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67–298 2011

THE 2010 ELECTION: A LOOK BACK AT WHAT 

WENT RIGHT AND WRONG 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON HOUSE 

ADMINISTRATION 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

Held in Washington, DC, March 31, 2011 

Printed for the use of the Committee on House Administration 

( 

Available on the Internet: 

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/house/administration/index.html 

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(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California, Chairman 

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi 

PHIL GINGREY, M.D., Georgia 

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois 

TODD ROKITA, Indiana 

RICHARD NUGENT, Florida 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania, 

Ranking Minority Member 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

CHARLES GONZALEZ, Texas 

PROFESSIONAL STAFF

PHILIP KIKO, Staff Director 

JAMIE FLEET, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi, Chairman 

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois 

RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida 

TODD ROKITA, Indiana 

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

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THE 2010 ELECTION: A LOOK BACK AT WHAT 

WENT RIGHT AND WRONG 

THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 2011 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS, 

COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:35 a.m., in Room 

1310, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Gregg Harper (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Harper, Nugent, Lungren, and Gonzalez. 

Staff Present: Peter Schalestock, Deputy General Counsel; 

Kimani Little, Parliamentarian; Joe Wallace, Legislative Clerk; 

Yael Barash, Assistant Legislative Clerk; Salley Wood, Communications Director; Bob Sensenbrenner, Elections Counsel; Karin 

Moore, Elections Counsel; Kyle Andersen, Minority Press Secretary; Matt Defreitas, Minority Professional Staff; Khalil Abboud, 

Minority Elections Staff; Thomas Hicks, Minority Elections Counsel; and Gregg Abbott, Minority Professional Staff. 

Mr. HARPER. I now call to order the Committee on House Administration’s Subcommittee on Elections’ oversight hearing evaluating 

the 2010 midterm elections. The hearing record will remain open 

for 5 legislative days so that members may submit any material 

that they wish to be included therein. 

A quorum is present, so we may proceed. 

The Subcommittee on Elections has the important task of overseeing Federal elections and considering legislative means to improve and protect the integrity of our electoral system. This committee previously explored the issue of military and overseas voting 

as well as the operations and budget requests of the Election Assistance Commission. Today, I look forward to hearing about what 

we can further learn from the 2010 elections. 

According to the United States Elections Project, 40.9 percent of 

the Voting Eligible Population turned out in 2010. That is slightly 

higher than in the last two mid-term elections. Nonetheless, we 

need to remain constantly vigilant in ensuring that all eligible voters have proper access to the polls and that they are not 

disenfranchised by illegal voting or equipment malfunctions. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses regarding recent reports of noncitizen voting in their States and about the measures 

we can take to stop such activity. We will also hear about technological issues in the 2010 elections, which is vitally important as 

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we seek to ensure no vote is lost or disenfranchised from lax oversight of our voting equipment. 

Through the Help America Vote Act, the Federal Government 

spent several billion dollars helping States purchase new voting 

equipment. HAVA also established a new Federal system to test 

and certify voting machines. These are important investments, and 

we need to monitor how they translate into the actual voting experience. 

My colleagues and I are committed to ensuring the integrity of 

elections, of protecting the hard-fought right to vote, and in learning from the past as we evaluate proposals for the future of our 

electoral system. I thank each of them for being here, and all of you 

for taking the time to be here and would like now to recognize my 

colleague, Mr. Gonzalez, who is now the ranking member of this 

subcommittee, for the purpose of providing an opening statement. 

Mr. Gonzalez. 

[The statement of Mr. Harper follows:] 

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Mr. GONZALEZ. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. 

And of course, I appreciate all of your hard work, and I do want 

to acknowledge the hard work of our staffs. 

And I welcome the witnesses. I am going to be brief. Mr. Brady 

may be here a little later, but I am not sure at what time. But, 

again, this is obviously an issue dear to all of us. 

I think we all share the same goal, and that is to, basically, accommodate the voter, make sure that the voting experience is one 

that is easy, of course, to exercise. And if that is our goal, the differences we may have is, How we use limited resources, What are 

perceived problems as opposed to actual problems, and What can 

we do? 

So I am hoping that today we can identify common ground. 

Again, I am not real sure that we are going to agree what needs 

more attention. That may be another issue or another matter and, 

as the testimony may develop, maybe it won’t. 

I am hoping that today we all leave here today still united in 

that single purpose and goal in trying to find the best solutions, as 

I said, with the limited resources that you have at the local and 

State level—and I know you may be looking to the Federal Government for assistance—and we are also limited by the economics of 

our time and budgetary constraints. 

But, when it is all said and done, if we don’t have an open process and a process that accommodates the voting experience, then 

what are we all doing in the respective positions that we hold? 

And, with that, I would yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Gonzalez follows:] 

Mr. HARPER. I would like now to introduce our witnesses. 

STATEMENTS OF THE HONORABLE SCOTT GESSLER, COLORADO SECRETARY OF STATE; THE HONORABLE MARK 

RITCHIE, MINNESOTA SECRETARY OF STATE; SUSAN GILL, 

SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS, CITRUS COUNTY, FLORIDA; 

KEN CARBULLIDO, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF VOTING 

SYSTEMS, ELECTION SYSTEMS & SOFTWARE, INC.; LAWRENCE NORDEN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, DEMOCRACY PROGRAM, BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE AT NYU SCHOOL OF 

LAW 

Mr. HARPER. The Honorable Scott Gessler is the 37th Secretary 

of State of Colorado, elected this past November. Mr. Gessler was 

previously a partner at Hackstaff and Gessler, where he focused on 

election law, constitutional law, and campaign finance. He has also 

served at the Department of Justice as a trial attorney focusing on 

international criminal law and terrorism, and I know has made 

many recommendations to the Colorado General Assembly following the 2008 elections. 

The Honorable Mark Ritchie is the 21st Secretary of State of 

Minnesota. Prior to his election as Secretary in 2006, Mr. Ritchie 

served for many years in Minnesota’s Department of Agriculture. 

He served as president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade 

Policy from 1988 to 2006, and currently is the President of the National Association of Secretaries of State. 

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Ms. Susan Gill is the Citrus County Supervisor of Elections, 

elected in 1996. She was reelected—something we all envy—without opposition in 2000, 2004 and 2008. 

Congratulations. 

Ms. Gill is a member of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections, serving as president in 2005 and 2006, and has 

held, I believe, every office position in that organization and has 

been very, very active on our voting process. She served as the 

chair of the Rules and Legislative Committees, and is currently the 

cochair of the association’s Vote Center Task Force and has great 

expertise in this area. 

