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S. HRG. 107–1041

S. 368 AND ELECTION REFORM

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE,

SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MAY 8, 2001

Printed for the use of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JOHN McCAIN, Arizona, Chairman

TED STEVENS, Alaska

CONRAD BURNS, Montana

TRENT LOTT, Mississippi

KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas

OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas

GORDON SMITH, Oregon

PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada

GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia

ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, South Carolina

DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts

JOHN B. BREAUX, Louisiana

BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota

RON WYDEN, Oregon

MAX CLELAND, Georgia

BARBARA BOXER, California

JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina

JEAN CARNAHAN, Missouri

MARK BUSE, Republican Staff Director

ANN CHOINIERE, Republican General Counsel

KEVIN D. KAYES, Democratic Staff Director

MOSES BOYD, Democratic Chief Counsel

(III)

CONTENTS

Page

Hearing held on May 8, 2001 ................................................................................. 1

Statement of Senator Cleland ................................................................................. 38

Statement of Senator Hollings ............................................................................... 42

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 42

Statement of Senator McCain ................................................................................. 1

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 1

WITNESSES

Ansolabehere, Stephen, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Political Science,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology .............................................................. 47

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 50

Bayless, Hon. Betsey, Secretary of State, State of Arizona ................................. 12

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 14

Lee, Hon. Sheila Jackson, a Representative from Texas ...................................... 2

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 7

Michel, Hon. Robert H., co-chair, National Commission on Federal Election

Reform ................................................................................................................... 43

Richardson, Hon. Bill, member, National Commission on Federal Election

Reform ................................................................................................................... 46

Willis, Hon. John T., Secretary of State, State of Maryland ................................ 15

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 19

APPENDIX

Cleland, Hon. Max:

‘‘Voting Reform Requires Federal Help,’’ Atlanta Journal and Constitution ................................................................................................................. 38

‘‘Technology Slashes Detroit Voting Error: ‘Second Chance’ Scanners

Allow Correction,’’ The Washington Post. ................................................... 40

National Conference of State Legislatures, prepared statement ......................... 69

Federal Election Commission:

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 72

Letter to Hon. Richard Cheney ....................................................................... 73

Fiscal Year 2001 Supplemental Request ........................................................ 73

(1)

S. 368 AND ELECTION REFORM

TUESDAY, MAY 8, 2001

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION,

Washington, DC

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m. in room

SR–253, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. John McCain, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN MCCAIN,

U.S. SENATOR FROM ARIZONA

The CHAIRMAN. Good morning. Today’s hearing is our second

hearing on the issue of election reform. In the Committee’s last

hearing on this issue, we analyzed the problems of our existing national voting system, especially the problems highlighted by the

year 2000 election. In this hearing, we will examine solutions to

these problems and how to restore the American public’s confidence

in our election system.

I will include the rest of my statement in the record, because we

have a short time period this morning. Unfortunately, there are

three votes that will be taking place at 10:15.

[The prepared statement of Senator McCain follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN MCCAIN,

U.S. SENATOR FROM ARIZONA

Good morning. Today’s hearing is our second hearing on the issue of election reform. In the Committee’s last hearing on this issue, we analyzed the problems of

our existing national voting system, especially the problems highlighted by the Year

2000 election. In this hearing, we will examine solutions to these problems, and how

to restore the American public’s confidence in our election system.

I would first like to highlight the importance of Congressional action. As many

newspapers have begun to point out, time is running out for Congress to enact

meaningful legislation to make reforms before the 2002 elections. Concerns about

the accuracy of our voting system are especially pernicious, because they undermine

the public’s confidence in our whole political system. Nothing is more sacred to our

democracy than a person’s right to vote. I found it remarkable when President

Carter recently said that ‘‘the Carter Center has standards for participation as a

monitor of an election, and the United States of America would not qualify at all.’’

It is promising that the states are beginning to write their own legislation to reform their election systems. In the 2001 legislative session, 1,505 election reform

bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the country. Thirty-one states

have considered or are considering legislation to upgrade or make uniform their voting systems. Most notably, Georgia and Florida recently passed legislation to comprehensively reform their election systems.

One important challenge to the federal and state governments is to ensure that

these reforms are based on rigorous standards that will solve the problems of the

Year 2000 election. As we will hear later in this hearing, a recent study from MIT

and Caltech highlights this problem by showing that the most reliable voting technology use paper ballots, followed by obsolete lever machines and more recent optiVerDate 03-FEB-2003 10:41 Jun 28, 2004 Jkt 088707 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 D:\DOCS\88707S~1.TXT SSC1 PsN: SSC1
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cal scanners. Surprisingly, the high-tech Direct Recording Electronic devices were

found to be less reliable than all types of voting machines other than punch card

machines.

This study further emphasizes the need to match the efficiency of new technology

with the reliability of the more traditional paper ballots and lever machines. Senator Hollings, Senator Cleland, and I have introduced S. 368, the American Voting

Standards and Technology Act, to meet this challenge. The bill would direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, to develop voluntary voting

system practices, and accredit laboratories on a voluntary basis to test vote casting

and counting devices. For over a hundred years, NIST has been known for its ability

to solve a myriad of technical problems and establish voluntary standards. Its expertise can be used today to reform current election practices.

Senator Hollings, Senator Cleland, and I do not profess to have all of the solutions

to this issue. We look forward today to hearing the results of initiatives and reports

by the states and independent commissions. Any final legislation will have to include input from these groups to ensure a comprehensive solution.

I welcome all of our witnesses here today.

The CHAIRMAN. We are pleased to have the Honorable Sheila

Jackson Lee here with us this morning. Welcome, Congresswoman

Lee. Thank you for joining us. We appreciate your taking the time

to come over and give us your views on this very important issue,

and you are recognized.

STATEMENT OF HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE,

A MEMBER OF CONGRESS FROM TEXAS

Ms. LEE. Chairman McCain, let me thank you for your leadership and your persistence in issues dealing with reform of the entire electoral process. It is my pleasure to be here this morning and

to acknowledge the Committee and Ranking Member again for the

leadership that you have shown. Might I also applaud you for your

proposed bill dealing with the establishment of voluntary national

standards on how votes are cast and how they are counted and also

the importance of providing matching funds to assist our local communities in areas such as getting new and technologically profound

and proficient voting machines, as well as providing for education

programs and continuing to study this issue that we may do the

best task.

This is a very important issue for me and I ask the Chairman

to submit my entire statement for the record and I be allowed to

summarize and speak to the issues that I hope will be helpful to

us this morning.

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection.

Ms. LEE. Thank you.

I am a product of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. When I say that,

clearly the surge of voting for African Americans became even more

prominent after that particular passage of that bill. Obviously, we

are very proud of the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the

1965 Voting Rights Act. Over the past couple of years, I have taken

the challenge of revisiting the place which generated the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Of course, that was in Selma, Alabama, and the

march across the Edmund Pettis Bridge.

Many people offered their ultimate commitment in that bloody

Sunday on March 7th, 1965, to present and express their commitment to the fundamental right to vote for all Americans.

Out of the election, of course, came the opportunity for the redrawing of the lines in Texas, and that came and brought about

the 18th Congressional District in which I serve. There are only

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four holders of that seat. I am the fourth holder of the seat and

the first holder, the maiden holder, was the Honorable Barbara

Jordan.

So lives of Texans were changed by the Voting Rights Act of

1965. So I bring a passion to this issue and certainly believe it is

an issue that is fundamental to the American process. Alexander

Hamilton in his Federalist Papers recognized ‘‘the plain proposition, that EVERY GOVERNMENT OUGHT TO CONTAIN IN

ITSELF THE MEANS OF ITS OWN PRESERVATION.’’ The right

the vote and to fully exercise that vote is a vital component of our

collective preservation.

So this past election should have taught us a lot. I was a participant, if you will, in the post-election in Florida.

I went there, of course, with a perspective of assisting the candidate that I supported to move on to victory. But I think there are

other lessons that were learned, and we are here today to talk

about solutions, but I would be remiss, Mr. Chairman if I did not

suggest to you that in speaking to the people of Florida certainly

there are a range of opinions.

Let me say to you that their greatest concern was that every vote

should be counted and that some of their votes were not counted.

It goes along with the issue or the principle of the Fifteenth

Amendment, that the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged

by the states or the federal government on account of race or color.

Also it goes to the National Voter Registration Act, which affirms

the right of every U.S. citizen to cast a vote and to have the ballot

counted.

On election day in Florida, and I think you have obviously heard

of a number of violations; I only will give you a few: that citizens

who were properly registered were denied the right to vote because

election officials could not find their names on the precinct rolls;

that registered voters were denied the right to vote because of

minor discrepancies and clerical errors; that first-time voters who

sent in voter registration forms prior to the state’s deadline for registration were denied the right to vote because their registration

forms were not processed; and that African Americans may have

been singled out for criminal background checks at some precincts,

and that one voter who had never been arrested was denied the

right to vote after being told that he had a prior felony conviction.

Let me say to you that the need for election reform is, however,

all of America’s challenge. I say that, Mr. Chairman because since

that time I have visited across the nation in some of our states on

the East Coast and the West, and will continue to do so, working

with the Congressional Black Caucus and the House Democratic

Caucus.

We do realize that some 1,500 number of bills throughout the

states have been promoted. We know that the Florida legislature

has looked to eliminate the outdated punchcard technologies and

that Georgia Governor George Roy Barnes has required every precinct to install up-to-date touchscreen voting.

So I think the question today is what can we do. I am also gratified and hopefully looking forward to the Attorney General investigating the voting improprieties that occurred in the State of Florida. But I think that there are things that we can do.

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Let me suggest to you that, in my State of Texas, 14 counties,

including Harris County which I represent, still use punchcard systems like those used in Florida. In Texas during the 2000 elections

1.7 million votes were cast statewide using punchcard systems,

with an average of 1.5 percent undervotes and .54 percent overvotes, while over 4 million votes were cast statewide using modern

optical scan systems, with an average of .51 percent undervotes

and 1.2 percent overvotes.

I would suggest that we do have the capacity to utilize technology that can be of assistance to ensuring that every vote counts.

In fact, the House Government Reform Committee analyzed the

voting technology in Detroit, where they upgraded their technology,

and saw a decided difference between the elections that they held

in the past. Where there is certainly a diverse economic group, a

high rate of poverty, and a high minority population, whey were

able to determine that the percentage of undercounted votes for

President in Detroit decreased by almost two-thirds, from almost

50 percent above the national average in 1996 elections, in which

punchcards were used, to almost 50 percent below the national average in the 2000 election, in which the new machines were used.

So we do realize that technology can be provided for as a source

to assist in the fundamental right to vote. That is what is going

on in the State of Texas, Mr. Chairman. As I see, that is what is

going on around the country. Just yesterday I sat in on a presentation to educate our community about the technologies that are

available. The questions I asked is ‘‘What kind of training, what

kind of percentage errors do you have?’’

I believe legislation that involves studying the best selection and

the best choice is valuable for us to overcome the problems of denying Americans the right to vote. So I would encourage studies and

legislative initiatives that would, in fact, provide us with the information as to how best to choose the technology.

Another improvement that I think is extremely important is to

provide for provisional voting in every election so that any voter

wrongfully eliminated from the voting rolls because of a haphazard

or mistaken voting purge may vote and have their vote counted.

What I found as I participated in hearings, Mr. Chairman, is the

terrible impact of purging. I would like to submit into the record

an article from the Dallas Morning News, Friday, April 20, 2001.

The headline reads ‘‘Voter Purges Are Subject of Panel Hearing.’’

We found out that 700,000, 750,000 votes were purged or voters

were purged from the rolls in Texas after the last election. Their

processes for doing so is if you miss at least two elections. I am

going to offer a suggestion, Mr. Chairman that purging be one that

we study extremely in detail, because I think it is particularly

daunting to, as I will read if you will allow me, to find Cominar

Martinez, who told the Committee that she thought she would always be able to vote after she registered the day she became a U.S.

citizen, but was turned away because she had not renewed her registration. ‘‘I did not know I had to register twice,’’ she said in Spanish.

Obviously, we want to have the sanctity of the vote and the protection of the voting process. But I do believe that when voters are

not notified that they have been purged and that they are then enVerDate 03-FEB-2003 10:41 Jun 28, 2004 Jkt 088707 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 D:\DOCS\88707S~1.TXT SSC1 PsN: SSC1
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ticed and encouraged and inspired to go vote and then they show

up at the polls and they are nowhere on the polling records, it is

a discouragement and a denial of the fundamental right to vote.

So I would encourage a review of the purging process. I suggest

there be a uniform 10-year period of inactivity before a voter’s

name is purged. This would give people a set amount of time in

order to anticipate being purged, so that they can either vote,

thereby resetting the 10-year clock, or if they have already been

purged to allow them the opportunity to re-register before going to

the polling location or to vote.

The purging process has seen many African Americans and Hispanics off the rolls, therefore denying the fundamental right to

vote.

Let me further explain very briefly the provisional voting. That

is, of course, people coming to the polls, notably as it occurred in

Florida, and they knew that they had registered to vote, particularly Florida A&M students, some 4,000 of them, and then their

names were not on the list. It would be important at that time for

them to have the privilege of indicating by affidavit, as we do in

Texas, to say that I am a registered voter, be allowed to vote, and

then have that determined subsequent to the voting process.

It does not in any way, I think, support the suggestion that

fraudulent activities would take place. An affidavit is signed. The

person has the right to express their vote, and there is an appropriate checking system that can be handled.

Any leaving of the polls, Mr. Chairman, immediately extinguishes that person’s right to vote, either because of timing, either

because of intimidation, such as having to going to a police station

or a court to acknowledge that you are a voter in the United States

of America.

I believe that training more poll workers and providing them

with the understanding of voting procedures can be one of the best

efforts that we can make. I also think that it is important to take

stock of what we do on election day. We force people to go to work,

and there is nothing wrong with going to work in America, but we

force them to go to work with the admonition: Ask your boss to let

you off. Certainly in certain places of employment, Mr. Chairman,

that is readily done. But in other places of employment, where the

inequities or the differences between boss and employee are slightly different or where there is a different need for the employer’s

particular business, those opportunities are not given.

Many times we will find that our low-income workers, teachers,

nurses—as we know, there is a nurses crisis, but people in particular jobs of great necessity are not able to get time off. I believe

that if there was a National Election Day that it does have value.

The second Tuesday of every presidential year becoming a legal

holiday, as I have offered in H.R. 934, would go a long way to enhance the voting commitment in the United States in presidential

years.

In particular, I think that it would assist us in encouraging the

number of young people to be poll workers, to encourage the number of professional people to be poll workers and to work at the

polls, to increase the level of knowledge at the polls, to be able to

assist the physically challenged, to assist those who may need a lot

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more or slightly more assistance, to assist those who speak different languages, but are American citizens and have every right

to vote.

So I would argue to this Committee that that could be a change

that would enable us to do better at encouraging our particular

members of our society to utilize their fundamental right to vote.

I also have introduced H.R. 60, the Secure Democracy for All

Americans Act, which would develop greatly needed uniform standards which may be adopted by the states for the administration of

elections for federal office by calling on the establishment of a commission on the comprehensive study of voting procedures, to study

and report to the President and Congress on all issues relating to

voting procedures. I believe that this effort is one to ensure again

that we are studying the process and knowing the answers.

I have also founded by bipartisan Congressional Election Caucus,

to allow members a forum to discuss their issues and concerns

about the process.

Let me just simply say to you that once we noted, Mr. Chairman

that there were other elements to the process of voting, such as the

purging that occurs, such as the need for provisional voting. I believe that we can truly say that these are concerns that all Americans have, and that we can do this in a collective and collaborative

way to ensure that not only minorities who are disenfranchised,

maybe in larger numbers in Florida, are never disenfranchised or

that the American right to vote is promoted and supported and enhanced by what we do here in the federal government.

I will say that your legislation that talks about grants, as others

have done, is extremely important, because one of the issues that

were raised as we spoke to local governments is that we have the

muster and the will, but the collaborative effort of federal funding

is important. A budget passed without dollars for electoral reform

certainly is not one being responsive to our concerns.

Let me conclude, Mr. Chairman, by noting the whole issue of

how you count votes. I might hold Texas as an example and say

to you that I believe in the last 5 days the Florida legislature has

risen to the occasion, and I look forward to the governor of Florida

signing that legislation. But let me simply say to you that I think

a federal standard is important on this basis: that voter intent is

premier. Failure to mark a ballot in strict conformity with the code

does not invalidate the ballot, is a premise in Texas law. Therefore

we have enunciated four elements to suggest how a ballot may be

counted. I believe that these can contribute to establishing a national standard so that all votes can be counted:

The voter intent premier. At least two corners of the chad are detached. Light is visible through the hole. An indentation on the

chad from the stylus or other object is present and indicates clearly

ascertainable intent of voter to vote, or the chad reflects by other

means a clearly ascertainable intent of the voter the vote.

Now, I have just spoken to the fact of trying to eliminate possibly

the punchcard voting process. But it may not occur. It may not

occur in 2002, or 2001. It may not occur until some time in the

near future where all of the nation has changed over to technology.

If that is the case, then I would suggest that we look to the concept

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of voter intent. This will help all voters and this will restore back

to the American people the sense that my vote does count.

I will say to you, Mr. Chairman, that Florida and the election of

2000 brought about a great deal of emotions. It reminded many of

the marches of the civil rights leaders of past. It reminded them

of the bloody Sunday of March 7th, and it reminded us of the fact

that in this country we still have to fight for equality.

In that instance, I think what we are doing here today in this

particular hearing will allow us to say to the American people—

along with other hearings that this Congress will have and this

Senate will have—that we mean business and that we will collaborate together in a bipartisan manner, raising up the dignity of everyone’s right to vote, and will work hard to ensure that not one

person walks into a voting booth at any time in America and be

able to say that, my voice has not been heard.

I thank you for your leadership. I look forward to working with

you and I hope that out of this will come solutions and resolutions

and freedom. I thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Representative Lee follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE,

A MEMBER OF CONGRESS FROM TEXAS

Chairman McCain, Ranking Member Hollings, distinguished members of this

Committee, I would like to commend you for holding this important hearing on Election Reform. I believe that we must continue to address the overwhelming evidence

of grave voting irregularities and voting rights violations in the recent presidential

election in what was the closest and most contested presidential election in the history of our great nation. It is imperative that Congress continues to engage in a serious review and comprehensive reform of our election process in this nation. The

disenfranchisement of voters in the federal electoral process remains a chilling

threat to the integrity of our democratic system in America.

Mr. Chairman, it was Alexander Hamilton in his Federalist Papers who recognized the ‘‘plain proposition, that EVERY GOVERNMENT OUGHT TO CONTAIN

IN ITSELF THE MEANS OF ITS OWN PRESERVATION.’’ The right to vote, and

to fully exercise that vote, is a vital component of our collective preservation.

On November 7th, 2000, only a fraction of Americans were able to exercise their

right to vote and have those votes counted, while thousands, and perhaps even millions of voters were denied this constitutional right as guaranteed by the Fifteenth

Amendment. It is horrifying to me that such systemic mistakes were made in this

election. We must address this today. But beyond these mistakes, there have been

serious allegations of violations of the Sections 2 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act of

1965, 42 U.S.C. sec. 1973, which mandates the obligation and responsibility of the

Congress to provide appropriate implementation of the guarantees of the Fifteenth

Amendment to the Constitution, which states ‘‘the fundamental principle that the

right to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the states or the federal government

on account of race or color.’’ Yet we know today, that such violations of fundamental

voting rights did occur during the November 7th elections throughout the nation.

These irregularities also raise potential violations of several provisions of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, 42 U.S.C. sec. 1973gg-5(a) which affirms the

right of every U.S. citizen to cast a ballot and have that ballot be counted. These

must be protected and enforced without compromise and without regard to the voter’s race.

Victims and witnesses to Election Day irregularities and discriminatory practices

at voting precincts came forward in significant numbers to tell their stories of how

their votes were discarded and their voices silenced. My office remains inundated

with countless letters, phone calls, and e-mails of stories of violations, and demands

that justice and order be restored to this process.

If this democracy governed by the people, for the people means anything at all,

we must listen to the voices of the people spoken through their votes, which is guaranteed by the United States Constitution.

Last month, the Democratic Caucus Special Committee on Election Reform held

its second public hearing in San Antonio, Texas to study these election irregularities

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and to seek solutions. There, we heard from law enforcement, poll workers, educators, civil rights organizations, state and federal legislators, and disenfranchised

voters.

Testimony heard from disenfranchised voters recounted the following:

1. That citizens who were properly registered were denied the right to vote because election officials could not find their names on the precinct rolls and that

some of these voters went to their polling place with registration identification cards

but still were denied the right to vote.

2. That registered voters were denied the right to vote because of minor discrepancies and clerical errors between the name appearing on the registration lists and

the name on their identification.

