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52–710 2009

ENGAGING THE ELECTORATE: STRATEGIES FOR 

EXPANDING ACCESS TO DEMOCRACY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON HOUSE 

ADMINISTRATION 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, JULY 23, 2009 

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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ENGAGING THE ELECTORATE: STRATEGIES FOR EXPANDING 

ACCESS TO DEMOCRACY 


tjames on DSKG8SOYB1PROD with HEARING
ENGAGING THE ELECTORATE: STRATEGIES FOR 

EXPANDING ACCESS TO DEMOCRACY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON HOUSE 

ADMINISTRATION 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, JULY 23, 2009 

Printed for the use of the Committee on House Administration 

( 

Available on the Internet: 

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


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(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION 

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 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

Ranking Minority Member 

KEVIN MCCARTHY, California 

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi 

PROFESSIONAL STAFF

S. ELIZABETH BIRNBAUM, Staff Director 

VICTOR ARNOLD-BIK, Minority Staff Director 


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ENGAGING THE ELECTORATE: STRATEGIES 

FOR EXPANDING ACCESS TO DEMOCRACY 

THURSDAY, JULY 23, 2009 

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

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

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

(chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Brady, Capuano, Davis of California, 

Davis of Alabama, Lungren, and McCarthy. 

Staff Present: Jamie Fleet, Staff Director; Tom 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; Joe Wallace, Legislative Clerk; Daniel Favarulo, Legislative 

Assistant, Election; Victor Arnold-Bik, Minority Staff Director; 

Peter Schalestock, Minority Counsel; Karin Moore, Minority Legislative Counsel; and Salley Collins, Minority Press Secretary. 

The CHAIRMAN. Good morning, everyone. And I would like to call 

the hearing of the Committee on House Administration to order. In 

all our rushing around, our staff forgot to give me a gavel, so I will 

improvise and use a water bottle. 

Wait a minute. We found the gavel. Now, if I don’t mix them up 

and drink the gavel and bang the water, I will be okay. 

I call our meeting to order. 

I would like to welcome members of the committee, witnesses, 

and guests. 

And before I begin, I would like to take a minute to acknowledge 

a member of our staff who will be leaving us soon, Kristin 

McCowan, who has worked at the committee for about 3 years and 

is constantly on my back, right back here, with the voice that keeps 

me right. We will miss that tremendously. As the chief clerk, she 

has kept affairs of the committee organized and focused. 

And in the fall, she begins coursework at the University of 

Southern California. Kristin has served this committee and the 

Congress with distinction, and I will miss her for sure. So please 

join me in a round of applause and wishing her well. 

Also in the audience is her mom and dad, Mr. and Mrs. 

McCowan. I would like for you to stand up, and let you know how 

proud we are of your daughter. And we are going to miss her tremendously. 

She promises me she will come back on my back, on my shoulder 

here, from time to time and whisper in my ear a few times. And 


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I do appreciate that. We got very close, as you can see by this wall, 

over the last couple of years. 

Today’s hearing will focus on innovative voter outreach strategies, how these strategies can help ensure our right to vote. In the 

2008 election, new voters were engaged like never before. In part, 

this engagement was due to groundbreaking technology that allowed more and more diverse voters to become active participants 

in the political process. 

Grassroots organizations, political parties, and election officials 

used the Internet to educate voters about registration rules and 

deadlines. Social networking sites like Facebook launched registration drives that signed up tens of thousands of new voters. Search 

engines like Google provided voters with polling place locations. 

And various political blogs provided new forums for voters to express their opinions and enthusiasm for a particular candidate or 

issues. These tools were not even available 4 years ago. 

This technology was used to engage voters straight through Election Day. Over the course of the day, text messaging was used to 

inform voters of their polling places and to encourage them to vote. 

And as polling stations closed, e-mail networks quickly spread 

news about the results to people around the United States and the 

world. 

As electrifying as the 2008 election was, it is important to note 

that the election was not without problems. We must ensure that 

voters can get to the polls, get on the rolls, and cast their votes 

without unnecessary impediments. 

Last Congress, we heard testimony about important information 

voter hotlines were collecting. Throughout the election year, the 

MYVOTE1 and the GO-CNN–08 hotlines worked with media outlets such as NBC, CNN, and the Tom Joyner Morning Show and 

collected nearly 300,000 phone calls from voters across the country 

who encountered voting problems. 

Now, a coalition of civil rights organizations—the Advancement 

Project, the NAACP National Voter Fund, and Voter Action—has 

analyzed the data and are releasing today a report of their findings 

and recommendations. 

We also welcome the Hip Hop Caucus and Smart Girl Politics, 

who will share with us their thoughts on outreach to new voters 

and ways to keep these voters engaged. 

Hearing from voters about the problems they face and discussing 

solutions to those problems is important to me and the members 

of this committee, and we look forward to all your testimony. 

I would now like to proceed with opening statements of the ranking member, Mr. Lungren from California, who will have an opening statement. 

[The statement of the Chairman follows:] 


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

I join in the accolades that you have given our chief clerk here, 

and I wish her well in California. My only regret is that she decided to go to USC. She could have stopped halfway across the 

country at Notre Dame, but she told me it was too cold. 

I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for graciously allowing 

the inclusion of two witnesses for the minority’s point of view on 

this panel. 

And before we hear the testimony of our witnesses today, I would 

like to address a fundamental aspect of the concern of engaging the 

electorate. It seems to me that an engaged electorate must necessarily originate from a set of compelling candidates and policy offerings, not Federal mandates. 

Certainly, legislative relief may enable an electorate to more easily access the voting process. However, it should not be the responsibility of, nor do I believe it can be accomplished by, legislation to 

enthuse the electorate. 

It seems that our recent history demonstrates that the motivation behind a mobilized electorate is not the ground rules set by 

this or any legislative body, but rather the discussion and clash of 

ideas, the quality of the candidates, the impacts of their potential 

leadership that drives the less active voter to the polling station. 

I don’t think that a single member of this committee would contend 

that the strong increases in turnout among minority and youth voting groups originated from any legislative action. 

In fact, this committee and its Elections Subcommittee have 

dedicated several hearings to investigating challenges to voter 

turnout and the effective submission of ballots, particularly, I 

would mention, with respect to the military. If there is a compelling need to act on the Federal level, it is to ensure that those men 

and women in uniform around the world today who are serving 

this Nation not only have a chance to register, not only have a 

chance to vote, but to have those votes counted. 

We heard testimony in previous hearings that a small percentage 

of those who actually cast their votes had those votes counted this 

last time around. That is the ultimate tragedy, it seems to me. And 

I hope that the Senate will act on legislation similar to that which 

this committee passed. 

Despite the challenges, as I mentioned, that we witnessed, an increase in participation by nearly 5 million voters is what we saw. 

The Census Bureau concluded that the voting population included 

about 2 million more black voters, 2 million more Hispanic voters, 

and about 600,000 more Asian voters. 

That discrepancy between the challenges that we identified in 

the process and the marked increase in traditionally underperforming voting groups cannot be explained by the sudden effectiveness of prior legislation. There must have been greater motivating 

factors. And I contend that those were the candidates and the 

issues. 

Testimony received by this committee and Subcommittee on Elections in past hearings explained that the vast majority of calls to 

various hotlines are from voters seeking information regarding the 

location of polling stations or registration status. This does speak 

to the fact that the electorate is motivated by the substance of elecVerDate Nov 24 2008 01:37 Oct 17, 2009 Jkt 052710 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A710.XXX A710

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tions as opposed to the process itself. It also demonstrates that 

voter education, not additional legislation, in my judgment, will be 

most successful in assisting voter access in the voting process. 

In election proceedings, the government’s responsibility is to ensure that the process is administered transparently and impartially. Voting citizens, who by virtue of their active decision to vote 

demonstrate that they are personally engaged, need a system in 

which they can trust the legitimacy of its outcomes. To that end, 

we must work toward better educating the electorate and providing 

States with the flexibility to implement necessary safeguards that 

help increase voter confidence in the electoral system. 