Mr. Ken Carbullido—I hope I said that right. 

Mr. CARBULLIDO. Exactly right. 

Mr. HARPER. Mr. Carbullido is senior vice president of Voting 

Systems, Election Systems & Software, one of the country’s most 

successful election management companies. He has over 30 years 

of experience in a variety of technology development and management roles. 

Prior to joining Election Systems & Software, he was the Chief 

Information Officer for First Data Resources. Over his career, Mr. 

Carbullido has been active in application software development, 

systems software development, hardware engineering—many 

items, including quality assurance. And we look forward to hearing 

your testimony also. 

Mr. Lawrence Norden is the Deputy Director of the Democracy 

program at the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of 

Law. He is also the Director of the Brennan Center’s Voting Technology Project. He has authored several nationally recognized reports related to voting rights, voting systems, and election administration. He also served as chair of the Ohio Secretary of State’s bipartisan election summit and conference. 

We appreciate all of you taking the time to be here today. The 

committee has received written testimony from each of you. At the 

appropriate time, I will recognize each of you for 5 minutes to 

present a summary of the submission. To help you keep that time, 

we have a timing device that you will see there in front of you. The 

device will have a green light for the first 4 minutes and will turn 

yellow when 1 minute remains, and when the light turns red, your 

time would be up. 

Secretary Gessler, we will begin with you for your remarks. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE SCOTT GESSLER 

Mr. GESSLER. Thank you, Chairman Harper and Congressman 

Gonzalez, and other members of the committee. 

I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the results of a study that my office conducted regarding the 

citizenship of registered voters in Colorado. 

What we did is we compared our driver’s license database to the 

registered voter database. And Colorado requires legal presence in 

order to issue a license to someone, a driver’s license, and starting 

in 2006, our State began collecting data on what type of evidence 

was presented to receive a driver’s license, whether it was a citizenship document or an immigration document, in order to receive 

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that. And so what we did was we compared that information 

against the registered voter database. 

What we found was that there were 11,805 individuals who had 

registered to vote in Colorado and also had provided sort of selfaffirmed—provided evidence that they were not citizens starting in 

2006—or going back to 2006, that they were not citizens when they 

got their driver’s license. Of those 11,805 individuals, 106 first registered to vote, and then when they got their driver’s license later, 

showed that they were noncitizens when they got their driver’s license. Of the 11,805 individuals, about 5,000, almost 5,000, voted 

in the last election. So that was sort of the basic contours of the 

study we did. 

What we think this study shows is that Colorado has a problem 

with noncitizens who are registered to vote and may be voting as 

well. We don’t quite know the size or the magnitude of that problem. So the analysis is in some ways preliminary. What we do 

know is that there is some problem here. We know the 106, we are 

reasonably certain that when people register to vote and then later 

show that they are a noncitizen, that they are improperly registered to vote. 

Our data only goes back to 2006, and for many immigrants, it 

takes at least 5 years before they can become a U.S. citizen after 

they first get their green card. So some people may have gotten a 

driver’s license when they were a noncitizen, become a citizen, and 

then registered to vote. And some did not, some registered to vote 

improperly and remain that way. 

And we also have some anecdotal information. Within the last 2 

or 3 years, we have had about 150 people in the State of Colorado 

who registered as noncitizens and then later withdrew their registration, so they sort of self-identified themselves and withdrew 

their own registration. So we know we have a problem here. We 

don’t know the size of it. 

One of the things that we are looking at in Colorado—and that 

I would suggest to the committee members as well—is that we 

need additional tools to be able to measure the size of this issue 

and resolve it as well. Issues regarding immigration and regarding 

registrations of noncitizens to vote draw a lot of attention and intense debate. Unfortunately, oftentimes there is not very thorough 

analysis that goes on there, so that is one of the things that we 

need to do. 

What we are trying to do in Colorado is create a system where 

the Secretary of State can reach out to these folks, send letters to 

them asking them to provide proof of citizenship, and if they don’t 

respond, we will put them in a suspended status. It is a crime to 

register to vote or to vote as a noncitizen in the State of Colorado. 

We don’t think criminal prosecution or investigation is the right 

way to go. It is a very cumbersome approach here, and our goal is 

just to maintain accurate databases. 

One of the things we have also done is reached out to Federal 

authorities to identify information. Now the SAVE program has 

been very—we are working with them, with immigration authorities to get lists of noncitizens who reside in Colorado. 

The other thing we tried to do is we contacted the United States 

District Court for the District of Colorado and we asked them for 

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noncitizen juror recusals, so when someone goes into a jury panel 

and those are drawn from voting rolls and they recuse themselves 

because they are noncitizen, we asked for that information so we 

can check it against the voting rolls. GAO published a study several years back that stated that was a possibility to maintain clean 

voting rolls. Unfortunately, our district court has denied us access 

to that information, and that is certainly one area that would be 

helpful. 

So, overall, I think what we have been able to learn is that there 

is an issue with noncitizens registered to vote and voting in Colorado. We know there is a problem. We don’t know the size of it. 

We are looking to get the tools to better be able to measure this 

and to resolve this in an administrative fashion. And we certainly 

hope that we will receive assistance from the Federal Government 

with those sources of information as well. So thank you very much 

for your time. 

[The statement of Mr. Gessler follows:] 

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Mr. HARPER. Thank you very much, Mr. Gessler. 

Now we will hear from Mark Ritchie and look forward to your 

remarks. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MARK RITCHIE 

Mr. RITCHIE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

To all members, I want to first thank you very much for your 

willingness to come over to our NASS national meeting. It was a 

great honor for us. We want to really continue that relationship, 

so thank you again; we look forward to continuing that conversation. 

I am testifying today on behalf of my great State, but I do also 

serve as the current President of NASS. In that position, I follow 

fairly closely upon your colleague, now Congressman Rokita, who 

was our former President. 

Minnesota has the habit, or the culture, of going back after each 

election and talking about what went right, what went wrong, 

what can we do better? So we were very appreciative to hear this 

hearing was going to be happening here today. And after the last 

two election cycles, I have traveled statewide—typically to 30 or 40 

places, so that all 87 counties can participate—gathering up their 

impressions. I have three main impressions from the 2010 election: 

First, we were thrilled that even though we didn’t have a presidential race, a Senate race, an issue on the ballot, a constitutional 

amendment, we still had a very high turnout. Again, Minnesota 

was number one in the Nation. We know that is because our citizens very much trust our system, and they have always had that 

experience. We vote on paper ballots. We are a local-based system, 

and people trust the system. But we also are aware that at a national level, turnout was 40 percent, as you cited; so just as a 

longer-term issue, there is the question of very low voter participation. 

