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42–953 2008

HEARING ON THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES 

AND CAUCUSES: WHAT WE’VE LEARNED SO FAR 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON HOUSE 

ADMINISTRATION 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, APRIL 9, 2008 

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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COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania, Chairman 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

Vice-Chairwoman 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

Ranking Minority Member 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

KEVIN MCCARTHY, California 

S. ELIZABETH BIRNBAUM, Staff Director 

WILL PLASTER, Minority Staff Director 


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2008 PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES AND 

CAUCUSES: WHAT WE’VE LEARNED SO FAR 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 2008 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION, Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 11:37 a.m., in room 

1310, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Robert A. Brady 

(chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Brady, Lofgren, Gonzalez, Ehlers, Lungren, and McCarthy. 

Also Present: Representative Meek. 

Staff Present: Liz Birnbaum, Staff Director; Thomas Hicks, Senior Election Counsel; Janelle Hu, Election Counsel; Jennifer Daehn, 

Election Counsel; Matt Pinkus, Professional Staff/Parliamentarian; 

Kyle Anderson, Press Director; Kristin McCowan, Chief Legislative 

Clerk; Daniel Favarulo, Legislative Assistant, Elections; Gregory 

Abbott, Policy Analyst; Gineen Beach, Minority Election Counsel; 

Ashley Stow, Minority Election Counsel; Bryan T. Dorsey, Minority 

Professional Staff; and Fred Hay, Minority General Counsel. 

The CHAIRMAN. Good morning, everyone, and welcome all of you 

to our Committee on House Administration hearing. I would like 

to call our hearing to order. 

The Presidential election of 2000 brought to light many troubles 

with our elective process. The problems with that election led to 

the passage of the Help America Vote Act, HAVA, developed by 

this committee. 

Today, we sit just 30 weeks away from the next Presidential election, an election which, based on the turnout we have seen on the 

primaries to date, will test our system of election administration 

more than any election in the country’s history. Despite all the 

problems that we have learned about from our recent elections, we 

are still hearing about long lines, machine failures, not enough ballots and other problems at the polls. 

I am greatly concerned to learn about these repeated challenges. 

I hope this hearing will send a message to the States that America 

is coming to the polls in November, and we need to be ready. 

The other message that I hope this hearing will offer us is that 

election officials need enough trained poll workers to help them run 

elections. Most election officials are dedicated public servants or 

volunteers who work long hours with little or no pay. We are not 

here to blame these volunteers—God knows, we need them—but to 

ask you how we can help voters who have experienced problems at 

the polls. I hope that by highlighting the important role poll workVerDate Aug 31 2005 21:33 Jul 21, 2008 Jkt 042953 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A953.XXX A953

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ers play in helping people vote, other citizens will be inspired to 

volunteer. 

Since 2004, the MyVote1 hotline has worked with media outlets 

such as NBC News and the Tom Joyner Morning Show to collect, 

archive and analyze the audio recordings of real voters in real election settings confronting real problems. Tom Joyner’s leadership as 

a national media partner presents a model for other media outlets 

to educate and engage voters. 

The NAACP National Voter Fund, The Reform Institute and The 

National Coalition on Black Civic Participation have worked tirelessly with other civil rights and voting advocates in the area of 

election administration and reform. We recognize the list of concerned citizens and advocates devoting incredible time and resources to improve the election process is growing each day, and I 

am glad to have a few of these groups with us here this morning. 

The hotline run by today’s witness, Mr. Joyner, allows his extensive listener base to share their polling place experiences. Mr. 

Joyner has been a strong advocate for voter enfranchisement on a 

national level, and I applaud his work, and I share his goals. 

I would like to know if any of our members would like to make 

an opening statement. Any statements? 

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to commend you 

for calling this hearing. 

I think that we have learned some things so far in this election. 

This is an excellent opportunity for us to be apprised of what these 

excellent witnesses have discovered. 

I would like to ask unanimous consent to put in the record testimony from the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and the People 

for the American Way. 

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection. 

[The information follows:] 


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Ms. LOFGREN. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I ask unanimous consent that several articles and 

a letter be placed in the record for today’s hearing. 

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection. 

[The information follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. The MyVote hotline has received over 40,000 

calls in 2008. I would like to play for the committee a tape provided 

by Mr. Joyner to give an idea of the problems his listeners have 

experienced. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses regarding these problems and for proposed solutions to ensure that the 

2008 general election run smoothly. Americais the greatest democracy in the world, and our election should reflect that fact. So I 

would like to have somebody run those calls that were made to 

Joyner’s show. 

[Tape played.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

I would also like to ask unanimous consent that our colleague 

from Florida, Mr. Meek, sit up on the rostrum with us. 

No objections. Thank you. 

And I would like to ask our ranking member, Mr. Ehlers, if he 

has an opening statement. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, and I apologize for my delay. I was in 

a meeting that was very urgent and just had to stay until we resolved it. 

I have a long opening statement, but let me just put it into the 

record in the interest of time. 

I am very concerned about anyone being denied the opportunity 

to exercise their franchise to vote. That shouldn’t happen. 

I also recognize that we have a very complex voting system operated by 50 States and numerous different jurisdictions, and it’s impossible in my experience—and I have some 30 years experience 

working on this, to keep all the poll workers trained and on their 

toes all the time. 

A number of instances that I have encountered which were malicious in the sense that someone deliberately was trying to keep 

someone else from voting, those are extremely rare. There are a lot 

of errors made—I shouldn’t say a lot, but there are a number of 

errors made by poll workers and by voters themselves in not either 

fully understanding the rules or following the rules, and so I think 

it’s important to keep that in mind when we are talking about this 

situation. 

If we can in fact prove that there are deliberate attempts to prevent people from voting, that is a crime and should be handled that 

way. So I hope we will keep that in mind and be kind and thoughtful in the treatment of poll workers. Those poor folks, they only do 

this a couple times a year. It is easy to forget from one election to 

another. Many times, they are elderly, and they have to work 12- 

to 14-hour days. It is really a tough job, and I admire their interest 

and their stamina in doing it. I am very slow to condemn them for 

doing things wrong, but they do make mistakes, just as we make 

mistakes now and then. 

So I am interested in hearing the testimony and hearing what 

happened, but let me say that I am a little skeptical that someone 

claims that someone deliberately and illegally stopped them from 

voting. If that in fact did happen, that is, as I said, a crime. There 

should be a mechanism for calling that to attention and seeing that 

they are dealt with according to the law. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. 


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[The statement of Mr. Ehlers follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. I would like to now introduce our panel and 

thank you for your participation and for being here today. 

Our first panelist, Tom Joyner, host of the Tom Joyner Morning 

Show. He has received dozens of honors for his work, including 

being admitted to the National Radio Hall of Fame. A strong advocate for civil rights and has led countless voter registrations and 

Get Out the Vote efforts. His foundation has donated more than 

$55 million to improve the lives of those in need, particularly after 

Hurricane Katrina. He’s a dynamic and influential personality, and 

I am honored to have you here this morning. 

Greg Moore, Director of NAACP National Voter Fund. Prior to 

joining NAACP, he worked on Capitol Hill as a Legislative Director 

and Chief of Staff. Thank you, sir. 

John Bonifaz, Legal Director of Voter Action. Prior to joining 

Voter Action, he worked for more than 12 years at the National 

Voting Rights Institute where he worked to protect the integrity of 

our electoral process. Thank you for being here. 

Cecilia Martinez, Executive Director of The Reform Institute. 

Prior to joining The Reform Institute, she was Director of the 

Clean Elections Institute in Arizona. Thank you. 

And last but certainly not least, Mr. Ken Smukler, President of 

InfoVoter Technologies, which created and maintains the MyVote1 

hotline. We will be hearing from him today. 

Mr. Joyner, I know you are probably not used to talking in front 

of a microphone, but we need to push the button. All of you on the 

panel have a button in front of you. When you speak, you have to 

push it. 

We have a box that tells you we have 5 minutes. That tells you 

when it is time to sum up and when it is time to stop. I am lenient 

with that. I let people talk maybe sometimes too much, but if you 

get redundant, I will warn you that you had enough time. 

STATEMENTS OF TOM JOYNER, RADIO HOST, TOM JOYNER 

MORNING SHOW; GREG MOORE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

NAACP NATIONAL VOTER FUND; JOHN BONIFAZ, LEGAL DIRECTOR, VOTER ACTION; CECILIA MARTINEZ, EXECUTIVE 

DIRECTOR, THE REFORM INSTITUTE; AND KEN SMUKLER, 

INFOVOTER TECHNOLOGIES 

The CHAIRMAN. So right now, Mr. Joyner, it is my pleasure, and 

again I welcome you, and I thank you for your participation. 

STATEMENT OF TOM JOYNER 

Mr. JOYNER. Thank you. 

Thank you, Chairperson Brady and committee members, for the 

opportunity to talk to you about this very important issue affecting 

our voters. I am Tom Joyner, and as a radio broadcaster I deal 

daily with theater of the mind, so I would like for you to join me 

in this exercise. 

Imagine yourself as a 30-year-old working mother of two. You arrange for your mom to take your kids to school on this day so that 

you can get to your polling place when it opens at 7:00 a.m. You 

anticipate being in line for 45 minutes to an hour and you have to 

be at work at 9:00. You are not a regular voter. In fact, this is your 

first time voting in a Presidential primary. 


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You get to your polling place at 7:05, and the polls haven’t 

opened. There are more than 100 people in line; and when the polls 

do finally open at 7:30, you notice that the line is moving at a 

snail’s pace. The reason for the delay is that there aren’t enough 

machines, there isn’t enough manpower, there aren’t enough I.D. 

verification machines or they have run out of ballots. 

You want to wait in line until the problems are fixed, but, if you 

do, there is no way that you’ll make it to work on time. Maybe 

you’ll have time to vote after work, if your boss lets you leave on 

time and your mom agrees to pick up the kids from daycare. But 

if they didn’t have enough machines at 7:30 in the morning, they 

most certainly won’t have enough at 6:00 in the evening. So the 

lines will be even longer and move slower than they did in the 

morning. So you pass; you pass on this election. 