Further recognizing the seminal importance of maintaining the 

integrity of our elections procedures and outcomes, I hope that we 

wouldn’t impose mandates intended to open up the process at the 

cost of compromising protections against fraud and manipulation. 

We need to encourage everyone who is eligible to vote to vote, but 

we also need to protect those votes by ensuring that those who are 

not eligible to vote don’t cast ballots and have them counted. 

So, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for this hearing. I look forward 

to the testimony of our panel of witnesses, and thank all of them 

for their contribution to our ongoing discussion. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank you. 

Mr. Capuano. 

Mr. CAPUANO. Just here to listen. 

The CHAIRMAN. Just here to listen. Well, that certainly is not 

true. I am sure we will hear from you. 

I want to thank our panel of witnesses today and introduce them. 

Tom Joyner—Mr. Joyner is the host of a popular, nationally syndicated morning radio show, the ‘‘Tom Joyner Morning Show.’’ His 

program features well-known celebrities, newsmakers, and national 

leaders. Mr. Joyner is also a strong advocate of civil rights and has 

led voter registration and get-out-the-vote activities. 

I want to welcome Mr. Joyner back to the committee, and I look 

forward to your thoughts on the hotline and how your listeners experienced the 2008 election. I also, again, would personally like to 

thank you for spending time and taking time out of your busy 

schedule. I have followed you a little bit. You cover more States in 

1 day than I have covered in my lifetime, a lot of us cover in our 

lifetime. And I do appreciate you taking the time out of your busy 

schedule to come back and testify in front of us. 

Reverend Lennox Yearwood—Reverend Yearwood currently 

serves as president of the Hip Hop Caucus, which is a national organization that organizes young people in urban communities to be 

active in elections, policymaking, and service projects. 

Prior to his work with the Hip Hop Caucus, the Reverend was 

co-creator of the ‘‘Vote or Die’’—I have one of your T-shirts, by the 

way—‘‘Vote or Die’’ campaign, as well as the executive director of 

Hip Hop Voices, a program of voices for working families at the 

AFL–CIO. 

Thank you, Reverend Yearwood, for coming today, and we look 

forward to your testimony. 

Elizabeth Westfall—Ms. Westfall is director of the Voter Project 

Program at the Advancement Project, a national civil rights organiVerDate Nov 24 2008 01:37 Oct 17, 2009 Jkt 052710 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A710.XXX A710

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zation, where she manages the litigation and advocacy activities of 

the program’s staff attorneys. 

Ms. Westfall will be discussing their report analyzing the voter 

hotline data, and I look forward to your recommendations. 

Cameron Quinn—Ms. Quinn is the former secretary of Virginia’s 

Board of Elections, where she oversaw statewide election administration and voter registration policies. Ms. Quinn has also served 

as special counsel on voting matters for the Civil Rights Division 

at the Department of Justice, an advisor to the 2005 Federal Commission on Election Reform, and election advisor for IFES, formerly 

known as the International Foundation for Election Systems. 

I would like to welcome you, Ms. Quinn. 

And Ms. Rebecca Wales—Ms. Wales currently serves as director 

of communications for the conservative women’s organization 

Smart Girl Politics. Prior to her work with Smart Girl Politics, Ms. 

Wales served as deputy national youth director for McCain-Palin 

2008, where she was responsible for the national grassroots field 

strategy for the youth demographics. 

Thank you again for joining us. 

And I understand that we do have an audio that we would like 

to listen to before we ask Mr. Joyner to testify. 

[Begin audiotape.] 

CALLER. —polling place in St. Louis, Missouri, in north county, 

voters who have been waiting since 10:00 this morning have not 

been able to vote. There is inadequate equipment. It is very, very 

poorly organized. And, as a result of that, many voters have left. 

CALLER. My issue of complaint is in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 

Ward 59, Division 4. Only one of two machines working this morning at 7:00 a.m. when the polls opened, although there were already more than 200 people standing in line. 

CALLER. My name is Robert. I am calling from Pensacola, Florida. I have been in the Army for several years, and I now live in 

Pensacola. And in order to vote here, I have to have a Florida ID. 

So I went to get a Florida ID, and all of a sudden on the 1st of 

October they have changed the rules. I have to have a birth certificate, which means I have to go back to my State and get a birth 

certificate, come back to Florida to get an ID, just to vote. And 

there won’t be enough time to do that between now and when the 

votes actually take place. 

CALLER. I am a student at the University of Miami, and I just 

finished voting in voting precinct 561. People were turned away. 

People were leaving lines. There were three lines attempting to 

funnel through the door. They were unable to locate my name, even 

though I presented my voter registration card and my ID. It is the 

biggest disaster that I have ever seen. 

CALLER. I had trouble at the voting booth this morning. I put the 

access card in. It beeped. It did not advance. And I pushed it in 

a little further again, and then it said I voted, and I did not. I 

never saw the screen advance. And I approached the woman, the 

voting person there, and they said, ‘‘Well, sorry, you already voted.’’ 

Well, I don’t know who I voted for, so that was my problem. 

CALLER. I am calling from Chesapeake, Virginia, in the Crestwood area. We are having problems at that location, Crestwood 


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Middle School. We have thousands of people in line. They only 

have six voting machines, and they are all down. 

CALLER. I am in Douglasville, Pennsylvania. The problem I am 

having at the polling station was we were voting, and I don’t know 

if there was something wrong with the polling machine, but the 

polling machine was voting double or triple for whatever candidate 

you chose. 

CALLER. On Saturday, my husband and I tried to vote in Orange 

County, Florida, and were told that we were purged from the system. When I renewed our driver’s licenses at the Division of Motor 

Vehicles, we were asked if we also wanted to change our voter registration address. We agreed to do that. However, we were told by 

the Supervisor of Elections at the polls that 90 percent of the 

changes made at the DMV are never passed on to the Supervisor 

of Elections. 

[End audiotape.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Without objection, your written statements will be made part of 

the record in its entirety. And we ask that you summarize your testimony in 5 minutes. 

Mr. Joyner, you are the lead-off hitter. 

STATEMENTS OF THOMAS JOYNER, HOST, ‘‘TOM JOYNER 

MORNING SHOW’’; REV. LENNOX YEARWOOD, PRESIDENT 

AND CEO, HIP HOP CAUCUS; ELIZABETH WESTFALL, SENIOR 

ATTORNEY, ADVANCEMENT PROJECT; CAMERON P. QUINN, 

FORMER SECRETARY, VIRGINIA BOARD OF ELECTIONS; REBECCA WALES, DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS, SMART 

GIRL POLITICS 

STATEMENT OF THOMAS JOYNER 

Mr. JOYNER. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Brady, members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to testify before 

the panel today. I am Tom Joyner, host of the nationally syndicated ‘‘Tom Joyner Morning Show.’’ 

The CHAIRMAN. Excuse me, sir. Push that button. I know you are 

not afraid of a live mic. 

Mr. JOYNER. Oh. 

I am Tom Joyner, host of the nationally syndicated ‘‘Tom Joyner 

Morning Show.’’ Our show is aired in 115 markets, reaching nearly 

8 million African Americans. That works out to be about one in 

four of every African American in this country. We have a very 

simple philosophy on the show: It is a party with a purpose. We 

play good music, we laugh a lot, and we take on a lot of serious 

issues. 

Since I testified before this committee some 18 months ago, a lot 

has happened. We made history, electing the Nation’s first African 

American President. Like so many Americans, I cried on election 

night in Chicago. But I am here today to make sure we do an even 

better job at all of our elections, especially in 2012. 