3. That first-time voters who sent in voter registration forms prior to the state’s

deadline for registration were denied the right to vote because their registration

forms were not processed and their names did not appear on the precinct rolls.

4. That African-Americans voters were singled out for criminal background checks

at some precincts and that one voter who had never been arrested was denied the

right to vote after being told that he had a prior felony conviction.

5. That African-American voters were required to show photo identification while

white voters at the same precincts were not subjected to the same requirement.

6. That voters who requested absentee ballots did not receive them but were denied the right to vote when they went to the precinct in person on Election Day.

7. That hundreds of absentee ballots of registered voters in various counties

throughout the nation were improperly rejected by the Supervisor of Elections and

not counted.

8. That African-American voters who requested assistance at the polls were denied assistance.

9. That African-American voters who requested the assistance of a volunteer CREOLE/ENGLISH speaker who were willing to translate the ballot for limited proficient voters were denied such assistance.

Mr. Chairman, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that ‘‘The United States is a constitutional democracy. Its organic law grants to all citizens a right to participate in

the choice of elected officials without restriction by any state because of race.’’ Lane v. Wilson, 307 U.S. 268, 275 (1939). This is clearly a task for the federal government

because federal guarantees in federal elections are at stake.

The evidence that more people went to the polls in Florida to vote for Al Gore

than went to vote for George W. Bush is substantial. I am not alone in believing

that a full and fair hand recount would have proven this. It is for these reasons

that a full investigation by the Attorney General is in order. However, although a

letter sent to President Bush by virtually every House Democrat, called on the administration to ‘‘provide essential guidance and leadership on a national problem.’’

Today, we are still without such leadership.

So what can be done to remedy these problems for the future? Since the 2000

presidential election more than 1,500 election reform bills have been introduced in

state legislatures around this nation. The American Civil Liberties Union and other

organizations have been filing suits in California and in other states demanding

that uniform methods of casting and counting ballots be put in place. I applaud

these efforts, and would like to recognize, for example, the recent election reform

efforts of the Florida legislature to eliminate outdated punch card technologies, and

legislation signed last month by Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes requiring that every precinct install up-to-date touch-screen voting machines by the next presidential election. These efforts are a step in the right direction, and I believe that outdated technology is a large part of the problem.

In my state of Texas, 14 counties still use ‘‘punch card systems’’ like those used

in Florida during the 2000 presidential election. In Texas during the 2000 elections

nearly 1.7 million votes were cast statewide using punch card systems with an average of 1.53 percent undervotes and .54 percent overvotes, while over 4 million votes

were cast statewide using modern ‘‘optical scan systems’’ with an average of .51 percent undervotes and .12 percent overvotes. Harris County, which I represent, still

uses the punch card system and had similar rates of error, with nearly 1 million

votes cast and 1.51 percent undervotes and .67 percent overvotes. These numbers

suggest that the newer technologies reduce mistakes, and may even expedite increased volume of votes cast.

One study done by the House Government Reform Committee analyzed upgrading

voting technology in Detroit, having the highest poverty rate of any U.S. city, as

well as one of the highest minority populations. It studied the effects of voter education and the replacement of the antiquated punch card machines, such as those

used in Florida, with new optical scanner machines that let voters know when the

voter made a mistake and gave the voter an opportunity to fix it. The results of

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this study are staggering. The percentage of uncounted votes for President in Detroit decreased by almost two-thirds, from almost 50 percent above the national average in the 1996 election in which punch cards were used, to almost 50 percent

below the national average in the 2000 election in which the new machines were

used. Detroit also reduced the percentage of uncounted votes significantly, from 7

percent in precincts with high rates of uncounted votes in 1996, to less than 1 percent using the new machines in 2000.

Finally, even districts with increased turnout where large numbers of inexperienced or infrequent voters showed up, had low rates of uncounted ballots. For example, in the 18th Congressional District of Texas which I represent, turnout increased

by over 1000 votes between 1996 and 2000, yet the rates of uncounted votes for

President decreased from 2.9 percent to 0.8 percent.

Another necessary improvement is to ensure ‘‘provisional voting’’ in every election

so that any voter wrongfully eliminated from voting rolls because of a haphazard

or mistaken voter felony ‘‘purge’’ may vote and have that vote counted. The ‘‘purging’’ process includes eliminating a person’s name from the voting rolls when that

person has not voted recently, thus requiring the person to re-register before voting

again. This is particularly problematic because voters are often not notified when

their names have been purged. As a result, when the person arrives at the polls

to vote, he or she is denied access. We need to change this practice so that voters

are allowed, at the polling place, to promptly remedy the error, vote, and have that

vote counted.

We also need to encourage our young people to get involved in the voting process,

and begin hiring more young people at the polling locations. In order for there to

be true electoral reform, our youth must take a more active roll, and we must give

them the tools and the opportunity to do so.

Also needed is education. We must educate those who work at the polls and in

the local precincts, so that they can anticipate problems beforehand, and prepare.

For example, in precincts where there are large numbers of Creole-speaking people,

workers should be informed so that they can provide ample ballots printed in Creole, or to ensure that there are poll workers onsite who speak Creole. Workers

should also be educated in the newer voting technologies that are developing.

We must also educate our law enforcement officers, so that they understand the

legalities and cultural sensitivities inherent in the voting process, and do not inadvertently interfere.

We must also educate the media so they are more sensitive to the influence and

impact that their reporting has on people who have not yet made it to the polls.

Many people, myself included, believe that the media played a key roll in last year’s

election by calling the election too early for Al Gore and Joe Lieberman, which resulted in many people not going to the polls to vote, believing that their vote would

not have an effect on the election.

And last, we must educate and empower our voting citizens, so that they know

their rights, understand how the voting process works, and can operate the newer

technologies that are anticipated in the near future.

To help facilitate greater and more regular voter turnout, I strongly believe that

we need to make election day a national holiday in order to reconcile employment

commitments, which keep many people from voting or participating in this important election process. People should not be alienated from our democratic process

simply because they cannot afford to take off work to vote. That’s why I introduced

H.R. 934 in Congress on March 7, 2001, establishing National Election Day on the

second Tuesday of November, in presidential election years as a legal public holiday.

This bill will merely federalize what some states have done with great success, so

that employees in the private sector will be able to exercise their constitutional right

to vote or take part in the electoral process as election volunteers with no restraints.

Everyone should be able to afford to cast his or her vote. As a nation, we simply

cannot afford not to.

I have also introduced H.R 60, the Secure Democracy for All Americans Act,

which would develop greatly needed uniform standards which may be adopted by

the states for the administration of elections for federal office by calling on the establishment of a Commission on the Comprehensive Study of Voting Procedures to

study and report to the President and Congress on all issues relating to voting procedures in federal, state, and local elections.

In addition, I have drafted a bill that would modify the Secure Democracy for all

Americans Act by assigning the Federal Election Commission the role of providing

grants to states and local communities to enable them to efficiently implement this

study.

Finally, I have recently founded the bipartisan Congressional Election Caucus to

enable all members of Congress to engage in a serious review and dialog of the elecVerDate 03-FEB-2003 10:41 Jun 28, 2004 Jkt 088707 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 D:\DOCS\88707S~1.TXT SSC1 PsN: SSC1
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tion process in this nation as a recognition of the disenfranchisement of voters who

lost their fundamental rights as citizens of the United States, to vote because of

voter confusion, poor voter machinery, or work commitments.

While statutes were not enacted during this past election to prevent minorities

from voting, deliberate actions were taken that prevented minorities, women, the elderly and thousands of Americans from invoking their constitutional right to vote.

These actions demonstrate a grave injustice upon our democratic system. Sadly,

those around the world who look to us as a symbol of justice and freedom have

borne witness to one of our darkest hours, and the dimming of our great light that

leads their way.

We must not let these actions be revived again. To do so would wash away the

blood stains, and tears of our founders, our ancestors, our parents and even ourselves who have fought for the right of every citizen’s voice to be heard regardless

of race, ethnicity, gender, age, and yes, even political affiliation.

The Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution tells us that ‘‘The Congress shall

have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.’’ So, in the words

of the Reverend Martin Luther King: ‘‘[T]he hour is late. And the clock of destiny

is ticking out. We must act now before it is too late.’’ Thank you.

[From The Dallas Morning News, April 21, 2001]

VOTER PURGES ARE SUBJECT OF PANEL HEARING: COMMITTEE CONSIDERS WAYS

CITIZENS CAN STAY REGISTERED

(By Carolyn Barta)

SAN ANTONIO. Texas purged 750,000 voters from its rolls last year, a congressional election committee learned Friday, prompting members to ask how Congress

can make it easier for voters to remain registered.

‘‘I’m going to research that question,’’ said U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, after hearing a naturalized citizen tell her story—through a translator—of

being turned away from a San Antonio polling place in November.

Ms. Lee is a member of the Democratic Caucus Special Committee on Election Reform, which heard testimony Friday on Texas’ election problems and procedures at

the second of several hearings planned across the country.

The committee’s study was prompted by election irregularities in Florida and

could result in recommendations on a wide variety of federally imposed reforms.

Thousands of voters in Florida claimed, among other complaints, that they were not

allowed to vote at polling places because their names did not appear on registration

lists.

Carmen R. Martinez told the committee that she thought she would always be

able to vote after she registered the day she became a U.S. citizen but was turned

away because she had not renewed her registration.

‘‘I didn’t know I had to register twice,’’ she said in Spanish.

Secretary of State Henry Cuellar, who provided the number of Texans taken off

the voter rolls, explained that voters were purged at the county level if they didn’t

vote in the last two federal elections and did not renew their registration.

Tommy T.C. Calvert, president of the Neighborhood First Alliance, a coalition of

25 community groups, told of other minorities who were not allowed to vote because

their address or voting location had changed or their registration had been purged

or lost.

‘‘It was eye-opening to me,’’ Ms. Lee said of the testimony.

Mr. Cuellar said Texans who believe they are eligible to vote can sign an affidavit

at the polling place and vote. But citizens testifying said many Hispanic and black

voters don’t know their rights and leave without casting a ballot.

‘‘If you can sign an affidavit, why can’t we have same-day registration?’’ asked

U.S. Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, D-San Antonio, another committee member.

Mr. Cuellar said the Texas Legislature has repeatedly rejected proposals to allow

same-day registration.

‘‘I think you need to look at whether the purging law is burdensome,’’ Ms. Lee

said. ‘‘If you make an effort to register sometime in your life, you should continue

to have the right to vote whether you’ve skipped an election or not.’’ One issue being

reviewed by the Democratic committee, headed by U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, DCalif., is whether Congress can force states to have ‘‘provisional ballots’’ to ensure

the right to vote. Those ballots could be cast but not counted until the voters’ authenticity later can be verified.

11

Mr. Cuellar also told the committee that Texas had almost 50,000 undervotes—

ballots on which no vote for president was recorded—and 14,000 overvotes—ballots

with more than one choice for president marked. Those votes were thrown out.

The undervotes made up 1.5 percent of punch-card votes, the system blamed for

many problems in Florida, and less than 1 percent of optical-scan paper ballots and

the newest technology of touch-screen voting.

The committee is considering a variety of issues, including standardized ballots,

uniform poll closing times, a national election day holiday, weekend voting, voter

education, and federal funds to allow local and state jurisdictions to upgrade equipment.

Friday’s meeting was the only scheduled for Texas. Future hearings are planned

for Florida, Chicago and several locations in the South.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you very much, Congresswoman Lee.

I want to thank you and the Congressional Black Caucus for your

leadership and commitment to this issue. There seems to be a belief that interest in this issue has largely died out here on the Hill.

I think your statement today indicates that at least there are some

Members of Congress that do not agree with that.

We intend to mark up this legislation, which you and I would

agree is a modest, very modest piece of legislation, and try and get

it passed through the Senate. I do not know where the controversy

would reside. I would look forward to doing what I can to help you

with H.R. 60 and with other measures.

I also agree with you that—and I would be interested in what

our other witnesses have to say—unless there is some funding for

some of the poorer parts of America, that it is highly unlikely that

they will be able to make the technological changes which are necessary so that every vote has an equal opportunity to be voted no

matter how high or low income area the voting procedure takes

place.

So I want to thank you very much. I thank you for your compelling statement. I want to thank you for your leadership, and I hope

that we can contradict the prevailing view in some quarters that

the Congress has lost interest in this issue.

I thank you, Congresswoman Lee.

Ms. LEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. If I might close

by simply encouraging you, as you are already encouraged. I believe that the American people still have a passion from this issue.

The hearings that we have held, both the Congressional Black Caucus and the Democratic Caucus on the House side, when we have

visited in jurisdictions just plain citizens, if you will, that are not

wearing any particular banner, come up and say: We want some

solutions.

I think you are absolutely right. If the federal government does

not collaborate with funding, rural communities that are still using

paper ballots, and even though they may be smaller in population,

probably will not be able to change their structures if they do not

have the incentive grants or collaborative dollars that will be very

helpful to us.

So I think that is extremely important, along with, if you will,

the work that I hope the Civil Rights Division of the Attorney General’s office will do to clear up the ills or the concerns of what occurred with some of the activities in Florida. Without again retracing the steps of that election, I would like to just look at how we

can be better at allowing everyone the right to vote without intimidation or fear.

12

So I thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you again, and thank you for coming to

visit with us. I look forward to working with you as we make at

least some measurable progress on this issue before the 2002 election. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Lee.

Ms. LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Our first panel is: the Honorable Betsey Bayless,

who is the Secretary of State of the State of Arizona; and the Honorable John Willis, Secretary of State of the State of Maryland. I

want to thank both of you for being here. The Honorable Betsey

Bayless is an old and dear friend.

John Willis, I want to thank you for being here and I want to

mention that we had a wonderful town hall meeting not long ago

at St. John’s after I visited with members of the legislature, where

I was very warmly received, and I appreciate that—far more warmly received than when I went to school there. I thank you.

Betsey, we will begin with you. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF HON. BETSEY BAYLESS,

SECRETARY OF STATE, STATE OF ARIZONA

Ms. BAYLESS. Mr. Chairman, good morning. I appreciate the opportunity to present my views regarding election reform.

While election——

The CHAIRMAN. By the way, maybe you might make some remarks, if you could, at the end of your prepared remarks concerning Congresswoman Lee’s comments, if you could. I know you

were paying attention to them. Thank you. Go ahead.

Ms. BAYLESS. Mr. Chairman, in fact, I think I will cover some of

the points in my prepared remarks, and then I have got several

other things to say.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Ms. BAYLESS. While elections should be conducted by state and

local officials, there are several ways that the federal government

could assist the states in improving the accuracy, integrity, and

uniformity of voting throughout the United States. First, federal

funding is necessary to enable states to upgrade voting equipment

and eliminate punchcards.

Second, federal standards for voting should be updated, including

standards for Internet voting systems.

It has been 6 months since election day 2000. Hardly a day goes

by without someone saying to me, ‘‘Could the problems of Florida

happen in Arizona?’’ My standard answer is the following: Arizona

has excellent laws and uniform voting procedures in place. However, the voting equipment used in parts of Arizona needs to be improved to equalize voting and to reduce the rate of voter error in

attempting to cast a vote.

Since 1979, the Arizona Secretary of State has been required by

statute to adopt a procedures manual to provide correctness, impartiality, and uniformity in the conduct of elections and tabulations of results. While our laws and procedures in Arizona work

well to provide uniformity, ease of voting would be improved with

a modest amount of funding, actually $3.4 million.

In 1994, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, of which I

was a member, voted to purchase optical scanning election equipVerDate 03-FEB-2003 10:41 Jun 28, 2004 Jkt 088707 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 D:\DOCS\88707S~1.TXT SSC1 PsN: SSC1
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ment for $6.4 million. Four other counties followed Maricopa County’s lead, so now 80 percent of the voters in Arizona utilize marked

paper ballots with optical scanning equipment. Ten of the counties

in Arizona, representing 20 percent of the voters, still rely on

punchcards. Cost is obviously the controlling factor for continuation

of punchcard voting in these ten counties.

I believe that equalizing voting systems across our state is the

right thing to do because our punchcard counties are primarily the

rural areas of the state. Many of our minority voters live in these

counties. The 2000 Census shows that a large percentage of the

residents of our punchcard counties are Hispanic and Native American. For example, Santa Cruz County has over 80 percent voters

which are Hispanic. In Navajo County, over 47 percent of the voters are Native Americans. Federal funding will enable Arizona to

eliminate punchcards.

It is also time to update the federal standards for voting equipment. During my administration as Secretary of State, I have required companies to obtain certification from the Independent Testing Authority that their equipment, software and hardware, meet

the Federal Election Commission’s voting standards. These standards were adopted in 1993. It is crucial that they be updated and

also that they address standards for Internet voting systems to ensure accuracy, integrity, auditability, security, and ballot secrecy.

I believe all Arizonans should be voting on equipment that minimizes the possibility of accidental overvotes. I believe all Arizonans

deserve to have confidence that their votes count. I believe we must

eliminate punchcard voting in Arizona by the 2002 general election.

With matching funds from the federal government, and up-to-date

federal voting equipment standards, we will accomplish these

goals.

Free and fair elections are the foundation of American democracy. Public confidence and trust in the process is the cornerstone

of that foundation. Thank you for your commitment to protect that

freedom and trust.

With regard to the Congresswoman’s comments, many of the

points that she made really involved standardization of procedures.

She talked about punchcards and I think I have talked a little bit

about punchcards, but one of the things that I notice was most

lacking throughout the country was standardized procedures. Now,

as I said in my testimony, Arizona for quite some time has had a

procedures manual which has the force of law with the 15 counties

in Arizona. The counties follow that to the letter. We update it all

the time. It says specifically—it calls for an inspection board in the

counties that have the punchcards so that the inspection board will

inspect every ballot and will know when to remove the chad, and

when to leave it on. It dictates how often the machines must be

cleaned out, how they should be tested, and so on and so forth with

regard to both punchcard and also with the optical scan voting.

I think it would be very helpful to have some standards produced

by the federal government, not only dealing with equipment, but

dealing with all aspects of voting, so that as we move forward——

The CHAIRMAN. Including procedures for purging of the voting

rolls?

14

Ms. BAYLESS. Well, actually, Mr. Chairman, we include that as

well in our procedure. It covers everything. In Arizona it is very,

very difficult to even get a voter onto the inactive list. Now, once

a voter is on the inactive list, an individual may, if that person

shows up at the polls, the individual may vote what we call a ‘‘ballot to be verified.’’

Now, the Congresswoman called it a provisional ballot. It is exactly the same thing that we call a ‘‘ballot to be verified.’’

People make their assertion and fill out, complete the ballot, and

that is checked at a subsequent time.

So, in some states—it is not just Arizona, but in some states—

these kinds of issues are covered by standards. I think it would be

very helpful to have some standards published by the federal government. Of course, it should be voluntary that the states would

buy into the standards. But I can tell you from Arizona’s standpoint, we think it would be very worthwhile.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Bayless follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. BETSEY BAYLESS, SECRETARY OF STATE, STATE OF ARIZONA

Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the committee—good morning. I appreciate this opportunity to present my views regarding election reform.

While elections should be conducted by state and local officials, there are several

ways that the federal government could assist the states in improving the accuracy,

integrity and uniformity of voting throughout the United States. First, federal funding is necessary to enable states to upgrade voting equipment and eliminate punch

cards. Second, federal standards for voting equipment should be updated, including

standards for Internet voting systems.

It has been 6 months since Election Day 2000. Hardly a day goes by without

someone asking me, ‘‘Could the problems of Florida happen in Arizona?’’ My standard answer is the following: Arizona has excellent laws and uniform voting procedures in place; however, the voting equipment used in parts of Arizona needs to be

improved to equalize voting and to reduce the rate of voter error in attempting to

cast a vote.

Arizona has a solid foundation of long-established statewide uniform procedures

that govern the conduct of elections. Since 1979, the Arizona Secretary of State has

been required by statute to adopt a Procedures Manual to provide correctness, impartiality and uniformity in the conduct of elections and the tabulation of results.

This manual has the force and effect of law. In fact, it is a criminal offense to violate

the Arizona Secretary of State’s Election Procedures Manual.

In Arizona, the Secretary of State’s Office is also required to conduct a mandatory

training course in election laws, procedures and ethics every 2 years for the certification of county election officials and employees.

While our laws and procedures in Arizona work well to provide some uniformity

in our state, ease of voting would be improved with a modest amount of funding

to upgrade voting equipment. We have estimated that an investment of $3.4 million

would provide optical scan voting systems for our counties that are currently using

punch card systems.

In 1994, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, of which I was a member,

voted to purchase optical scanning election equipment for $6.5 million. Prior to that

time, Maricopa County used punch card equipment. The large volume of ballots

would heat up and burn out the tabulating machines. Election results were delayed

until the next morning. We had had enough of punch cards.

In addition to speed of obtaining results, one of the benefits of optical scan tabulation is that when a voter casts a ballot at the polling place, the scanning machine

will inform the voter of any accidental overvotes, which would invalidate the votes

for a particular office. The voter then has the option of voting a new ballot or directing the election official to accept the ballot.