My show, the Tom Joyner Morning Show, reaches nearly 8 million mostly African American people every week; and since so many 

African Americans do tune in to hear our show, along with being 

called the hardest-working man in radio, I am sometimes called the 

voice of black America. 

When CNN, C–SPAN or any major TV network, a President of 

the United States or Presidential candidate wants to speak to, or 

hear from African Americans, they know that I am the person to 

come to. It is a huge responsibility, and I take it very seriously. It 

is all a part of my ongoing goal to ‘‘super-serve’’ my audience. That 

means to be in touch with what they want and need and to provide 

that by entertaining, educating and empowering our listeners. 

The best way to empower our listeners is by registering them to 

vote. Through our partnership with the NAACP voting fund, as of 

Friday we have registered nearly 21,000 people and received in 

total more than 45,000 phone calls at 1–866–MyVote–1. A lot of 

those calls were about poll locations, but most of the calls were 

complaining about problems that they experienced at their polling 

places. 

On Tuesday, February 5th, Super Tuesday, we received nearly 

10,000 calls throughout my radio show, a 4–hour show, and 

throughout that day. We monitored those calls, and many of those 

calls came from voters in Atlanta. At one point during the radio 

show, we were receiving up to three calls a minute. They were calling to tell us that they were having problems voting, that the voter 

ID machines were not working, that in some cases there weren’t 

enough voting machines. In other cases, they called us to complain 

about poll workers who didn’t know how to fix problems when they 

were happening. 

And that is why I am here this morning. I know about the problems. My audience knows about the problems. Now you need to 

know about the problems, and you need to do what it takes to fix 

the problems. 

If I am concerned about making sure people register and actually 

getting the opportunity to exercise their right to vote, you really 

ought to be concerned. 

We aren’t talking about apathetic people who won’t take the time 

to vote. We are talking about people who have registered and have 

shown up at the polls ready and willing to cast their ballots. Voting 

irregularities either kept them from voting or made the process a 


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lot more difficult than it should have been. We kept good records 

of these irregularities and are passing them along to you. My listeners are counting on me to do something about these irregularities, and I am counting on you. 

Sadly, we don’t know how many people were turned away and 

how many people will not return to the polls in November because 

of their negative experience. Many of them start believing that 

these problems are designed to keep them from voting. They look 

back at the Presidential election in 2000 and 2004 and wonder 

what kind of trickery is going to steal the elections this time 

around. They call me, and I hear the frustrations and the anger of 

my radio audience on our 1–866–MyVote–1 hotline. 

So here is what I am urging you all to do before we get to November. One, get more voting machines to these polling places; two, 

do a better job of training poll workers so that they know how 

these machines work and how to fix problems; three, in Georgia, 

get more voter ID verification machines; and, finally, establish a 

national voting standard to avoid so much confusion in every city 

and State every election year. 

We want people to register to vote, but we are making it too difficult for them to vote. 

In keeping with the spirit of the election year, let me just say 

that I am Tom Joyner, and I approve this message. Thank you very 

much. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Joyner. 

[The statement of Mr. Joyner follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Moore. 

STATEMENT OF GREG MOORE 

Mr. MOORE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Ehlers. 

Thank you, members of the House Administration Committee. I 

want to thank you for the opportunity to present today. 

My name is Greg Moore. I am the Executive Director of the 

NAACP National Voter Fund, which is a 501(c)(4), a nonpartisan 

social welfare organization created by the NAACP in 2000, the Nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization celebrating its 

100th anniversary in February of 2009 of consumer right advocacy. 

The Voter Fund’s sole purpose is to promote voter registration, 

expand voter registration and protect the rights of voters seeking 

to exercise their right to vote. 

I want to especially thank you, Chairman Brady, and your staff 

for having the foresight to hold this hearing that allows us to take 

a bird’s-eye view of the primary season so far. 

Some have raised questions on why hold the hearing now when 

we are still in the process of voting in States like Pennsylvania and 

others. It reminds me of a quote by Dr. King, a freedom fighter 

who tragically gave his life 40 years ago fighting for the right to 

vote and the civil rights of all Americans, regardless of race, religion or income. Dr. King spoke of the ‘‘fierce urgency of now’’. In 

one of his earlier books entitled ‘‘Why We Can’t Wait’’, he talked 

about the importance of our government taking positive action now 

to deal with the problems of discrimination and disenfranchisement. 

It would be easy to wait until November 4th to see what voting 

disasters awaited us in Florida and Ohio or, as is more probable, 

in another State that would experience major problems, but problems, Mr. Chairman, that could have been avoided if we had simply 

stopped to analyze what we discovered during this first round of 

primaries. 

So I want to thank the partnership between the Voter Fund and 

the Tom Joyner Morning Show and the MyVote1 hotline developed 

by InfoVoter Technologies that allows us to analyze this data 

through academic institutions and advocacy groups like Voter Action and others. More importantly, the data can be analyzed by the 

House Administration Committee and, hopefully, by the Election 

Assistance Commission and also by election officials across the 

country before November 4th. 

There are those who believe that protecting the right to vote 

should be reserved to election officials and county governments, but 

we believe that people like Tom Joyner can play a very useful role 

in this effort as well as civil rights advocacy groups. 

During the 2008 primary, voters have had an opportunity to receive further assistance through this effort that was launched on 

November 19th. But since the first week in January, we saw a 

basic explosion of interest and this number of overwhelming response. And Tom gave you the numbers already of the registration 

numbers, 20,810, and the number of people calling about elections, 

20,813. 

We are grateful for Tom and his entire Reach Media family for 

waking up at 3 o’clock in the morning every day to spread this 


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word on his radio program about the importance of voting and encouraging his listeners to get involved in the process. Eight million 

listeners, as he mentioned, are listening to his show and that more 

people listen to his show than will ever read these pamphlets that 

are produced by Boards of Elections or Secretaries of State’s offices 

and this information through this number is putting this information right at their fingertips. 

Our analysis of the hotline reveals that 72 percent of respondents who are calling are searching for their poll locations because 

they don’t know where they should vote. This demonstrates that 

the MyVote1 hotline is providing very important information to 

voters, because it easy for many first time voters to not know. 

My son is here today, Greg, Jr., who voted for the first time; and 

also this is his first congressional hearing as well. 

Many of us in the population move, 20 percent of us every year; 

and even a higher number of percentage of African Americans and 

low-income people, move creating the vulnerability for voter 

purges. It is important that this MyVote number is able to service 

tens of thousands of voters who have moved since they last voted, 

because there are many families, as we all know, who are being 

displaced by foreclosures, by hurricanes, by floods, by tornadoes, by 

wildfires and other natural disasters. As people are more victimized by these disasters, they will need this type of assistance in 

finding their new poll locations. 

Many of us in the election business get information about polling 

data, but many of us know that this information is not readily 

available. In the little time I have left, I just want to make a couple 

of quick points. 

The hotline has captured 75,000 audio recordings since it began 

in 2004. You just heard some of those samples, so I won’t give all 

of my examples that I wanted to give. But the preliminary findings 

suggest that this is a serious problem that plagues voters in every 

community and every State, because calls came in from all 50 

States. 

When callers make a decision to call, they do so with the hope 

that someone is listening, that someone in authority is going to 

stand up and do something about these problems that they are encountering. Too often, they see the election procedures as too bureaucratic to participate in; and, despite the fact that we know that 

there is heavy turnout, there are still problems with not enough 

ballots in some of these elections. 

So now, instead of billy clubs or German Shepherds or problems 

that their grandparents faced, many of our new voters, particularly 

young voters, are turned away by long lines, by intransient poll 

workers who are not well-trained, or their data doesn’t match on 

the statewide list and they are no longer able to exercise their right 

to vote. 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the committee, I hope that we 

look at these new procedures. We start to identify how we can 

make this system better. 

Just to sum up, MyVote1 is not the only hotline designed to help 

voters. There are legal hotlines and government-sponsored hotlines. 

What makes MyVote1 unique is that it captures and preserves the 

voices of those voters as these problems arise, and what distinVerDate Aug 31 2005 21:33 Jul 21, 2008 Jkt 042953 PO 00000 Frm 00094 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A953.XXX A953

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guishes MyVote from other election hotlines is its ability to reach 

voters through the medium as the Tom Joyner Morning Show and 

other networks. These calls provide the type of assistance that has 

not really been done this early in the process during the primaries. 

So let me close by saying we have seen this primary an overwhelming number of voters turning out to vote. We have every reason to believe that if we had 400,000 calls in 2004 that with this 

trend that we’re looking at now there could easily be 750,000 people looking for help. I wouldn’t be surprised if it even hit 1 million 

people on Election Day or leading up to Election Day looking for 

this type of help. 

So I applaud you for inviting the election officials here today to 

respond to some of this data as well. We respect the work that they 

do, and we know they are saddled by an enormous task of different 

laws that change and being underfunded, but I think there is a 

useful role for both election officials, advocates and the Federal 

government to play in helping to remedy the many problems that 

we have identified here today. 

I am gratified that this committee has chosen to lift up the work 

of Tom Joyner and our partnership; and, amid all the noise around 

this election, there is good news that a new town crier will be on 

the air throughout the remaining primaries and general election 

continuing to register voters, to provide voters with information 

that will ensure that their voices will be heard and that their complaints will be addressed and their rights to vote will be protected 

on November 4th. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Moore, Sr.; and thank you, Mr. 

Moore, Jr., for participating in your first hearing. 

[The statement of Mr. Moore follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Bonifaz. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN BONIFAZ 

Mr. BONIFAZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Ehlers and members of the committee. Thank you for holding this 

hearing on this critical matter and for the opportunity to testify before you today. 

My name is John Bonifaz. I serve as the Legal Director of Voter 

Action, a national nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to 

protecting our elections and our right to vote. 