First, let me tell you how the 1–866–MYVOTE1 hotline made a 

difference last year. We received more than 300,000 calls, we 

helped more than 150,000 listeners to find their poll locations, and 

we registered more than 100,000 new voters. We were able to make 


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this happen thanks to my partners in the hotline, the International 

Brotherhood of Teamsters and the NAACP National Voter Fund. 

In addition to helping people, we also captured important information that was used to determine whether some of our listeners 

could vote. In Pennsylvania, the MYVOTE1 hotline data provided 

the foundation for the NAACP’s legal action that led to a Pennsylvania court requiring poll locations to have enough emergency ballots on hand if machines failed. In Virginia, callers warned of a 

traffic accident that blocked access to a poll location and gave alternative routes. In Florida, callers warned of bogus e-mails attempting to suppress African American votes. In Missouri, callers 

warned voters of last-minute changes in poll locations. 

There are other examples, but we don’t have time today to review all of them. The success of the MYVOTE1 hotline tells me 

that it is a unique and critical tool in assessing what succeeds and 

what fails on Election Day. 

I want to make sure your committee addresses these problems 

now and removes all barriers to make sure all Americans can exercise their vote. As a Nation, we have to do a better job. My listeners demand it, and so do all Americans. 

There are four key areas that I want you all to fix to avoid some 

of the confusion, frustration, and drama we faced during last year’s 

presidential primaries and during the general election. 

My first point is that we need to eliminate all voter ID requirements. We received hundreds of phone calls on the hotline during 

the primaries from Georgia about voters standing in long lines because of the ID requirements. In the Atlanta area, for example, 

callers complained about waiting in one line for their IDs to be 

checked, then waiting in a long line to vote. These listeners said 

that they waited for hours in some locations because there weren’t 

enough machines. 

What I am worried about is that several State legislatures 

around the country, including my home State of Texas, have been 

trying to push through requirements forcing registered voters to 

have government-issued IDs to vote. This makes it hard on potentially millions of Americans who are citizens who may be unemployed, who don’t have a driver’s license or any form of government 

identification. 

Second, we need to provide better training for all precinct workers. What we learned from our calls on the hotline is that, quite 

often, precinct workers didn’t know how to resolve problems when 

they occurred. Based on our hotline, we had dozens of issues involving broken machines, the lack of ballots, or simply not enough 

workers on hand. We should make every effort to make sure that 

these workers are properly trained, fully aware of all the issues, 

and even consider reaching out to younger adults to help with the 

elections, which I can help you do. 

My third point is that we need to make more voting machines 

available. Another huge problem was the lack of machines in areas 

where there were huge concentrations of black listeners. We have 

thousands of calls from listeners who say that they waited hours 

in line only to find out that there were not enough machines available to handle the large crowds. 


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I am just a DJ, but it seems to me that, given the historic nature 

of this election, an African American candidate, why wouldn’t you 

make more voting machines available? It seems to me you make 

sure that you have as many machines possible to guarantee we exercise our right to vote. 

And my final point today is that we need to create a national 

standard for voting machines. What made the problem worse is 

that many voting precincts have different types of voting machines. 

You can have paper ballots in one location and electronic machines 

in another and the old-fashioned lever machines someplace else. 

Why can’t we have one type of machine everywhere? Again, I am 

just a DJ, but if we had the same type of voting machines everywhere, wouldn’t that make it easier for us to tabulate the votes on 

election night? 

I am glad to hear about the legislation that is currently working 

its way through Congress. It is the ‘‘Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act.’’ The bill would establish a national 

standard for voting, requiring all voting precincts to use paper ballots, and require random audits of any electronic election systems. 

Why paper ballots during this electronic age? Well, what we have 

learned is that electronic voting machines are unreliable and unstable. We truly need a paper trail and a way to easily audit the 

elections. We know every vote must count. 

Mr. Chairman, I love this country, and I know we can do better 

when it comes to our voting process. That is why I am here and 

why I am going to continue to fight to ensure that my listeners and 

certainly every American can vote freely and without barriers. That 

is what this country is all about. We have to do everything to protect this very basic right as Americans, the right to vote. 

Thank you very much. This is Tom Joyner. Thank you again. 

[The statement of Mr. Joyner follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Reverend Yearwood. 

STATEMENT OF LENNOX YEARWOOD 

Reverend YEARWOOD. Chairman Brady, Ranking Member Lungren, and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to 

testify today. On behalf of the Hip Hop Caucus, I am pleased to 

present testimony on ‘‘Engaging the Electorate: Strategies for Expanding Access to Democracy.’’ 

The Hip Hop Caucus is a national nonpartisan and nonprofit organization that was founded on September 11th, 2004, in the midst 

of the 2004 presidential elections. The mission of the Hip Hop Caucus is to work towards ending urban poverty for the next generation by organizing young people in urban communities to be active 

in elections, policymaking, and community service. Over a 41⁄2 year 

period, we have built a national membership of up to 660,000 people, 71 percent of them who are under the age of 40 years old and 

60 percent of whom are women. 

In 2004, I helped create the ‘‘Vote or Die’’ campaign with Sean 

P. Diddy Combs, and I was the grassroots and political director for 

Russell Simmons. 

But it was prior to these get-out-the-vote campaigns, when I was 

working as a minister in poor, urban communities, that I recognized that poor people, in particular, did not think that they were 

a part of this system. They thought that the system was against 

them. Their outlook on government had a profound impact on their 

personal lives. 

Once they understood the simple fact that government works for 

them and was not set up to antagonize them, literally their outlook 

changed on everything from educational opportunities, health, economic opportunities, the environment, criminal justice, parenting, 

and obviously being simply engaged. 

Being involved in democracy helps people control their own destinies. Our voting system, however, is not set up to engage communities of color and poor communities in our democracy. In fact, our 

system is set up to discourage these voters, and so our government 

is often not functioning as a representative democracy for these 

communities. It is instead functioning as a damage control mechanism. 

As I will explain in this testimony, we have used culture, media, 

and technology to engage traditionally disenfranchised communities in elections. And I will expound on some of these strategies. 

However, the message that I really want to convey is that campaigns that I have created, like ‘‘Vote or Die’’ and ‘‘Respect My 

Vote,’’ are not the solution. They are creative attempts to fill an institutional void that our confusing and overly burdensome voter 

registration system has created. I will continue my calling to engage new voters in our democracy. However, I am looking to you 

to make the system more transparent and inclusive for all American citizens. 

In 2008, the Hip Hop Caucus designed a voting campaign that 

targeted young voters in urban communities who did not have college experience. And it should be noted, the rates between young 

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perience are very, very different. Meanwhile, most youth-oriented 

voter engagement campaigns are targeted at college campuses. 

I just really want to give a few examples. I am so glad to be sitting next to my good friend Tom Joyner. For example, on September 30, 2008, we partnered with Radio One on an initiative 

called ‘‘One Vote Day.’’ Radio One has urban stations in 16 markets around the country. Through the radio, we publicized a day 

of mass voter registration where, in 16 cities, people could come to 

community locations on that day and register to vote. In a 12-hour 

period, the Hip Hop Caucus, along with Radio One, registered 

32,000 voters. 

And another example is how we used our spokesperson, T.I. T.I. 

Was an individual who was a major, A-list artist. T.I. Also has a 

felony record. He is from the State of Georgia. And when we asked 

him to be our spokesperson, we all thought that, as someone with 

a felony record, he could not vote. Regardless, he was prepared to 

motivate and challenge his fans to vote even though he could not. 

It turned out what we learned is, in the State of Georgia, if you 

are not currently serving a sentence, you can vote. And on October 

29th, 2008, then 28-year-old T.I., Clifford Harris, voted early and 

for the first time in the State of Georgia. 

I bring this up to address two points. First, T.I., who has made 

mistakes in his life, has and deserves the credibility and respect of 

some of the most historically oppressed communities in this country. While many frowned on his role in the 2008 elections, the fact 

of the matter is that he inspired and reached a population who traditional organizations and leaders simply cannot reach. 