Four other counties followed Maricopa County’s lead. Now, 80 percent of the voters in Arizona utilize marked paper ballots with optical scanning equipment. Ten

of the counties, representing 20 percent of the voters, still rely on the punch cards.

Cost is obviously the controlling factor for continuation of punch card voting in ten

counties in Arizona.

15

I believe that equalizing voting systems across our state is the right thing to do

because our punch card counties are primarily the rural areas of the state. Many

of our minority voters live in these counties. The 2000 Census shows that large percentages of the residents of our punch card counties are Native Americans and Hispanics. For example:

Cochise County, 30.7 percent of the population is Hispanic/Latino

Greenlee County, 43.1 percent of the population is Hispanic/Latino

Pinal County, 29.9 percent of the population is Hispanic/Latino

Santa Cruz County, 80.8 percent of the population is Hispanic/Latino

Yuma County, 50.5 percent is of the population is Hispanic/Latino

Coconino County, 28.5 percent of the population is Native American

Navajo County, 47.7 percent of the population is Native American

In Navajo County only 45.9 percent of the population is White/Caucasian.

And finally, just a few weeks ago one of Arizona’s cities experienced a serious

problem with punch cards. My state election director was appointed by the superior

court as a special master to oversee a re-tabulation of the results of a mayoral and

city council race. She discovered that the coded punch cards for two precincts were

inadvertently switched with each other, causing the votes to be counted for the

wrong candidates. Neither the pollworkers, nor the voters, could determine by looking at the ballots that they were key-punch coded for a different precinct. An experienced county election official, who was conducting the election for the city, did not

pick up this error during the first count of the ballots. After the ballots were retabulated according to the precincts in which they had actually been voted, the outcomes of the mayoral and city council races were reversed.

This never would have happened with optical scan equipment. They are not only

more user-friendly for the voters—they are more user-friendly for election officials.

This incident has only added to voter distrust of punch card voting in Arizona. Federal funding will enable Arizona to eliminate punch cards.

It is also time to update the federal standards for voting equipment. I have always supported the adoption of federal standards for voting equipment. Before

equipment may be purchased for use in state and federal elections in Arizona, the

Secretary of State must certify the equipment. During my administration, I have required companies to first obtain certification from the Independent Testing Authority that their equipment’s software and hardware meet the Federal Election Commission’s Voting Standards. These standards were adopted in 1993. It is crucial that

they be updated and also that they address standards for Internet voting systems

to ensure accuracy, integrity, auditability, security and ballot secrecy before any

new system is used in binding elections for federal and state offices.

I believe all Arizonans should be voting on equipment that minimizes the possibility of accidental overvotes. I believe all Arizonans deserve to have confidence that

their votes count. I believe we must eliminate punch card voting in Arizona by the

2002 General Election. With matching funds from the federal government and upto-date federal voting equipment standards, we will accomplish these goals.

Free and fair elections are the foundation of American Democracy. Public confidence and trust in the process is the cornerstone of that foundation. Thank you

for your commitment to protect that freedom and trust.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Mr. Willis, welcome.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN T. WILLIS,

SECRETARY OF STATE, STATE OF MARYLAND

Mr. WILLIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to commend the Committee for being one of the first Committees on the

Hill on March 7 to address this issue, and, I think, addressing it

in the proper tone and the proper manner.

Also, your appearance in Annapolis caused quite a stir. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend, but I know Delegate Hurson and

some of the other leaders in campaign reform in the State of Maryland appreciate your attendance. They will be persisting and, hopefully, they will be as successful as you have been here on the Hill

in Annapolis.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

16

Mr. WILLIS. As I prepared today I wondered how I could be constructive and positive, noting that you wanted to focus on solutions.

The State of Maryland has just gone through this process. What

happens as we all look at this issue is we tend to think all the voting systems as the one that we used, or the one that we use in our

state or what we are familiar with. The 2000 election showed there

is this great disparity throughout the country and, even among jurisdictions in the state of what goes on in the conduct of elections.

I have distributed a written statement to you. We have three

minor corrections, edits, we would like to make to that. With your

permission, I would like to have that entered into the record.

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection.

Mr. WILLIS. It is a pleasure to be here with Betsey Bayless. We

were on a National Association of Counties committee together

some years ago. The second thing is, as I indicated, we just went

through this process. Our governor, even before the election was

determined, appointed me as Chair of a committee in Maryland to

look at the Maryland procedures and laws.

Maryland is among one of the best states in the country in capturing voter intent. In the 1996 election we were the third best

state in the country in terms of the rate of error. We even exceeded

that in 2000. But I think Maryland is an interesting case study.

Our full 124-page is on the web. It might be instructive to you and

your Committee in its work.

The basic finding was that voting systems do make a difference

and that procedures, as Secretary Bayless said, do make a significant difference. When I do election studies—I teach part-time at

the University of Baltimore right now and have been involved in

this subject matter for 20, 25 years—I do 20-year studies. We did

a 20-year study in Maryland and it quite clearly showed 19 of our

counties have changed systems in the last 6 years.

We have reduced the error rate in Maryland by two-thirds as a

result of 19 of our 24 jurisdictions modernizing their equipment

over the last decade. There is no question that you can reduce error

rate. It is not a question of spending a lot of time. It is a question,

quite frankly, of resources, training, and proper procedures to implement the system.

But to give you a perspective on what that means, the State of

Maryland had over 2 million voters. We had 10,553 who did not express a preference for president. That is 0.518 percent. At the polling place it was less. It was .450 percent. I mean, it was very, very

low, and it is directly related to what Secretary Bayless had indicated: improvement in machinery.

We publish through my office, the Secretary of State’s office, the

Code of Maryland Regulations and the procedures for the six different types of systems that we use in Maryland are, in fact,

spelled out in the Code of Maryland Regulations.

What we have recommended in Maryland is that we move toward a unified statewide system, because even in Maryland we

have disparities that occurred among our voting systems. Montgomery County, which I am sure you are familiar with, north of the

District, is one of our wealthiest jurisdictions. It is the last remaining punchcard county in the State of Maryland. Now, we are talkVerDate 03-FEB-2003 10:41 Jun 28, 2004 Jkt 088707 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 D:\DOCS\88707S~1.TXT SSC1 PsN: SSC1
17

ing about a county that is in the top 15 in education, the top 15

in income, the top——

The CHAIRMAN. Well, how do you account for that?

Mr. WILLIS. They use punchcards.

The CHAIRMAN. How do you account for the fact that they have

not changed?

Mr. WILLIS. They have not changed because they bought their

system over 25 years ago. They were in the front edge of technology. They do not use the VotoMatic. They use a DataVote kind

of a system. Twenty-five years ago, that was an advance, and they

were a growing population at that time and they were interested

in ‘‘how can we process more quickly the ballots.’’

The CHAIRMAN. But is it not generally the rule that the oldest

technology is in the poorest counties?

Mr. WILLIS. Well, it is still true with some of our old lever machines that are in rural counties. In Dorchester County and Allegany County—in the mountains—we have old lever machines. Most

of the technology changes in Maryland, as I said, have occurred recently. In addition, what our counties have done, that gets into a

solution, is that they have leased their machines as opposed to purchase, which reduces the cost tremendously.

But the point I wanted to make about Montgomery County is

that in Montgomery County, which has these high indices, they are

the only county in Maryland that uses the punchcard, 27 percent

of our votes that were not counted came out of Montgomery County. It is directly related to technology. We have one precinct, a senior citizen precinct in Montgomery County, that had more ‘‘no

votes’’ than votes that were not counted in 8 other Maryland counties. The reason is simply the technology employed by the seniors

that live there was inadequate to meet the needs of those seniors.

Also in that county we have had some large, new immigrant Hispanic populations that had obvious language problems with that

kind of a system.

Part of the point I would like to make——

The CHAIRMAN. Your argument is made for voter education.

Mr. WILLIS. Well, it is not just voter education, because it is the

system used to do it. We have similar population groups in other

jurisdictions that do not have that problem, because you can have

technology that prevents overvoting (Baltimore City). We converted

in Baltimore City to direct recording electronic (DRE) voting system. You cannot overvote. DRE systems can be adapted both to the

disability community and language needs. You can program for different languages.

Secretary Cox and I—and I see our former Secretary of State,

Senator Cleland, has joined us. Secretary Cox and I have talked

about this at great length and she has recommended basically the

same thing that my committee has recommended, that we move toward an electronic kind of a process, which will minimize voter

error.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you think the best technology is the

touchscreen technology?

Mr. WILLIS. I think ultimately that is the direction we will move.

I made reference in my printed testimony to the debate that we

had in this country 65 years ago about paper ballots versus voting

18

machines. If you look at the substance of that debate, that movement from paper ballots to voting machines, we are having the

same basic discussion now: How is it that we can account for large

numbers of votes, process those votes in an efficient, accurate,

timely manner, and have confidence in the system?

We made that transition. I think we are in that same position

now, moving from punchcards to electronic voting and even to the

optiscans, which do a good job in Maryland, of counting votes and

around the country—as long as they are precinct count, not central

count systems. You can reduce that error rate by improving technology. You certainly could do it.

We do it in every other phase of our business and daily lives. In

one of our committee hearings I pointed out to somebody that the

very person you are trying to help—that Congresswoman Lee and

I have testified about in front of the Black Caucus—is the person

who is working at McDonald’s, who is the deliveryman. What is the

delivery person using when they are coming for Federal Express?

They are punching in numbers electronically. If you go to a restaurant and you order a meal, the person who is waiting on you

uses a touchscreen system.

The public is way ahead of where the election infrastructure is

on this. It is not just a matter of access at home. It is what the

people are using in their daily lives. I think that transition is going

to come.

One other solution that our committee came up with was that we

think the technology is going to change every 3 to 5 years. Therefore, we proposed in the State of Maryland—and the governor for

the first time in the history of the state—provided for state funds.

I asked Secretary Bayless this. Historically, counties have been totally funding elections. We have agreed to fund any new system in

Maryland 50–50, state money and county money.

What we have also suggested is that we look into leasing for the

next 3 to 5 years because we anticipate the technology is going to

be able to change, adapt to this system. I an encouraged by what

I hear from vendors. Major technology companies, Cisco, IBM, some

of the consultant companies, are getting into this market and I

think that we are going to see some dramatic improvements in the

kind of technologies available.

One other point about suggestions——

The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask you and Betsey real quick. You in the

state are willing to provide matching funds. Do you think the federal government should provide matching funds, and if so should

there be a means test? Should we be providing funds for the poorest county in Texas as opposed to Montgomery County? I would

like to ask you both.

Mr. WILLIS. I believe that there should be—yes, that the federal

government should be a partner with state and local governments

in correcting this problem. I think that what I suggested in my

written testimony was that the federal government appropriate $1

per person of voting age to each state. Then those state funds could

be conditioned. I have no problems with putting, one, adherence to

the standards that Secretary Bayless was talking about. I have no

problems with conditioning that.

19

I do think that if you wanted to have a grant process that rewarded, additionally, those lower income jurisdictions I would not

have a problem with that situation whatsoever. But I think that

states, that jurisdictions that do make improvements—for example,

the State of Maryland, the State of Georgia, the State of Florida—

those that are moving ahead ought to be eligible to apply for those

funds. In other words, if we are going to start spending them and

later this fall, in whatever may come out of this between now and

October 1st, that we be eligible to apply for those funds if they met

those certain standards.

The CHAIRMAN. Can I ask if Betsey agrees with that? Do you

agree with that?

Ms. BAYLESS. Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, in Arizona, of course, the 10 counties that I am talking about that have

punchcards are all the low-income rural counties.

The CHAIRMAN. That is generally the case.

Ms. BAYLESS. Yes, that is generally the case. I do think that the

federal government should be a partner with the State of Arizona.

Now, it is hard for me to talk about every other state because,

frankly, I do not understand why some of the more wealthy counties have not moved away from punchcards a long time ago, like

the wealthier counties in Arizona have.

But having said that, I believe we must get rid of punchcards in

the United States, period.

The CHAIRMAN. Proceed, Mr. Willis.

Mr. WILLIS. Senator, just to clarify for my friends in Montgomery

County, because sometimes they get disturbed when I use that example, you have to remember it is a matter of perspective. They

do a wonderful job. Their error rate in Montgomery County is

below 1 percent. They do a very, very good job there.

But even compared to what their demographics would be and

what the rest of the state, you would expect them to be even lower.

That is the point. In the research, you have to watch out when you

use statewide numbers or county numbers. You really have to get

down to the precinct level. The indication is at the precinct level,

even in Montgomery, some of the disparities that the Congresswoman talked about and Secretary Bayless noted will start appearing when you look at the precinct level.

The CHAIRMAN. I got you, okay. Are you finished?

Mr. WILLIS. Yes, sir. The suggestions—this is a topic—you are

passionate about the campaign finance and what you have been

working on throughout all your campaigns. This is a topic that I

have been devoting a lot of time to over the last 20 years. It can

be done. It is a matter of commitment, it is a matter of resources.

It is a matter of voting systems, training, and education.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Willis follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN T. WILLIS, SECRETARY OF STATE,

STATE OF MARYLAND

Mr. Chairman, Senator Hollings, members of the Senate Commerce Committee,

thank you for the invitation to appear before you to discuss the most important relationship under our constitutional structure of government—the relationship between

individual citizens and their representatives. In Federalist Paper No. 22, Alexander

Hamilton closed with the observation:

20

‘‘The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT

OF THE PEOPLE. The streams of national power ought to flow immediately from

that pure, original foundation of all legitimate authority.’’

The 2000 Presidential election highlighted weaknesses in the election process

which threaten the purity of the flow in the political stream from the people to their

governmental leaders. It is, therefore, not only appropriate, but also imperative,

that this Senate Committee, and other legislative bodies at all levels of government,

take necessary, meaningful, and immediate action to guard against further deterioration in the quality of the relationship between citizens and their government.

The right to vote is the essence and foundation of the constitutional framework

of our federal and state governments in the United States. The recognition of the

sanctity and power of the right to vote requires that its exercise not be diminished

or impaired. Accordingly, it is mandatory that all possible steps be taken to guarantee that every eligible citizen in the United States has the unfettered opportunity

to vote and that the mechanics of voting and election procedures facilitate—not frustrate—the free exercise of the right to vote.

The conduct of elections is a complex enterprise. In the 2000 Presidential election,

more than 100 million voters cast ballots on over 700,000 voting machines in over

200,000 polling places throughout the country that were managed by approximately

22,000 election officials and 1.4 million part-time election workers. On election day,

1,940,089 Marylanders voted in 1,666 precincts at 1,459 polling places throughout

the state, and 96,366 absentee ballots were counted within several days thereafter.

Hundreds of state and county election officials, along with over 17,000 election

judges stationed at the polling places, were responsible for the administration of the

recent election in Maryland.

Despite the size and scope of election activity, and the important consequences of

elections for citizens, the infrastructure for the administration of elections lags well

behind the support systems for routine personal, commercial, governmental, and social interaction in our nation and respective states. Billions of transactions utilizing

modern technology are conducted every day by U.S. citizens with a high degree of

confidence and user satisfaction. Citizen-voters should have the same level of confidence and satisfaction in the accuracy and capability of the systems and equipment used to exercise the most fundamental right—the right to vote. The technologies used for obtaining money at the ATM, pumping gas at the neighborhood

service station, making airplane reservations, or checking out of the supermarket

should be available for exercising the most important and fundamental right in our

country.

Elections in this country should be administered by comprehensive election management systems which would provide electronic linkage through all phases of election administration—from voter registration before the election to the voting machines in polling places on election day and from the initial tabulation of results to

the official certification of the election by the appropriate reviewing entity. Assisted

by adequate resources and advanced technology, a comprehensive election management system can ensure accurate election outcomes and enhance public confidence

in the election process.

A central component of the current election process is voter registration which the

U.S. Congress has long recognized in the passage of landmark legislation such as

the 1965 Voting Rights Act, as amended, the 1984 Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act, the 1986 Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, and the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (the ‘‘Motor Voter’’ Act). Modern technology can be employed to ensure compliance with these federal laws as

well as make voter registration easier and more convenient for the citizen-voter. Online access to voter registration information and applications, expanded opportunity

to register at schools, government offices and public places, and electronic transfer

of registration between jurisdictions can be securely accomplished. Election administrators can also benefit from greater use of technology in the voter registration process with improved databases, verification of information with non-election administrative agencies, and the sharing of information across jurisdictional lines.

For example, the State of Maryland began constructing in 1998 a statewide voter

registration system as part of its comprehensive election management system. It is

expected that the system will be functional by December 2001 and will allow realtime access to voter registration rolls by county and state election officials. This capability will ensure that a voter is not registered in more than one jurisdiction,

interface with other governmental agencies in Maryland (e.g., the Motor Vehicle Administration and the court system), and enable Maryland to cross reference its voter

registration database with our neighboring states. With additional resources, Maryland envisions having a computer in each polling place with access to the statewide

voter registration system to ensure that the voter is at the correct polling place and

21

1 A ‘‘no vote’’ for President represents the number of voters not recorded as voting for President. A ‘‘no vote’’ includes voters who deliberately did not cast a vote for President, who voted

for more than one for President, or who may not have had their vote accurately counted by the

voting system candidate utilized by the voter. 2See pp. 19-28 of the Report and Recommendations of the Special Committee on Voting Systems and Elections Procedures in Maryland (February 2001) for a more complete evaluation of

the voting systems used in Maryland.

to verify the signature on the voter authority card signed at the polling place with

the signature on the voter registration application originally submitted by the voter.

During the recently concluded session of the Maryland General Assembly, legislation was adopted in response to reports of Maryland citizens being unable to vote

after completing a change of address form at Maryland’s Motor Vehicle Administration. Maryland Senate Bill 740 and Maryland House Bill 1458 will simplify the

voter registration process for a voter moving from one jurisdiction to another within

Maryland by providing for a simple transfer of registration rather than a ‘‘drop and

add’’ process. In addition, new statutory and administrative provisions will streamline the transfer of voter information between the Motor Vehicle Administration and

the Maryland State Board of Elections.

In addition to needed improvements in the voter registration process, the 2000

Presidential Election dramatically highlighted the importance of the voting system

technology used to cast and count votes. Maryland’s Governor Parris N. Glendening

appointed a Special Committee on Voting Systems and Elections Procedures in

Maryland on December 4, 2000, before the 2000 Presidential Election was judicially

determined, to evaluate the voting systems and election procedures in Maryland, review existing standards for recounts and contested elections, recommend appropriate funding levels to provide Maryland with accurate, convenient and reliable

voting systems, and recommend statutory and regulatory changes to ensure full and

fair elections. The full 124 page Report and Recommendations of the Special Committee can be accessed from the Office of the Secretary of State’s website at http: /

/ www.sos.state.md.us.

As a result of its 2 months of research, study and work, the Special Committee

confirmed that the type of voting system used by a jurisdiction does make a difference in the accuracy of the vote count and that election procedures do affect the

quality of the election results. During the past decade, 19 Maryland jurisdictions replaced mechanical lever and punchcard voting systems with optical scan or Direct

Recording Electronic (electronic touchscreen ballot) voting systems. The change to

technologically more advanced voting systems has been accompanied by a significant reduction in the percentage of overvotes and undervotes for the highest office

on the ballot. See Exhibits 1 and 2 showing the percentage and number of ‘‘no votes’’

for President in Maryland subdivisions and by voting system from 1980-2000.1

With 2,036,455 voters participating in the 2000 Presidential election in Maryland,

only 10,553 voters were not recorded as casting a vote for President yielding a low

percentage of unrecorded votes in sharp contrast to the experiences in other states.

This computes to a 0.518 percent percent of ‘‘no vote’’ for the 2000 Presidential election, a nearly two-thirds reduction since the last Presidential election without an

incumbent candidate (1988). It should be noted that at the polling place, the percent

of ‘‘no vote’’ for President in Maryland in the 2000 election was 0.450 percent. The

rate of ‘‘no votes’’ for absentee ballots is generally higher in each election and increases the rate of ‘‘no votes’’ for combined county totals. Modern voting systems,

specifically the precinct count optical scan and Direct Recording Electronic voting

systems, can prevent the voter from ‘‘overvoting’’ a ballot at the polling place and,

in Maryland, have proven to be accurate in vote counting. Maryland’s current and

past experiences with voting systems 2 parallels the experiences around the country

as described hereinbelow by the type of voting system used:

1. The Votomatic stylus punchcard voting system, when used in Maryland from

1980-1992, failed to capture the voter’s intent accurately as evidenced by jurisdictions using these systems consistently having substantially higher percentages of

‘‘no votes’’ for President than the statewide average.