Voter Action emerged in early 2005 following questions which 

arose in a 2004 Presidential election concerning the reliability and 

accuracy of our vote-counting process. Since that time, Voter Action 

has been at the forefront of the election integrity movement in the 

United States, fighting to ensure that our elections remain in the 

public domain controlled by the voters. Through legal advocacy, research and public education, we aim to protect an open and transparent election process, one in which our elections at the Federal, 

State and local levels are accessible and verifiable. 

In 2006, Voter Action initiated the Watch the Vote Program, an 

original effort to provide legal and organizational resources for citizen-led monitoring activities in the 2006 election with State and 

national partner organizations. 

Voter Action has recently joined with the NAACP National Voter 

Fund and MyVote1 hotline to engage in election monitoring and 

protection of the 2008 election. We share the view that such public 

oversight can play a critical role in protecting the integrity of our 

elections. 

The data collected via the MyVote1 hotline thus far in the 2008 

Presidential cycle highlights, in part, a growing concern with a new 

phenomenon in our democracy: election privatization. Jurisdictions 

across the country are increasingly outsourcing, to private vendors, 

key election functions and, in the process, compromising the transparency and public control of our elections. A powerful example of 

this can be found in what happened this past February in the 

Georgia primary. 

As with a number of States, Georgia uses privatized electronic 

poll books, manufactured by Diebold Election Systems, now known 

as Premier Election Solutions. These electronic poll books determine whether or not a voter is able to access the ballot; whether 

or not a voter is able to exercise the franchise. 

During the February 5th, 2008 primary, the MyVote1 hotline received numerous calls, and we have heard some of them today, 

from voters in at least five Georgia counties reporting that the electronic poll books were crashing and inoperable, leading to long 

lines and citizens leaving polling sites without casting ballots. 

This is, unfortunately, not an isolated matter. In the New Mexico 

Presidential caucus for the Democratic party on February 5th, 

2008, a flawed voter registration database prepared for the State 

by the Election Systems and Software Company led to thousands 

of voters having to cast provisional ballots when their names did 

not appear on the voting rolls. Voters in other States, including Arizona, Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey and Utah, have reported 


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similar problems with accessing the ballot in this primary election 

season. 

Today, 33 States are slated to use electronic voting machines this 

November for the counting and recording of votes, despite a growing body of evidence that such systems are unreliable and do not 

meet basic security standards. With this growing influence and 

control by private companies in how we conduct our elections in 

this country, our democracy remains at serious risk. 

What can we do to address this danger and protect the integrity 

of our elections? 

First, citizen-led monitoring of our elections, such as the 

MyVote1 effort, is critically needed to identify election concerns and 

to collect the data from voters on Election Day. Without the 

MyVote1 hotline, it is unclear whether we would have learned of 

the extent of the problems with electronic poll books in Georgia in 

the February 5th primary. 

Second, the Election Assistance Commission, EAC, of which this 

committee has direct oversight, is not currently fulfilling its statutory duties as set forth by section 2 of the Help America Vote Act 

of 2002—section 202, rather. As a national clearinghouse and resource—quoting from that section—EAC ought to be reviewing and 

analyzing the data gathered by the MyVote1 hotline so as to ‘‘promote the effective administration of Federal elections.’’ 

Further, the EAC does not engage in testing electronic poll books 

because the agency claims electronic poll books are not part of a 

voting system, and the EAC has yet to carry out its duties related 

to the certification, decertification and recertification of voting system hardware and software. To date, the EAC has not certified a 

single voting system in the United States to the new voting system 

standards it issued in December, 2005. 

Finally, we must reclaim public control of our public elections. 

This means the election process must be transparent, accountable 

and verifiable. 

When private companies deny independent investigation review 

of their voting systems, as they recently have done in New Jersey 

and in Florida, the integrity of the election process is undermined. 

When voting systems, including privatized voter registration 

databases and electronic poll books, are found to be unreliable, 

election officials ought to discontinue their use and employ safer 

and more accurate systems. 

When questions repeatedly emerge every election as to whether 

votes are being properly counted, as they have in the past several 

election cycles, rigorous and mandatory audits ought to be required 

with voter-marked paper ballot systems that are in fact auditable. 

More than a century ago, the United States Supreme Court stated in the case of Yick Wo v. Hopkins that the right to vote is ‘‘a 

fundamental political right’’ which is ‘‘preservative of all rights.’’ In 

2008, we must remain ever vigilant in protecting this most basic 

right. Democracy demands no less. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Bonifaz follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Martinez. 

STATEMENT OF CECILIA MARTINEZ 

Ms. MARTINEZ. Good afternoon. Thank you, Chairman Brady, 

Ranking Member Ehlers, members of the committee. 

My name is Cecilia Martinez. I am the Executive Director of The 

Reform Institute. We appreciate you inviting The Reform Institute 

to participate on this panel. 

We are a 501(c)(3) educational organization. We are a multi-issue 

think tank, and we work to strengthen the foundations of our democracy and build a resilient Nation. 

We believe that an informed citizenry is a major component to 

building a resilient society. We have worked on election administration issues since our inception in 2001; and, thanks to the Carnegie Corporation of New York, we have become involved with the 

866–MyVote–1 consortium in the 2004 Presidential election. 

Since 2004, we’ve collected hundreds of thousands of records; and 

the evidence clearly shows that the two largest barriers to voters 

are, one, that they lack the basic information about poll location— 

they simply don’t know where to go to vote—and, two, when voters 

show up at the polls, many find that their names do not appear on 

the registration rolls, despite the fact that they did register to vote. 

Oftentimes, they then vote provisionally. 

As you know, the hotline receives both poll location questions on 

one end, and it gives the callers the opportunity to register a complaint. 

Let me begin with poll location. The majority of the calls coming 

into the hotline are from voters looking for their polling site. The 

number of folks looking for poll location has increased exponentially. In the 2004 election, for example, half the callers that were 

calling into the hotline were specifically looking for their poll location. In the 2006 midterm elections, that number increased to 65 

percent; and so far in the 2008 Presidential primaries, that number 

has increased to 78 percent. 

There are practical solutions to increased voter awareness of 

their poll location. Elections officials can implement certain strategies well in advance of the election. Some of these practical solutions can include employing inexpensive basic education tools like 

post cards, e-mails, text messages, and robocalls, much like a political campaign. 

Elections administrators can also engage in public-private partnerships with consumer service providers such as your phone company, your wireless company, utilities, cable and Direct TV by including poll location with the billing statement. 

Also, church and community groups like the NAACP Voter Fund 

and Convoy of Hope can work with elections officials to reach out 

to those who may be difficult to reach. 

On Election Day, voters can use hotlines like the 866–MyVote– 

1 to call and look for their poll location. Keep in mind that 82 percent of Americans have cell phones. When you go to the polls to 

vote in the morning or afternoon, you have your cell phone with 

you. It’s really easy to call a hotline and find out where your poll 

location is. 


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As to registration issues, to date in the 2008 Presidential primaries, 40 percent of the callers are saying they had registered to 

vote but did not appear on the voter rolls at the polls. This is consistently, since 2004, the largest complaint in our hotline, occurring 

twice as often as the other complaints discussed here today. 

The timely communication by voter registration operations and 

the respective local officials is one way we can help solve this problem. Part of the issue is that the 501(c)(3)s, the (c)(4)s, the 527s, 

the political parties that are out registering people to vote, need to 

be working and communicating with their local elections officials to 

give them the heads-up that they are out there doing the work, 

that they are giving them the heads-up on the numbers. 

This is often what happens with elections officials, that they just 

don’t have the capacity to handle the onslaught of voter registration. It is in our best interest that the groups working on that voter 

registration that they talk to the election administrators and keep 

them in the loop about what is going on. 

Another solution should be to establish a tracking system for registration so that voters can see where their registration form is in 

the system. Many callers on the hotline say, I registered to vote at 

the grocery store, my community center, but I don’t know where it 

is. I haven’t gotten a card yet. This way, if you use a tracking system like Federal Express or UPS uses to track packages, then voters can see on line where their registration is; and it avoids that 

process. 

Improving voter access to basic information must be the cornerstone of our efforts to improve election administration. The technology is there. We need more collaboration between elections officials and the private sector to take advantage of innovative solutions like the hotline. Congress has a role to play in providing the 

leadership necessary to bring the relevant actors together, effectively utilizing technology. 

I want to thank you again for this opportunity and I look forward 

to your questions. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

[The statement of Ms. Martinez follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Smukler, I know you’re here for answering 

technical questions, but I will recognize you if you have anything. 

STATEMENT OF KEN SMUKLER 

Mr. SMUKLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Ehlers and Members of the Committee. 

My name is Ken Smukler; and I design, manage and operate the 

MyVote1 hotline. I will not be making an opening statement. I do 

stand ready to answer any questions with respect to the hotline, 

the data and how we archive it. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank all of you, and now we would like to open 

up for questions. I would like to start. 

Mr. Joyner, in Maryland, there were fliers distributed in the African American community in the last election that stated that certain candidates were supported by prominent African Americans 

that were not true. I understand there were also fliers put out that 

certain people vote on Tuesday and certain people vote on Wednesday. Is there anything that you could do—or polling places have 

been moved, the locations—anything you can do on your hotline 

when you receive these calls to rectify that? 

I know you can speak on the air and you can speak to those 

problems, but, specifically, when somebody calls in, is there anything you can do to rectify that problem, especially with a polling 

place location, on the air? 

Mr. JOYNER. Yes. And that is exactly what we do. We put it out 

on the air. Then, with the help of the NAACP Voter Fund, they got 

in touch with election official and tried to rectify the problem. 

A good example was in Fulton County, Georgia. When it was obvious that the lines were long and moving slow, that people were 

standing in bad weather for as much as 2 hours, the Voter Fund 

got in touch with election officials and tried to get the election officials to keep the polls open because of the slow lines and the problems that were encountered at the polls. 

The CHAIRMAN. We run across that problem from time to time 

in the City of Philadelphia. We need a judge to order that. We have 

to go in front of a judge to ask the judge to keep the polls open 

a little longer. That has happened, and we were able to do that. 