Some States that have typically been higher were down in the 

30 percent range and a couple States down in the 20 percent range. 

This is a very serious issue for our Nation, and I think it is something we all need to think about and imagine what we could do. 

And some of the work that you have done, especially making sure 

our overseas voters, the military voters, can vote will help with 

that. 

The second thing is that we were strongly affirmed in the 

progress we made, thanks to the MOVE Act, in being able to 

change the date of our primary to extend the time for our overseas 

voters. 

When I was elected in 2006, sitting on my chair when I was 

sworn in—actually, the day I was sworn in—I found this letter 

from the Federal Voting Assistance Project. It said, Dear Secretary 

of the State—it was addressed to the prior Secretary of State—and 

it essentially said, very politely, Minnesota does great in elections, 

but terribly when it comes to military and overseas voters, and it 

had 10 suggestions. I did not know they had been sending that letter for 10 years and that it had been ignored, but in any case, we 

picked up the letter. We worked with the legislature. We passed 

much of that agenda. We implemented it. We had a lot of success 

from that, but we were not able to get the Governor’s agreement 

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to change the date of the primary. That bill was vetoed. Thanks to 

the MOVE Act, we were able to overcome the veto. 

The 46 days—our State implemented the MOVE Act with absentee ballots sent 46 days before the elections—we have had the effect of reducing the late returns. That was the most common thing. 

The unanticipated but very important secondary effect was that 

that length of time allowed many people to be able to correct a 

small error that they had made, either forgetting a signature or 

forgetting a date on an absentee ballot envelope. I think ultimately 

we had, in 2008, 540 late ballots; in 2010, approximately 130 or 

140. But we also reduced the error rate from 2 percent in 2008 to 

less than half of a percent in 2010, and that is much lower than 

our domestic rate as well. So the extra time had several different 

positive benefits, and that was terrific. 

The third thing we implemented was the use of newly available 

electronic databases that really lowered the cost and increased the 

efficiency and the integrity at the local level. We used our ‘‘change 

of address’’ files from the postal service and reduced our post-election data entry by about 100,000—a very great savings to local officials. We use Social Security databases now to take people who die 

in other States off our list. If you die inside of Minnesota, we know 

very soon. If you die in Florida—some Minnesotans go to Florida 

in the winter—it is very complicated. I am sure anyone who has 

run for office who has done any phoning knows what it means to 

have that pause at the other end when you ask for somebody and 

you know. I get these calls in my own home, and that little touch 

of grief happens when somebody calls and asks for my daughter. 

So I am very positive about that use of electronic databases improve our list. 

So we also use electronic databases effectively to challenge voters 

before election day—similar to what was mentioned about Colorado, we use the system of challenging before election day, and we 

use the system afterwards to identify if anyone has potentially 

voted illegally and then turn those names over to our county attorney, who is the prosecuting authority in Minnesota. 

Thank you again for putting attention on this topic. I look forward to your questions. 

[The statement of Mr. Ritchie follows:] 

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Mr. HARPER. Thank you, Mr. Ritchie. I appreciate you being here 

and hearing your testimony. 

Ms. Gill, we ask to hear from you now. Thank you very much. 

And again, you are now my idol. So go ahead. 

STATEMENT OF SUSAN GILL 

Ms. GILL. Well, it is a good start anyway. 

Chairman Harper and Mr. Gonzalez, members of the committee—and a special hello to my Congressman, Richard Nugent— 

I want to thank you for the opportunity to participate in this hearing. 

First, I would like to thank Congress for the Help America Vote 

Act. I have been in this job for more than 14 years now and I can 

tell you we were able to use the HAVA funds to provide equipment 

for people with disabilities, to enhance our voter education programs, and to provide additional poll worker training tools. All the 

grants were greatly appreciated. 

A major concern at every level of government, whether it is local, 

State, or Federal, is the budget. Shrinking budgets can cause serious problems for elections. A March 22nd article in the Fresno Bee 

entitled, ‘‘Report: Blame Budget Cuts on November Election 

Snags,’’ it reports on a November 2010 election and the problems 

that were caused by the slashed budget. The grand jury recommended that the country supervisors should ‘‘provide adequate 

funding to ensure the ability of the county clerk to maintain credible elections.’’ The article continues on saying that the funding 

could get worse, and that the county officials have asked their department heads to reduce their budget another 14 percent. 

The article also reported that the county records indicated that 

the funding for the elections office is down 40 percent from what 

it was 5 years ago. If you take the 40 percent and the 14, this Fresno election official is asked to conduct elections with 54 percent less 

funding than 5 years ago. 

I am not singling out Fresno. The problems Fresno encountered 

will be played out in many other jurisdictions in the Nation. We 

are charged with conserving tax dollars. We must ask the public 

to understand that there will be reductions in conveniences and 

services, or there will have to be tax increases, which nobody 

wants. 

The fear of every election professional in America is how to assure that we serve voters well when the funds to conduct elections 

have been significantly reduced. I cannot overstate our concern. 

Cuts have consequences that have to affect expectations and potentially affect performance. 

Florida had a smooth 2010 election, I am happy to report. As you 

know, Florida has had perhaps more election changes in the last 

10 years than any other State, and so we know something about 

adapting quickly. I will say that the issue that captured attention 

was the late reporting of results in one county. Our election for the 

Governor was very close, 1 percent, and the results were not available until the next day. This caused a lot of criticism because nobody wants to wait for election results. So we have to remember 

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ness. Timeliness is very important. However, it can’t outweigh accurate results. 

On the plus side, voter confidence and voter satisfaction has 

greatly increased. Voters can now vote early, vote by mail, or go 

to their polling place. This means if they vote by mail, they don’t 

have to go to their polling place. If they vote at an early vote site, 

they are never at the wrong precinct. We are looking at vote centers in Florida as a result of this, as they do in Minnesota and Indiana; we think that might be the answer. 

Redistricting takes place in 2012, as we all know. That is going 

to put additional pressure on the election process. We need to know 

what districts to put candidates on the ballot, and you need to 

know what district you are running in, so it is going to be tight 

there. 