2. The central count Datavote punchcard system was used in the 2000 Presidential Election at the polling places in Montgomery County, Maryland, a large,

wealthy, highly educated suburban county, and for absentee ballots in Allegany

County, a Western Appalachian mountain region county with below statewide average education and income indices. While Montgomery County represented 18.40 percent of the state’s total voter turnout, this upscale jurisdiction accounted for 27.12

percent of the ‘‘no votes’’ in Maryland and reported 2,565 overvotes (in excess of

2,000 more than the rest of the state combined). In Allegany County, 9.9 percent

22

of the absentee ballots were not counted as having a proper vote for President, more

than twice the rate of any other jurisdiction and five times the state average.

3. Although mechanical lever machines prevent overvotes, the machines are no

longer manufactured, replacement parts and service are difficult to obtain, and reviews of precinct level data shows substantial and sporadic variances among precincts in ‘‘no votes’’ cast in each election and for different elections. See Exhibit 3

showing the four precincts in the last three Presidential elections that recorded the

most number of ‘‘no votes’’ in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

4. While precinct count optical scan voting systems have proven generally accurate in counting ballots in Maryland, voter intent can still be difficult to determine

and the potential for preventable voter error exists. Exhibit 4 contains examples of

optical scan ballots where the voter intent is clear but the optical scan voting system would not count some votes cast because the voter’s marks do not fall within

the circle. Optical scan voting systems are not accessible to all individuals with disabilities and do not allow visually impaired individuals to cast a secret ballot.

5. Direct Recording Electronic voting systems (‘‘DRE’’), the most modern voting

equipment available, provide voters with immediate visual feedback, can prevent

overvotes, are capable of creating a paper trail (if necessary for a recount), and can

handle the specialized needs of the voting population, particularly individuals with

disabilities and non-English speaking voters. In Baltimore City, the transition from

mechanical lever machines to AVC Advantage, a Direct Recording Electronic voting

system, was successfully accomplished resulting in a reduction of the percentage of

‘‘no votes’’ from 1.73 percent in 1988 (the last comparable non-incumbent Presidential election) to 0.72 percent in 2000. The disparities between precinct ‘‘no vote’’

rates in Baltimore City has been virtually eliminated with 311 precincts out of 325

having 10 or less ‘‘no votes’’ and with the highest number of ‘‘no votes’’ being 19.

In order to make reasoned correct evaluations and judgments about voting systems, equipment, and election procedures, it is important to ensure the accuracy of

source data and to employ appropriate methodology. Analysis by, and action based

upon, anecdotal evidence should be avoided. In my research, longitudinal studies

and accounting for demographic factors (e.g., education, income, and race) are essential. It is also important to capture census block and precinct level data as aggregating data at the county, state, and national level can mask substantial disparities

among population groups and disguise differentiating circumstances and factors.

Other problems in conducting research careful attention must be given to differences in terminology and procedures used by each of the local election officials

which make adjustments necessary for accurate analysis.

Notwithstanding the comparative accuracy of Maryland’s voting systems, the Special Committee on Voting Systems and Elections Procedures in Maryland recommended a Direct Recording Electronic as the preferred voting system at the polling place and an optical scan voting system for the absentee ballot voting system.

The Maryland General Assembly recently adopted legislation authorizing the state

Board of Elections to select a uniform statewide voting system, and the governor

included funds in a legislatively approved supplemental budget to share the cost of

new voting systems equally with county governments.

The selection of electronic voting systems must be preceded, and accompanied at

every step of implementation, by thorough testing to ensure accurate, reliable, and

secure election results. Maryland and thirty-one (31) other states have included as

part of the state certification process for voting systems the Voluntary Federal Voting Systems Standards developed by the Office of Election Administration and the

National Association of State Election Directors. While these voluntary standards

have been implemented in a majority of states, adequate resources need to be allocated to the Office of Election Administration for continuous updating of the standards as voting system technology evolves.

While the transition to new technology is inevitably resisted for a variety of reasons, employing the most advanced voting systems and equipment is consistent with

our nation’s history of progress and with the ultimate goal of an informed and satisfied citizen-voter. In fact, the contemporary debate over the most appropriate voting

system has a clear historical analogue. As the country’s population grew rapidly,

and suffrage was expanded, the voting system debate in the middle of the twentieth

century was between maintaining very carefully crafted rules for counting paper

ballots and authorizing mechanical lever voting systems. The fundamental nature

of the debate involving accuracy, security of the ballot, and ease of voter use has

not changed. See Exhibit 5: ‘‘Voting Machines Vs. Paper Ballots,’’ The Baltimore

Sun, May 3, 1935, (Early Edition).

In American politics, close elections are not unusual and occur regularly at every

level of government and in every state. In Maryland, the 1800 Presidential election

produced a tie in the state’s electoral votes. In the 1904 Presidential election, the

23

difference between the leading Republican and Democratic state electors was a mere

fifty-one (51) votes. Former Congressman Kweisi Mfume commenced his distinguished career with a narrow three (3) vote primary election victory in a 1979 race

for City Council. Important offices at county and municipal levels of government are

often closely decided and, in some recent instances, have been decided by a single

vote or resulted in a tie vote. The frequent occurrence of close elections demands

that the voting systems and equipment used in elections be accurate and reliable

and that election procedures be open, clearly understood, and fair. In the future,

there will be close elections for statewide offices, the U.S. House of Representatives,

the U.S. Senate and, perhaps again, for President of the United States.

In a speech to the delegates of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 urging an

end to divisiveness and in support of the proposed new governing document, Ben

Franklin observed,

‘‘Much of the strength and efficiency of any government, in procuring and securing

happiness to the people, depends on opinion, on the general opinion of the goodness

of that government, as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its governors.’’

Franklin’s observations ring true today. The citizens’ perception and opinion of

their government and political leaders is based, in large part, on their level of trust

in fair, open, and accurate elections. Improvements in voting systems and election

procedures are therefore a crucial component in promoting the essential relationship

in our democratic form of government between actively engaged citizens and a fair,

responsive government which was cherished by our nation’s founders. In order to

manifest the wisdom and integrity urged by Ben Franklin, a strong federal, state,

and local partnership needs to be forged for election reform.

While, traditionally, elections have been funded by local government, the federal

government as well as state governments should partner with counties and municipalities in the funding of the comprehensive election management systems. Members of the election community know the problems with current election administration and know how to solve them. What these hardworking and dedicated election

officials need are resources to make the necessary changes to improve the administration and conduct of elections in the United States. State and local governments

should not bear alone the full burden of implementation of new technologies for

voter registration and voting systems. The National Association of Secretaries of

State (‘‘NASS’’) adopted on February 6, 2001, a useful resolution to guide federal,

state, and local officials in election reform efforts. See Exhibit 6.

Accordingly, I strongly urge this Senate Committee and the U.S. Congress to seize

the opportunity presented by the increased public awareness resulting from the confusing and uncertain 2000 Presidential Election. I encourage the federal financial

support for state and local election officials and suggest an annual appropriation

from the U.S. Congress of $1.00 to each state per individual of voting age to assist

in the necessary improvements of the equipment, voting systems, and procedures

used in the conduct of federal, state, and local elections. Together, we can take significant, wise steps forward in assuring the integrity of the conduct of elections for

all of the citizens of our country and ensure that the voice of the people is correctly

and unambiguously heard.

SUMMARY OF PROPOSED ELECTION REFORM SOLUTIONS

Recommendations for the U.S. Congress

1. Annual appropriation from the U.S. Congress to each state of $1.00 per individual of voting age to assist in the necessary improvements of the equipment, voting systems, and procedures used in the conduct of federal, state, and local elections.

• Allow federal funds to reimburse those states which have made improvements

to the equipment, voting systems, and procedures since January 1, 2001.

2. Annual appropriation from the U.S. Congress for continuous updating of the

existing Voluntary Federal Voting Systems Standards as voting system technology

evolves.

3. Encourage states to adopt and implement the Voluntary Federal Voting Systems Standards by conditioning federal funds for states on their adoption and implementation.

4. Authorize official election documents to be mailed with first class handling at

the third class postal rate.

5. Assist in the research and development of technology used for voting systems,

equipment, and election procedures.

24

6. Provide funding for the testing of current and future voting systems and equipment.

7. Encourage states to develop statewide voter registration databases.

8. Encourage state and local officials to collect and report election and voter turnout in a consistent and comparable format.

Recommendations for State and Local Governments

1. Implement a uniform statewide voting system or uniform statewide criteria for

the voting systems used in the state. (Maryland recently adopted Senate Bill 833

and House Bill 1458 which authorizes the Maryland State Board of Elections to select a uniform voting system for polling place voting and a uniform voting system

for absentee voting.) Suggested voting system criteria should include:

(a) Present the voter with a ballot where it is easy to recognize all races, candidates, and issues.

(b) Properly record a voter’s ballot choices by preventing overvoting and unintentional undervoting.

(c) Provide the voter with an opportunity to review the ballot choices and, if necessary, correct any ballot errors prior to casting the vote.

(d) Provide individuals with disabilities the ability to cast a secret ballot and the

ability to verify the votes cast.

(e) Provide the voter with the highest degree of secrecy as practicable when casting a ballot.

(f) Allow for precinct count of votes as well as future electronic linkage to a central location to facilitate reporting.

2. Implement a statewide voter registration database with links to the local election officials.

3. Share voter registration lists with neighboring states to ensure that voter registration lists are clean.

4. Authorize ‘‘provisional ballots’’ or ‘‘challenge ballots’’ which provide voters with

the opportunity to vote at the polling place if errors were made in the voter registration process. (Maryland recently adopted Senate Bill 740 and House Bill 1457 which

authorized provisional ballots.)

5. Use computers in each polling place to assist election judges and poll workers

with the election administration. The computer should have access to the statewide

voter registration system to ensure that the voter is at the correct polling place and

could be used to verify the signature on the voter authority card signed at the polling place with the signature on the voter registration application originally submitted by the voter.

6. Implement statewide recount provisions. (The Maryland State Board of Elections adopted statewide regulations for recount procedures for each voting system

used in the state. See Subtitle 12 of Title 33 of the Code of Maryland Regulations.)

7. Require statewide reporting to the Chief Election Official in the state with common definitions and reporting formats. (See Md. Ann. Code art. 33, § 11-401.)

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

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The CHAIRMAN. Well, may I say I appreciate your passion, and

Secretary of State Bayless’ as well. I share that passion, because

if we have campaign finance reform, unless we have a system

where all Americans can be represented, and I think there is a

clear case that can be made that voters in lower income areas of

America have less opportunity for their vote to be counted, then

you can render to a large degree campaign finance reform meaningless, because then more affluent Americans would have more influence in the electoral process.

We are going to have a vote in a few minutes and what I would

like to do is go over and vote. Senator Cleland has a statement and

I think Senator Hollings does. Then I will come back for the next

panel because, as usual, our 15-minute voting period will last approximately a half-an-hour to 45 minutes.

I just have one question for both the witnesses. I want to thank

you. What is the proper role in your view of the federal government

in reforming this election system? I wish you would address the

area of funding, the area of setting standards, the area of setting

requirements, whether they be voluntary or mandatory. I think

once we move forward on this issue there is going to be a degree

of disagreement on exactly what the states’ authorities are and

whether they would be usurped in some respects by the federal

government, because I think traditionally the role of the state has

been paramount in the conduct of those elections.

Ms. Bayless.

Ms. BAYLESS. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, I believe the federal government should provide some matching grants

to states to move them out of punchcards and into higher levels of

technology.

The CHAIRMAN. Should the federal government have the right

then to impose certain standards along with those moneys?

Ms. BAYLESS. Well, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee,

the elimination of punchcards I believe—I believe the federal government should provide some standards to the state. Now, I have

to say that I believe that the adoption of the standards should be

voluntary. I believe most states would do that, because I think we

have seen this past year what happens when you do not have procedures and you do not have uniform procedures.

I will assure you that, from Arizona’s standpoint, we would gladly buy into the federal standards. Of course, we would want to participate.

The CHAIRMAN. But you think they should be voluntary?

Ms. BAYLESS. I believe it should be voluntary, yes, I do, Mr.

Chairman. I believe the standards, the availability of grants—we

have followed the FEC standards since they were originally adopted. We follow the standards with regard to voting equipment. We

follow the Independent Testing Authority on equipment. I believe

that if the FEC standard said no more punchcards we would very

happily follow that as well.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Willis.

Mr. WILLIS. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I think I would suggest a onethird, one-third, one-third: one-third federal government, one-third

state, one-third local. That is why I indicated the $1 per voting person. That would actually in Maryland be about $1 below what our

37

most expensive county is paying right now. If we pool these resources, we can actually lower the cost per voter, if we pool these

resources.

Second, I think you can have funding——

The CHAIRMAN. With voluntary or mandatory standards?

Mr. WILLIS. Well, the National Association of Secretaries of

State—I am vice chair of the election committee—we encourage the

federal government to enhance the voluntary voting system standards. I believe most of the states, 32 of the states, are already

there. We have 18 of the states that have not adopted those standards. I think we can get those other 18.

I know we are going to be doing a national best practices report

at our meeting July 13 to 16 in Little Rock. We will be coming out

with our best practices report after that meeting and we will, of

course, provide that to the Committee.

I was intrigued by Senator Hollings and your jurisdiction in

terms of the Commerce Committee, because I think it is absolutely

appropriate technology for the Commerce Department. Because one

of the things the federal government can do directly is research

and development of voting systems, states and counties themselves

cannot do the testing that may be necessary to develop a system

that is appropriate to their jurisdiction.

That involves a lot of research and development dollars that local

jurisdictions simply do not have. The federal government can do it,

share that information, and share that knowledge with the other

jurisdictions.

Second, you can support the actual testing of the system. There

are laboratories that need assistance in that. We were down to one

laboratory and then with corporate mergers we had some problems.

There is some concern now whether accreditation under the National Association of Election Standards can actually be done in

time for 2002.

Third, you can ask the states to promote state and local collaboration, build statewide voter registration databases. We are in the

process of building a statewide voter registration database. I told

the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania we will share

that with Pennsylvania. We can share our databases together to

make sure that our rolls, our voter registration rolls, are as accurate as possible. We have already shared it with the District of Columbia to make sure that we are doing the best we can.

Third, I think the carrot approach will, in fact, work. I think

there is enough momentum at the state level. I cannot speak for

all jurisdictions, but I certainly know that that is the approach we

used in Maryland with our local jurisdictions, is the carrot approach, and I think that that could be successful.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Senator Hollings, I am going to run over and vote and then come

back. Senator Cleland had an opening statement as well.

Senator HOLLINGS. Let me yield to my distinguished colleague.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

38

STATEMENT OF HON. MAX CLELAND,

U.S. SENATOR FROM GEORGIA

Senator CLELAND. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want

to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Senator Hollings for your continuing leadership on the issue of election reform. I can think of

few more important objectives for the Senate than ensuring the integrity of the voting process and securing the rights of American

citizens to have their voices heard and their votes counted. Our

representative democracy is grounded on the principle of popular

sovereignty. As Thomas Paine put it: ‘‘The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected.’’

Now that we have completed the campaign finance debate, it is

time for election reform debate and action. In February, the National Association of Secretaries of State, the great organization I

used to be part of, adopted an election reform resolution. One of

their recommendations was that Congress should provide funding

to the states to assist the state and local efforts for reform. I could

not agree more.

Several bills have been introduced in the Senate this year, including the McCain-Hollings-Cleland bill—I like the ring of that—

as well as the Brownback-Schumer bill and my own proposal,

which would address the issue of election reform. The Commerce,

Governmental Affairs, and Rules Committees have also begun

hearings on this priority issue.

However, states like Florida, Maryland, and Georgia have already developed election reform plans and need federal assistance

to help their efforts.

My fear, based in large part on what I saw in my 13 years as

Georgia Secretary of State, is that passage of time after the unique

clarion call from the 2000 presidential election, especially the Florida recount, will diminish our attention, our sense of urgency and

priority, and ultimately our willingness to appropriate significant

sums of federal taxpayer dollars to address election systems reform.

I would urge my colleagues to heed the wise words on election

reform which appeared in the Atlanta Journal Constitution on

March 28th: ‘‘Congress should not squander this opportunity for

meaningful change that will allow people to vote with ease and

with confidence that their votes will be counted.’’ I would like to

have that inserted into the record, Mr. Chairman.

Senator HOLLINGS [presiding]. Without objection, so ordered.

[The material referred to follows:]

[From The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, March 28, 2001]

VOTING REFORM REQUIRES FEDERAL HELP

Mistakes are inevitable in a national election process that gives 50 states and

4,000 counties free rein but no federal money to operate their voting systems. When

the mistakes grow so pervasive that thousands of votes and a presidential election

are left in doubt, the country has to rethink the way it casts ballots.

Though Georgia has already set 2004 as its goal for a uniform system of voting,

many other states have yet to act on the lessons learned from the Florida debacle.

The U.S. Congress ought to be committed to offering financial incentives to states

to upgrade and modernize their voting systems. But the formation of separate study

39

committees on the matter by both Democrats and Republicans makes it unlikely

that the nation will see comprehensive voting reform any time soon.

An example of the contrary party stances could be seen in the testimony this week

of Georgia’s Democratic Secretary of State Cathy Cox and State Rep. Robert Irvin

(R-Atlanta) at the National Commission on Federal Election Reform meeting in Atlanta. While Cox talked about finding ways to make it easier for more Georgians

to vote, Irvin focused on fraudulent voting and suggested that voter registration be

done in person and that photo identification be required at voting places.

Still, the best hope for bridging those disparate views rests with the commission,

which is co-chaired by former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. While

Carter was optimistic that some reforms would result, he cautioned, ‘‘Whether that

will be the least common denominator or whether there will be some substance to

it still remains to be seen.’’

Election reform ought to be a priority of the Bush administration. Even voters

who feel the best man won the White House cannot be content with the system that

got him there. A failure by Washington to overhaul that system and fund new election equipment will further erode voter confidence and ensure more disputed elections and fraud allegations.

With voters nationwide in support of reform, Congress should not squander this

opportunity for meaningful change that will allow people to vote with ease and with

confidence that their votes will be counted. It is well within the national interest

that every state have the most reliable and easy-to-use voting methods available.

Because as Florida demonstrated, even problems in one state can tip the balance

of an election.

Senator CLELAND. As a young man I had the opportunity to be

one of the first in our country to use the then brand new punchcard

voting machines when they were introduced in my home county of

DeKalb County in Georgia in 1964. Then, I faced the even more

daunting challenge of voting on that punchcard system absentee

while I was serving in Vietnam in 1968. For 14 years, from 1983

to 1996, I had the privilege of being my state’s chief elections official as Georgia Secretary of State.

So when I saw the problems experienced in our neighboring state

of Florida during the 2000 presidential election, with both citizens

and election officials struggling with chads and so forth, I had a

great deal of empathy and sympathy. I would say that from the beginning the punchcard ballot in Georgia had problems. A Congressional race recorded over 1200 overvotes because people voted for

a straight party candidate and then went down and voted for that

candidate. You could defeat the system, and the system could defeat you. We discovered that early-on in the punchcard ballot system. That is one of the things we found in the Florida system.

I would hasten to add that I do not think Florida was, or is at

all, unique in facing serious problems in ensuring every citizen’s

vote is tabulated. From my own experience in Georgia and my very

able successor, Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox, who came before this Committee in March, I know that my state would fare no

better and quite possibly much worse if subjected to the same set

of circumstances as Florida.

As a matter of fact, Georgia had about twice the undervotes as

Florida. We had almost 100,000 undervotes, which means people

went in the ballot booth, but their votes were not counted. Most of

those undervotes occurred in the 18 counties that involved the

punchcard ballot. Therefore, I have declared war on the punchcard

system, especially since I am up for re-election next year.

[Laughter.]

Indeed, most states suffer from some the following problems

which jeopardize the voting rights of American citizens:

40

One, unclear state laws on the counting and recounting of votes

and on election contest certifications; Second, use of outdated voting machinery and the existence of multiple voting systems within

the same state, making it impossible to have all the votes in the

state counted or recounted under the same standard. I think that

was one of the concerns of the Supreme Court when it looked at

this issue.

In Georgia, I might add, Secretary of State Cathy Cox has led

the way. Governor Barnes has signed into law legislation making

Georgia the first state in the nation, beginning in the year 2004,

to have a uniform system of voting. I think the tendency, Mr. Willis, is to lean toward—and Ms. Bayless—the touchscreen technology.

But it takes money to implement this. While the first item is certainly of national significance, federally established and funded efforts to study and make recommendations on ballot counting and

contest standards can make an important contribution, these are

now and should remain a matter for state governments.

Although the choice of voting systems and the means for assuring the voting rights of service members and disabled citizens is

also primarily a matter of state and local decisionmaking, I believe

in these cases consensus exists that an infusion of federal funds

can make a decisive difference. The Washington Post reported on

April 5 that the number of Detroit voters whose ballots were invalidated dropped by almost two-thirds after the city switched from

punchcard to optical scan machines that warn of errors and allow

for an immediate revote. I would like that article added to the

record if there is no objection.

Senator HOLLINGS. Without objection, it will be included.