On your show, also, could you help us—I know it is critical for 

our election workers to be trained, and it is critical for the election 

process, and we don’t have enough of them. Maybe you could put 

a commercial out there from time to time letting people know that 

we do need their participation, where they could go and how to contact their local elected official to volunteer or, in some cases, get 

paid for working on Election Day. 

Mr. JOYNER. We plan to do just that. 

The CHAIRMAN. I appreciate that. Thank you. 

Mr. Smukler, we have a primary coming up in Pennsylvania— 

these primaries happen all the time. Do you have the cooperation 

of the States as their primaries approach? 

Further do you have the cooperation from the local officials when 

you hear a complaint coming in habitually like in one certain 

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posure to the problem? Do they show you that cooperation that 

they can to get out there and try to rectify the problem? 

Mr. SMUKLER. Mr. Chairman, my experience since 2004 is that 

with election officials it’s a mixed bag. There are some very good 

election officials out there who work with us throughout the year 

to provide poll locations to the hotline. Since we build a national 

zip 9 to poll location file, we are working with the election officials 

all throughout the year to try and keep updated poll location information. Some are very good. Some, frankly, are lacking. 

My experience on Election Day, however—and I have said this 

on the Tom Joyner Morning Show—is a number of election officials 

treat incident problems on Election Day like Baghdad Bob treating 

the invasion, which is the bombs are falling, but nobody is saying 

that it is happening. 

And, frankly, one of the most important things that the hotline 

does is it allows us to show election officials from out of the voice 

of voters what is happening on Election Day. Prior to this system 

being set up, most of the information that election officials were responding to were spotty anecdotal pieces of information, very difficult to respond as an election official to that kind of information. 

This data, which drives voices of voters directly to the election officials, now forces the election officials to confront problems in a 

much clearer and much more empirical way and I think that is one 

of the greatest benefits of having data like this. It has forced election officials to at times own up to the problems that are occurring 

on Election Day. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, we have one coming up in Pennsylvania. I 

know that the MyVote1 hotline will be in play. I know that Mr. 

Joyner will be on the radio. And I know that I, not as an elected 

official but as somebody who is involved in the political process in 

the City of Philadelphia will be listening to you, and you have my 

number to call me, and I will get to the right people to try to rectify 

any problems that happen to make sure that people do get the opportunity to get the right to vote that they so deserve. 

Mr. SMUKLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. One question for you, Ms. Martinez. You talked 

about people not being on the rolls to be able to vote. In the City 

of Philadelphia particularly, we have a provisional ballot that has 

just been brought into use which is really a great tool. Because if 

you are supposed to vote in a certain area, you can vote with a provisional ballot and after determining you should vote there, the 

vote is counted. 

And then, as Mr. Joyner said, the disadvantage and the inconvenience for people, if they have to go to a police station or go to 

city hall, it is a whole 2, 3, 4 hour thing waiting in line or whatever. So our provisional ballots work really, really well. 

I know that is not nationwide, but you said 40 percent of people 

are not in the binder or the voter rolls. Maybe through your good 

offices you can let people know it would be a good idea to have a 

provisional ballot. 

Now if you find out that you are not valid and you can’t vote in 

that polling place, you are not supposed to vote there, your vote 

doesn’t count. But if you found out 2 or 3 days later—as you well 

know, a lot of the elections go past election night at 8 o’clock; and 


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if you do find out that you are able to vote at that particular polling place, you are eligible, then the provisional ballot will count. 

Do you find in other areas provisional ballots? We find them extremely helpful. I would like to hear your opinion. 

Ms. MARTINEZ. I think, Mr. Chairman, that the provisional ballots have improved tremendously since the first go-round with provisional ballots. The key to it, though, is for voters—a major key 

to this is for voters to understand what the process is, to plan 

ahead and understand that if things don’t go the way they think 

they are going to go, what are their rights, and the provisional ballot is important. 

We have improved so much. In the 2004 election, we had calls 

coming in from several of the urban areas that provisional ballots 

have run out, and people didn’t realize—the poll workers didn’t realize that they could photocopy them. And The Reform Institute 

has been working with elections officials to make sure that understand that they can photocopy them. They are very basic things, 

but, as you have mentioned, poll worker training is so important, 

and we need to continue to train our poll workers continually. 

We also need to do what the private sector does, and that is continue to prepare and prepare for the worst so that we create redundancy in the process. And the private sector has done a great job 

with the financial services markets. Banks are constantly running 

backup systems. That is the kind of thing that I think election 

workers should continue to do, is do more training, often training 

and make sure that the poll workers are trained and, as we talked 

about before, that voters are educated as well about their rights 

when they go to the polls. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. I appreciate that. 

Mr. Ehlers, any questions? 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First of all, I say amen to the comments you just made, Ms. Martinez. That is it in a nutshell. I have some 30 years experience 

working in this area, and you hit it right on the head. 

Mr. Joyner, you said you are the busiest man in the world. I bristled a little because I thought I was. Then I found out you get up 

3:00 a.m. every day, so I cede the throne to you, you can claim it 

now. 

Mr. Bonifaz, the quote you gave was a beautiful quote at the end 

of your testimony of the Supreme Court decision that the right to 

vote is ‘‘a fundamental political right’’ which is ‘‘preservative of all 

rights.’’ I totally agree with that, and I have a corollary to that 

which I always use as well: You also have to assure every voter not 

only that they have that fundamental political right, but you also 

have to assure them that that right will not be removed by nefarious means by someone voting illegally and diluting the vote of the 

person who voted rightfully. 

I have always concentrated on both sides of that. Make sure voters have the right to vote as they wish, but also make sure that 

you don’t have fraudulent votes that tend to negate the vote, and 

that is just my political philosophy. Some say there is no fraud, but 

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I think the provisional ballots have taken care of a lot of the 

problems that were mentioned here. They, of course, have to be 

done carefully; and, also, the voters have to follow up if for some 

reason they have to demonstrate that the voting records are wrong 

and they may have to reappear or go to the city clerk’s or county 

clerk’s office and correct the error, but provisional ballots I think 

can clear up a lot of mistakes that happen. 

As you know, elections are run by States and localities, not by 

the Federal Government. In fact, we have probably in the last 5 

years intervened more in the operation of local and State elections 

than ever before in the history of this country. But, nevertheless, 

it still is a responsibility of the localities and the States. 

The issue of training poll workers, I am always a little skeptical 

about that. Because it is awfully hard to train a worker to do something that they only do two or three times a year and have them 

remember from one event to the other. You really have to do the 

training for every election. But also a problem we have come into 

with the electronic age is many of the poll workers don’t know how 

to run a computer, don’t know how to run the equipment, and that 

is a higher level of training. 

In my community and I think in a number across the country, 

they hired college students who were computer science majors or 

even who just knew how to run computers and that solved an immense number of problems just by doing that. The kids love to do 

it, even a few high school kids who were capable of doing it. 

But I wish we really had hotlines in every community to deal 

with problems. There should be, I think, a big sign in every polling 

place that if you have any difficulties call this number; and it rings 

directly in the city or county clerk’s office so they can deal with it 

directly and immediately. Because no one should be denied their 

opportunity to vote. 

A question I have—and I don’t know which of you would be best 

able to answer this. First of all, poll watchers—parties have always 

provided poll watchers. Aren’t they there anymore? They are usually the ones who have an interest and make sure that everyone 

votes. Are they not fulfilling that function anymore? 

Mr. MOORE. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, I will be glad to 

speak to that. There are several organizations, many of them in 

this room, through the national coalition, which has over 80 organizations that are involved in that activity. There is a number of the 

lawyer-type organizations that are also monitoring elections. We 

have a big plan with Pennsylvania with Voter Action and a number 

of other groups. So, ‘‘that’’ monitoring is happening on the nonpartisan side, and I believe the State parties also do have election 

monitors that are designated. 

Mr. Chairman might very well know about how that works in 

Pennsylvania, but that is still happening. And they do have two 

very different roles on the inside of the polls and on the outside of 

the polls. 

Mr. EHLERS. Yes, I agree. But, in my experience, the poll watchers, the party poll watchers that are there to make sure that the 

members of their party are able to vote, I also find them to be very 

helpful just in answering questions. Because many of them are 


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very well educated, very knowledgeable and have been trained to 

do that. 

I had one other question at the tip of my tongue, and I have forgotten what it is. Sorry, Mr. Chairman. I’ll come back to it later. 

The CHAIRMAN. We will come back to you, if you would like. 

Mr. Gonzalez, any questions? 

And I have to give you a little briefing. Mr. Gonzalez was a Florida 13 expert. We dumped that election in his lap, and he has done 

a yeoman’s job, spent time and time again deciphering through 

that in meeting after meeting. We thank you for that. I’m sure you 

are an expert in answering questions as well as asking them. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. You are very generous, Mr. Chairman. I am not 

real sure if everybody shares that glowing analysis. 

No, I think the Florida situation was resolved, and I think in a 

way it should have been. 

I do have a question, Mr. Smukler, quickly. The MyVote1 hotline, 

how do you get the information out there? How is that disseminated to the voter that that’s the number that they should be calling if they have any problem? 

Mr. SMUKLER. Well, we try and develop partnerships with media 

organizations, and the partnership with Tom Joyner has given us 

a promotional platform. In 2004, our partnership with NBC News 

gave us a promotional platform. 

I will say quite frankly I have reached out to Christian radio 

broadcasters to try to broaden the radio platform and try to get 

into every market. It is not so easy, but I will say that what I think 

we have shown with MyVote1 is there are media organizations like 

Tom Joyner that are willing to promote a hotline number and use 

a hotline number to service their listeners or service their viewers. 

It does give us some insight into how to promulgate a hotline number. 

I spent a fair amount of time going across the country to Secretaries of State asking them if they would consider a hotline. Most 

of them told me that they in fact have hotlines, but the dirty little 

secret in this game is if you have a hotline and don’t have resources to service the hotline, there is no incentive to promote the 

hotline. So a hotline that a Secretary of State has that is not promoted is just a voicemail system going nowhere. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. We are limited, and I want to get to a couple of 

other witnesses, but, quickly—I think Ms. Martinez may have 

touched on it—it always seemed to me if you want to reach just 

about everybody out there is, What does everyone have in common? 