In conclusion, we have made great progress since the 2000 election. The progress in conducting fair, honest and accurate elections 

does come at a price. My hope is that the reduction in funding for 

elections does not cause issues on the upcoming 2012 elections. 

My fear is that the cutting of funds at the State and Federal 

level end up in the laps of local government. We cannot afford to 

have the voter confidence that we have gained over these years 

eroded. Citizens must have confidence in their election process. If 

voters stop believing in the fairness of elections, they cannot believe in the government that results from it. 

I assure you that elections officials are dedicated to the integrity 

of the elections process and will work to preserve the process to the 

best of our abilities with the resources provided. 

Thank you very much for the honor and the opportunity to address this committee. 

[The statement of Ms. Gill follows:] 

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Mr. HARPER. Thank you very much, Ms. Gill. 

And having been an observer for 2 weeks during the 2000 election recount, I can assure you that you have made eligibly great 

strides in the State of Florida. 

We will now hear from Mr. Carbullido and look forward to your 

remarks. 

STATEMENT OF KEN CARBULLIDO 

Mr. CARBULLIDO. Thank you, Chairman Harper, Mr. Gonzalez, 

and members of the committee for inviting me here to testify on 

behalf of the ES&S. 

My comments today are centered both on things that went right 

as well as things that could have been improved. Specifically, I am 

here to address the recent actions taken by the EAC to open a formal investigation of ES&S’s Unity system, version 3.2.0.0. I have 

a deep understanding of the issues, solutions, processes, communications, and the involvement of the EAC. I have an observation 

to make as well as some recommendations that I would like the 

committee to consider. 

What were the issues? The initial issue, first identified by Cuyahoga County, Ohio, during preelection testing, was a freeze/shutdown in a limited and random instance on the DS200 scanner. This 

freeze/shutdown occurred in extremely low instances. It is critical 

to note that this situation was recoverable by merely restarting the 

unit. No votes were lost; voting was not interrupted. ES&S takes 

all system issues very seriously. So, while the interruption itself 

was not an accuracy issue, ES&S recognizes that it could potentially be concerning to voters that might witness such an event, 

and therefore, this became a top priority for ES&S to correct this 

issue. 

Because the occurrence of the issue was infrequent, random, and 

not easily and always reproducible, because there were two separate low level issues at the root cause, one which involved COTS 

software, it took a significant effort to identify the root causes and 

the software corrections. And it took quite an effort to ensure and 

validate that the corrections and the updates were completely resolving the freeze/shutdown issue. 

Prior to completion of the testing of these updated software at 

Wyle Laboratories, there were a series of additional events that 

transpired. Additional software issues were identified and addressed. We were forced to transfer the testing of this new improved software version to a new voting system test laboratory. A 

fix was introduced to correct a previously reported issue that involved the processing of skewed ballots. Another issue was the occurrence of a ballot drop issue that occurred in the laboratory when 

the ballot dropped into the box without being counted. 

I am pleased to report that all of these issues have been resolved. 

The EAC has now certified Unity 3.2.1.0, which contains the updated version of the DS200 software that corrects all of the abovenoted issues as well as many other enhancements. This updated 

version will be used to amend the 3.2.0.0 release, which will provide the required cure outlined within the EAC’s formal policies 

and procedures. 

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Relatively speaking, each software solution was found rather 

quickly. Getting these corrections and improvements into the field 

in a timely manner is where ES&S believes the process could be 

improved. For example, the skewed ballot issue was reported to 

ES&S on October 8, 2009. The software was corrected by October 

15, 2009. The first approval of this correction was granted by the 

EAC on July 22, 2010. It took 7 days to correct the issues and 9 

months to obtain an EAC approval. 

The freeze/shutdown initially reported on April 6, 2010, was corrected by ES&S on June 29, 2010. Just earlier this week, the EAC 

certified the corrected software. ES&S devoted 3 months of intensive investigation to isolate and correct the problem, and 9 long additional months transpired while the EAC, the VSTL and the EAC 

technical reviewers reviewed our analysis and corrections, developed a test plan, and finally validated the corrections to their approval. The ballot drop issue was discovered on November 11, 2010. 

ES&S corrected it on December 23. Final approval was just received this week. 

As you can tell, our primary concern is the timing of advancing 

these often-needed corrections into the field in a way that is beneficial and cost-effective, not only to the vendors but, more importantly, to the election officials and the voters. My second concern 

is with the action taken by the EAC to open a formal investigation 

of these issues. 

At the time of the investigation, all the facts were known, all the 

documentation was given to the EAC, and testing was in final 

stages. We are not opposing an investigation where one is warranted, but in this case, we exhibited total compliance in working 

with the EAC to ensure that these issues were corrected and that 

the EAC was in full possession of all the documentation and technical analysis. 

It is our belief that the EAC can provide a reliable, standardized, 

efficient and effective service for all States and customers that they 

can rely on. 

Since this is a hearing of what went right in 2010, I would be 

remiss if I did not applaud our customers, including Jane Platten 

of Cuyahoga County and all of our customers across the Nation, 

who conducted over 8,500 elections in 2010 with polls opening on 

time, voters voting in confidence, and results reported in a timely 

manner in a system maintained in a secure environment. 

We stand committed to working with this esteemed body and the 

EAC to continue to find ways to improve the voting system test 

program. It is not broken. It is on the right track, but it does need 

some work and adjustments to keep it functioning at a level that 

is beneficial and timely for all. 

Once again, thank you for your time and the opportunity to 

speak here today. 

[The statement of Mr. Carbullido follows:] 

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Mr. HARPER. Thank you, Mr. Carbullido. I appreciate you being 

here today. 

I now ask unanimous consent to allow Mr. Lungren, the chairman of the full committee, to participate in this subcommittee 

hearing. 

Hearing no objection, Mr. Lungren, we welcome you here. 

At this time, we will hear from Mr. Lawrence Norden, and look 

forward to your remarks. 

STATEMENT OF LAWRENCE NORDEN 

Mr. NORDEN. Thank you to the committee for giving the Brennan 

Center the opportunity to share with you the results of our studies 

of the Nation’s election infrastructure in the 2010 elections. The 

Brennan Center is a nonpartisan public policy and law institute 

based at NYU School of Law, and we work on issues of democracy 

and justice. 

What went right and wrong in 2010? As we heard from Ms. Gill, 

given the pace of change that we have seen in election administration over the last several years and given the shrunken budgets of 

election officials around the country, it is fair to say that things 

went remarkably well in 2010. 