[The material referred to follows:]

[From The Washington Post, April 5, 2001]

TECHNOLOGY SLASHES DETROIT VOTING ERROR; ‘SECOND CHANCE’

SCANNERS ALLOW CORRECTION

(By Ellen Nakashima and Dan Keating)

The number of Detroit voters whose ballots were invalidated dropped by almost

two-thirds after the city switched from punch-card to optical-scan machines that

warn of errors and allow an immediate revote, according to a congressional study

to be released today.

The report, produced by the staff of Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), is the first

to document how a switch in technology affects voting results. The study is also significant because it involves a city with the nation’s highest poverty rate, suggesting

that changing technology can make a dramatic difference, especially in an area

where voting machines are often outdated and voters tend to have less experience

casting ballots.

‘‘This report shows very nicely what happened in this community where you

might expect the barriers to voting to keep the error rate high,’’ said Charles Stewart, a political science professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ‘‘By a

simple change in technology, you can reduce the error rate.’’

In 1996, when the city was using punch-card machines, 3.1 percent of its ballots

were spoiled, more than a full percentage point higher than the national average.

In 2000, the error rate fell to 1.1 percent, thanks largely to the use of optical-scan

machines with ‘‘second chance’’ technology, Waxman’s study found.

With the newer system, a special tabulating machine optically ‘‘scans’’ or reads

the ballot as soon as the voter is finished, giving any voter who made a mistake—

for example, by voting twice in a race—a chance to correct the error.

About 20 percent of counties and more than a third of the population nationally

use punch-card systems, and about 40 percent of counties and 28 percent of the popVerDate 03-FEB-2003 10:41 Jun 28, 2004 Jkt 088707 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 D:\DOCS\88707S~1.TXT SSC1 PsN: SSC1
41

ulation use the optical-scan system, although not all those systems are outfitted

with second-chance technology.

The use of optical-scan voting is growing as jurisdictions adopt newer technology.

A Florida election reform task force recommended moving the entire state to optical

ballots with second-chance technology, but election officials in the largest counties

have said optical ballots are impractical in their jurisdictions.

For Detroit, said city clerk Jackie Currie, ‘‘It’s an answer from heaven.’’ Currie

said she embarked on a search for a better type of voting system after a local prosecuting attorney’s race in 1992 yielded 20,000 spoiled ballots out of more 300,000

votes cast.

In a trip to Milwaukee, she saw the optical-scan machines in use. ‘‘I just fell in

love with it,’’ she said. ‘‘I said, ‘We’ve got to have this in the city of Detroit.’ ’’

In 1997, the city spent $3.5 million to purchase 700 Optech 3-P Eagle machines,

made by ES&S of Omaha, she said. They were placed in polling stations in Detroit’s

659 precincts. The city also embarked on a $100,000 voter education campaign in

which election officials gave demonstrations on how to use the machine in community centers, churches, government buildings and at festivals.

Some 32 percent of Detroit’s nearly 1 million people live below the poverty line,

the highest poverty rate of cities with more than 200,000 people. African Americans

make up 76 percent of the population.

Previous reporting by The Washington Post found that minority precincts using

outdated punch-card machines without second-chance technology had the highest

rates of failed votes—often as many as 1 in 6 ballots—and that counties using second-chance technology had many fewer failed ballots.

‘‘There’s a tendency for the communities with the largest number of African Americans live to be the most economically strapped,’’ said Hilary Shelton, director of the

Washington bureau of the NAACP, who hailed the study’s results. ‘‘Most election

machines that were utilized in black communities throughout the country were

quite old and quite antiquated and need to be replaced.’’

Senator CLELAND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It is my strong conviction that time is the enemy with respect

to the provision of sufficient federal funds to really make a difference in sharply reducing the number of Americans who are literally being disenfranchised by voting machinery. As the Supreme

Court majority found in Bush v. Gore: ‘‘It must be remembered that

the right of suffrage can be denied by a debasement or dilution of

the weight of a citizen’s vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise.’’

Thus, I see the legislation that I am proposing, which provides

for an immediate, large and one-time infusion of federal funding to

deal with widely recognized problems with our voting equipment,

as complementary and not necessarily in competition with other

bills I alluded to earlier. My bill, S. 479, the Make Every Vote

Count Act, seeks to quickly and effectively improve our electoral

system by increasing the likelihood that all citizens’ votes will be

properly counted in a way which fully respects the primary role of

state and local governments in the conduct of elections.

It accomplishes this by providing federal funds to modernize voting systems, promote uniformity in voting equipment within the

states, and require greater standardization in assuring the voting

rights of military personnel abroad. In addition, it allows up to onethird of the funds to be used for training of election officials and

voter education.

Again, I would just like to thank the Ranking Member and the

Chairman here for their efforts to address this critical need for reform. The issue will not be resolved in one hearing, but I think we

have made some great strides in this Committee. The McCain-Hollings-Cleland bill is a good bill, and I hope it will be considered by

the full Senate this year.

42

Thank you all very much for coming. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

STATEMENT OF HON. ERNEST F. HOLLINGS,

U.S. SENATOR FROM SOUTH CAROLINA

Senator HOLLINGS. Thank you very much, Senator Cleland.

With respect to the panel and the question asked about the federal role, it is quite obvious that the feds have already taken a role

through the United States Supreme Court. Unless you have a

standard, that court could, following the precedent of Bush v. Gore, find that someone was denied their right to vote because there was

no standard.

So yes, we can set the standard here at the Congressional level.

Somewhat like education, though, the primary role and function

should be left at the state level, and what funds we can provide

and guidance we ought do. At the federal level, the Bureau of

Standards, now the National Institute of Standards and Technology, has been looking at elections for some 30 years or more.

So we have an important role here at this Committee. I am going

to submit my prepared statement for the record since the five bells

have rung.

[The prepared statement of Senator Hollings follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. ERNEST F. HOLLINGS,

U.S. SENATOR FROM SOUTH CAROLINA

The right of a free, open and honest election is the foundation upon which our

democracy rests. During his inaugural speech in 1801, Thomas Jefferson said, ‘‘I

deem [one of] the essential principles of our government . . . a jealous care of the

right of election by the people’’ (Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801). Many U.S.

citizens feel that this ‘‘essential principal’’ has been damaged by the current state

of our nation’s election system. Two reports, by the federal standards and technology

agency, now called the National Institute of Standards and Technology, one in 1978

and the other in 1988—found difficulties in vote-tallying stemming from management failures, technology failures, and human operational failures. As we all know,

not much has changed since these reports were published; the 2000 federal election

in Florida exemplified every problem highlighted in those reports and more. Thus,

two hundred years later, Thomas Jefferson’s words provide a blueprint for what we

all must accomplish. The Congress, the states, and the federal government must

work together to rebuild the trust of the American people and restore this ‘‘essential

principle.’’

The Committee’s previous hearing on election reform focused on election problems

evidenced in many states and experienced by many citizens in the 2000 election.

Testimony revealed that voting and election systems flaws were widespread and

varied. Systems that worked in one state, or a voting precinct, did not work as well

in others. Nonetheless, the one thing that did not seem to vary is that most voting

precincts experienced problems at some point in the election—either during registration, during the act of voting, or in counting the vote and certifying the election.

During today’s hearing, witnesses will provide testimony on conclusions from several studies of our election system and potential solutions to fix it. Just as the problems in elections are variable, the solutions will likely be variable. For example, the

city of Detroit replaced its punch card voting system with an optical scan system

that allowed voters to check their ballots before leaving the polling station. The city

also engaged in a city-wide voter education effort to inform voters about the new

technology and teach them how to use it. This resulted in a decline of uncounted

ballots from 3.1 percent in 1996 to 1.1 percent in 2000—well below the national average of 2.1 percent. Conversely, in a review of recent elections, the Caltech/MIT

Voting Technology Project revealed a surprising finding: electronic voting, as currently implemented, has performed less well than was widely believed. In fact,

manually counted paper ballots, followed closely by optical scan and lever machine

ballots, had the lowest average incidence of undercounts. These results shows that

better equipment in combination with voter education can have a profound positive

effect on voters’ ability to make their votes count. It may also show that expensive

43

equipment alone, without education of voters and training of poll workers may not

improve voters’ ability to make their votes count.

In addition to hearing about the results of recent studies on election reform, we

will hear from 2 Secretaries of state on their efforts. More than 1,500 election reform bills have been introduced in state legislatures during the 2001 legislative sessions. Thirty-one states have considered legislation to upgrade or make uniform

their voting systems. In particular, I am interested in learning what role the states

believe the federal government should play in reforming the election system.

In the current 107th Congress, more than 50 bills concerning elections have been

introduced. Senator McCain and I have put forward what we hope will be part of

the solution—S. 368 the American Voting Standards and Technology Act. This legislation would direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology, ‘‘NIST’’ to

carry out the following activities: (1) facilitate the development of voluntary standards governing the performance of voting systems; (2) conduct a study of factors impacting voter participation by individuals and groups; and (3) implement a program

making grants available to states and local governments to aid in the updating of

voting equipment and to conduct voter educational programs.

Other Senators have bills which offer reforms such as uniform poll closing times,

same day registration, overseas military voting reforms, and reaffirmation of the

Voting Rights Act, among others. Undoubtedly, this will not be the last hearing that

the Senate will hold on this matter. Election reform is a complex problem. Senator

McCain and I realize that our American Voting Standards and Technology Act is

only one piece of the pie. In that regard, we look forward to working with other Senators who are examining other aspects of the electoral system.

In conclusion, while we may have allowed our current election system to degrade

to its present condition, I, for one, believe that we cannot let this sad state of affairs

continue. All of us—the states, the Congress, the federal government—must do our

utmost to improve our election system. We must, as Thomas Jefferson said, take

‘‘jealous care’’ of the people’s right to vote because it is the very foundation of our

great democracy.

Senator HOLLINGS. I want to thank both Secretary Bayless and

Secretary Willis for their appearance here this morning and ask

our good friend Congressman and Chairman Bob Michel to come on

forward, you and the next panel of Bill Richardson and Professor

Ansolabehere. The Committee will be at ease subject to the Chairman, who will be back momentarily.

[Recess from 10:27 a.m. to 10:31 a.m.]

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come the order. Thank you for

being here. It is wonderful to see some of my dear friends from

service here. Please proceed, the Honorable Robert Michel.

STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT H. MICHEL, CO-CHAIR,

NATIONAL COMMISSION ON FEDERAL ELECTION REFORM

Mr. MICHEL. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:

May I first apologize for the fact that my colleague here, Bill

Richardson and I do not have prepared statements. Actually, when

we got the invitation from your distinguished Committee to our

commission, we were just barely getting underway and, as a matter

of fact, it might have been just a little bit premature to have the

invite because we can be so much more effective after we have concluded our hearings, written our report, etcetera, etcetera.

But with the distinguished Committee we did not want to decline

the invitation, so we are hoping that we can make some contribution here in an extemporaneous sort of way.

The CHAIRMAN. Could I just mention one thing? Perhaps it would

be helpful in your remarks to comment on the remarks of the previous witnesses, in other words how you view them in the context

of what you both are doing. Would that be okay?

Thank you. Thank you very much.

44

Mr. MICHEL. Mr. Chairman, first of all, you know that the commission of which I am now co-chairman with Lloyd Cutler, replacing Howard Baker, who has just been nominated to be our new

Ambassador to Japan, President Jimmy Carter and President Ford

are the honorary chairmen. President Carter was good enough to

chair the first hearing that we had, down in Atlanta, and President

Ford will chair the one as we conclude in his library in Michigan

in June.

Then of course, there are a number of your former colleagues

who are members of that commission: Pat Moynihan and Jack

Danforth. Of course, Griffin Bell and Bill Barr both were attorneys

general in different parties; and Rudy Boschwitz, who is also a

former colleague of yours. I mention that because it is a commission that has been made up with a national perspective and both

parties, very bipartisan in nature, and a diverse varied citizen

group—as I said, distinguished politicians and scholars from every

part of the country, looking at practical policy, yet aided by task

forces compiling best work for academic fields of law, political

science and history.

We have a strong program of hearings for the country, as I indicated. There will be four of them: the first one in Atlanta; the second one was in the Reagan Library in California. Unfortunately,

Bill and I could not attend that hearing. We were at the first hearing. Then we will be within 2 weeks down in Austin, Texas, for the

hearing at the LBJ Library, and then concluding with that at

Gerry Ford’s library.

Now, the scope of the commission’s work is who votes, the

breadth and accuracy of voter registration, how are votes cast and

counted, how are disputes resolved, how are results reported by the

media. I guess very briefly, if I could say, our emerging goal is for

limited, but responsible federal partnership.

Running federal elections is a state service, and locality, provided

to the federal government, and they do so encumbered by various

mandates. So it is only fair that the federal government should pay

some of the bill. Yet, elections for the Congress and the presidency

affect national interests and transcend any single state. So only

fair, I guess, that within constitutional limits the federal government see that a few limited national interests are served.

As a matter of fact, we talk about national or federal elections.

What we really have are state elections to choose federal officers.

So it has got to be a partnership, and we are hoping in our deliberations to get better voter participation. Oh goodness, if I remember correctly, in the last presidential primary election, among

young people, for example, and that would be between 18 and 29,

a miserable record of 8 percent turnout for those younger people.

It has been riven through in different categories of lack of participation.

Then of course we want to see that there is honest voting. Then

you get to what is a registered voter and who is unregistered, and

effective technology that effectuates the intent of all sorts of voters.

Of course, that varies. Now, one would think maybe by hearing

some of the testimony here this morning that punchcards are definitely out and everything else is in. That is not all that conclusive.

We are going to have a third of the people in the next general elecVerDate 03-FEB-2003 10:41 Jun 28, 2004 Jkt 088707 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 D:\DOCS\88707S~1.TXT SSC1 PsN: SSC1
45

tion still voting by punchcards probably. So we have got to move

as best we can to make sure that we are making some improvements over what we have had.

Federal election reform does not mean a federal takeover. I am

sorry Senator Hollings is not here because I know that he has been

concerned about that. Election reform is likely to mean a shift in

power to state government, to centralized voter rolls and standardize the definition of a vote. State governments will be critical

in any new federal partnership.

Florida’s election reform bill is a welcome start. At our Atlanta

hearing we heard from the Florida task force created by Governor

Bush, which shaped the bill, even though there is still a great deal

of bitterness about the events of that last year. I think the legislature has indeed shown a bipartisan effort here to do what they

have done.

We have learned that election reform is about a lot more than

just picking the best machine. Different places need different procedures and equipment. Oregon does not even use polling places any

more. Instead, the role of the federal government is to facilitate

change, encourage innovation and competition, rather than telling

everyone what machine to use.

I know this Committee is interested in Internet voting. The witnesses we have heard have argued persuasively that Internet voting still has some fundamental problems that are far from being

solved. But new touchscreen technology holds great promise. It

saves money on ballot printing costs, can handle complex ballots in

different languages, and can help disabled citizens vote.

Older technologies can work well, too, especially if the system is

set up to give voters a chance to correct their errors.

These are just a few personal impressions. After our final hearing in Michigan, we will get together at Charlottesville in July, and

then our goal is to have a report by September. Now, I do not know

how that comports with the schedule of your committee, but there

will be other committees, I think, on the Hill here, House and Senate, what will be holding hearings and discussions on this very critical issue. So hopefully what we are doing will be of an assist to

your committee eventually. If it hopefully comes before your final

markup, all the better.

We want to be sure that our staff has some liaison with your

staff and the other staffs of these committees, because it is useless

for us to issue some report we think is going nowhere. I think we

have got enough practical politicians in addition to the academicians on our commission to recognize the art of what is possible.

That is not to say we shut out completely that which we know will

not pass, because we ought to be thinking continually about new

ways of improving the system.

I am reminded particularly of what some of the witnesses said

relative to the new technology. There is have some question whether to invest too much in today’s technology when next year or within 6 months there will be something better. So we have got to remain flexible in this thing.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much for the opportunity to at

least alert the Committee to the fact that we are in existence and

we hope to assist in helping you as best we can.

46

The CHAIRMAN. Well, we thank you, Bob. I would just like to say

the composition of that commission is such that your recommendations and conclusions will be highly regarded and have a significant impact, I believe, on whatever actions the Congress may take.

I think it may serve as a motivation for us to act.

There is a fear, as I mentioned earlier, that we have sort of lost

interest. I think what your commission will do will help us in a variety of ways. I thank you and the other members of the commission for serving.

Ambassador/Secretary/friend, Mr. Richardson, welcome.

STATEMENT OF HON. BILL RICHARDSON, MEMBER,

NATIONAL COMMISSION ON FEDERAL ELECTION REFORM

Mr. RICHARDSON. Thank you, Senator McCain. The chairman has

outlined our goals and our objectives. I would just like to add a few

words.

Mr. Chairman, first of all, I am glad that you personally have

taken this issue in terms of your interest. I think anything that

you touch seems to go a lot of places.

The CHAIRMAN. It may take a long time.

[Laughter.]

Mr. RICHARDSON. So I am delighted, besides the fact that your

committee has jurisdiction with the networks and the Internet

issue, I am delighted that you have taken an interest.

Second, I want to reinforce what Chairman Michel said. We really think election reform legislation is needed from the Congress.

The Congress needs to lead, to keep the momentum going. I worry

that, with the press of other legislation, that somehow these very

important issues will be forgotten.

I think we have gotten some very good momentum from the Florida initiative. The Florida initiative, Governor Bush and the Florida Legislature, have put forth a good bill. At the federal level, I

hope that by September, when our report is ready, that you will

carefully take a look at our recommendations. The National Commission on Federal Election Reform is an outstanding committee

and the chairman has been outstanding in making sure that we

reach out to all witnesses. We have two hearings left, at the Ford

Library June 5, and at the Johnson Library May 24.

I would just close, Mr. Chairman, with just some of the issues

that we are looking at. The chairman outlined some of our preliminary impressions. We are focusing on: the breadth and integrity of

voter registration; the timing of federal elections and release of

election results; voting techniques and ballot design, whether with

suggestions and subsidies or with minimal national and statewide

standards; problems that have arisen with respect to absentee and

overseas military votes; rules and procedures for contesting and recounting results of elections for federal offices; and new technology

for conducting elections, as I think the chairman has outlined. We

have heard some problems about Internet voting. We have, at the

same time, heard a lot of promising things about the new touch

machines that seem to be sprawling everywhere.

On the subject of new institutions or strengthened versions of existing ones that oversee progress. I guess, Mr. Chairman, the main

issue would be, do you beef up the existing entity within the FEC,

47

or do you have a separate entity that you beef up? I think these

are very important issues and federal leadership, Congressional

leadership, is needed because I think the public wants to see some

reforms. We have to ensure that the voters that you represent—

that I used to represent, Hispanics, Native Americans in the West

and rural areas—are full participants.

But I just want to commend Chairman Michel for the leadership

he has shown. This is a very good commission, an excellent staff.

Many of them are back here. The membership bipartisan. Phil

Zelikow sits back here. He does all the work. Well, not all of it.

Mr. Chairman, again I thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank you and I want to thank you for your

service on the commission, but I also want to thank you for your

incredible service to our nation in a variety of capacities. I am very

proud of you since we may have come some distance since we were

elected in 1982 to the House and Bob Michel told us how we should

behave. I thank you, Bill.

Professor Ansolabehere, welcome.

STATEMENT OF STEPHEN ANSOLABEHERE, Ph.D., PROFESSOR,

DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, MASSACHUSETTS

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Dr. ANSOLABEHERE. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me to

speak today. I would like to begin by telling you a little bit about

our project and then tell you some specific findings. A week after

the 2000 presidential election, David Baltimore, the president of

Caltech, called Charles Vest, the president of MIT, with an idea:

Our two institutions should collaborate to develop new voting technologies because, after all, the problems experienced in Florida had

as much to do with technology as they did democracy, and for our

institutions technology is central.

Presidents Vest and Baltimore proceeded to assemble a team of

computer scientists, mechanical engineers, and social scientists.

The Carnegie Corporation and both Caltech and MIT have funded

this endeavor.

I am Steve Ansolabehere, professor of political science at MIT

and co-director of this project. My counterpart at Caltech is Tom

Paulfrey, a professor of economics. Our team consists of 11 faculty

members and many students, and our goal is to develop new voting

technology. The engineers bring expertise in electronic security—

and they are not very optimistic about Internet voting, but that is

a dispute within our group—user interface design, machine design,

and performance standards. The social scientists bring expertise in

voter behavior, operations, and public finance.

We are in the initial phase of our project, which we consider the

learning or listening phase. Over the last 4 months we have met

with many voting machine manufacturers and election administrators to ascertain what the problems with voting are and also how

we can contribute to the solutions.

We have conducted also studies of voting machine performance

and design, the public finances of elections, administration and

voter registration practices.

The complete work of our last 4 months of work is due out July

16th and it will include our assessment of existing voting processes

48

in the United States. The report will also offer some specific recommendations, which I will share with you at the end of my testimony. The second phase of our project will discuss equipment design and prospects for development.