That is usually a utility bill, a phone bill and so on. And I would 

think—I know in my city, I think it would be an easy task, and 

I think the individuals that service and provide those services, the 

companies, I believe, would be very cooperative. 

And I just have always thought—and it is good to have media, 

whether it is CBS or Mr. Joyner or whatever—I think that’s incredibly important. But I’m thinking getting that into the houses where 

you have it printed—it says, you have a question on Election Day, 

this is the number that you are going to call. I never understood, 

and we never followed on that. 

The other thing is, I have gone through the flow chart of calls 

made to MyVote1. You do not get a live person until the end of the 


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process, and that live person is going to be somebody—let’s say in 

San Antonio that would be the election administrator’s office. 

My concern is, as these problems are developing—now Mr. 

Joyner was able to identify some of those and say we have problems in such and such an area and such and such a city. They don’t 

have ballots. The lines are too long and such. But we didn’t have 

that oversight or whatever, who is privy to the information that 

you are accumulating? 

It’s going to be really after the fact, is what I am getting at. How 

do we plug into this information that is coming through the hotline 

so that we do have those organizations, whether they are governmental or private, such as Mr. Moore’s organization or Ms. Martinez’s. I know Zoe Lofgren had Lawyers’ Committee, or People for 

the American Way. Is there some way that we can actually plug 

into this information, rather than after the fact? 

Mr. SMUKLER. Yes. And in fact, it is easy to plug into the information via Web site where you can drill right into the data as it 

is coming in. All of these, organizations and many of the organizations that you have—that you have cited have the capability, had 

the capability in 2004 to directly access the database as the data 

was streaming in real-time to it. In fact, I would be thrilled if secretaries of state would be willing to drill into this database as well. 

But it is a—you know, it is a big task for what are some relatively 

small organizations to get the awareness of a hotline so that secretaries understand the value of the data. And in fact, you know, 

with the leadership of the Chairman and your committee, hopefully 

this hearing will alert secretaries of state that there is a database 

that is being generated in real-time on Election Day that they can 

drill into so that the local county board of election in San Antonio 

sees the data as soon as we see the data, as soon as Tom Joyner 

sees the data. Because at the end of the day on this hotline, we 

transfer every caller to a local board of election because that local 

board of election is state constitutionally charged with helping that 

voter. And so they should take the data on the front end just as 

well as getting the call on the back end. And we would welcome 

secretaries of state and local county boards of election to do just 

that. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Thank you very much. And a special thanks for 

everything you do as well as to the other witnesses. And I yield 

back, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Mr. Ehlers. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just to wrap up a few 

things. Have any of you discovered that part of the problem is that 

voter registration is done by so many different groups and that 

they just do it sloppily and don’t get all the information out? Is 

that part of the problem? 

Ms. MARTINEZ. I mentioned that a little bit at the beginning of 

my statement. And there are a lot of organizations that do not— 

nonprofits political parties that do voter registration. And what we 

had found in 2004 where the voter registration hot spots were happening on the data that Ken was just describing, you could see it 

on the map, you know, flashing. And it turns out that that is where 

so many of the organizations were doing a lot of their voter activity. You know, we are talking about Allegheny County, we are talkVerDate Aug 31 2005 21:33 Jul 21, 2008 Jkt 042953 PO 00000 Frm 00121 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A953.XXX A953

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ing about Columbus, Denver, a lot of the purple states, so to speak. 

And again, one of the things that we did after that was try to find 

out why exactly was that happening, why were voters in these, 

what we called ‘‘hot spots’’ were encountering so many problems 

with not being on the roles. And we found that talking to elections 

officials that they had not—they did not know that these registrations were coming in. They read about it in the media that there 

were groups that were operating very aggressively in their area but 

they had no idea exactly how many were coming in. 

And so one of the things that I talked about earlier was, I think 

it is incumbent upon all of our groups that do voter registration, 

whether it is partisan or nonpartisan, is to communicate with the 

elections officials so that they can deploy the computers, the staff 

to be able to process those so that when a voter shows up at the 

polls, they are actually on the roster. But it is a serious issue. 

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Moore. 

Mr. MOORE. Yes, Mr. Ehlers. I was one of the organizations and 

people who worked on passing the national Voter Registration Act 

for over 61⁄2 years. Many of our groups want to do voter registration and want to do it more effectively. Our problem is, every year 

through voter purges, hundreds of thousands of people are taken 

off. And so it is not like you can register to vote at age 18 and then 

stay on the books. If you move, as most people do, young people, 

low-income people, there is this constant cycle of being taken off 

the list. So I don’t think there is too many people doing voter registration. I think there is not enough. But we can’t compete with 

the dollars out there that are given to officials to remove people 

from the list and very few dollars going to help do effective voter 

registration. 

So we are not a very rich organization, but we try to do the best 

we can. But I can’t compete with the hundreds and thousands of 

people who are taken off of the list and still say that we are expanding our democracy when there is 200,000 coming off in one 

State and only 15,000–20,000 coming on the books on a yearly 

basis. 

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Bonifaz. 

Mr. BONIFAZ. Mr. Congressman, I would also just add to that, 

that as I highlighted in my opening statement, there is now this 

trend in which we are outsourcing to private companies for key 

election functions, including the maintenance of voter registration 

databases and there is no real oversight of that process. And so 

when you see the kind of flaws that occurred, as I highlighted in 

New Mexico, a presidential caucus and in other States, there needs 

to be a response to this if, in fact, these companies are not properly 

maintaining these voter registration databases. 

Mr. EHLERS. Frankly they should be fired and get another one. 

Outsourcing is not necessarily the problem. Outsourcing to good 

companies is the answer. One last quick one, and all these calls, 

are you getting any complaints about fraud, someone observing 

fraudulent voting? 

Mr. SMUKLER. We get very few calls that speak to either individual fraud or systematic fraud. We have gotten very few calls on 

the hotline on fraud. 


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Mr. EHLERS. That is comforting, provided it is not done so skillfully you can’t see it. 

Mr. SMUKLER. Well, and we frankly don’t get very many coercion 

calls and intimidation calls, although they have been tracking up 

a little. 

Mr. EHLERS. Good. Well, frankly, I think our voting system, Mr. 

Chairman, is with all the fuss and bus and bother over the past 

years, I think it has substantially improved. Everyone is far more 

alert now. And I am very pleased with the progress we have made 

partly as a result of the work of this committee but more likely as 

a result of the work of the communities and the States that are 

really taking your complaints and our concerns seriously. So thank 

you very much for being here. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. We have a vote coming up in a couple of minutes. We have one more—one of our colleagues asked to 

sit in, Mr. Meek. And he would like to be recognized for a question 

or two. And I hope that Florida can count this time, not like the 

last two times. My condolences to you. 

Mr. MEEK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank the 

members of the committee for allowing me to be a part of this discussion today. And I want to thank the witnesses for being here. 

Many of you I know and a number of you that are even sitting in 

the audience, I feel like I am in a Baptist church and there are several ministers of the gospel out there that want to preach the sermon. 

Let me just quickly say that I am glad that this coalition has 

been created to make sure that every vote counts. And Mr. Joyner, 

you know over the years that you have been pushing this and every 

year refining it even more. And I am glad that NAACP and many 

of you have hooked up together in trying to make it better. But 

what I do see based on the trends of voting throughout the country, 

need it be blue or red States, that they are off the charts. They are 

to the point where they’re general election numbers and beyond. 

So I am wondering what happens when you get to November. Because I don’t think government can move fast enough, Florida, case 

in point. We can’t have another vote in Florida because the machines are out. Or the machines—there are not enough machines, 

and there are never enough machines. So how do we get the public 

ready, set, go? Ms. Martinez, you brought up a very interesting 

point as it relates to knowing where one’s registration is in the 

process. Voter registration cards are getting there sometimes days 

prior to the day of voting because, you know, folks, what have you, 

procrastinate or what have you. 

But throughout the country, like in Miami/Dade County, they are 

cutting the registrar’s office ability to be able to process these voter 

registration forms. So Mr. Chairman, my question is going to go 

along the lines for the entire panel, how do we get folks prepared 

for getting themselves straight? I mean now. If they miss the primary season or what have you, how do we get them excited about 

moving through the process and building what I think Tom—Mr. 

Joyner, I am sorry. We are friends. It is hard for me to call you 

Mr. Joyner. How do we get local coordinating committees together 

to say that everyone in every community, communities of good will, 

it could be white or black or whatever the case may be. How do 


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we get them towards this—working with the voter now? Because 

I don’t think government is going to be able to move fast enough 

and to be able to get the information out there. 

What are some of the plans that y’all see as a coalition how we 

are going to get there and how we can get elected officials involved 

in making sure that happens, to get the kind of muscle that is 

needed to get the registrar’s office at the table, to get the Secretary 

of State at the table to make sure that these individuals are right, 

the registration’s right and they know their precinct well in advance before it even comes down to voting day or early voting? 

Mr. JOYNER. How do you get government to talk to election officials and get them prepared for this onslaught of new and excited 

voters that have never voted before, have never participated in this 

process? That is the question. I don’t know how to answer that. 

That is why we are here today to say that this historic election season has produced some very emotional first-time voters. And they 

are not—we are not—as Ken said, as Ken Smukler said, we don’t 

get calls about conspiracies or fraud. But we get calls of suspicion 

of conspiracy and fraud because we are looking for it because of the 

2000 and the 2004 presidential election. And there might not be 

anything happening that is under—that is illegal or fraud at the 

polling place. But it is perceived as that. And the perception is everything. And the perception is what might disenfranchise a lot of 

voters from participating in the November election. 