And, second, voting laws for ex-offenders vary State by State, 

and they are the only set of Jim Crow laws that continue to expand. And most ex-offenders are completely unaware of the voting 

rights that they do have. 

Let me conclude by saying this. There are two things, as I conclude: One, I would just say the Hip Hop Caucus has worked on 

a new piece of legislation with Congressman Cummings called the 

‘‘Constitution and Citizenship Day Act,’’ which would provide for 

public and charter schools to register eligible high school students 

to vote on Constitution Day, which is September 17th. The voter 

registration activity will be coupled with a rally, assembly, or whatever. But the idea behind the legislation is to reach young voters 

before they graduate high school. 

And, finally, let me just say the United States is one of the few 

democracies that places the burden of registration on the voter. 

And because of this, voter turnout in the United States is near the 

bottom of the developed world. We must do better. We must work 

towards comprehensive solutions. And, as you all know very well 

as Members of Congress, elections are not games, they are not contests. Elections are for citizens first, and they point to our access 

to democracy and are as serious as life and death. 

Thank you for the opportunity to present to you today. 

[The statement of Reverend Yearwood follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Reverend. 

Ms. Westfall. 

STATEMENT OF ELIZABETH WESTFALL 

Ms. WESTFALL. Thank you, Chairman Brady and members of the 

committee. My name is Elizabeth Westfall. I testify today in my capacity as the director of the Voter Protection Program at Advancement Project, a national civil rights organization in Washington, 

D.C. Thank you very much for your invitation to testify today. 

After the 2008 general election, Advancement Project, the 

NAACP National Voter Fund, and Voter Action prepared a report, 

released today, entitled, ‘‘Uncovering Flaws in Election Administration: A Joint Report on the 2008 Election Based on CNN and 

MYVOTE1 Voter Hotline Data.’’ 

I would like to recognize my co-authors, John Bonifaz of Voter 

Action and Greg Moore of the NAACP National Voter Fund, who 

join me at this hearing. 

The joint report highlights illustrative calls received by the 

MYVOTE1 and CNN voter hotlines from voters in Florida, Georgia, 

Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and recommends Federal reforms to protect voters in the 2010 and future Federal elections. 

My remarks today will focus on several short-term recommendations set forth in the joint report. My written testimony also discusses long-term recommendations for deeper congressional review. 

I refer the committee to my written testimony, as to those recommendations. 

The committee has asked panelists to suggest how to expand access to democracy. Looking at the 2008 election from a bird’s eye 

view, it is clear that voter registration and administrative barriers 

to voting played a significant role in restricting access to the franchise. 

According to Professor Stephen Ansolabehere of MIT, 2 million to 

3 million eligible voters were prevented from voting and an additional 2 million to 4 million were discouraged from voting due to 

registration or other authentication problems. He concluded that 

the magnitude of these barriers has remained unchanged since the 

2000 election. 

The voices of voters heard in the joint report released today give 

testimony to the urgent need for reforms. Scores of hotline callers 

reported that they were registered or had attempted to register, 

yet, on Election Day, learned that they were not in the poll books. 

Circumstances varied. Some reported that they had registered 

through the Department of Motor Vehicles; others, that they had 

voted in recent elections; still others, that they had submitted an 

application to an election official, but were nevertheless left off the 

rolls. 

Barriers to voter registration, administrative error, and list 

maintenance procedures likely contributed to these outcomes. To 

address these problems, Advancement Project urges Congress to 

enact swiftly several amendments to the ‘‘Help America Vote Act’’ 

and the ‘‘National Voter Registration Act.’’ 

First, HAVA should be amended to afford eligible voters who affirm that they are registered yet whose names do not appear on the 


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rolls, a meaningful Election Day safeguard. If such voters affirm 

their identity, residence, and that they timely submitted a registration application before the deadline, they should be issued a ballot 

that will be counted on Election Day. 

Second, HAVA and the NVRA should be clarified to provide that 

neither successful database matching of an applicant’s information 

with a record in the DMV or Social Security database, nor documentary proof of citizenship are requirements to register for Federal elections. 

Finally, the NVRA should be amended to prohibit the purging of 

voters from the rolls whose original voter registration acknowledgment card is returned in the mail. 

The hotline calls also indicate significant poll worker confusion 

in determining the appropriate circumstances in which to issue 

provisional ballots. Advancement Project’s examination of provisional ballot use in the 2006 general election also unearthed troubling poll worker error and training issues, including failures to direct voters to the correct precinct or, worse yet, affirmatively directing voters to the wrong precinct. 

To reduce the use and rejection of provisional ballots, Advancement Project urges Congress to amend HAVA to require provisional 

ballots cast by the voters in the wrong precinct to be counted for 

all Federal election contests in which the voters are eligible, and 

also to guarantee that voters who have moved intrastate be permitted to update their address on Election Day and, if they appear 

in their correct new precinct, to vote with a regular ballot. 

Finally, the hotline callers reported long voter lines due to machine failures, insufficient voting equipment, dysfunctional polling 

place operations, and inadequate numbers of poll workers. Callers 

also noted an uneven use of backup paper ballots to reduce ensuing 

long lines and inadequate supplies of such ballots. 

To alleviate these long voter lines that discourage or dissuade 

voters from participating, Advancement Project recommends that 

Congress enact legislation to require jurisdictions that employ 

DRE, or electronic voting systems, to stock backup paper ballots 

and to require the use of such ballots when half the voting machines are inoperable or voter lines meet or exceed 45 minutes. 

Again, on behalf of Advancement Project, I thank the committee 

for the opportunity to testify about issues of importance to voters. 

Thank you. 

[The statement of Ms. Westfall follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Quinn. 

STATEMENT OF CAMERON P. QUINN 

Ms. QUINN. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank 

you very much for this opportunity to appear before you today to 

talk about innovative voter strategies. 

I am focused on the role of election officials, having served as an 

election official, and having served in the capacity of trying to litigate against election officials who were not complying with Federal 

law. 

And I want to note that election officials want to do a good job. 

I have not met election officials that did not sincerely want to do 

the right thing and to follow the law. The challenge for election officials is that they are trying to operate in a situation involving 

partisanship and usually with very insufficient resources to do the 

jobs they are being asked to do. And I think it is important to keep 

that in mind as we try and think about solutions. 

One of the biggest challenges in the last 8 years is the fact that 

election officials have been trying to comply with significant 

change, again, with insufficient resources. Congress did, for the 

first time ever, put into place tremendous resources from the Federal fisc for the first time. But those resources were completely inadequate for the changes that were actually being mandated. The 

estimate is that it was probably about three times, four times as 

much as what was provided by Congress that it cost these election 

officials to make the changes necessary. 

So keeping in mind, change is challenging always, and change is 

more challenging with insufficient resources, I would urge you to 

remember that as you move forward with any thoughts as to what 

else needs to be done. 

I want to talk mostly about the kinds of things that we were 

doing when I was at the Virginia State Board of Elections. Keep 

in mind, as I have now been out for over 5 years, technology was 

not at the same place. There is some really interesting new technology. I would love to be an election official again and have the 

chance to try and use some of the new technology to really reach 

voters. 

But while I was there, because Virginia had a statewide database already in place, we were able to do things like a universal 

polling place lookup online. And it was available not just to voters, 

but to people trying to assist voters. We know that people were 

using that once we put it in place, and it really did help us reduce 

the number of calls coming into elections offices so that we could 

more effectively handle problems that were coming in on Election 

Day. 

In addition, we were doing things securely. And I know Virginia 

was the first in the nation trying to do secure voter registration 

confirmation for voters. They could go through DMV and get a PIN 

and then be able, online, to make sure the information was correct. 

And be able to then, if it was incorrect, to make changes to it. 

Those kinds of technologies are so much more accessible now. And 

with the HAVA requirement for statewide database, the States are 


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now getting in positions where they can be looking at trying to do 

these things, and there is some real opportunity there. 