Unfortunately, in some important ways, national election infrastructure has not kept up with modern society, and this has continued to cause problems in our elections—it did in 2010—and I want 

to point to the continued critical need for two specific changes. 

One is a modernization of our country’s registration system, including the adoption of automated and online registration for consenting eligible citizens. And the second is the creation of a national database that identifies voting system malfunction and flaws 

to prevent their recurrence. 

First I want to talk about voter registration. The 2010 election 

showed, again, that we have a 19th century system that needs to 

be upgraded. It overwhelms election officials with burdensome and 

needless paperwork, and it prevents many American citizens from 

exercising their right to vote. I am sure many on the committee are 

aware of the Harvard/MIT study that estimated in 2008 as many 

as 2 to 3 million Americans were not able to vote because of problems with voter registration. And we saw similar problems again 

in 2010. 

The good news is, as a result of the Help America Vote Act of 

2002, every State has or soon will have a statewide voter registration database. And many, as Secretary Ritchie mentioned they are 

doing in Minnesota, have been leveraging these databases to modernize their antiquated systems. 

Specifically, I want to talk about four things that States have 

been doing. One is that they have automated the registration process at voter registration agencies for consenting eligible citizens. 

Registration information is transmitted electronically and securely 

to election authorities, and this gets rid of the paperwork and the 

potential for clerical errors in that process. 

Several States have made registration portable. If I go to a government agency and I update that information, that information 

will be updated for registration purposes, unless I say that it 

should not be. Eleven States have created online interface for voter 

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registration, meaning citizens can register online; they can make 

sure that their information is accurate; and they can find the right 

polling locations. And finally, some States are allowing for election 

day corrections, creating a fail-safe to ensure that errors or omissions on the rolls don’t keep people from voting. 

The result is increased registration rates, more accurate and secure rolls, substantially less burden for election officials, less data 

entry, more managing of elections, and substantial savings for 

States. 

At the Federal level, Representative Lofgren last year introduced 

a bill that would allow registration through the Internet, and we 

hope that this committee will consider opportunities to build on 

that bill. 

Something I want to talk about briefly is voting machines. We 

have made much progress with voting machines. Unfortunately, we 

still see the unnecessary recurrence of problems. The same failures 

occur in one jurisdiction with the same machines in another jurisdiction at a later election. And this has, unfortunately, resulted in 

disenfranchisement. 

Unlike most products that we purchase and use in the United 

States—automobiles, airplanes, even toasters—for the vast majority of systems in use today manufacturers are not required to report malfunctions to any Federal agency, and there is no Federal 

agency that either investigates such alleged failures or alerts election officials and the general public to possible problems. I am running out of time, so I won’t talk about some of the progress that 

the EAC has made in this area, but I do think that it is worth coming back to. 

I just want to wrap up by saying that, when it comes to voting 

machines and the importance of voting systems to our democracy, 

the Brennan Center has concluded that we do need a national 

searchable database of voting system problems to ensure that voting system defects are caught early, disclosed immediately, and 

corrected comprehensively. 

[The statement of Mr. Norden follows:] 

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Mr. HARPER. Thank you, Mr. Norden. 

I appreciate that very much. 

We now have time for committee members to ask questions of 

the witnesses. Each member is allotted 5 minutes to ask questions 

of the witnesses. To help us keep up with it, just like the witnesses, 

we use a timing device on the witness table. We will alternate back 

and forth between the majority and the minority. 

To begin with, I will recognize myself for 5 minutes, and first, 

I will start with Mr. Gessler. 

I would like for you to just comment on the progress of your investigation into noncitizen voting in Colorado. 

Mr. GESSLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Right now, the next steps that we have for our investigation is 

looking into the legal framework as to how we are going to be able 

to deal with this issue, where we have sort of an articulable reason 

why people who have self-affirmed as noncitizens are nonetheless 

on the voting roll. Again, some of it may be willful. Some of it may 

be erroneous, and some of it may stem from misunderstandings. 

We don’t know. We don’t have the tools, or we have not exercised 

tools in the past to measure this. So what we are looking at is a 

way to reach out to folks, to send them a letter and require them 

to provide proof of citizenship. Our view is it is better for someone 

to receive a letter in the mail than a knock on the door for a criminal investigation. 

Of course, we are reaching out to some of the Federal agencies 

for databases. Unfortunately, we have run into that roadblock with 

the district court in Colorado. And we are trying to create smoother 

legislative tools. My view on this is that we have uncovered an 

issue that does raise the likelihood that there are a large number 

of people who are operating illegally in Colorado. We want to remove that. We are not looking for a criminal tool, but we are going 

to take action on this. 

Mr. HARPER. Can you tell me if anyone from the Voting Rights 

section of the Department of Justice has contacted you regarding 

your findings? 

Mr. GESSLER. We have not received, to my knowledge, any contact from the Department of Justice. 

Mr. HARPER. So what administrative remedies would best help 

you to deal with this issue that you are working on? 

Mr. GESSLER. Well, I think the administrative remedy is an efficient way to reach out to the folks who have self-identified as noncitizens in the recent past and to get more information from them. 

So we are looking at a way to do that efficiently, ideally through 

letters, through the mail, rather than personal investigations. And 

then the other thing we are looking at is to be able to reach out 

to other databases to be able to check. 

In Colorado, we recently had legislation that would require people to provide proof of citizenship up front—that was proposed legislation. It was not accepted by our State legislature; it died in our 

State Senate. So we don’t have a screen for citizenship on the front 

end when people register to vote. What we are looking to do is, alternatively, to search databases and find other sort of objective 

ways to identify people who may have self-affirmed as noncitizens 

and maintain accurate voter rolls on the back end as it were. 

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Mr. HARPER. Thank you. 

Mr. Ritchie, do citizens in Minnesota have a right not to register? 

I mean, the way that your system works, do they have a way to 

opt out or is it automatic—tell us how that is going to work in your 

State. 

Mr. RITCHIE. Mr. Chairman, the only State that I know of where 

all citizens are just in a sense automatically ‘‘registered’’ is North 

Dakota, which the Secretary there builds the system. Minnesota’s 

system is very similar to I believe all other 49 States, that in the 

process of getting a driver’s license there is a box where you are 

asked—typically you are asked—would you like to register to vote, 

or reregister, in terms of changing your address? If the person says 

yes, that box is marked. That is signed, and then that goes to the 

Department of Public Safety, the Division of Motor Vehicles. That 

information is then transferred electronically. 