Congressman Meek, I don’t know how to get that across. That is 

why we are here. These election boards weren’t prepared for these 

record number of people to show up at the polls. They weren’t prepared. They didn’t have enough machines. They didn’t have enough 

people. Before in primary elections they may have had a fraction 

of the number of people that showed up. And if we want to—if we 

want the election process to be as exciting for them as it, you know, 

it has to be a very pleasant experience. And that is why we are 

here today, to find out how to make that happen. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, sir. We have a vote on. And I would 

like to dismiss this panel. I think it might be past Mr. Joyner’s 

bedtime. He has got to get up at 3:00. But I want to thank all of 

you. Thank you for your participation. Thank you for enlightening 

us. And we will go further with this and make sure that we can 

come to a perfect Election Day one day. Thank you all, and again, 

thank you for your participation. Our second panel, we should be 

back in about a half-hour or so. We will be ready for our second 

panel. So we are recessed for at least a half-hour. Thank you. 

[Recess.] 

The CHAIRMAN. I would like to call back to order the Committee 

on House Administration. 

Our witnesses today are April Pye, interim director of the Fulton 

County, Georgia, Registration and Elections; Alisha Alexander, 

elections administrator of Prince George’s County, Maryland, board 

of elections, and Linda Weedon, director of the Maricopa County, 

Arizona, board of elections, and I would like to commend all three 

of you for your public service. I know firsthand how difficult it is 

to be an administrator of elections, and I look forward to your testimony today. 


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STATEMENTS OF APRIL PYE, INTERIM DIRECTOR, FULTON 

COUNTY, GA, REGISTRATION AND ELECTIONS; ALISHA ALEXANDER, ELECTIONS ADMINISTRATOR, PRINCE GEORGE’S 

COUNTY, MD, BOARD OF ELECTIONS; AND LINDA WEEDON, 

DIRECTOR, MARICOPA COUNTY, AZ, BOARD OF ELECTIONS 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Pye. 

STATEMENT OF APRIL PYE 

Ms. PYE. Chairman Brady, and Ranking Member Ehlers, Mr. 

Chairman and Members of the Committee on House Administration, thank you for the opportunity to testify today regarding the 

February 5, 2008, Presidential Preference Primary Election in Fulton County. I bring you greetings on behalf of the Fulton County 

Board of Registration and Elections and the Fulton County Board 

of Commissioners. My name is April Pye and I am currently the 

Interim Director of the Fulton County Department of Registration 

and Elections. I have been serving in that position since January 

2007. The mission of the Fulton County Board of Registration and 

Elections is to ensure that the registration and elections process is 

efficiently and effectively provided to eligible citizens of Fulton 

County according to applicable laws and rules, and to meet those 

needs of a rapidly growing voter base in Fulton County, we have 

sought to adhere to the rules and regulations set forth by HAVA 

and the State of Georgia. Fulton County is the largest county in 

the State of Georgia with an estimated population of 960,009 with 

552,613 registered voters. We have 342 precincts and operate a 

total of 266 poll locations on Election Day with a staff of 24 permanent employees and approximately 80 temporary staff during elections. We generally process 100,000 to 200,000 new voter registrations during major election years. 

It is important to note that elections in Georgia have been under 

a constant state of flux since the 2000 general election with election officials having to make quick adjustments based on changes 

in State law and the introduction of new technology. The electronic 

overhaul of elections brought increases in the cost to conduct elections. Maintenance and preparation of technical equipment requires staff with specialized skills and requisite pay, constant upgrades and specialized storage for voting equipment. Obtaining 

funding has been a challenge because most governing authorities 

do not see the immediate need until major elections, such as this 

year. 

As a result, improvements in terms of purchasing additional 

equipment or hiring additional permanent staff has not kept pace 

with the growth in voter rolls and the changes in the law. Georgia 

election officials are contending with very tight budget constraints 

this year and cutbacks due to a very depressed economy during 

what will be one of the largest election years in the history of elections. Fulton County faced major reductions in the general fund 

budget due to recent incorporation of four new cities and the registration and Elections Department’s budget request was cut by 

$852,000, reducing the 2008 elections budgets and eliminating all 

enhancement requests for new positions and election supplies. 

Despite this, election officials do not use these constraints as an 

excuse or a crutch, in fact, they embrace the challenges and we 


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make the most efficient use of resources provided to us. Our ultimate goal is to ensure the voter has a pleasant voting experience 

and has a fair and equitable opportunity to exercise their right to 

vote. A great deal of planning and preparation is required in executing the many components involved in conducting an election 

from registering voters to conducting the election on Election Day. 

Election officials must successfully maneuver functions that are 

performed by separate departments and most businesses. We have 

oversight and administration of voter registration and elections office, we are human resource managers, we are voter education coordinators, we are computer and system management specialists, 

we are logistics experts, we are GIS mapping experts, data entry 

specialists and customer service reps, providing a myriad of services to enhance the electoral process. 

In preparing for the presidential preference primary in Georgia 

in Fulton County, which was moved forward a month by a change 

in the 2007 legislature, our projections for the allocation of equipment and supplies were based on current numbers of active voters 

and the history of turnout for previous similar elections. Were we 

totally prepared? Based on past historical data and turnout statistics of 30 percent, yes, we were. Was there a larger turnout than 

expected? Yes, we were pleasantly surprised with the 47-percent 

turnout. The February 5, 2008 Presidential Preference primary was 

a very good indicator for us and for other election officials throughout Georgia as to what we can anticipate in terms of high precinct 

turnouts for the coming November election. We have 2,976 touch 

screen voting units, which is a ratio of 1 unit per 186 voters. We 

have 640 express poll units, a ratio of 1 unit per 864 voters. This 

is an adequate ratio of voter to machine. However, our office received numerous calls and e-mails on Election Day regarding the 

long lines and wait times at several of our larger precincts. 

Callers attribute the problem to the lack of sufficient number of 

electronic poll books at the polls or inexperienced poll workers. A 

post-election assessment revealed that 90 percent of the challenges 

in relation to the express poll units were user errors and not equipment malfunctions. Also, the extremely short February 5 ballot 

took voters less time to vote, between 15 and 30 seconds, than it 

took our poll workers to create the voter access cards with the express poll, which was taking about 40 seconds to a minute, causing 

the express poll lines to bottleneck. This created the perception to 

voters that the TS units were not being used. 

Each expressed concern that we received was taken into account 

and measures have been put in place to address them. One thing 

that would help to decrease the wait time at the polls is early voting. The Georgia legislature passed into law during the 2008 session ‘‘no excuse’’ absentee voting, for the 45-day absentee voting period. 

So to increase participation during our early voting, we requested 

funding through the Board of Commissioners for three additional 

early voting sites the week prior to the election which would give 

us a total of six and we were extending the hours of voting to 7:00 

p.m. We concluded that more express polls are needed at the polls 

with larger numbers of registered voters and funding has been requested for this item. The longer ballot in November will cause votVerDate Aug 31 2005 21:33 Jul 21, 2008 Jkt 042953 PO 00000 Frm 00126 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A953.XXX A953

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ers to spend more time at the TS unit, causing the flow of voters 

to move more evenly throughout the process. 

Furthermore, we are adjusting our training program to include 

more specific comprehensive hands-on training with extensive posttesting of our poll workers. And through our voter education efforts 

and media outlets and the county Web site, we are encouraging 

voters to take advantage of absentee voting by mail and in person, 

if eligible, because in November, we do anticipate a very high turnout that may result in long waits at some polling precincts. So voters who are unable to wait in line are strongly encouraged to take 

advantage of one of these two options. 

Radio and television personalities through broadcast media provide an extremely important service and an outlet to the listening 

audience, elected officials and elections officials around the country. 

Often the voting public who is not familiar with the laws governing 

voter registration and elections receives information from avid community advocates and media personalities who mean well but 

whose information often conflicts with the laws in different States. 

This is often the case with syndicated radio stations that reach a 

broader audience and provide more general information. Their listeners are not aware that Georgia laws governing elections may be 

different than in other States. When they arrive at the polls and 

encounter a problem due to this conflict, they immediately take 

issue with the poll worker or election official who is delivering the 

message. We see this quite often in the case of provisional voting 

and absentee voting. It is not always understood that election officials do not make the laws and we can’t change the laws, but we 

are required to adhere to them and to enforce them. 

It would be vital for all media outlets and election offices to work 

together to ensure voters in each State receive accurate information about the laws governing their respective States. In Fulton 

County, our focus is integrity, honesty and transparency of elections. We believe education is the key, and through coordination 

and cooperation with broadcast and print media and community 

advocates, we will be able to provide our citizens with accurate information about the voter registration and elections process. Thank 

you, and I will be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

[The statement of Ms. Pye follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Alexander. 

STATEMENT OF ALISHA ALEXANDER 

Ms. ALEXANDER. Yes. Good afternoon. My name is Alisha Alexander, and I am the elections administrator for Prince George’s 

County, Maryland. I would like to thank you, Chairman Brady, 

Ranking Member Ehlers and the committee members for allowing 

me the opportunity to discuss some of the lessons learned after the 

2008 presidential primary election. Let me start off by saying that 

Ms. Pye must have been looking at my talking points because she 

covered many of the points that I was going to cover. However, I 

am going to move forward. Before we talk about lessons learned, 

I think it is important to discuss some of the challenges that we, 

as local election officials, face. First and foremost, we as local election officials have seen more change prior—during the past 8 years 

than we have in the 30 years prior to the 2000 presidential election 

combined. However, staffing and resources in many of our agencies 

have remained stagnant. It has been difficult to get county, State 

and Federal election officials to understand that it takes an insurmountable amount of work to conduct a countywide election. The 

belief is that once the election is over, that there is no activity for 

2 years, not understanding that it takes a minimum of 12 months 

to plan for a countywide election. 

This doesn’t include the fact that many of us provide election 

support to our local municipalities. It is sad that something so important is grossly underfunded and understaffed but yet we are expected to conduct flawless elections. Another major challenge is 

voter education. And when I say voter education, I tie it to voter 

responsibility and managing voter expectations. We in Prince 

George’s County, Maryland realized especially after the 2000 presidential primary election that we need to do more in the area of 

educating voters. We as election officials have to come up with the 

strategy to get voters to think and inquire about their registration 

status prior to Election Day. Many voters went to the polls and 

didn’t know their party affiliation; they were not aware of the 

closed primary laws in the State of Maryland. 

