those colleges and corporations that are willing to help us to talk about how 

they are going about using their resources to help fill that gap. 

And so we are assuming that we can have one more public hearing, that it will be focused on poll workers, because we really think 

that that is going to make or break the election in November. 

Mr. LARSON. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. I want to thank our ranking member, the gentleman from Connecticut, for his participation and the amount of 

time he has put in on this issue. 

I want to thank all four of you commissioners for being here, and 

also for the job you are doing. 

I mean, we can debate all of these issues we want here, but if 

people don’t feel that they had a true rightful election, and had 

their chance at the ballot box, then all of the other issues I think 

get very, very grey. I think that what you are doing is wonderful 

for the entire country, and I appreciate your time today and appreciate the job you are doing. 

I ask unanimous consent that Members and witnesses have 7 

legislative days to submit material into the record and for those 

statements and materials to be entered in the appropriate place in 

the record. Without objection, the material will be so entered. 

I ask unanimous consent that the staff be authorized to make 

technical and conforming changes on all matters considered by the 

committee in today’s hearing. Without objection, so ordered. 

Having completed our business, we are adjourned. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 1:25 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]