It has been screened for citizenship, for corrections, for everything else. So we have, I would say, a similar system to the other 

49 States other than North Dakota, which is the one State where 

everybody does get ‘‘registered’’, so to speak. 

Mr. HARPER. I know noncitizens can get their driver’s license, obviously, in Minnesota, and you referred that you access maybe another database. What is that other database that you are accessing 

to crosscheck? 

Mr. RITCHIE. Mr. Chairman, that is correct. Our driver’s licenses 

have a date, they have a way—we call it a ‘‘status check’’ that they 

use within the inside of the process of applying for driver’s licenses. 

We use that information to scan both before elections, to challenge 

voters on the front end, and we use it on the back end to see if 

in fact somebody registered through the Department of Public Safety, through vehicle services, that is a noncitizen. The legislature 

has also taken action to raise some fees, to provide additional moneys to the Department of Public Safety to be able to expand some 

of their capacity. But so far, it is all done electronically, basically 

using their data. 

Mr. HARPER. Thank you, Mr. Ritchie. 

I will now recognize Mr. Gonzalez for questions. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Gessler, let me ask you, there is a difference between someone who is not qualified, let’s say a noncitizen, in registering, and 

it would be something separate if that person then exercised that 

particular right that they are not entitled to. Registration and actual voting: They are two different things, is that right? 

Mr. GESSLER. Congressman Gonzalez, that is correct. In Colorado, however, they are both illegal if someone registers, and they 

know—which is willful behavior—and they know they are not—— 

Mr. GONZALEZ. We understand. And if you were going to devote 

limited resources, you probably would be targeting those that exercised an illegal right. I mean, you were a prosecutor once, right? 

Mr. GESSLER. That is correct. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. And so you know what I am talking about as far 

as making your best case and then guarding against what would 

be detrimental to the voting process and the rights of all Americans 

that are citizens and exercise their right to vote. 

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Do you have any idea the resources that you expended in pursuing the comparison of the different data—and I have got here I 

think your letter or our report, ‘‘Comparison of Colorado’s Voter 

Rolls With Department of Revenue Noncitizen Records, March 8, 

2011.’’ Do you know what you devoted to that effort in the way of 

manpower and dollars? 

Mr. GESSLER. I know that we did not expend any additional dollars in our budget. We did expend some manpower. I know I 

worked several late nights. However my salary is fixed, so that did 

not cost the State of Colorado any additional fees. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. We are not talking about extra money. We all 

work within budgets, or we attempt to—and you will hear that the 

Federal Government doesn’t, but nevertheless, the attempt is 

made. 

Let me ask, you were a prosecutor once. Would you take a case, 

based on the information that you were able to compile—because 

I have read your report—would you present a case that uses words 

to a judge like, ‘‘impossible to provide a precise number,’’ ‘‘data are 

inconclusive,’’ ‘‘incomplete,’’ ‘‘does not prove,’’ ‘‘cannot be determined’’? You wouldn’t base any case with that kind of conditioning 

language, would you? 

Mr. GESSLER. Well, I think, Mr. Congressman, there are sort of 

two different frameworks here. 

One is a prosecutorial framework, as far as going forward. A second is whether or not that warrants criminal investigation. And I 

should say there is a third framework, is there an administrative 

way to resolve these uncertainties? What we are looking at in Colorado is not prosecuting, nor are we even looking at criminally investigating. 

What we are looking at, however, is to administratively resolve 

this. So I would agree with you that that is not adequate to be able 

to provide a basis for prosecution. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. So, then, let’s just work on what you might be 

able to do administratively. Working with the resources that you 

do have, who would be those individuals that would be able to assist you in ascertaining why someone who is not a citizen would 

fill out a registration form? Wouldn’t that be, let’s say, the Mesa 

County Clerk and Recorder? Is that Sheila Reiner; is that her 

name? 

Mr. GESSLER. Yes, sir, Sheila Reiner. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. All right. My understanding is she was very concerned about your allegations, and she requested the information 

of these individuals—obviously within her jurisdiction—and that 

you refused to provide her with that information; is that correct? 

Mr. GESSLER. It is a tentative refusal at this point. We have an 

agreement with the Department of Motor Vehicles, and we are very 

concerned about making sure we protect people’s private information. So we are still running the legal traps to be able to make sure 

that we are legally able to share that information with her. 

If, in fact, we are—and I believe our tentative conclusions at this 

point is that we are, but we are still conferring with the attorney 

general’s office on that—if we are able to share that information 

without violating those privacy concerns, yes, we will do it. But I 

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54 

think our first concern is to make sure that we are not violating 

various State privacy requirements. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. I just can’t imagine that someone like Ms. Reiner 

would not be entrusted with some information regarding something 

that comes under the purview of her responsibilities, but we will 

move on. 

Isn’t every voter registration, as a result of the Help America 

Vote Act, have a provision at the outset that asks the question of 

whether you are a citizen or not a citizen? And if you are not a citizen, you are not to proceed further with filling out the form? 

Mr. GESSLER. That is correct. We have had problems in Colorado, 

however, some administrative errors where people that have filled 

out a registration form, said they are not a citizen, yet they nonetheless registered—— 

Mr. GONZALEZ. So who is authorized to have someone fill out a 

registration form? Because I am familiar with Texas; I am not with 

Colorado. 

Mr. GESSLER. The clerks and recorders are the ones who receive 

that. Unfortunately, we have no verification process in the State of 

Colorado—— 

Mr. GONZALEZ. The individual that presents this form, let’s say 

a Motor Vehicle, an individual, a clerk—in Texas, before you can 

have someone actually fill out a registration form, there is some 

training. You actually deputize folks. But there is some training involved so that they are placed on notice that a noncitizen is not to 

fill out this form. That is the first question that they will be asking. 

Do you not follow that in Colorado? 

Mr. GESSLER. I am unfamiliar with the Texas training. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. So, in Colorado, anyone can fill anything out, and 

there are no instructions. If there is an individual who represents 

a State, the county, or whatever, they are not charged with any responsibility to make sure that that individual is not signing that, 

and the question is posed. Because I think there actually is a simple answer to all of this. 

Mr. GESSLER. I apologize, Congressman, I didn’t fully follow that 

last question. 

I can say this, however, that people are instructed to read the 

questions and to fill them out accurately. I will say that we have 

seen human error. We have seen our database that allows people 

to be registered and to vote even though they are in a noncitizenship status. That is a problem with our database that we have recently resolved. 