To make matters worse, there was—we received more than one 

call during the March 5, I believe—March 4, I am sorry, Texas primary, and I believe another State when—of individuals in our 

county who went to the polls on that day and were wondering why 

our polls were not—the polls weren’t open. Our presidential primary was on February 12. That is the reality of how uninformed 

some of our voters are. 

We received complaints about long lines. And in any election 

where you have a large voter turnout, you are going to have long 

lines. I can’t speak for any of my colleagues, but I welcome long 

lines. And I say that because it shows that the voters are engaged. 

We have historically complained about low voter turnout, but when 

voters go to the polls in droves, we complain. We can’t have it both 

ways. We just can’t. We do recognize that voters get discouraged. 

And that is where managing voter expectation comes to play. During the presidential primary election we were told—we told the poll 

workers actually if there are long lines, to keep the voters informed, give them approximate wait times. 


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Also, poll workers were instructed to find out if each person in 

line was listed on the precinct register so that they would not get 

frustrated by standing in line only to find out that they weren’t 

registered or were at the wrong polling place. 

Also, we want the voters in the State of Maryland to know that 

our election process is transparent. And I am sure that is the case 

in many jurisdictions around the country. We conduct public demonstrations prior to every election to determine the accuracy of the 

voting units. And although we advertise, public participation is 

minimal. The election return process, the absentee and provisional 

ballot canvas is open to the public. We want voters to understand 

the elections process so that when they go to the polls, they feel 

confident in the process. When voters hear words like ‘‘trickery’’ 

and ‘‘tricknology’’ over the airwaves from various media venues, 

they naturally become cynical. And that is why I am making a personal plea to all of the media venues to use their power in disseminating information to assist election officials in educating the voters and encouraging them to volunteer and become a part of the 

process. 

And to make my last point, there has not been any consistency 

in elections administration. Every election since 2000 the local 

boards of elections in Maryland have either been required to add 

new technology or new processes. Any time technology is instituted, 

election officials must develop new business processes. When new 

business processes are developed, there has to be a means to test 

it prior to the election so that it can be refined. If election officials 

are not given adequate time to test, the testing is done on Election 

Day. And we have seen in many instances around the country 

where those types of results were less than desired. 

In conclusion, election officials are professionals who are deeply 

committed to conducting fair and accurate elections. Again, we 

want voters to walk into the polling place and have a good voting 

experience and feel confident about the integrity of the process. 

Based on our experience in the 2008 presidential election, we have 

learned that there must be stabilization and consistency. We cannot continue to change technology and processes every election 

cycle without adequate time to train poll workers and educate the 

voters and expect positive results. 

We have learned that we need time, monetary and human resources to perfect the current system. The American public deserves a democracy that works. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

[The statement of Ms. Alexander follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Weedon. 

STATEMENT OF LINDA WEEDON 

Ms. WEEDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, committee members. 

The voter is the most important part of the election process. Having a direct connection to an operator and not a recording in our 

call center has made a huge difference to our voting public. We are 

a county of 1.5 million registered voters. The fastest growing county in the Nation. As a result, newly arrived voters come to Maricopa County from every State in the country. With them comes 

their expectation of how the laws and the election process worked 

back in their experience with their former State or county. At first, 

we tried to answer the calls ourselves. That was an unmitigated 

disaster. 

We were so busy answering the phones, we could not concentrate 

on the business at hand of conducting the election. In 1996, the 

Star Call Center was created by a decision of the county recorder, 

the treasurer, the assessor and the county board of supervisors to 

combine resources. One call center to answer basic questions and 

route callers to the appropriate agency personnel on complex matters. The Star Call Center has now answered more than 12 million 

calls in 12 years. Two million of those were election calls. They 

have 33 permanent staff workers and they bring on 70 temporary 

workers during their peak seasons. Our recorder, Helen Purcell, 

has testified before you in the past. She has the total responsibility 

of the elections process in Maricopa County. With more than 1.5 

million voters, we had to create a system to give priority to the 

calls being placed by the voters. We also created separate hotlines, 

one for the polling place workers, one for our trouble shooters and 

one for the lawyers. One group that I manage is a hotline set up 

for calls from the polling place workers. Those phones are manned 

from noon the day before the election through the close of the polls 

on election night. There are 1,142 polling places in Maricopa County. 

We keep in touch with each and every polling place through our 

trouble shooter program. If a call comes from a voter or a political 

party with an issue, a trouble shooter is dispatched to that location. The final hotline is for the lawyers. They have staff assigned 

to enable them to respond to any field situation that might arise. 

By having the three separate hotlines that work separately from 

our general call center number, we can rapidly respond to voter 

calls. 

The call center has live operators, not just an automated system. 

A brief recording at the beginning usually answers most questions. 

If not, the caller can request a live operator. The average wait time 

is 3 minutes. As a management tool the elections director and the 

county recorder have a banner visible on their computers indicating 

how many calls are in the queue, how many operators are available 

and the time the longest call that is holding. More than 26,000 people called on general election day in 2006. The evening prior to the 

election, the call center remains open until midnight to answer 

questions from voters. The call center begins taking calls before the 

polls open and remains open on Election Day until the polls have 

closed. The recorded message at the first greeting gives the times 


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that the polling places are open and reminds everyone that if you 

are in line by 7:00 p.m. you are able to vote. Spanish language is 

always an option. Information is given on how to access our Web 

site where the voter can view their sample ballot. They can find 

their polling location and they can get directions and a map to 

their location. Because the system is dynamic, we can ask the call 

center manager to change the message as necessary to fit evolving 

situations. In the past we have had emergencies arise and that we 

have been able to deal with them rapidly by changing that message 

on our call center line. Voters can request an early ballot by a 

phone call to the call center. The call center also mails voter registration forms and provides instructions on how voters can register online. Voters can request Braille ballots or large print ballots, and they can inquire about military and overseas voting. After 

any election, voters can call in and find out if their provisional ballot counted. Most questions are easily answered by the call center 

operators. We listen to our voters and take their suggestions and 

their complaints seriously. 

Arizona’s presidential preference election was held on February 

5. We experienced our highest turnout since 1996. It was over 54 

percent. The Arizona presidential preference election was a closed 

election, open only to voters registered in the Democratic or Republican parties. In the days leading up to the election, 50 percent of 

the calls to the call center were from voters registered as independent or without a party affiliation. The call center averaged 

3,000 calls a day prior to the election. On Election Day, the call 

center received more than 16,000 calls. It is important to note that 

all issues brought forward by the call center go into our award-winning reporting database. After the election, we continued to review 

the issues that were presented and determine how we can better 

handle similar situations in the future. We can always improve the 

system. The voters are our greatest resource for new and important 

ideas. Thank you. 

[The statement of Ms. Weedon follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Let me just start by asking all of 

you, are your volunteers, are your poll workers the temporaries you 

use, do you use also temporary workers on Election Day? 

Ms. PYE. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. How long do they work? 

Ms. PYE. Our poll workers only work the election on Election 

Day. 

The CHAIRMAN. Just Election Day? 

Ms. PYE. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. How about the extra work at the voter registration office, the county board; are there temporary workers there? 

Ms. PYE. We have temporary workers in our office that work 

with us during elections, beginning—say for the election that is 

coming up in July—they started working with us this month and 

will work through the end of the year throughout all of the elections. 

The CHAIRMAN. So maybe like 6 months? 

Ms. PYE. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. 6 months temporary? 

Ms. PYE. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. Same thing, Ms. Alexander? 

Ms. ALEXANDER. Yes. The same thing. We use as many as 50 to 

60 temporary workers and particularly during a presidential primary election cycle where the voter registration is typically higher. 

However, we have approximately 13 that we utilize—13 temporary 

employees that we utilize on a regular basis just to maintain our 

regular normal core work load. 

The CHAIRMAN. So you will hire them for a couple of months and 

then rehire the same people back again? 

Ms. ALEXANDER. That is right, yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. Same thing in your county? 

Ms. WEEDON. Yes, Mr. Chairman. We hire poll workers for each 

specific election and they are trained for each election. They go in 

the day before to set up the polling place. And then they are there 

on Election Day from a 5:30 until the polls close, which can be 

quite late sometimes. 

The CHAIRMAN. You don’t hire any temporary workers to do the 

paperwork prior to registration? 

Ms. WEEDON. Yes, we do hire temporary workers to do voter registration, to input information, to do the early voting process. We 

usually hire around 80 temporary workers leading up to the election. 

The CHAIRMAN. 3 months, 6 months, is there any time frame? 

Ms. WEEDON. Usually starting in June and July, we will start 

bringing on our temporary workers. 

The CHAIRMAN. The reason I am asking you, I like to relate 

where you are from. I am from Philadelphia. And our election 

board hires our temporary workers for 3 months and then they 

can’t succeed themselves for a calendar year. But because of unemployment purposes, you know, they can work 3 months and then 

they can’t succeed themselves for a calendar year. They have to 

wait a whole calendar year before they get rehired again. And that 

is a re-education process over and over and over. I am sure that 

you have a turnover. I am sure there is some turnover. 


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Ms. ALEXANDER. Yeah, there is a turnover. And again, there is 

a process of retraining over every election cycle. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well what is your turnover roughly? Is it 50 percent? 

Ms. ALEXANDER. I would say our turnover is about—I would say 

it is about 35 percent. 

The CHAIRMAN. That is not bad because this training 35 percent 

instead of 100 percent of people. And a lot of times they may come 

back after a calendar year. They are gone a calendar year. And I 

am trying to rectify that process in the City of Philadelphia. Because we can only hire them 3 months and we hire them ongoing 

3 months. That is just a bigger need prior to elections and then 

they are gone and they don’t come back for the next two elections. 