What I would like to do now is share a couple of what we consider important central findings about the current voting system.

Before our group sets out to consider equipment design, we first

tried to answer two questions: First, how much is currently being

spent on election administration in the United States today? Second, how accurate is the equipment being used and is there any opportunity for substantial improvement?

Let me deal first with election expenditures and equipment costs.

The basic point is that an immediate upgrade to new equipment

will be expensive. It is not impossible.

The main problem is the transition and how that will be financed, rather than the total amount of money that will be spent

over the lifetime of the machines used.

So how much does equipment cost? We see that two technologies

are competing for the immediate future, optical scan equipment

and electronic machines, also called direct recording electronic machines—or DREs for short. According to estimates provided by the

industry, a typical DRE will cost about $20 per voter on average

to acquire. The operating or variable cost for electronic is about 75

cents a voter on election day. The cost of acquiring a scanner system is on average about $6 a voter, so it is substantially less, but

the operating costs are higher, about $1.50 a voter, so over time the

operating costs will creep up and add to the total costs for the scanners.

If the machinery lasts about 20 years, that is the lifespan, on

these two systems the total expenditures are going to be about the

same. We are not sure how long electronic equipment exists or

lives. 15 to 20 years seem to be a pretty good ballpark. Just to give

you some sense of what we discovered, the last lever machines really that were manufactured were distributed in the 1960s, 1963,

1964. We have come across in our studies lever machines dating

back to 1923 in some counties. That is a degree of longevity that

the electronic equipment will not have.

A nationwide upgrade today, then, would cost about $2 billion on

the outset if we all upgraded to direct recording electronic equipment—that is based on the idea that there are about 100 million

voters, $20 a voter—or $600 million if we all upgraded to scanners.

Again, that is just the upgrade cost. That does not include the variable cost, and it depends on how you prorate the life of the equipment.

How big is the voting machine industry today? The voting machine industry is about $150 million to $200 million in revenues

annually. We have been told this by the industry and we have corroborated that estimate from a study of various purchases that

have occurred.

The industry consists of four main firms and approximately 20

smaller firms, so that is a lot of firms competing for a relatively

small total industry size. We think the small industry size puts

some limits on the amount of innovation and research and development that can happen feasibly in the industry. The industry emVerDate 03-FEB-2003 10:41 Jun 28, 2004 Jkt 088707 PO 00000 Frm 00052 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 D:\DOCS\88707S~1.TXT SSC1 PsN: SSC1
49

phasizes sales because it must sell to every county in the United

States and every machine manufacturer tries to maintain, on an

ongoing basis, relationships with those county administrators.

Large firms tend to stay out. We saw a flurry of firms announcing projects after the 2000 election. Those firms have been in on

and off in the past. IBM helped develop the punchcards, but they

got out in 1968. Unisys developed the optical scan systems and

they got out in the late 1980s. The reasons that these large firms

get out is that the revenues that they could get out of this business

line are small, and the down side risks are potentially enormous

because you have a very embarrassing incident, such as in Florida,

with the IBM brand name or the Unisys name splashed all over

the headlines.

To upgrade equipment, then, we are talking about a substantial

increase in the size of the industry all at once. If we upgraded and

spent $2 billion, that is probably 10 times the size of the industry

sales on an annual basis. That is a big shock to an industry. It

would probably have price effects and so forth.

However, if we prorate the size of the industry over, say 15

years, then we get roughly the amount of money that would be

spent by counties on election purchases anyway. In other words,

take 15 times $150 million and you get $2.25 billion, which is

roughly what it would cost to upgrade all at once right now.

The issue then is the transition: How do we transition from—how

do we pay for an upgrade of equipment all at once? Should there

be cost-sharing? That is one proposal. Another possibility is that

the industry should adopt leasing, which would give them a constant revenue stream as opposed to a highly variable revenue. The

best practice here might be the State of Rhode Island, which is the

largest leasing practice that we have encountered in the U.S. so

far.

The second part of our analysis has been a study of the performance of current voting equipment, and I will alter what I have prepared for the remarks. There is a punchier way to do it. Is there

a technology today that minimizes the incidence of questionable

ballots, a technology that would make us more certain of the tally

that comes out at the end of the election day? The answer is yes.

We estimate that if the counties using punchcards switched to precinct-based optical scanning, the incidence of under- and overvotes

in those counties using punchcards would be cut nearly in half,

from a little over 3 percent to a little over 1.5 percent.

That is a pretty substantial reduction. Thirty percent of the voters in the U.S. vote with punchcards, a quarter use optical scanning. This finding is based on our evaluation of the incidence of

under- and overvotes in the last four presidential elections. In this

analysis we have held constant all sorts of factors at the county

level, including the demographic composition, age, race, and so

forth of the counties, and whether the county had changed voting

equipment in any given year.

The most surprising result, at least surprising to us, was that

the electronic machinery, the DREs, had rates of undervotes—they

exclude overvotes—nearly as high as the punchcards. We have

some hypotheses as to why this is. We see this as a potential place

for technological improvements in the DREs. To some extent, an

50

evaluation like this is looking in the rear view mirror. It is looking

at what is in the field currently, rather than at what is coming

down the road.

We feel that universities, such as MIT, Caltech, Ohio State,

Michigan, and others that we have heard of becoming involved in

this or interested in this area are prepared to contribute to the assessment and design of technology. That is a possible venue for federal investment. In that light, we see that there are three big recommendations I would like to put forward to you.

The first is there needs to be a process for continual innovation.

I think the thing to think about here is that the voting system is

continually changing. Counties always are upgrading their equipment. That is what sustains a voting machine industry. If they

were not continually doing it, there would not be an industry.

There needs to be a process for testing and stressing systems that

emphasizes the ease of use and the security of systems, especially

as we are going to see the rise of Internet voting. I think it is impossible to hold the lid on that. The question for Internet voting is

how can we direct this in a sensible way.

In this respect, I see the universities as a possible venue. There

are efforts afoot at Michigan and Ohio State, as well as at Caltech

and MIT.

Second, a federal agency, NIST or the FEC, should regularly assess the election day performance of technology and make that information publicly available. I think this is important information

for any county or state wanting to purchase equipment. Right now

the counties and states largely do the purchases without much of

a sense of what has happened in other counties or other states with

current equipment. They rely mainly on the vendors for some assessment of performance, rather than on an independent assessment of how the equipment has performed.

Finally, existing standards should be revised to evaluate equipment as it is set up and managed in the field. One of the things

that we have seen as we have gone to numerous demonstrations

of voting equipment is that if you let a Caltech or MIT undergrad

loose on some equipment they are going to break it in about 5 minutes. We have see far too many demonstrations of malfunctioning

equipment, with blown fuses, loose cables, and paper jams. That is

the equipment as it is set up in the field.

The CHAIRMAN. That argues for better training of people who

conduct the elections.

Dr. ANSOLABEHERE. Yes, that would also help. But the equipment as it is tested now is not tested for the setup and for maintenance by a 65- or 67-year-old poll worker and so forth.

I think the equipment industry does a very good job, given its

limited resources, to do as much as possible, but there is a capacity

constraint.

Thank you very much for your time and I welcome any questions.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Ansolabehere follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF STEPHEN ANSOLABEHERE,

PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, MIT

Thank you for inviting me to speak today.

51

I’d like to begin by telling you a little bit about our project, and then tell you

about some specific findings.

Overview of the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Product.

A week after the 2000 Presidential election, David Baltimore, the president of

Caltech, called Charles Vest, the president of MIT, with an idea. Our two institutions should collaborate to develop improved voting technologies—a new voting machine. They believed that the problems observed in the vote counting in Florida and

elsewhere originated with technology.

Presidents Vest and Baltimore assembled a team of computer scientists, mechanical engineers, and social scientists. The Carnegie Corporation and both Caltech and

MIT have funded our endeavors.

I’m Steve Ansolabehere, a professor of Political Science at MIT, and co-director

of the Caltech/MIT voting technology project. My counterpart at Caltech is Tom Palfrey, a professor of Economics. Our team consists of 11 faculty and many students,

and our central goal is to develop new voting technology. The engineers bring expertise in electronic security, user interface design, machine design, and performance

standards. The social scientists bring expertise in voter behavior, operations design,

and public finance.

We are in the initial phase of our project, which I consider the learning phase.

Over the last 4 months we have met with many voting machine manufacturers and

election administrators to ascertain what the problems are and to explore ways that

we can contribute to solutions. We have also conducted studies of voting machine

performance and design, the public finances of election administration, and voter

registration practices. A complete report of our work over the last 4 months is due

out at the beginning of July. It will include our assessment of existing voting processes in the United States. The report will also offer specific recommendations for

the industry, governments, and universities to pursue.

The second phase of our project will focus on equipment design. We’ve identified

a number of user interface and security features of existing equipment that can be

improved upon. We have identified specific practices in voter registration and polling place administration that can be improved at minimal cost or with cost savings

with the use of computer technology. We have also identified the need for a process

that would involve industry, government, and universities in continual innovation

in voting equipment and software.

Where Technology Affects the Voting System

Like most Americans, I have always taken the voting system for granted, even

though I have voted with every kind of technology. With a little introspection, it is

evident that computing technology has driven changes in voting technology. Today,

we are in the of a computing and communication revolution, and that revolution will

change the voting system over the next decade.

The question before us is how can we make the transition to new voting systems

a good one.

There are three big pieces to the voting system where our group see technology,

and, in particular, computer technology, changing the picture. These parts of the

system are voter registration, casting of votes, and counting of votes.

First, Voter Registration. The registration system serves two purposes: authentication and management. It is used to authenticate the voter. That is, to

make sure that those who are not allowed to vote do not and that those who are

allowed to vote do so only once. Registration is also used to manage the ballots. We

vote on so many different offices and questions today that it has become a chore

simply to keep straight who should vote on what. Voter registration information

tells people what polling place to go to and it allows the administrators to distribute

the ballots to the right polling places.

Voter registration poses considerable database management problems for counties.

How to keep the files up to date and free from incorrect or duplicate registrations?

How to access the voter registration rolls at polling places on election day? Computing advances now afford improved database management. As the cost of maintaining and accessing databases has fallen, many counties and states have begun

to computerize voter registration information. Excellent examples are the states of

Kentucky, Maryland, and Michigan. Some counties have even linked the polling

places to the counties’ central voter files, substantially reducing polling place problems created by inaccurate registrations or by people going to the wrong polling

place. A good example is Orange County, Florida.

Second, Casting Votes. The act of casting a vote is fundamentally communication. Voters need a way to communicate their preferences and intentions: dropping

52

a chit in a dish, raising their hands or voices, marking a piece of paper, pulling a

lever, or, now, touching a screen.

Since 1990, there have been important developments in understanding how to

make computers more user friendly to the everyday person. Improvements in user

interface design—the look and feel of electronic ballots—will improve the acceptance

and usefulness of electronic voting machines. The challenge is how to implement

better ballot designs.

Third, Counting Votes. With the close of polls begins an enormous computing

or tabulation problem. A brief history of the technology reveals the importance of

computational speed.

• Hand counted paper ballots are slow.

• Lever machines speed up the count by aggregating many ballots at the precinct,

leaving the administrator to tally the counts on the backs of the three or four machines at the polling place.

• Punch cards improved on this by providing and fast counts of all ballots at once.

• PC connected punch cards, scanners, and DREs permit the counts to be sent

in via modem—faster still.

With speed has probably come greater confidence in the process and less opportunity to tamper with ballots. Additional gains in the speed of counting are marginal at best. But there is a need for improved security and audit ability of counts.

With electronic counting office the observability or visibility of the count. In most

states this is done publicly, with representatives from the parties to check the

counting. That check has been lost, and that check often caught problems. One challenge is to devise a new systems of automatic checks that would highlight suspicious

looking counts. Also we feel that standards for audibility need to be developed.

The Current Voting System

Before our group set out to consider equipment design, we first tried to answer

two questions. First, how much is currently being spent on voting equipment, specifically, and election administration, generally? Second, how accurate is the equipment being used today? Is there any opportunity for substantial improvement?

Election Expenditures and Equipment Cost

1. How much does equipment cost?

We see that two technologies are competing for the immediate future of voting:

optical scanning and electronic machines, called direct recording electronic machines, or DREs for short. According to estimates provided by industry to us and

based on recent acquisitions that we have studied, the cost of acquiring a DRE is

approximately $18 to $25 per voter. The operating or variable cost for electronics

is about $.50 to $1 a voter. The cost of acquiring a scanner system ranges from $3

to $8 per voter. The operating cost for scanners ranges from $1 to $2 a voter.

A nationwide upgrade today would be expensive. If we were to upgrade completely

to electronics, assuming prices remained the same, the acquisition cost would be approximately $2 billion ($20/voter and approximately 100 million voters). If the U.S.

were to adopt scanners, the cost would be approximately $600 million ($6/voter and

approximately 100 million voters).

2. How big is the voting equipment industry?

Industry executives estimate that total voting equipment sales range from $150

million to $200 million per year.

The industry consists of four main firms and approximately 20 smaller firms, as

well as many local contractors. Election Software and Services (ES&S) is the largest

firm, followed by Guardian (a division of Danaher), Global, and Sequoia Pacific.

Guardian vends the most widely used electronic machine, the 1242, which used to

be called the Shouptronic. ES&S, Global, and Sequoia offer many different machines, including DREs and scanners, and offer some services, such as ballot design,

printing and database management.

Large firms stay out, but when they enter they bring significant design innovations. IBM and Unisys are cases in point. IBM was one of the first punch card

innovators, but they got out of the business in 1968 because of bad publicity. IBM

spun off two companies, CES and EVM, which became two of the main punch card

vendors. In the mid-1980s, Unisys developed the Optech scanner, the most widely

used scanner in the U.S., but withdrew from the industry.

Industry executives estimate that total voting equipment sales range from $150

million to $200 million per year. This appears to be consistent with data that we

have collected on total number of changes in equipment per year.

An upgrade to new equipment, then, would be 3 to 15 times more than the size

of the industry today. That seems quite expensive. But it is the wrong calculation;

one must also include the time horizon.

53

Electronic equipment will probably last 15 years, before it becomes badly obsolete.

Over a 15 year span (approximate life of these machines), we would spend nationwide between $2.25 billion and $3 billion on machines anyway. That is, if revenues

are between $150 annually and $200 million annually, then over 15 years we expect

to spend 15 times the revenues. At today’s machine prices a complete upgrade to

DREs would be approximately $2.5 billion, which is in the range of what the counties and municipalities would spend anyway.

One concern is the effect of a massive upgrade. The industry may not have the

capacity to fill orders. Such a large infusion of cash might increase prices. And, an

immediate and complete upgrade would kill demand for the next 5 years or so,

which might kill the industry.

A second concern with an immediate upgrade concerns the public financing. Because equipment is mainly sold rather than leased, county budgets would have to

absorb sizable capital costs. A separate capital request is required, which is often

more difficult than a request for additional operating funds. Leasing is a solution

that would smooth the costs over the life of the machine.

A more general matter is how much do we spend on elections overall. When we

began this project, it became immediately apparent that such a figure does not

exist. We found audits of several counties and projections based on those counties,

but we found no estimates of nationwide expenditures. If anyone knows of studies

of election administration spending nationwide, we’d appreciate any information you

have.

To fill this void, we surveyed county administrators throughout the country by

sending them faxes to ask how much they budget for election administration. This

gives us a ball park estimate of the nationwide expenditure on all aspects of elections. The data are still coming in, but I can share with you our preliminary findings. In the 2000 elections, the U.S. counties and municipalities spent (on average)

approximately $8.80 per voter on all election administration. That works out to approximately $1 billion nationwide.

This figure includes all expenditures—voter registration, salaries, office overhead,

equipment purchases, equipment maintenance and storage, poll worker training and

pay. Ernest Hawkins, the Sacramento County registrar, has performed an excellent

cost analysis based on that county’s expenditures. His total figure is slightly higher,

but not much.

The $1 billion figure suggests that there are considerable financial constraints on

immediate upgrading to equipment. County election boards must make capital

budget requests. One possible solution is leasing, which Rhode Island has done. This

moves the line item for equipment acquisition out of the capital budget and into the

operating budget, which is more affordable.

Performance of Current Voting Equipment

A second study we have undertaken concerns the accuracy of existing equipment.

This study is posted on our web page (www.vote.caltech.edu) and we have provided

copies to the Committee.

We undertook this study to establish some benchmarks:

• How many votes are unmarked, spoiled, or uncounted, and thus problematic in

the event of a recount?

• Does the incidence of such ballots depend on the equipment used?

The incidence of unmarked, spoiled, and uncounted ballots (which we call residual

votes) is particularly important because it is a measure of the number of questionable ballots that must be resolved in the event of a recount. It does not, however,

measure all mistakes that voters may make in the voting booth or all problems with

equipment in registering voters’ preferences and it does capture some intentional

non-voting.

If the incidence of residual votes is unrelated to machines then it may be unlikely

that design improvements could help. However, if the incidence of residual votes

does depend on equipment, then it is important to know which technologies are

doing particularly well.

We collected data on election results and equipment used in each of the counties

in the U.S. for the 1988 to 2000 election. We began data from Election Data Services

data and proceeded to fill in data for states not covered in that database. We also

augmented that data with data from 2000, and we carefully checked the data for

errors.

There are some odd observations in the data (very few) that we were unable to

resolve. We have omitted these cases.

The metric we use is the percent of total ballots cast for which no Presidential

vote was registered. This does not capture all errors, but it does capture those votes

that would be problematic in the event of a recount or an audit of the election.

54

The average county in the United States has a residual vote rate in Presidential

contests of 2.3 percent. The percent of all ballots cast that had no Presidential vote

recorded equals 2.1 percent. The figures differ because larger counties have lower

residual vote rates. We suspect that this is because they have more resources to administer elections.

We then performed several statistical analyses to assess the extent to which the

residual vote rate depends on what voting equipment in use. It does. And some of

the results surprised us.

First, we looked at simple averages. For each type of voting equipment, what is

the average residual vote rate?

Counties using punch cards, either Votomatic or DataVote, had the highest residual vote rates—3 percent of total ballots cast.

Counties using direct recording electronic equipment also averaged residual vote

rates above the national mean.

The average residual vote rate among counties using optical scanning, lever machines, or hand counted paper ballots were below the national mean.

Results that we will include in subsequent versions of the report look at elections

for U.S. Senate offices. Here again, optical scanning and hand counted paper are

well below the national average. Punch cards are again above the mean. And DREs

are double the residual vote rate of counties with scanning or paper. Lever machines

also have higher than average residual vote rates for U.S. Senate races.

Many factors may affect the residual vote rate. So we tried to control for these

other factors statistically. Doing so did not change the results.

Holding constant county-level factors, such as racial composition, literacy rates,

income, and age, we find the same pattern. Hand counted paper ballots, optically

scanned ballots are significantly better than Direct Recording Electronic equipment

and punch cards.

This is not to say that those other factors do not matter. A county’s average per

capita annual income, racial composition, percentage of voters over age 65, voter

participation rates, and other factors, strongly affect the incidence of residual votes.

Rather, holding those factors constant we still find the same pattern of effects:

Hand counted paper ballots and optically scanned paper ballots and lever machines on average had significantly fewer unmarked, uncounted, and spoiled ballots

than punch cards and electronic machines.

Our immediate reactions to these results were two-fold.

First, there is a good case to be made against punch cards. They are an established technology, and they are, on average, performing poorly.

Second, these results sparked a heated debate within our group between adherents of paper (optically scanned or hand counted) and adherents of electronics. We

have subsequently studied much of the equipment on the market, and we feel that

design improvements for DREs are possible. This is the challenge facing our engineers. The results clearly set paper—hand counted or optically scanned—as the

benchmark, the thing to beat.

Doing so will require less attention to designs that speed up the count and more

attention to designs that are easy-to-use, that start with the many different types

of voters in mind.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

RESIDUAL VOTES ATTRIBUTABLE TO TECHNOLOGY: AN ASSESSMENT OF THE RELIABILITY

OF EXISTING VOTING EQUIPMENT

The Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project

Version 2: March 30, 2001

This report examines the use of voting equipment and the incidence of spoiled and

unmarked ballots associated with that equipment. We call the rate of spoiled and

unmarked ballots the residual vote rate. The residual vote rate is not a pure measure of voter error. If voting technologies are not producing voter mistakes or confusion, the residual vote rate should be unrelated to equipment. The study covers election results from over 2700 counties and municipalities in the 1988, 1992, 1996, and

2000 Presidential elections.

• The United States uses five general types of election technologies: hand-counted

paper ballots, lever machines, punch cards, optically scanned paper ballots, and

electronic machines (called direct recording electronics). There are variations within

each of these types of technology; this investigation focuses on the performance of

the five broad types of voting technology.