I do also know that there is no verification, and our election officials do not verify the accuracy of any of the information on the 

voting rolls. I think that is what gives rise to this problem. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. There is an affirmation that subjects somebody to 

penalties if they lie. 

Mr. GESSLER. That is correct. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. So there is then. You said there is—okay, there 

is no verification. All we have is affirmation, and that is, the individual who signs it under the penalty of law affirms that all of the 

information on here is correct. 

Mr. GESSLER. That is correct. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. And I’ve way exceeded the time. 

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Thank you for your patience, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. HARPER. Thank you, Mr. Gonzalez. 

I will now recognize Mr. Nugent for questions. 

Mr. NUGENT. Well, thank you for appearing today in front of this 

panel. 

Ms. Gill, we absolutely appreciate having you here, particularly 

since you are on the front lines in regards to voter registration and 

doing elections, and you have done a very good job in Citrus County. 

Going back to this conservation we were having as it relates to 

Colorado, what is the verification process in Florida as it relates to 

those that are not citizens? 

Ms. GILL. Okay. Well, the form says, as Mr. Gonzalez mentioned, 

that you are affirming that you are a United States citizen on our 

Florida form. That is one of the very first things that you do. And 

you are signing that you are. We are not requiring someone to provide us with proof of their citizenship because they are affirming 

that that is so. 

Now if we have information, as supervisors, that would lead us 

to believe that this person is not a citizen, then we would proceed 

from there. Other than that, it is a system that is built on trust. 

It is the same thing, we have the box on our Florida registration 

form that says, Are you a convicted felon, and if you are, have your 

rights been restored? This is part of the Florida law. So those boxes 

are there. 

And of course, with the felons, though, we do have a way of 

checking. They are matched up against the database with the Department of Corrections and such. 

But as we go forward with this and you talk about citizenship, 

you have to be really careful because back in 2000—you may remember this—when we were trying to make sure that we didn’t 

have felons on the voting list, the first list that came out was very 

inaccurate, and it came out just before election. It was dumped in 

the laps of supervisors of elections just before elections and said, 

do something with this. And then we had to send a letter that said, 

Dear Mr. Nugent, are you a convicted felon? We were trying to find 

the right words to say this for a database that was very flawed. 

So, as we move forward with this, I mean, it does have merit. 

We, as election officials, want to make sure that only those people 

who are eligible to vote do vote and are registered, but we need to 

be careful on how we go through that process of making sure that 

we have the right person. 

Mr. NUGENT. Have you seen situations where actually those that 

are not citizens have—— 

Ms. GILL. I have had two incidents that I can recall—very interesting because neither of them were willful. It was actually a person who, after having served in the military in World War II, 

thought that he was an American citizen and only found out when 

he went to get a U.S. passport to go on a trip that he was not a 

United States citizen, in which case he immediately saw an attorney and came to my office, took himself off the voting rolls until 

he did become a citizen. That is not willful. 

And then the other incident was very much like that, the person 

did not believe because of where he was born and his parents 

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were—the citizenship of his parents and such. So both of them 

were not willful. That is Citrus County, Florida, though, which you 

are very familiar with. 

Mr. NUGENT. Yes. Have you heard of any other cases in Florida 

that that has been an issue that you are aware of? 

Ms. GILL. I am sure there are because there are a lot of people 

out there. But again, I have to get back to the fact that we are asking these individuals who are signing up to affirm that they are a 

United States citizen, and our system right now is built on trust, 

unless we have some other information. 

Mr. NUGENT. And I know that representatives from ES&S, when 

they talk about flaws or problems that occur during an election 

cycle particularly, it falls back on the supervisor of election, at least 

in Florida; you are the one who takes the heat. 

Ms. GILL. That is correct. 

Mr. NUGENT. And that is not a good spot to be in as an elected 

official. 

You were talking about budgets, and obviously, we are all very 

concerned about budgets. What kind of budget cuts have you faced 

as supervisor of elections? 

Ms. GILL. Well, fortunately, in my county, they know we are 

working really hard to control our budgets, so nobody in my county 

has said to me, Susan, you have to cut your budget by 14 percent. 

I keep telling them—and I have started last year telling them— 

look, we have an added election of the Presidential preference primary; it is a redistricting year; we have certain expenses that are 

just happening every 10 years, notifying voters, letting them know 

what their new districts are, letting them know where their new 

polling places are. So this is an added expense. So I have been preparing them. 

Other counties in our State, they are going forward and saying, 

hey, you have to cut your budget, even with those things, the fact 

that we have an additional election and then also the redistricting 

issues. 

Mr. NUGENT. The State of Florida I believe has taken on a very 

aggressive approach when folks come in for a driver’s license renewal and for first-time driver’s licenses in regards to showing basically whether they are a citizen or not because Florida’s laws are 

somewhat different. I believe that may help in regards to identifying those that should or should not be voting that are citizens or 

not. I would just recommend to those States that do not do that— 

I understand that as Secretary of State, you can only recommend 

to the legislature, as we see up here, and that you still have to get 

a bill passed. But I would suggest to you that anything that you 

can do obviously to shore up the ability to make sure that we have 

U.S. Citizens voting in U.S. elections, I would be grateful. 

Thank you. 

Mr. HARPER. I now recognize Mr. Lungren for any questions he 

may have. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you 

for having this hearing. 

I understand that our system is based on trust. Ronald Reagan 

used to say ‘‘trust but verify,’’ and it is the last part of it that I 

am a little concerned about. 

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I worked on the Voting Rights Act extension in the 1980s, and 

then worked for it when I came back here this time. I also worked 

on the immigration bill since it was early in the 1980s. One of the 

things that I found out there is that unless you have an enforcement program, some people take advantage of it. 

I am the author of H.R. 4, which is to get rid of an extraneous 

part of the health care bill that would have—or still does, unless 

the Senate wakes up and finally deals with the bill—would have 

put a tremendous onus on business people, particularly small business people, to file 1099s any time they had a transaction or a series of transactions that totalled over $600 in a single year. 

And yet the thinking behind that was not that the 1099 had to 

be filed because the person filing it had an obligation to pay something; it was to report on the other side of the transaction. And 

then we had the Federal Government score that section of the bill 

as worth 19, and then if it involved mom and pop shops who rented 

out some property, $21 billion. The assumption was that business 

men and women cheated so much that we would get $21 billion if 

someone talked about it, yet it almost presumes that even though 

business men and women cheat, nobody else cheats, particularly 

when it comes to registration to vote. 