In addition, things like ballot tracking for absentee ballots can 

make a huge difference. If people are overseas and they can not 

easily make a phone call because they are 12 hours on the other 

side of the world, they are able to see if the ballot request has been 

received, if the ballot has been mailed, and if the ballot has been 

received back by the elections office. 

And e-ballots are one of those things that can make a huge difference in the transmission time, for example, in-theater operations 

for the military in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military postal service is now finding round-trip takes up to 60 days. And yet, at best, 

elections offices typically are providing 45 days for transmission of 

the ballot to the voter and transmission back. 

So the more we can do to electronically transmit ballots securely, 

while making sure that the receipt of the ballot back is also secure, 

the better we are going to be able to provide that kind of innovative 

strategy to allow participation. 

When I was at the State Board of Elections, I felt it was important, as Congressman Lungren said, for both transparency and integrity. And part of transparency is involving everyone collaboratively in trying to come up with solutions for problems. We did 

this effectively in a number of ways, but I think the one I was most 

pleased with was when we did our recount and ballot counting provisions, which we did in a collaborative, bipartisan way, with a lot 

of attorneys. Many of them had litigated recounts across the State 

and, in some cases, across the country. And then when we had a 

recount in 2005, having those in place meant that we did not end 

up being one of the front-page newspaper stories across the Nation. 

There are also specific populations with problems that need assistance. While I was there, the Virginia State Board of Elections, 

we were dealing with a lot of the accessibility problems for disabled 

voters. We also tried, as I mentioned, to do things for military and 

overseas voters. 

There are statistics about to come out, in a study coming out 

within the week from the Heritage Foundation, talking about the 

fact that, basically, nationwide, 85 percent of those eligible 

VOCAVA voters do not manage to cast and have a ballot counted. 

The Overseas Vote Foundation has mentioned the fact, in their 

study after the 2008 elections, their survey indicated that, 22 percent asked for a ballot and never received it at all. And another 11 

percent received that ballot within a week of the election, or in fact 

after Election Day, so they clearly could not return it in time. 

There clearly are still pockets that do need some assistance. And 

I commend the committee, because I know you all have been doing 

some things to try and help solve some of these problems. 

I do want to note that access, as well as integrity, are very important to the system. We need both. And they should not be seen 

as mutually exclusive. There are always ways for people to work 

together collaboratively to provide both access and integrity. But 

integrity is an important component. And voter confidence is very 

important to voter turnout and voter participation. 

I mentioned in my written testimony the election system in Puerto Rico; it is an extraordinary system. The candidates for office are 


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treated like rock stars. It really is just the most fascinating social 

phenomenon. They only have the polling places open for 7 hours. 

They have no early voting, they have little absentee voting, they 

have very strict ID requirements, and people enthusiastically participate in the system. 

And, in fact, it seems to add to the collective social culture there, 

that everybody is going out and this is what they are doing that 

day, just as if there had been a huge rock concert on the island. 

This is important—Mr. Joyner said earlier we can do better, and 

I agree entirely. But we need to be sitting down together, trying 

to figure out how we can do better that we all can agree on. And 

we need to find the resources to make sure the elections offices can 

implement the changes that we ask them to implement. 

I encourage you all to not foreclose possibilities for States to experiment. We have a Federal system, and it really has worked well. 

We were very pleased with all the things that we were able to accomplish in Virginia. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak 

today. 

[The statement of Ms. Quinn follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Wales. 

STATEMENT OF REBECCA WALES 

Ms. WALES. Good morning, Chairman Brady, Congressman Lungren, and members of the Committee for House Administration. 

Thank you for the opportunity to address the committee, to share 

my experiences and insight regarding the previously unengaged 

electorate. 

My name is Rebecca Wales, and I am the national director of 

communications for the conservative women’s organization Smart 

Girl Politics. My experiences during the 2008 campaign cycle, 

where I was the deputy national youth director for McCain-Palin 

and also the deputy national coalitions director for the Rudy 

Giuliani Presidential Committee, provides me with a unique perspective into where we were and where we need to be, moving into 

the next election cycle. 

Using tools like social media and other forms of instantaneous 

communications, Smart Girl Politics and other organizations have 

successfully tapped into a previously unengaged population of voters. The incredible response of the Tea Party movement shows that 

voters are now seeking to become more actively engaged with their 

government. They want to voice their discontent with policy or 

their elected officials now, and not wait for the next election. 

We are in a unique political climate, one in which historic candidates are broadening the scope of the potential electorate. We 

have seen a revitalized interest in government from many demographics, including, as Mr. Joyner and Reverend Yearwood have 

noted, youth voters, minorities, and women. 

Smart Girl Politics was founded by two stay-at-home moms who 

had limited experience in national politics but now have a platform 

to make their voices heard on that level. Our mandate is not 

women-specific. We are merely reaching a targeted portion of a 

much broader audience. In 7 months, we have amassed over 15,000 

members. This is a group that wants to be heard. 

To accomplish this, Smart Girl Politics sponsored a nationwide 

voter registration drive during the Tax Day Tea Party rallies. Recognizing that many of the attendees were new to activism, our 

members organized in each city to provide an opportunity for Tea 

Party attendees to register to vote. This is the most basic component of political involvement, and we aim to inspire those who have 

never taken the time to cast a ballot to take part in upcoming elections. 

The Tea Parties movement was spawned by the rant of a cable 

news correspondent on the floor of the Chicago Commodities Exchange this past February. People of all stripes across the country 

were stirred by references to the Boston Tea Party in 1773. Facing 

new and previously unheard of spending deficits that would affect 

generations to come, people across America began to say we need 

another Tea Party. Soon, groups were popping up throughout the 

United States. 

The first small rallies were held February 27th, 8 days after 

Santelli’s rant, in about 30 cities. Those first spontaneous demonstrations motivated a corps of Americans and began to build moVerDate Nov 24 2008 01:37 Oct 17, 2009 Jkt 052710 PO 00000 Frm 00137 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A710.XXX A710

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mentum. This momentum led to the April 15th Tax Day Tea Party 

protest. Held in 900 cities, with almost a million participants, it 

was one of the largest grassroots protests in a single day in history, 

even after the Department of Homeland Security labeled us ‘‘rightwing extremists.’’ 

What is the purpose of the Tea Party movement? It is a viral 

grassroots movement propelled by activists, voters, the electorate. 

It is people who are passionate about something being driven to 

give up their time and their resources to talk to others about their 

issues and then engaging those people. 

Many have misunderstood the nature of this movement and were 

under the impression that it was affiliated with the Republican 

Party. There was talk about some overarching organization or 

media outlet sponsoring the events. In fact, the events were organized locally and paid for through pass-the-hat-style donations. 

There is no umbrella Tea Party organization. Every group organizes their own events. 

As the lead organizer for the D.C. Tea Party, where I stood in 

the freezing rain with 3,000 activists, I know firsthand that these 

were done entirely with donations from local businesses and money 

from our own pockets. This is not a highly calculated and wellfunded campaign, but a true conservative grassroots effort that can 

be done over and over again. 

The success of the Tea Party movement has come largely through 

the use of social media. We have quickly and inexpensively been 

able to reach hundreds of thousands of Tea Party activists using 

Twitter and Facebook, Web sites, and SMS text messaging. Most 

importantly, for use in campaign cycles, we have been collecting 

this information so that we can continue to mobilize in the future. 

The Obama campaign leveraged youth presence on the Web to 

increase funds in ways never seen before. Using its massive grassroots brand recognition, they successfully outraised the Republicans by tens of millions of dollars. Campaigning in America has 

moved from ‘‘We Like Ike’’ buttons for our coat lapels and bumper 

stickers for our cars to wikis, widgets, and Facebook fan pages. 