55

1The Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project is a joint venture of the two institutions. Faculty

involved are Michael Alvarez (Caltech), Stephen Ansolabehere (MIT), Erik Antonsson (Caltech),

Jehoshua Bruck (Caltech), Steven Graves (MIT), Nicholas Negroponte (MIT), Thomas Palfrey

(Caltech), Ron Rivest (MIT), Ted Selker (MIT), Alex Slocum (MIT), and Charles Stewart (MIT).

The principal author of this report is Stephen Ansolabehere; communications about this report

can be directed to him at sda@mit.edu. We are grateful to the Carnegie Corporation for its generous sponsorship of this project. 2This version updates our initial report in three ways. First, we have expanded the data set

considerably: increasing the number of valid cases from roughly 5500 to 8000. We have added

complete data for several states, such as Kentucky, Massachusetts, and Vermont, and nearly

complete coverage of the available data from the 2000 election. Second, we present more detail

about the data, such as yearly averages, and examine possible technology curves and other hypothesized relationships. Third, we incorporate more speculation about the performance of

DREs. The next version of the report will integrate data from 1980 and from the 1980, 1990,

and 2000 censuses, which will allow us to examine possible interactions between machine performance and demographic characteristics of county populations.

• Over the last two decades, election administrators have increasingly abandoned

lever machines and hand-counted paper ballots in favor of electronic machines and

optically scanned paper ballots.

• Approximately 2 percent of all Presidential ballots are spoiled or unmarked (residual votes).

• The incidence of residual votes is highest for voters in counties using punch

cards and electronic machines and is lowest for voters in counties using lever machines, optically scanned paper ballots, and hand-counted paper ballots.

• The same pattern holds once we statistically control for all features of individual counties (including county literacy rates and income), the year of the election,

total turnout, shifts in technology, and other candidates on the ballot.

• Optically scanned ballots are a viable alternative to older technologies. We see

room for improvement with electronic machines, especially the newer touch screen

technologies.

• We find the performance of punch cards alarming: punch cards are an established technology and the residual vote rate of this technology is nearly double that

of alternatives.

RESIDUAL VOTES ATTRIBUTABLE TO TECHNOLOGY

AN ASSESSMENT OF THE RELIABILITY OF EXISTING VOTING EQUIPMENT

The Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project 1

Version 2: March 30, 2001 2

American elections are conducted using a hodge-podge of different voting technologies: paper ballots, lever machines, punch cards, optically scanned ballots, and

electronic machines. And the technologies we use change frequently. Over the last

two decades, counties have moved away from paper ballots and lever machines and

toward optically scanned ballots and electronic machines. The changes have not occurred from a concerted initiative, but from local experimentation. Some local governments have even opted to go back to the older methods of paper and levers.

The lack of uniform voting technologies in the U.S. is in many ways frustrating

and confusing. But to engineers and social scientists, this is an opportunity. The

wide range of different voting machinery employed in the U.S. allows us to gauge

the reliability of existing voting technologies. In this report, we examine the relative

reliability of different machines by examining how changes in technologies within

localities over time explain changes in the incidence of ballots that are spoiled, uncounted, or unmarked—or in the lingo of the day the incidence of ‘‘over-’’ and

‘‘undervotes.’’ If existing technology does not affect the ability or willingness of voters to register preferences, then incidence of over- and undervotes will be unrelated

to what sort of machine is used in a county.

We have collected data on election returns and machine types from approximately

two-thirds of the 3,155 counties in the United States over four Presidential elections, 1988, 1992, 1996, and 2000. The substantial variation in machine types, the

large number of observations, and our focus on Presidential elections allows us to

hold constant many factors that might also affect election returns.

The central finding of this investigation is that manually counted paper ballots

have the lowest average incidence of spoiled, uncounted, and unmarked ballots, followed closely by lever machines and optically scanned ballots. Punchcard methods

and systems using direct recording electronic devices (DREs) had significantly higher average rates of spoiled, uncounted, and unmarked ballots than any of the other

56

3 How we mark ballots has changed over time. In the middle of the 20th Century, many states

required that the voter cross out the options not chosen. See for example, The Book of the

States, 1948.

systems. The difference in reliabilities between the best and worst systems is approximately 1.5 percent of all ballots cast.

We view these results as benchmarks for performance. It is our hope that the information here is helpful to manufacturers as they improve equipment designs and

to election administrators who may wish to adopt new equipment. Our results apply

to broad classes of equipment; the performance of specific types of equipment may

vary. Where possible we test for possible differences (such as different types of

punch cards).

We do not attempt to isolate, in this report, the reasons for differential reliability

rates, though we offer some observations on this matter in the conclusions. Our aim

is measurement of the first order effects of machine types on the incidence of votes

counted.

Machine Types and Their Usage

We contrast the performance of five main classes of technologies used in the U.S.

today. The technologies differ according to the way votes are cast and counted.

The oldest technology is the paper ballot. To cast a vote, a person makes a mark

next to the name of the preferred candidates or referendum options and, then, puts

the ballot in a box.3 Paper ballots are counted manually. Paper ballots enjoyed a

near universal status in the U.S. in the 19th Century; they remain widely used

today in rural areas.

At the end of the 19th Century, mechanical lever machines were introduced in

New York State, and by 1930 every major metropolitan area had adopted lever machinery. The lever machine consists of a steel booth that the voter steps into. A card

in the booth lists the names of the candidates, parties, or referenda options, and

below each option is a switch. Voters flick the switch of their preferred options for

each office or referendum. When they wish to make no further changes, they pull

a large lever, which registers their votes on a counter located on the back of the

machine. At the end of the voting day, the election precinct workers record the tallies from each of the machines. Lever machines automate both the casting of votes

and the counting of votes through mechanical devices.

Punch card machines automated the counting process using the computer technology of the 1960s. Upon entering the polling place the voter is given a paper ballot

in the form of a long piece of heavy stock paper. The paper has columns of small,

perforated rectangles (or chads). There are two variants of the punch card—one, the

DataVote, lists the names of the candidates on the card; the other (VotoMatic) does

not. In the booth (for VotoMatics), the voter inserts the card into a slot and opens

a booklet that lists the candidates for a given office. The voter uses a metal punch

to punch out the rectangle beside the candidate of choice. The voter then turns the

page, which lists the options for the next office and shifts the card to the next column of rectangles. When finished, the voter removes the card and puts it in the ballot box. At the end of the day, the election workers put the cards into a sorter that

counts the number of perforations next to each candidate.

Optically scanned ballots, also known as ‘‘marksense’’ or ‘‘bubble’’ ballots, offer another method for automating the counting of paper ballots. The form of the optically

scanned ballot is familiar to anyone who has taken a standardized test. The voter

is given a paper ballot that lists the names of the candidates and the options for

referenda, and next to each choice is small circle or an arrow with a gap between

the fletching and the point. The voter darkens in the bubble next to the preferred

option for each office or referendum, or draws a straight line connecting the two

parts of the arrow. The ballot is placed in a box, and, at the end of the day, counted

using an optical scanner. Some versions of this technology allow the voter to scan

the ballot at the polling place to make sure that he or she voted as intended.

Direct recording electronic devices, DREs for short, are electronic versions of the

lever machines. In fact, the first widely used electronic machine (the Shouptronic

1242) was modeled on the lever machine and developed by one of the main lever

machine manufacturers. The distinguishing feature of a DRE is that an electronic

machine records the voter’s intentions, rather than a piece of paper or mechanical

device. To the extent that there is a paper trail it is generated by the machine, not

the voter. Electronic machines vary along a couple of dimensions, having to do with

the interface. First, there are many devices used to register the vote: the interfaces

are either push button (e.g., the Shouptronic) or touch screen (e.g., Sequoia Pacific’s

Edge or Unilect’s Patriot) or key pads (see the Brazillian machine). Second, the ballot design is either full-faced or paginated. With full-faced ballots, common among

57

push button equipment, the voter sees the entire ballot at once. With paginated systems, common among touch screen devices, the voter views a page for each office

or question on the ballot. A voting session goes roughly as follows. Upon entering

the polling place, the voter is given a card that is inserted into the machine to activate the individual voting session. When finished the voter touches the name on the

screen to register his or her preference and, typically, the voter may review the entire session (or ballot) to check the vote. Like lever machines it is not possible to

vote twice for the same office (i.e., overvote). Each electronic machine tallies the

votes locally and the tallies, usually on a disc, are sent to a central location.

Each type of technology involves many variations based on specifications of manufacturers, ballot formats, and implementation. Our focus is on the five main types

of machines, as we hope to learn which mode of voting looks most promising. In almost all states, county election officials decide which machinery to use, so counties

are, almost everywhere, the appropriate unit of analysis. Some counties do not have

uniform voting technologies. In these situations, municipalities and, sometimes, individual precincts use different methods. These counties are called Mixed Systems.

They occur most commonly in Massachusetts, Michigan, Maine, New Hampshire,

and Vermont, where town governments usually administer elections.

We examine the variation in usage across counties and over time. Our data on

voting equipment come from the Election Data Services and from state, county, and

municipal election officials. We appreciate the helpfulness of election administrators

and the EDS in our data collection efforts.

The data do not distinguish centrally counted and precinct counting of ballots sufficiently well that we could estimate with confidence the difference in performance

between central and precinct counting. Some states provide information about which

administrative units count the ballots for some machine types. Precinct and central

counting of optically scanned ballots became quite controversial in the Florida 2000

election.

Even without this additional level of detail, the pattern of equipment usage across

the United States looks like a crazy quilt. Americans vote with a tremendous array

of types of equipment. Table 1 displays the wide variation in machines used in the

1980 and 2000 elections. The first two columns present the average number of counties using various types of equipment in each year. The last two columns report the

percent of the population covered by each type of technology in the 1980 and 2000

elections.

In the most recent election, one in five voters used the ‘‘old’’ technologies of paper

and levers—1.3 percent paper and 17.8 percent levers. One in three voters use

punch cards—31 percent of the VotoMatic variety and 3.5 percent of the DataVote

variety. Over one in four use optically scanned ballots. One in ten use electronic devices. The remaining 8 percent use mixed systems.

Within states there is typically little uniformity. In some states, such as Arkansas, Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, at least one county uses each

type of technology available. The states with complete or near uniformity are New

York and Connecticut with lever machines; Alaska, Hawaii, Rhode Island and Oklahoma with scanners; Illinois with punch cards; Delaware and Kentucky with electronics.

As impressive and dramatic have been the changes in technology over time. The

third column of the table reports the percent of the 2000 electorate that would have

used each machine type had the counties kept the technologies they used in 1980.

The data are pretty clear: out with the old and in with the new. Optically scanned

ballots and DREs have grown from a combined 3.2 percent of the population covered

to 38.2 percent of the population covered. There has been little change in the mixed

and punch card systems. Paper ballots have fallen from 9.7 percent of all people in

1980 to just 1.3 percent in 2000. Lever machines, by far the dominant mode of voting in 1980, covered 43.9 percent of the electorate. Today, only 17.8 percent of people reside in counties using lever machines.

A somewhat different distribution of voting technology across counties holds,

owing to the very different population sizes of counties. Punch cards and electronic

devices tend to be used in more populous counties, and paper ballots tend to be used

in counties with smaller populations.

58

4See, Roy Saltman, Accuracy, Integrity and Security in Computerized Vote-Tallying, NBS SP

500-158, August 1988, NIST, Gaithersburg, MD. The report is available online at www.nist.gov/

itl/lab/specpubs/500-158.htm.

Table 1—Usage of Voting Equipment in the 1980 and 2000 Elections

Percent of Counties Using Technology Percent of 2000 Population Covered

by Technology

1980 2000 1980 2000

Paper Ballots ................................................................ 40.4 12.5 9.8 1.3

Lever Machines ............................................................. 36.4 14.7 43.9 17.8

Punch Card:

‘‘VotoMatic’’ ......................................................... 17.0 17.5 30.0 30.9

‘‘DataVote’ ........................................................... 2.1 1.7 2.7 3.5

Optically scanned ......................................................... 0.8 40.2 9.8 27.5

Electronic (DRE) ............................................................ 0.2 8.9 2.3 10.7

Mixed ............................................................................. 3.0 4.4 10.4 8.1

Three comments about the change in equipment are in order. First, this is an industry in flux. Between 1988 and 2000, nearly half of all counties adopted new technologies (1476 out of 3155 counties), and over the twenty-year period between 1980

and 2000, three out of five counties changed technologies. These changes have occurred without any federal investment.

Second, there is a clear trend toward electronic equipment, primarily scanners but

also electronic voting machines. This trend, and the adoption of punch cards in the

1950s and 1960s, reflects growing automation of the counting of votes. Punch cards,

optical scanners, and DREs use computer technology to produce a speedy and, hopefully, more reliable count. An influential 1975 report sponsored by the General Accounting Office and subsequent reports by the Federal Elections Commission called

for increased computerization of the vote counts and laid the foundation for methods

of certification.4

Third, voting equipment usage has a strongly regional flavor. The Eastern and

Southeastern United States are notable, even today, for their reliance on lever machines. Midwestern states have a penchant for paper. And the West and Southwest

rely heavily on punch cards. In 1980, almost all Eastern and Southeastern states

used levers, and levers were rare outside this region. Notable exceptions were the

use of paper in West Virginia and punch cards in Ohio and Florida. In 1980, Midwestern counties used hand counted paper ballots. Illinois was a notable exception

with its use of punch cards. And in 1980, almost all counties along the pacific coast

and in the Southwest used punch cards. Notable exceptions to the pattern were the

use of levers in New Mexico.

This historical pattern of usage evidently had a legacy. As counties have adopted

newer technologies over the last 20 years, they have followed some distinctive patterns. Counties tend to adopt newer technologies that are analogous to the technology they move away from. Optical scanning has been most readily adopted in

areas that previously used paper, especially in the Midwest. Where counties have

moved away from lever machines, they have tended to adopt electronic machines—

for example, New Jersey, Kentucky, central Indiana and New Mexico. These tendencies are strong, but they are not iron clad. In assessing the performance of technology, we will exploit the changes in election results associated with changes in

technology. This allows us to hold constant features of the states, counties, and their

populations.

Residual Votes: A Yardstick for Reliability

Our measure of reliability is the fraction of total ballots cast for which no Presidential preference was counted. We call this the ‘‘residual vote.’’

A ballot may show no Presidential vote for one of three reasons. Voters may

choose more than one candidate—commonly called an overvote or spoiled ballot.

They may mark their ballot in a way that is uncountable. Or, they may have no

preference. The latter two possibilities produce undervotes or blank ballots. The residual vote is not a pure measure of voter error or of machine failure, as it reflects

to some extent no preference. Consequently we prefer the term residual vote instead

of error rate or uncounted vote.

The residual vote does provide an appropriate yardstick for the comparison of machine types, even though it is not purely a measure of machine error or voting mistakes. If voting equipment has no effect on the ability of voters to express their preferences, then the residual vote should be unrelated to machine types. To measure

59

5Some analyses focus on extreme cases—under- and overvotes in specific elections in particular counties. Indeed, much of the analysis of Florida falls into this category. Such case studies can be misleading, especially if they reflect outcomes peculiar to a locale, or a local machine

failure. Another advantage of averaging is that it washes out the effects of typographical errors,

which are inevitable in data, even official government reports. 6We exclude from the analysis all cases in which the official certified report shows more Presidential votes cast than total ballots cast, that is, cases with negative residual vote rates. We

have tried to resolve all of these cases. They do not appear to be due to absentee votes or other

votes being excluded. Instead, they appear to be typographical errors in the data reported by

the counties and secretaries of state. This affects about 2 percent of the counties in our analysis.

Including these cases changes the numbers reported, but does not affect the pattern of results

that we observe.

such effects, we estimate the average residual vote associated with each machine

type, and we assess whether these averages differ significantly across machine type.

Averaging guards against idiosyncratic results, and measures what we expect to

happen in a typical case.5

In our data, the residual vote in the average county equaled 2.3 percent.6 In other

words, in the typical U.S. county from 1988 to 2000, 2.3 percent of ballots casts did

not register a Presidential preference, for whatever reason. Because county populations vary dramatically, this does not equal the fraction of people who cast an

under- or overvote for president in these years. This figure is somewhat smaller: 2.1

percent of people who cast ballots did not register a Presidential preference. There

is considerable variation around this average. Our aim in this report is to assess

whether machine types explain a statistically noticeable amount of the variation

around this national average residual vote.

We examine the residual vote instead of just the overvote because technology can

enable or interfere with voting in many ways. Some technologies seem to be particularly prone to over voting, such as the punch card systems implemented in Florida

in the 2000 election. Lever machines and DREs do not permit over voting. Some

technologies may be prone to accidental undervotes. Lever machines either lock out

a second vote or register no vote when the person switches two levers for the same

office. Also, paper ballot are sometimes hard to count owing to the many ways that

people mark their ballots. Finally, some technologies might intimidate or confuse

voters. Many Americans are unaccustomed to using an ATM or similar electronic

devices with key pads or touch screens, and as a result DREs might produce more

under voting. Also, it may be the case that we react differently to paper than to

machines. We are trained in school to answer all of the questions as best as possible, especially on standardized tests similar to the format used for optically

scanned voting. Improper installation or wear and tear on machines may lead to

high rates of under voting. In Hawaii in 1998, 7 of the 361 optical scanners failed

to operate properly.

In-depth study of particular states and of contested elections may provide insight

into the components of the residual vote or more specific problems related to voting

equipment. A number of papers published on the Internet examine the effects of machine types on overvotes and on undervotes separately for the Florida 2000 election,

and several Secretaries of State and State Election Divisions or commissions present

analyses of their own state.

One important caveat is in order in this analysis. There are errors that we cannot

count. There is no way to measure whether voters accidentally cast ballots for the

wrong candidate. We know of no statistically acceptable measures of fraud. And we

know of no studies that attempt to measure the incidence and magnitude of errors

in the counting of votes produced by transcription errors or programming errors. Residual votes provides the best available measure of the extent to which technology

enables or interferes with the ability of voters to express their preferences.

Many other factors may explain under- and overvoting beside machine types.

Other prominent offices on the ballot, such as senator or governor, might attract

people to the polls who have no intention to vote for president. A large turnout

might make it difficult for election administrators to tend to voter education at the

polls. Demographic characteristics of the county’s electorate might explain the incidence of people prone to make mistakes. The wealth of the county might account

for expenditures on election administration. New machinery might produce elevated

levels of voter confusion, simply because people make mistakes more with unfamiliar tasks.

We examine total ballots cast and ballots cast for President in the 1988, 1992,

1996, and 2000 elections. The data cover approximately 2800 counties and municipalities, though not for all years. All told, there are approximately 7800 counties

and municipalities for which we have been able to identify the machines used and

to collect data on total ballots and Presidential ballots cast. As with the voting

60

7The data in the table only include counties with positive residual vote rate. Approximately

2 percent of counties report negative numbers; these are the figures in the official certified vote.

Including counties with negative residual vote rates changes the numbers slightly but does not

change the results. Changing voting equipment, without any additional improvements, could

lower the incidence of under- and overvoting substantially.

equipment data, our data on elections returns come from the Election Data Services

and from the relevant election commissions of particular states, counties, and municipalities. The large number of observations produces high levels of precision in

estimating average residual vote rates associated with each machine type. Studies

of one election in one state may not have yielded sufficiently large samples to determine whether there are significant differences across voting equipment.

We examine the Presidential vote in order to hold constant the choices voters face.

Within each state one might also examine residual votes in Senate and governor

races, with the caveat that these offices have higher ‘‘no preference’’ and thus higher

residual votes.

We examine the data at the level of the county or municipality that reports the

information. Within each of these jurisdictions, the same voting equipment is used

and the administration of the election is under the same office (e.g., has the same

budget, etc.). Counties and municipalities are a useful level of analysis because they

allow us to hold constant where the equipment is used when we measure which

equipment is used. This is of particular concern because equipment usage today is

correlated with factors such as county size. We do not want to attribute any observed differences in reliability to equipment, when in fact some other factor, such

as county demographics, accounts for the pattern.

To hold constant the many factors that operate at the county level, we exploit the

natural experiment that occurs when locales change machinery. We measure how

much change in the residual vote occurs when a county changes from one technology

to another. The average of such changes for each technology type provides a fairly

accurate estimate of the effect of the technology on residual voting, because the

many other factors operating at the county level (such as demographic characteristics) change relatively slowly over the brief time span of this study.

To guard against other confounding factors, we also control for contemporaneous

Senate and gubernatorial races on the ballot, total turnout, and year of the election.