I would love to believe in the perfection of humankind that nobody cheats, but I suspect that that is not true. And as important 

as it is to protect one’s right to vote is to protect one’s right not 

to have your vote canceled out by someone who isn’t eligible to 

vote. 

So here is my question to the first three panelists: Do you have 

any reason to believe there is any measurable percentage of people 

on our voting rolls who don’t have a right to be there? Or is it perfection that we have reached in this society? 

Ms. GILL. Well, if I may, personally, I think that, yes, there are 

people on the rolls who probably should not be there, some of them 

willfully and some of them not willfully. However, to your point, 

what do we do about it? 

Mr. LUNGREN. Well, that is my question. We have three people 

here who are experts, and I would like to know what you think we 

ought to do about it. 

Ms. GILL. Right. How do we enforce it? The only thing that we 

can do to enforce it is make people show some sort of proof of citizenship. Now if that is the way you want to go as far as nationalization papers or birth certificates. I think with the driver’s license, 

as we go forward with the new type of driver’s license where, when 

we go to the driver’s license bureau, now we have to bring a birth 

certificate. We have to bring—if we have had a name change, we 

have to bring some indication of a marriage certificate or something that proves your identity. We are moving toward that way. 

But as far as making it part of the voter registration process, I 

have to really question whether we would disenfranchise more people by doing it, really eligible voters, than actually having them 

have to bring it and show proof. So if we haven’t shown proof, I 

think we are going to disenfranchise more people than we save—— 

Mr. LUNGREN. So you don’t have an answer. 

Ms. GILL. Well, no. My answer is, right now, I think that we 

have to go with what we have got right now. And if we have credmstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGS

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ible information that somebody is a noncitizen, then we pursue it 

from there. 

And as we move forward with this driver’s license, that we are 

now going to have some proof of identification. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Has anybody ever been prosecuted in your jurisdiction? 

Ms. GILL. Not in my jurisdiction. 

Mr. LUNGREN. In the State of Florida, to your knowledge? 

Ms. GILL. I don’t really know. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Mr. Ritchie. 

Mr. RITCHIE. Chairman Lungren, yes. In fact, in our State, it is 

mandatory that county attorneys must investigate any allegations 

or anything that we refer, and so it is mandatory. I think our situation is different than Colorado in that way. 

Second, all crimes related to elections are felonies in our State. 

I don’t believe that is the same—Congressman Gonzalez asked the 

question about differentiation—for us it is all felonies. This is an 

important thing. 

The third thing is that we work very hard to try to reduce the 

cost to law enforcement, and the judicial system, by making sure 

things are flagged beforehand, making sure that people who are inadvertently on the list because of a typo at the Department of Public Safety or some other reason are flagged beforehand so that we 

don’t have to deal with that situation after the election because it 

is very expensive. 

Let me give you one quick example. Election day 2008, a young 

man way up on the Canadian border, just out of the prison, was 

very proud, getting his life back together, putting his life back together, called his parole officer and got the answering machine and 

said: I am getting my life back together. I am going to be a good 

citizen. I am a very strong supporter of Senator McCain and Senator Coleman. I am going down to vote. Aren’t you proud of me for 

being a citizen and for being active? He, unfortunately, was not yet 

off parole. And so he went down, not trying to hide anything, of 

course, and before his parole officer was able to reach him, he violated the law in Minnesota and committed another felony. His parole officer called him and said, don’t, and it was too late. And so 

actually he was prosecuted under a gross misdemeanor, 30 days in 

the county workhouse, a little tiny county that really can’t afford 

to do a lot of extra prosecutions or put people up for a jail term; 

very expensive problem for the county and for this young man’s 

life. 

The legislature actually took that seriously because it turned out 

many people were not certain about their status, and it is partly 

because the States around us have different laws. In North Dakota, 

if you are in prison, you cannot vote. If you are out of prison, you 

can. That is their law. So when you are on the border of other 

States, I think we have a number of our citizens not certain. And 

so in that instance, the legislature passed a law requiring all 

judges, all correction officials must say affirmatively, you have lost 

your right to vote, you will not have your right to vote until you 

are completely off paper; the bill passed, with strong bipartisan 

support, but it was vetoed. Our Governor felt like the judges had 

too much to do already. 

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59 

In the course of that process, we made a very strong case that 

the expense of prosecuting people who voted inadvertently for felony offenses was so extraordinary, it was worth spending the 

money to convert the court and corrections data into electronic 

form so it could be matched with our database, our elections database, so that they could be challenged on the front end, in case 

they went in, then this information would be there, and you could 

say, hey, wait a minute, you are challenged here, you are still on 

paper. If the person said, no, I am off paper now, they would say 

great, and they would have to sign a separate form. But if they 

were to say, oh, you mean I can’t vote? Well, no, you can’t; it is 

a felony. And so we have found that spending the money on the 

front end saves a tremendous amount of money on the prosecution 

side. 

Secretary Gessler’s approach of trying to identify people and get 

the word out to people to avoid prosecutions on the other end—in 

my State, it is mandatory and it is a felony—is a very inexpensive 

approach to what is going to be a very expensive process on the 

other side. 

I feel like this change with the new electronics and the digital 

data makes it possible—and in our State, we always have a few 

prosecutions of felons who have voted and that kind of thing, but 

we have the tools now to make our databases much cleaner and 

flagged up front. That can save us a tremendous amount of money 

in prosecutions, and investigations after the fact. 

But we have to learn how to use our databases. We have got to 

get data, and we have to take the money that we would have spent 

on prosecutions, and invest it on the front end, so we have made 

the technological advances so that our computers can talk to each 

other. Then we can save real money down the road. 

Thank you. 

Mr. HARPER. I thank you all for your testimony today. 

Mr. Carbullido, I will be sending you a request, some questions 

dealing with your dealings with the EAC. I think that would be 

helpful to us not only here, but for future matters that we will consider. 

I now ask unanimous consent to enter the following documents 

into the hearing record: Number one will be the report referenced 

by Secretary of State Gessler in his testimony detailing their 

State’s investigation into possible noncitizen voting. 

[The information follows:] 

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Mr. HARPER. And the second is an article that sites a similar 

study on noncitizen voting that is currently being conducted by the 

New Mexico Secretary of State. 

Without objection to that request, it is so ordered. 

[The information follows:] 

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Mr. HARPER. I want to thank each of you for being here to testify, for the members, for their participation. I know it is not easy 

to get here, and you have been very helpful to us today. I now adjourn the subcommittee. 

[The information follows:] 

[Whereupon, at 11:35 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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