With the youth vote having been lost by the Republicans by 34 

percent in the 2008 presidential election, even though overall voter 

turnout was unchanged from the two previous election cycles, new 

techniques must be used to engage this demographic in the future. 

Social media practitioners are beginning to understand that they 

need to reach out to the wired voter, a new demographic. 

The Tea Party movement is evidence that reaching out across 

new mediums is working in engaging the electorate early in the 

cycle. The goal now is to make the transfer from online momentum 

to boots-on-the-ground action. Going forward, we need to continue 

to think of new ways to keep them activated and have these activists engage new voters. 

Thank you, Chairman Brady and committee members, for the opportunity to testify before you today. I would be happy to answer 

any further questions. 

[The statement of Ms. Wales follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

And we will now open it up for questions. 

I would like to ask Mr. Joyner, that this committee has taken 

testimony from some witnesses who believe the stories from voters 

are not reliable, that voters cannot distinguish between problems 

that are real, that are isolated, or, in fact, may be their own fault. 

You have received many callers on your show. Could you characterize that? How would you respond to that? 

And I understand you talked about the ID issue. We happen to 

agree with you. We are trying to do what we can to make that an 

easier process. Instead of taking so many IDs, maybe one valid ID 

or whatever we could do to speed that process up. 

Voting machines and the amount of voting machines and the 

standard that we use is purely financial. You know, if we mandate 

to a State, then we have to fund it. And right now we have a few 

problems with the finances of our country and of our States. 

But you are right, they are the major problems that we have. 

But how would you categorize people that come in front of us and 

say that voters are saying there is a problem that really don’t exist 

or the problem may be their fault? I am sure you have many calls, 

you know, related toward that. 

Mr. JOYNER. That the problems were the voters’ fault? 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, that the problems may not be real, they 

may just be isolated, or they may be the fault of the voter themselves for not going to the proper place, not having their proper ID. 

I mean, you do a tremendous amount of advertising. And I have 

listened to you and watched you. And a lot of people are paying attention, when they come to the polls they need to bring what they 

need to bring, State by State, whatever they need to bring to be 

able to vote. 

And a lot of people that testify in front of us tell us that, you 

know, that they are making a lot of these things up, that they are 

really not true. And I know through your documentation and just 

through your listeners and people responding to you that I believe 

that they are true. 

Mr. JOYNER. And I believe that they are true, too. I mean, based 

on the number of calls that we have gotten. I gave you examples 

of areas where we had a number of calls, where we had hundreds 

of calls, where people were standing in lines for up to 4 hours trying to vote. And the holdup was, one, the ID requirements; two, not 

enough machines, and paper ballots when the machines failed; and 

the poll workers not being informed on how to deal with issues 

when there were problems at the polls. 

So these weren’t isolated instances that we got. I mean, we had 

over 300,000 calls. And most of those were for poll locations. They 

couldn’t find the poll locations; the poll locations were changed. But 

then after that, we got hundreds, thousands of calls in certain 

areas where they were in line—long, long, long, long lines in order 

to try to vote because of ID requirements, not enough machines, 

not enough poll workers who were informed. They were not isolated. 

The CHAIRMAN. I agree with you, and I appreciate it. And I 

thank you for all you do, for taking time to allow people to call in 

and to have a dialogue and to be able to let us know what all the 


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problems are State by State. You are not just one State. So I appreciate all that you do to bring that visibility to us and to the American people. Thank you for that. 

Mr. JOYNER. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Westfall, based on your extensive experience, 

do you know of any other national archive of audio files contemporaneously recorded by voters during the election cycle other than 

what we have? 

Ms. WESTFALL. No, I do not. 

The CHAIRMAN. Do you know of any other database of such audio 

files that is housed on online search engines, such as the one that 

you used to develop this report? 

Ms. WESTFALL. None that I am aware of. 

The CHAIRMAN. None at all? Do you believe the EAC should use 

these tools? 

Ms. WESTFALL. Certainly. I think they provide a very important 

picture of what voters are experiencing on Election Day. And, increasingly, the information about voters’ experience is being collected in advance of Election Day. 

So I think it is important data, along with academic studies, like 

the one that I mentioned from MIT, the Cal Tech-MIT Voting 

Project. If you look at public records and records from election officials themselves, voting records, which are what Advancement 

Project seeks after the election, I think when you put all these 

pieces together, they create a very important picture of how voters 

are experiencing voter registration and voting on Election Day and 

during early voting and suggest areas for reform. 

So I think the MYVOTE1 hotline is essential, provides essential 

data, and I think the EAC should consider employing a similar 

type of data collection device, yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank you for that. 

Real quickly, just Reverend Yearwood and Ms. Wales, you talk 

about the young voters, who are so near and dear to us. How do 

we keep them? I am sure they had major enthusiasm this last presidential election, but what happens is that dissipates through other 

elections. And they may come back again because presidential elections naturally have much more visibility and advertisement. But 

we need to keep them. 

Is there anything we need to be doing to keep our new young voters enthused and keep them on the rolls and keep them coming 

back and voting instead of going down to a 13, 14 percent voting 

turnout again? 

Ms. WALES. Well, the Republican Party, we had a problem in the 

first place because we lost them. We lost them long before the fiscal 

crash. We lost them during the war. So we have catch-up to do. 

We are having the problem—we have great strides to take at the 

beginning, and we are taking them through social media. We get 

to engage them. We have to empower them. We have to empower 

them to vote. And that is a big thing for us. 

The Republican Party didn’t have the money to engage them. We 

had to teach them. And that is what we were trying to do on the 

McCain campaign. We were trying to empower them with the message. 


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So we are playing a lot of catch-up right now with the Republican Party. Keeping them is always a problem, because we have 

4 long years. We have to show them throughout, both the Republicans and the Democrats, to show them that we are doing something, that what they are inheriting from their parents is something that they want to do. 

I think with what we are going through fiscally, Democrats have 

a long way to go, because what they are seeing is they are getting 

out of college or they are in college and they are not seeing jobs. 

What we need to do is show them that either there is something 

to—they have a reason to vote. 

And I think that is always going to be the problem, is that there 

is a reason to vote. With Republicans, we get to say that their reason to vote is to—I am going to use the ‘‘change’’ word; the Republicans never like to use the word ‘‘change’’—that there is reason to 

make change. And Democrats get to say that we want to keep this 

going, we want to keep what the change is going. 

It is always a struggle. Being the deputy youth director for 

McCain, I saw that firsthand. It is always a struggle to keep people 

moving. 

The CHAIRMAN. How about the ‘‘hope’’ word? You don’t use that 

either, right? 

Ms. WALES. I am sorry? 

The CHAIRMAN. You don’t use the ‘‘hope’’ word either, right? 

Ms. WALES. That is worse than ‘‘change.’’ 

The CHAIRMAN. Reverend, the hip hops—I am missing hip hop. 

I am too old, my kids are too old, my granddaughters are too 

young. But tell me about the hip hoppers. How do we keep them? 

How do we keep them not only around for—I heard somebody 

mention rock stars. I don’t know, that doesn’t certainly qualify for 

me. I won’t speak for the rest of my colleagues. I mean, I am from 

Philadelphia. The only rocks I get is thrown at me, not stars. 

But how do you keep our hip hoppers? 

Reverend YEARWOOD. I will say this in regards—and I definitely 

appreciate Mrs. Wales’s perspective, but I would say that, from the 

generation, the millennium generation, it is important to note that 

that generation that was born between 1980 and 2000, by the time 

they all fully come aboard in 2018, there will be about 90 million. 

They will be about 40 percent of the electorate. 

And I would just say that one of the most important things about 

that generation is that they, I think, are, to me, one of the most 

powerful generations. I think they see what is happening. I don’t 

think it is a question of keeping them involved. I think they want 

to be involved. 