That year will take you through two more and then you have to 

retrain them or train all new people. And that is a problem. You 

mention money. Everybody needs money. And we heard your plug. 

We understand that. Everybody needs money, and time. 

You know, everybody’s election unfortunately in the primaries 

were at different times all over the county. The generals are the 

same, so you know, what you are looking at for the general. And 

the time frame is what I was concerned about with the poll workers. Not only the poll workers on that day, because a lot of them 

where I am from, the City of Philadelphia, the poll workers were 

brought on by some of the political people that worked the polls. 

Some are paid by election boards and some are paid politically. And 

that is a one-day kind of thing. They usually know they are going 

to work Election Day. They take off. 

That is relatively easy. The problem that we face is with the 

county boards. It is a clerical error, just a mistake that is being 

made because there are new people and people that are registered—you talk about provisional ballots. You talk about the education process. And I heard you, you are waiting in line to vote for 

an hour and then by the time you get up there, somebody tells you, 

you don’t vote here. You vote someplace else. And then they get 

mad at the election worker who it is not his or her fault. They need 

to take it out on somebody. 

The most important thing they take it out on, they take it out 

on the process of voting. They probably don’t go vote. They probably won’t go wait in the other line. 

I like what you say about the election workers when there is a 

long line. In the City of Philadelphia it is 8:00. But if there is a 

line, then the election worker is supposed to stand in the back of 

the line at 8:00 and nobody behind them can vote. We have had 

polls open until an hour and a half because of a big election. But 

those people that are waiting in that line can’t go anywhere else. 

If they are not in the right place, they are not in the right spot. 

So it is a good idea to educate them when they are waiting in 

line. I am going to learn from you too, letting our people know that 

that is not a bad idea to do that. But it is a problem. You know, 

uniformity is a problem. It would be great to have everybody receive the same training. Everybody’s ballots are kind of the same. 

We are in the State of Pennsylvania. We have all kinds of municipalities. Every one is different. And they are all—and myself, I run 

in two districts. I run in the City of Philadelphia, and I run in 


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Delaware County. I have got two different numbers, different machines, different ways to work them. But look, we have to do what 

we have to do. And you do a good job trying to allow other people 

to give them the opportunity to exercise the right to vote. And we 

applaud you for that. 

The best thing we have going started a year or two is the provisional ballots which we tell it, everybody vote. We will sort it out 

later. Let them all vote. We will sort it out later. If you are in the 

wrong place, the right place. If you are in the right place, or if you 

are in the wrong place, we can even transfer that over to the right 

place as long as you are an eligible voter. So we applaud you and 

all you are doing. Keep continue doing it. Hopefully we can do it 

a little better. Mr. Ehlers, any questions? 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think the three young 

women here have all the answers. I am very impressed—— 

The CHAIRMAN. They just need the money. 

Mr. EHLERS. I am just very impressed with the way you run the 

show in your shops, and it looks like you have learned out how to 

do it right. 

Just to comment about the people who have to wait in line for 

a long time and find out they were in the wrong place. It seems 

to me every polling place should have someone who screens people 

the minute they come in the door. If they are in the wrong place, 

you say, I am sorry you have to go to so and so. And they will 

grumble about it, but at least they don’t have to wait in line to find 

that bit of information out. I also agree with the Chairman, provisional ballots are a great thing. We can’t use them if someone is 

in the wrong precinct because then they will be voting for different 

positions differently. Some of them overlap but not all of them. 

We have about 7 months to go until the 2008 general election. 

I take it you consider yourselves ready for that, right? What would 

you judge the readiness of the nation to be? You have contact with 

a lot of people. Do you anticipate if there are a number of problems 

across the country? Or do you think there is so much attention 

being made—being attached to all this now that everyone should 

be pretty well prepared? 

Ms. PYE. I will speak to that one. Ranking Member Ehlers, I anticipate or we anticipate that the problem with the upcoming November election is going to be on the end of voter registration. 

There will be a large number of groups out there who are registering people to vote. And in the past with large elections, some 

of those groups do not get the information to the county offices in 

time to get those people registered. 

In Georgia, we don’t have same-day voter registration, so there 

is a deadline. And if we don’t get those applications in prior to that 

deadline, then those people can’t vote on Election Day. And it matters not that they go to the poll and vote a provisional ballot. They 

are not registered. So all they see is that at the Kroger store or 

whatever location, they filled out a voter registration application 

with someone. And they know they are registered. So I know that 

will be a major problem, and we will have the long lines. I know 

at one of our poll locations during the February election on an African-American college campus, the poll worker had 245 provisional 


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ballots because the students registered through someone that held 

a drive. 

The majority of them were not registered because we never got 

the applications. So those are some of the issues I think that we 

will deal with and that’s why we feel that education is important, 

educating the voter. And we are, through our voter education team, 

ensuring that we are trying to work not only with the media but 

with community organizations such as the NAACP, the local chapters in Atlanta to reach out to these people and to help them or 

train them in getting the proper information from voters when they 

register and to getting the information to us in a timely manner. 

So we hope that that will help in terms of helping us to educate 

our voters so that they will understand the process and know that 

they need to check for themselves, you know, voter responsibility; 

check for yourselves to see if you are actually registered and contact our office. 

Ms. WEEDON. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Mr. Ehlers, in 

Maricopa County, of course we hope we are prepared. I know that 

nationwide, the elections officials always conduct the election to the 

best of their ability with the resources that they have. I know that 

one of our issues is always getting polling place workers. Many of 

our workers are elderly and are getting slowly to the point of where 

they can no longer work for us. A lot of folks that are coming along 

aren’t as interested in public service or community service and that 

sort of thing. And we all know we can’t pay high dollars to those 

workers. They are doing a sacrifice to be there. But we try to work 

closely with our voter registration groups in Maricopa County. We 

have a staff member who works with them and with our observers, 

our political activist groups so to speak, so that we can educate 

them on Arizona laws when they go out and do their registration 

drives and that they will get those registration forms in to us 

quickly. 

And we are very fortunate that voters can register when they 

come into Arizona when they get their driver’s license and then 

that will come to us through an electronic pass which is a lifesaver 

when it comes to staffing. So we do have some advantages along 

that line. But I can assure you we are doing our best to be ready 

for November. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you. And that is one of the advantages we 

have in Michigan. The Secretary of State also runs a DMV so when 

anyone changes a license, it is automatically in the system. Ms. Alexander, did you have something? 

Ms. ALEXANDER. Yes. I was actually going to tie in to Ms. Pye’s 

comment regarding voter registration, which actually is going to be 

a major issue for Prince George’s County, Maryland. We have historically had many problems with the motor vehicles. Individuals 

going to the motor vehicles, registering to vote, and for whatever 

reason, our board of elections does not receive that voter registration application. And that is always a major issue. And I would 

venture to say that it is an issue nationally. 

Mr. EHLERS. I used to live in California and I was impressed 

there. They always mailed us ahead of time a notice of the election 

as well as a summary of the ballot proposition and a list of the people running for office. That is very expensive but it was certainly 


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useful. California almost had to do it because they have all these 

proposals every year, and voters have to learn something about 

them. But that I think is a good thing to do. One other question, 

as I mentioned earlier in the first panel, running elections has been 

the responsibility of States and localities for a couple of centuries. 

Just recently, the Federal Government poked their nose into it 

with HAVA and now we have some other bills pending. 

What is your attitude about that? Do you think we ought to just 

keep our dirty hands off? Or do you find this to be very helpful that 

we are showing some interest and passing some laws? 

Ms. ALEXANDER. I will speak to that. I actually don’t think—I 

think it is good on one hand that the Federal legislators are getting 

involved in the process. However, I think that there needs to be 

close communication that I don’t believe that there has been in the 

past with the local election administrators because we are the ones 

who conduct the elections. 

And let me give you an example. The Help America Vote Act of 

2002 required that we in Prince George’s County change our voting 

systems. We had approximately 6 months to institute—and I am 

not sure if this was a result of the State procurement or what the 

issues were regarding the voting units. But we had approximately 

6 months to institute a full-fledged implementation and change of 

technology. Fortunately by the grace of God, we were able to pull 

it off. But we needed more time to get it done. 

Mr. EHLERS. We’re struggling with that right now because we 

have another bill before us. I think it is a little late to act on it, 

but we are considering it. 

Ms. Weedon. 

Ms. WEEDON. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ehlers, I just wanted to say 

that I think it is good when you have your Federal oversight so you 

can have some uniformity throughout the Nation. And I say that 

also to let you know that my boss, County Recorder Helen Purcell, 

serves on the Technical Guidelines Committee of the EAC. So we 

get some insight into what goes on with their committee hearings 

and so forth. But I think we definitely need uniformity and that 

helps contribute to it when you have Federal oversight. 

Mr. EHLERS. Okay. Any other comments? 

Ms. PYE. I would just like to add to the comments that both Ms. 

Weedon and Ms. Alexander made, that I think it is important that 

we do have oversight from the Federal Government into the elections process. However, there is a need for uniformity, just as with 

provisional ballots just in talking to my counterparts, I realized 

that in Georgia, we handle provisional ballots differently than they 

handle provisional ballots. I think that has been confusing for a lot 

of voters because the word that gets out there via the media tells 

voters, for instance in Georgia, ‘‘even if you are not registered, just 

go to the polls and vote, you can vote a paper ballot.’’ 

And I feel that there should be some uniformity because I know 

that it is up to the jurisdiction, the State jurisdiction, to implement 

the law regarding provisional ballots, the procedures regarding provisional ballots based on the HAVA law. And that ends up with 

procedures being different in every State, and sometimes that gets 

confusing. 


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Mr. EHLERS. Well thank you very much for your comments. I appreciate it. I have no further questions. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Again, thank you for your time, your 

participation. You do a great job. Keep doing it. It can be frustrating from time to time. But like Ms. Alexander said, it is the 

right to vote, and you are there to ensure that they have that right. 

Thank you very much. We appreciate all your participation. I 

would now like to adjourn this hearing. 

[Whereupon, at 2:08 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

[Information follows:] 


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