I think that where they are now, the most powerful thing about 

my generation and that generation is that you do have the first 

generation where you have the sons and daughters of former slaves 

working side by side with the sons and daughters of former slave 

owners, and we are literally working together. It is not about black 

or white, but it is black, it is white, it is brown, it is yellow, it is 

red, male, female. 

And I think that generation recognizes now that, 9 years into the 

21st century, they have to be involved. They have critical decisions. 

Obviously, we are dealing with the economy. Obviously, we are 


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dealing with other issues, from the climate. And I think that they 

recognize now that if they don’t get involved now, 9 years into the 

21st century, it will have less of an effect later on. 

And so I don’t think it is a question of them not getting involved. 

They want to get involved. I think it is what Mr. Joyner and others 

are saying, that we have to make this system as accessible and 

transparent as possible. Nothing to keep them away. We moved a 

long way from poll tax types of elections. We are now moving to 

a whole new type of generation and a whole new process. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. Lungren, any questions? 

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

Mr. Joyner and Reverend Yearwood, what can we do to do a better job of making sure those young men and women that are in 

uniform today are motivated to vote and that their votes count? 

The figures we have had is a huge number of men and women 

in uniform were unable to vote, and a large number that did vote 

didn’t have their votes counted. Do you think that ought to be a 

priority, too? 

Mr. JOYNER. Yes, of course I think it ought to be a priority. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Is there anything you can do to help us in that 

regard, getting the word out and so forth? 

Mr. JOYNER. Our mission is to inform. And with information 

comes—after we inform with information, you empower. And that 

is what we do every day on the show. We do that with our American audience. We are on the Armed Forces Network. 

So the same things that we want for our citizens in the United 

States is the same thing we want for our service men and women 

for the United States. 

Mr. LUNGREN. It is a bugaboo of mine that we don’t seem to see 

that as a priority. I am not saying you don’t see it, but we, as a 

Congress, have not. We finally acted here; the chairman worked 

with Mr. McCarthy and others to make sure we had something. We 

passed something. The Senate is now working on it. 

I just hope that we can take the message that you presented here 

and firmly plant that with respect to our desire and our obligation 

to make sure men and women in uniform, who are serving us all 

over the world, don’t get, you know, last in line. They ought to at 

least be in line; I would even say first in line. They are out making 

the sacrifice. 

And so, I am happy to hear that, because I just don’t think we 

are doing what we need to do there. Anything that you could do 

to help us to raise that word, I think we would all appreciate. 

Reverend YEARWOOD. I would add to that, as somebody who was 

a former Air Force officer myself, that I know what it means to be 

in the uniform, stationed right here at Andrews Air Force Base and 

around this country. 

One of the things that we did with T.I. Was actually sent him 

to a number of bases. As you know, for people in the military, we 

have families, we have obligations. And so, sometimes the election—the process sometimes just kind of comes in our day-to-day 

lives, and so you need to be reminded about it the same way wherever you are, if you are in Iraq or Afghanistan or—— 

Mr. LUNGREN. Good. I am glad you do that. 


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And, Ms. Quinn, you were talking about the fact that there were 

some statistics that showed that we don’t do a very good job there. 

Ms. QUINN. Yes. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Or it hasn’t been a very good job done. Do you see 

that as a priority? Is that something we need to do now rather 

than later? 

Ms. QUINN. Yes, sir, I really do. 

I am the daughter of a former naval officer. We lived overseas. 

I know how hard it is. I worked at Peace Corps, and we had thousands of volunteers in very remote communities. It is incredibly 

challenging. 

And particularly for those that are serving our country and putting their lives on the line, we need to be doing everything we can 

to make sure they have the right to vote. 

Mr. LUNGREN. See, one of the saddest things, as far as I am concerned, is a number of contested elections, Minnesota and some 

others. A controversy was, should we count the military ballots, 

and when did they come in, and did they come in the right way? 

I mean, there ought not to be any question whatsoever that we 

have a process that counts those and counts those well. 

Mr. Joyner, at 5 o’clock on Election Day I received a call at my 

home. I was on the ballot. And the call went like this: ‘‘This is a 

news alert. News alert. According to the figures that are in from 

the East Coast and the Midwest, Barack Obama is going to win 

this election overwhelmingly. The John McCain campaign has said 

there is no way that they can win. It looks as though that the 

Democrats are not only going to continue with their leadership in 

the House and Senate, but are going to expand their numbers. And 

it appears that nothing that happens in California, Washington, 

Arizona, Nevada will change the outcome. This has been a news 

alert.’’ 

How would you describe that phone call? 

Mr. JOYNER. Propaganda? 

Mr. LUNGREN. Would it sound like a suppression call? 

Mr. JOYNER. Yes. Suppression. Who was the author of the call? 

Mr. LUNGREN. Well, actually, it happened to be connected with 

some parts of the Democratic Party and some major labor unions. 

The problem is, you can’t go after the fact at them because they 

didn’t say ‘‘don’t vote.’’ Understand? So if you tried to prosecute it 

later on, to say that they were violating civil rights, you couldn’t 

do it successfully because they didn’t say ‘‘don’t vote.’’ 

What they said was accurate, and was partly opinion. But there 

is no doubt what they intended to do. And, by the way, the only 

recipients of those were Republican voters. 

What I am pointing out is that this opportunity—by the way, I 

had a close election, too—this precious gift we have and obligation 

we have to vote crosses all party lines, crosses all races, genders. 

And we ought to all work together on this. 

But I would say this in response to the implicit suggestion that 

somehow requiring some form of identification is necessarily an attempt to suppress the vote or is the last vestiges of Jim Crow legislation. If someone votes in an election who does not have a right 

to vote, aren’t they essentially canceling my vote out? 


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Mr. JOYNER. Well, if you had paper ballots, there is a way to 

audit that. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Well, a paper ballot has nothing to do with the 

identification of the person who is there to vote. 

Mr. JOYNER. Well, sure it does. If someone votes who is not eligible to vote, then if you have an audit that should come up, 

shouldn’t it? 

Mr. LUNGREN. But how do you prove whether one is the person 

who is eligible to vote if that person doesn’t show some identification? 

Mr. JOYNER. I am not saying don’t show identification, but the 

requirement to show certain forms of identification doesn’t cross all 

lines. If you are unemployed, if you are a citizen and you don’t 

have a driver’s license, then you should be able to vote, because 

you are a citizen and you are registered to vote. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Well, in California, I don’t know about other 

States, but in California you can go to the DMV and get a—it is 

not a driver’s license, but an identification, basically, to be able to 

use. 

So your objection is the type of identification, not that we 

shouldn’t have some identification? 

Mr. JOYNER. Yes. We should have some identification. But it 

should be across the board. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Okay. 

Reverend Yearwood, I don’t want to misstate what you said, but 

it sounded to me as though you said requiring identification, in and 

of itself, is improper, in your view, and would be viewed as trying 

to suppress the vote. And I thought you said it was a vestige of Jim 

Crow legislation. 

Reverend YEARWOOD. Yes. And I do believe that there are opportunities—and you are right. To me, it is actually a little different. 

Jim Crow, to me, in the 21st century is a little different. It isn’t, 

to me, Jim Crow. I think my generation, with certain photo IDs, 

is not Jim Crow, but I like to say maybe it is the children of Jim 

Crow: James Crow, Jr., Esq. So it is a little more sophisticated. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Well, my question is, would you object to any type 

of identification? And if you don’t, what type of identification could 

we rely on? 

Reverend YEARWOOD. Well, I would say this. I would object to, 

obviously, photo identification from the standpoint that what it 

does is obviously it disenfranchises communities. 

Mr. LUNGREN. How do you say that? 

Reverend YEARWOOD. I am sorry. Say it again? 

Mr. LUNGREN. How is requiring—— 

Mr. DAVIS OF ALABAMA. Mr. Chairman, can we have regular 

order so Mrs. Davis and I can get in and go cast our votes? 

Mr. LUNGREN. Okay. 

The CHAIRMAN. If you could sum up. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Could I ask unanimous consent to enter four 

items into the record: a University of Missouri article on public attitudes towards State elections; an account of possible vote fraud 

in New Mexico; an article of vote fraud convictions in Ohio; and an 

article discussing voter ID laws in Georgia? 

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection. 


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[The information follows:] 


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Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you to all of you for being here. 

The CHAIRMAN. Excuse me. The reason, we do have a vote coming on, and we would hate to make you come back. So maybe we 

could get through and go vote. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. Okay. I will try and be very quick. 

You have all addressed student voting. And I know that student 

voters often have difficulty meeting registration deadlines. Arrived 

in school, whatever, and they don’t really know the different laws 

of all the different States that they are either coming from or that 

they are in. And I would like to discuss that for a second in a 

minute. 

But what do you think we should be doing that we could do, that 

schools should be doing, to assist students so that they get the 

right information in the schools? Have you seen some good models? 

And what is your experience on the radio, as well? 

Mr. JOYNER. Well, like I said earlier, one thing that we can do 

is get some younger people to—some younger eyes. You know, invariably, a lot of the problems that we have on Election Day is, 

God bless them, the older citizens that are there to help you get 

through the process. And—— 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. Uh-huh. I am wondering about registration, particularly, though, to encourage voter registration. 

Yes? 

Reverend YEARWOOD. Yes, I mean, obviously, I would think that 

right now there is legislation being put forth. There is H.R. 1729, 

which is the ‘‘Student Voter Act,’’ which would require all colleges 

and universities that receive Federal funds to offer voter registration to students during the enrollment for a course of study. I think 

that would obviously boost during that timeframe. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. Okay. 

Ms. WALES. Rock the Vote has been doing it for years. And Rock 

the Vote has not only by State on their Web site, but will also help 

students with not just on their State, but will help the schools. 

They have been doing it for cycles. 

Ms. QUINN. Ma’am, I would tell you that I think there is already 

a requirement on the schools to provide a voter registration application to all students. Because I know there was discussion, even 

when I was in Virginia, about providing it by e-mail versus providing it by paper. 

Ms. WALES. It is not currently a school requirement, but most 

schools will help. But Rock the Vote works with almost every single 

university nationwide. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. Okay. And, just quickly following up 

again, because you have talked a little bit about some standardization. And we know that, throughout the country, we have about 26 

States that allow people to vote by mail without excuses, and yet 

we have other States that require a notary. 

And I am just wondering, looking at that issue and perhaps others, where do you think there should be some standardization? 

Clearly, not to preempt creativity in States, but where should there 

be—should people have an equal chance to vote throughout the 


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country, when it comes to their ability to access voting, if they are 

choosing to do it in, you know, other than just going to the polls? 

Ms. WESTFALL. I think that is an excellent question. Certainly, 

having a no-excuse absentee, mail-in ballot opportunity is something that should be provided to all voters. 

We also strongly encourage the establishment of early voting. We 

are working on that right now in Pennsylvania and Missouri. And, 

of course, it has been used so successfully in many other States, 

like Florida, Nevada, Colorado, and North Carolina. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. 

Mr. Davis, go ahead. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Davis. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will try to 

slip in a number of observations in my 5 minutes. 

First one, one of the things that is interesting to me is we still 

have some forms of disenfranchisement that do go on, and they 

ought to be obvious to everyone in the room. 

I will give you one example. In one county in Virginia last September, September 2008, the head of the Board of Registrars in 

that county sent out a notice to college students that, if they voted 

in the State of Virginia, that it could result in their parents losing 

the right to claim them as a deduction on their tax returns if they 

were from out of State. That is a flatly inaccurate misrepresentation/lie about the state of the law. And one would think someone 

who is running an election board would have known better. 

When that kind of thing happens, there is usually a flurry of 

news stories about it. It is never prosecuted. It is often never investigated. And if it goes on in that community, I wonder how many 

other communities it goes on in. 

And I suspect that that may get at Mrs. Davis’s question. One 

of the reasons, I suspect, that voter participation among young people stays so low may be because of confusion over where they can 

vote and their status. 

One thing that jumps out at me, in 2008, 18- to 24-year-olds— 

and let’s really narrow in—African American 18- to 24-year-olds 

did have a big increase. The biggest age jump in the country, I 

think, happened in that cohort. But it still peaked out at 55 percent. 

Now, mind you, this is not 18- to 24-year-olds, period; this is 18- 

to 24-year-olds who have registered to vote. Okay. Or at least who 

were eligible to vote, I should say. 

Now, if 18- to 24-year-olds who were eligible to vote, who are African American, did not turn out for Barack Obama, then God save 

someone running for water commissioner or city council or the 

United States Congress. 

This seems to be something that we have to get at. How do we 

get past this hurdle of African Americans not voting and not participating? Even when they had every reason in the world to be energized, even when they had a massive registration campaign, the 

number still peaked out at 55. 

Why, Mr. Joyner and Mr. Yearwood, do you think the number 

peaked out at 55 given the history at stake in the election? 


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Mr. JOYNER. I don’t think there is anything wrong with 55. But, 

you know, again, if you want more voter participation, you have to 

inform and you have to make the system easier. 

Reverend YEARWOOD. I think that your point is correct, we 

should be alarmed by that. But I think one of the things there that 

we have to make sure that—and this goes to Congresswoman 

Davis’s point—that we have to make sure that we have voter registration, but we must continue the process after Election Day. We 

must get back to teaching civic engagement, teaching the process. 

A lot of young people who we came across, you are right, when 

they were very excited about the President, for instance, they were 

in a position where they didn’t know the difference between, sometimes, the city council person and a Member of Congress to the 

mayor. They didn’t quite know what they did. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. They just know who they see on TV. 

Reverend YEARWOOD. Exactly. So when we began to inform them 

of the process, get them more engaged, then they are hanging 

around now. 

Now, I will say this, though. Since this historic election that we 

did have, I now go into barbershops, and I see you on CNN, I see 

you on C–SPAN, definitely I see this process being much more— 

they now know Mr. Brady from Compton to New York to wherever. 

They see this process. They are getting more engaged. We must 

catch this moment now. This moment is now; we must use it. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Ms. Wales, you were trying to jump in. 

Ms. WALES. Thank you. 

Barack Obama had more money than any candidate in history. 

He was able—the campaign was able to saturate every single 

media market more than any campaign in history, be it TV, radio, 

print, and social media, because of the amount of money that he 

had. 

If this generation didn’t know who this candidate was, there will 

never be a candidate in history that will know a candidate. If it is 

tapped out at 55 percent, then they weren’t behind the issues 

enough. 

I mean, if you look at things like the Tea Parties, for instance— 

and we need to engage around issues more. They need to believe 

in an issue more. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Well, let me just end on this observation, 

since my time is nearly up. 

The CHAIRMAN. Excuse me. If you could sum up, we have 4 minutes left on a vote. 

And I would ask unanimous consent the record stay open for 5 

legislative days to allow further questions. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Yeah. This is the last observation I would 

make, Ms. Wales. Information is also an important part of this 

equation. And my only pet peeve with the Tea Parties—I am happy 

to see people left or right get energized, but I remember turning 

on my television and watching two people at two Tea Parties 

around the country on April 15th who were lamenting their taxes 

and who were blaming Barack Obama and the Congress for their 

taxes. 

Maybe I missed something, but I thought the taxes you paid in 

April were based on the tax year that ended December 31st. So if 


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you didn’t like your taxes, those Tea Parties, to me, should have 

happened probably last April 15th, when George Bush was in the 

White House. 

So there is just one minor little factual point there. 

The CHAIRMAN. We all agree with that. 

Again, thank you all for coming here. We do appreciate your time 

and your effort. And, most importantly, we appreciate your interest. Thank you for being here today. 

This hearing is now adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:18 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 


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