RESULTS

Typical Counties and Typical Voters

A simple table captures the principle results of this investigation. Table 2 presents the average residual vote rate for each type of voting equipment. The first column of numbers is the average; the second column is the margin of error associated

with this estimate; the third column is the median residual vote rate; and the final

column is the number of observations (counties and years) on which the estimate

is based. The average is the arithmetic mean residual vote across counties. The median is the residual vote such that half of all counties have lower values and half

of all counties have higher values. A lower median than mean reflects skew in the

distribution of the residual vote produced by a few cases with exceptionally high

rates of under- and overvotes. These averages do not control for other factors, but

they reveal a pattern that generally holds up to statistical scrutiny.7

Two clusters of technologies appear in the means and medians. Paper ballots,

lever machines, and optically scanned ballots have the lowest average and median

residual vote rates. The average residual voting rates of these technologies are significantly lower than the average residual voting rates of punch card and electronic

voting equipment. The differences among punch card methods and electronic voting

equipment are not statistically significant. Punch cards and electronic machines register residual voting rates for president of approximately 3 percent of all ballots

cast. Paper ballots, lever machines, and optically scanned ballots produce residual

voting rates of approximately 2 percent of all ballots cast, a statistically significant

difference of fully 1 percent. Or to put the matter differently, the residual voting

rate of punch card methods and electronic devices is 50 percent higher than the residual voting rate of manually counted paper ballots, lever machines, and optically

scanned ballots. This pattern suggests that simply changing voting equipment, without any additional improvements, could lower the incidence of under- and overvoting

substantially.

61

8We also present these yearly analyses to set the record straight. A story on cnn.com reports

that different people looking at the same data can reach different conclusions. The story cites

a separate analysis of the EDS data which suggests that electronics did particularly well in

1996. We have contacted EDS and have confirmed that the pattern of results in Table 3 is consistent with their data. Our data for 1996 come mainly from EDS. When we analyze just the

EDS data, we arrive at the same pattern of means, with electronics producing a relatively high

average residual vote.

Table 2—Average Residual Vote By Machine Type

[In U.S. Counties, 1988–2000, Presidential Elections, Residual Vote]

Machine Type County Average Standard

Deviation Median Percent of All Ballots N

Paper Ballot ..................................... 1.9 2.1 1.5 1.9 1,540

Lever Machine .................................. 1.9 1.7 1.4 1.7 1,382

Punch Card:

‘‘VotoMatic’’ ............................ 3.0 1.9 2.5 2.6 1,893

‘‘DataVote’’ ............................. 2.9 2.7 2.0 2.4 383

Optically scanned ............................ 2.1 2.8 1.3 1.6 1,821

Electronic (DRE) ............................... 2.9 1.8 2.7 2.2 494

Mixed ................................................ 2.2 1.8 1.7 1.5 283

Overall .............................................. 2.3 2.2 1.8 2.1 7,796

Another take on the average reliability of equipment is the percent of all ballots

cast for which no Presidential vote was registered. This is displayed in the fourth

column of numbers: this is the weighted average of the county residual vote, in

which we weight by total ballots cast in the county. All of the figures shrink toward

zero but the same general pattern holds. In fact, optical scanning seems to do particularly well by this measure. Only 1.6 percent of all ballots cast with optical scanners showed an overvote or no vote over the years 1988 to 2000. Approximately, 1.8

percent of voters cast an overvote or no vote using paper ballots or lever machines.

Slightly more than 2 percent of voters cast an overvote or no vote with punch cards

or electronics.

To explore the robustness of the pattern further, we isolate specific years. Table

3 presents the residual vote rates for each year of our data.8 The bottom row of the

table presents residual vote as a fraction of all ballots cast in each year. The entries

in the table are the residual vote as a fraction of all ballots cast using each type

of technology in each year. It should be noted that year-to-year one expects more

random variation in the numbers simply by chance. Every time someone votes on

a machine they have a small chance of making a random error. Taking averages

over many cases gives us a more precise measure of the typical behavior. This is

especially true for categories of equipment for which there are relatively small numbers of observations, namely DataVote and Electronics.

Even with this statistical caveat, the yearly averages bear out the same general

pattern as the overall averages. In each year, except perhaps 2000, paper ballots

and lever machines on the whole have lower residual vote rates than the other technologies. In 2000, paper and levers had relatively low residual vote rates, but so too

did scanners and electronics.

Electronics did relatively poorly in 1988, 1992, and 1996. 2000 was the banner

year for electronics, but in that year paper ballots and optically scanned ballots had

even lower average residual vote rates.

VotoMatic punch cards have consistently high average residual vote rates. In

1988, 1996 and again in 2000, punch cards had substantially higher rates of overand undervotes than other available technologies. This is of particular concern because approximately one in three voters use punch cards. If election administrators

wish to avoid catastrophic failures, they may heed the warning contained in this

table and the last. It is the warning that Roy Saltman issued in his 1988 report.

Stop using punch cards.

Electronic machines look similarly prone to high residual vote rates, except for

2000, which offers a glimmer of promise for this technology.

62

Table 3—Residual Vote as a Percent of Total Ballots Cast By Machine Type and Year

[U.S. Counties, 1988–2000 Presidential Elections; Residual Votes as a Percent of All Ballots]

Machine Type 1988 1992 1996 2000

Paper Ballot .................................................................. 2.2 1.4 2.1 1.3

Lever Machine ............................................................... 2.0 1.5 1.7 1.7

Punch Card:

‘‘VotoMatic’’ ......................................................... 2.9 2.2 2.6 3.0

‘‘DataVote’’ .......................................................... 3.7 2.4 2.1 1.0

Optically scanned ......................................................... 2.5 2.4 1.5 1.2

Electronic (DRE) ............................................................ 3.5 2.5 2.9 1.6

Mixed ............................................................................. 2.1 1.4 1.5 2.7

Overall ........................................................................... 2.5 2.0 2.1 2.0

Effects of Technology Adoption on Residual Vote Rates

Of course many other factors might explain the observed pattern, including features of the counties and specific elections. The difference between the county and

population-weighted averages suggests that county size strongly affects residual

vote rates: larger counties typically have lower residual vote rates than smaller

counties. We clearly need to hold constant where equipment is used in order to

gauge accurately the effects of equipment types on residual vote rates. There are

certainly many other factors, such as county literacy rates, education levels, election

administration expenditures, other candidates on the ballot, years in which shifts

in technology occur.

We hold constant turnout, shifts in technology, other statewide candidates on the

ballot, and all factors at the county and state level that do not change dramatically

over the period of study, such as literacy rates. To hold these other factors constant

we performed a multiple regression of changes in the residual voting rate at the

county level on changes in the machine used at the county level, controlling for the

year of the election, whether there was a switch in technology in a specific year in

a given county, and the total vote in the county. This approach removes the effects

of all factors that distinguish the counties, changes in turnout levels within counties, and some features of the election in the state.

In essence, our statistical approach is that of a ‘‘natural experiment.’’ We observe

within each county how residual votes change when counties change machine technologies. Between 1988 and 2000, slightly more than half of all counties changed

their voting equipment.

The effect of specific technologies on residual votes is expressed relative to a baseline technology. We chose lever machines to serve as this baseline for the contrasts,

because levers were the modal machines in 1988. The observed effects contrast the

change in residual vote associated with a specific technology compared to a baseline

technology. By making multiple comparisons (e.g., paper to lever, scanners to lever,

etc.), we measure the relative performance of existing equipment.

We omit counties with Mixed Systems, as it is unclear exactly what technologies

are in use. The exceptions are Massachusetts and Vermont, where equipment is uniform within towns: we have collected the information at the town level for these

states.

Table 4 reports the observed difference between lever machines and other machine types, along with the ‘‘margin of error’’ (i.e., a 95 percent confidence interval)

associated with the observed differences. The complete regression analyses are

available upon request. Positive numbers mean that the technology in question has

higher average residual vote than lever machines and negative numbers mean that

the technology in question has lower average residual vote than lever machines. The

wider the margin of error, the less certainty we have about the observed difference.

A margin of error in excess of the actual effect means that the observed effect could

have arisen by chance.

Table 4 presents results from two separate analyses. One analysis, presented in

the first two columns, contains all valid cases. A second analysis, presented in the

last two columns, trims the data of extreme cases. To guard against outliers and

typographical errors, we omit the cases with lowest 5 percent of residual vote and

highest 5 percent of residual vote.

Table 4 bears out the same patterns as Tables 2 and 3. After introducing considerable statistical controls, we reach the same conclusions about the relative performance of different equipment types. Two clusters of technologies appear in Table 3.

Paper ballots, optically scanned ballots, and lever machines appear to perform noVerDate 03-FEB-2003 10:41 Jun 28, 2004 Jkt 088707 PO 00000 Frm 00066 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 D:\DOCS\88707S~1.TXT SSC1 PsN: SSC1
63

ticeably better than punch card methods and electronic devices. Paper might even

be an improvement over lever machines and scanners.

Table 4—Which is Best?

[Residual Vote Attributable to Machine Type Relative to Lever Machines; U.S. Counties, 1988–2000 Presidential Elections]

Machine Contrast

All Counties Excluding Extremes

Estimated Difference In % RVMargin of

Error (a)

Estimated Difference In % RV Margin of Error

Paper Ballot v. Levers .................................................. –0.55 +/- 0.37 –0.19 +/- 0.19

Punch Card ‘‘VotoMatic’’ v. Levers .............................. 1.32 +/- 0.38 1.11 +/- 0.20

‘‘DataVote’’ v. Levers .................................................... 1.24 +/- 0.52 0.97 +/- 0.28

Optically scanned v. Levers ......................................... 0.11 +/- 0.35 –0.05 +/- 0.19

Electronic (DRE) v. Levers ............................................ 0.90 +/- 0.30 0.67 +/- 0.16

Number of Cases .......................................................... ........................ 7513 ........................ 7078

(a) This is the 95 percent confidence interval for the estimated effect; the half-width of the confidence interval equals 1.96 s/vn, where s

is the estimated standard error of the estimated coefficient for each machine type.

First consider the contrast between paper and levers. Looking at all counties (the

first two columns of the table), the estimated effect of using paper ballots rather

than lever machines of is to lower the residual vote rate by approximately one-half

of 1 percent of all ballots cast (i.e., and estimated effect of - 0.55). This effect is larger than the margin of error of .37, so the effect is unlikely to have arisen by chance.

Omitting extreme cases, the evident advantage of paper ballots over lever machines

shrinks: the effect becomes two-tenths of 1-percent of ballots cast and this is not

statistically different from zero difference between levers and paper.

Second consider optical scanning. The difference in the residual vote rate between

scanners and levers is trivial once we hold constant where equipment is used, how

many people voted, the year, other statewide candidates on the ballot, and technological changes. In both analyses, the difference between optically scanned ballots

and lever machines is quite small and statistically insignificant. Levers and paper

and scanned ballots appear to offer similar rates of reliability, at least as it is measured using the residual vote.

The third contrast in the tables is of punch cards to lever machines. Punch card

methods produced much higher rates of residual voting. The VotoMatic variety of

punch cards produced residual vote rates more than 1-percentage point higher than

what we observe with lever machines. In our examination of all cases, punch cards

recorded 1.3 percent of all ballots less than lever machines did. The estimated effect

remains in excess of 1-percentage point even after we exclude the extreme cases.

The DataVote variety of punch cards looks extremely similar to the VotoMatic variety. Because DataVote punch cards have the candidate’s names on the card, they

were widely believed to be superior to the VotoMatic cards. We find no evidence to

support this belief.

A final contrast in the table is between DREs and lever machines. Electronic machines registered significantly higher residual vote rates than lever machines (and,

by extension, paper ballots and optically scanned ballots), but DREs do not do as

badly as punch cards. Direct Recording Electronic devices had a residual vote rate

that was almost 1 percentage point higher than lever machines, holding constant

many factors, including the county. In other words, a county that switches from levers to DREs can expect a significant rise in residual votes of approximately 1 percent of total ballots cast. Excluding extreme observations, the effect is somewhat

smaller, two-thirds of 1 percent of all ballots cast. But that is still highly significant

from a statistical perspective, and we find it to be a substantively large effect.

One final note about the estimated effect of the DRE performance is in order. Because this machine does not permit over voting, the observed difference in residual

vote rates is due to a very significant rise in undervoting attributable to electronic

devices.

We checked the robustness of our results in a variety of ways. We tried various

transformations of the dependent variable, and we split the data into counties of

different sizes (under 5000 votes, 5000 to 100,000 votes, and over 100,000 votes).

The pattern of results is always the same.

Perhaps the most instructive check on the robustness of our analysis comes when

we track changes in equipment usage over time. What happened in the counties

that used levers in 1988 in the subsequent three presidential elections? Some of

those counts continued to use their lever equipment over the succeeding three presidential elections. Approximately half decided to adopt other technologies and almost

64

all of those that changed went to either electronics or scanners. How did the residual vote rates in these counties compare to 1988?

Table 5—Counties Using Levers in 1988

[From 1988 to Current year (1992, 1996 or 2000)]

Change in Residual Vote As % of

All Ballots

Avg. Change in

County Residual

Vote

Median Change

in County Residual VoteN

Kept Levers ................................................................... –0.21 –0.13 –0.25 520

To Scanners .................................................................. –0.62 –0.18 –0.32 137

To DREs ........................................................................ 0.55 0.73 0.83 250

Baseline Residual vote rate is 1.8 percent in 1988 for counties with lever machines.

Standard Deviation is approximately 0.16 for each group in the first column and 0.17 for each group in the second column.

The rows of Table 5 present three different sorts of counties. The first row shows

counties that used lever machines in 1988 and stayed with levers in 1992, 1996, and

2000. The second row represents counties that had lever machines in 1988, but

switched to optical scanning in one of the succeeding elections. The third row represents counties that had lever machines in 1988, but switched to DREs in one of

the succeeding elections.

The columns of the table present the average change in the residual vote rate

from 1988 to the current year. We then average over all years. Consider, for example, a county that had levers in 1988 and 1992, but scanners in 1996 and 2000. The

first row includes the observed the change in the residual vote rate from 1988 to

1992 for such a county. The second row contains the average change in the residual

vote rate from 1988 to 1996 and from 1988 to 2000, the two elections in which the

county used scanners.

What happened in these histories? On average, counties that kept their lever machines saw a slight improvement in their residual vote rates from 1988 to 1992,

1996, and 2000. On average, counties that switched to scanners had their residual

vote rates fall by even more than the counties that stuck with levers. On average,

counties that switched to DREs saw their residual vote rates increase above the residual vote rate that they had in 1988. The difference between the increment in residual vote rate for counties that changed to scanners and counties that changed

to DREs is fully 1 percent of total ballots cast.

What Explains the High Residual Vote Rate of DREs?

We were very surprised by the relatively high residual vote rate of electronic

equipment. When we began this investigation we expected the newer technologies

to outperform the older technologies. Considering some of the glowing reports about

electronics following the 2000 election, we expected the DREs to do well. They did

not, especially compared optically scanned paper ballots.

We are not pessimistic about this technology, however. It is relatively new, and

we see this as an opportunity for improvement. In this spirit we offer six possible

explanations for the relatively high residual vote rates of electronic voting machines.

First, the problems may reflect existing interfaces and ballot designs. The results

might stem from differences between touch screens and push buttons or between

full-face and paginated ballots (paper and levers are full faced).

Second, there may be a technology curve. As the industry gains more experience

with electronics they may fix specific problems.

Third, we may be still low on the voter learning curve. As voters become more

familiar with the newer equipment errors may go down. As more people use electronic equipment in other walks of life, such as ATM machines for banking, residual

votes may drop.

Fourth, electronics may require more administrative attention, especially at the

polling place, and thus be more prone to problems under the administrative procedures used in most counties.

Fifth, electronic equipment may be harder to maintain and less reliable than a

piece of paper or a mechanical device. Power surges, improper storage, and software

errors may affect DREs.

Sixth, the problem may be inherent in the technology. One speculation is that

people behave differently with different technologies. Electronic machines may be

simply a less human friendly technology.

There is simply too little data from existing equipment usage to say with confidence what exactly accounts for the relatively high residual vote rate of DREs that

we observe. We observe approximately 480 instances of electronic machine usage.

When we divide the cases according to features of the interfaces, there are too few

65

cases to gain much leverage on the questions of interface design. Half of the observations in our data are Shouptronic 1242 machines; another one-quarter are

Microvote machines. These are push button, full faced machines. One-in-six are Sequoia AVC Advantage machines. There is not enough variety in machines used or

enough observations to accurately measure whether some features of the interface

explain the results. Careful, systematic laboratory testing may be required to identify the importance of the interface.

Year-by-year analysis casts some doubt on the notion that there is a voter learning curve. The residual vote rate does not fall steadily for counties using DREs, but

jumps around. This variation may owe to the small number of observations in each

year. Again, to resolve questions of possible learning or technology curves more detailed analyses and information beyond what we have collected will be required.

Conclusions

Paper ballots, lever machines, and optically scanned ballots produce lower residual vote rates on the order of 1 to 2 percent of all ballots cast over punch card and

electronic methods over the last four Presidential elections.

Lever machines serve as a useful baseline: they were the most commonly used

machines in the 1980s, the starting point of our analysis. The incidence of over- and

undervotes with lever machines is approximately 2 percent of all ballots cast. The

incidence of such residual votes with punch card methods and electronic devices is

40 to 70 percent higher than the incidence of residual votes with the other technologies.

We have not analyzed why these differences in residual votes arise. We believe

that they reflect how people relate to the technologies, more than actual machine

failures. State and federal voting machine certification tolerate very low machine

failure rates: no more than 1 in 250,000 ballots for federal certification and no more

than 1 in 1,000,000 ballots in some states. Certification serves as an important

screen: machines that produce failure rates higher than these tolerance levels are

not certified or used. We believe that human factors drive much of the ‘‘error’’ in

voting, because the observed differences in residual voting rates that are attributable to machine types are on the order of 1 to 2 out of 100 ballots cast. Given

the stringent testing standards for machinery in use, these differences are unlikely

to arise from mechanical failures.

We have also not examined many details about the implementation of the machinery, such as manufacturer or precinct versus central counting of ballots or specific

ballot layouts.

A final caveat to our findings is that they reflect technologies currently in use.

Innovations may lead to improvements in reliability rates. In particular, electronic

voting technology is in its infancy during the period we are studying, and has the

greatest room for improvement. It seems the most likely technology to benefit significantly from new innovations and increased voter familiarity.

In the wake of the 2000 election, many state and local governments are reconsidering their choices of and standards for voting equipment. Many manufacturers are

seeking to develop or improve machinery. This report identifies a performance

standard in practice—an average residual vote not in excess of 2 percent of total

ballots cast. With this benchmark in mind, we wish to call attention to the excellent

performance of the optically scanned ballots, the best average performance of the

newer methods, and especially to the older methods of voting—lever machines and

paper ballots.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Professor. You said the cost could range between $600 million and $2 billion depending on what technology was adopted. What would be the difference in those technologies? The effect—obviously, we are looking the cost effectiveness here. What would you view as a reasonable fix, at least in the

short term?

Dr. ANSOLABEHERE. If I were an election administrator purchasing equipment, given what I have learned and seen and so

forth, if I were to buy equipment today, based on what I believe

about the performance of existing equipment, I would buy optically

scanned precinct-based equipment, which would cost about $6 a

voter to purchase. I would lease it, like Rhode Island did. That

would spread the cost over many years.

That is what the $600 million figure would be.

66

The CHAIRMAN. What about touchscreen technology?

Dr. ANSOLABEHERE. The touchscreen technology clearly represents an improvement over the older DREs, which were pushbuttons. There would be a big panel and you would push a button

next to the name. There are too few of those cases in existence as

they have been tested in the field to get a really good read on the

performance. There is Riverside County, which had a very good experience, and there is Beaver County, Pennsylvania, which had a

horrible experience. So the whole gamut is out there with the

touchscreens.

I think that that is one of the things where having some sort of

testing before you go into the field with equipment where real voters are using the equipment and trying to——

The CHAIRMAN. What was the problem in Beaver County?

Dr. ANSOLABEHERE. I think their undervote rate was 10 percent.

The CHAIRMAN. With touchscreen technology?

Dr. ANSOLABEHERE. Touchscreen technology.

The CHAIRMAN. All we hear about is the Riverside experience. Interesting.

Dr. ANSOLABEHERE. Assembling these data are really painful, because you have to call every county in the United States, basically,

to get it.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I thank you.

Mr. Michel and Mr. Richardson, I would ask that in the process

of your deliberations you would address this whole issue of—a couple of issues. One is, as I asked our previous witnesses, when the

federal government gets involved with a cost-sharing procedure,

which I think is probably something that is going to happen—I was

interested in Secretary of State Willis’ proposal of a $1-$1-$1

ratio—we always have a tendency in Congress whenever we start

giving them money to set mandates and requirements.

Obviously, they would like to see everything done voluntarily. I

am not sure that Congresswoman Lee would like to see everything

done voluntarily by the various local authorities. So I hope you will

address that aspect of this issue.

The other aspect of it I think is this whole issue of Internet voting. You know, in Arizona in our Democrat primary last cycle they

had Internet voting. It was not real successful, but it was the first

attempt at it. We just passed a law last year that made all transactions legal and binding the same as someone’s signature on a

legal paper document. So clearly it is a technology that I think we

may want to make use of.

I think of the State of Oregon, where all voting is done by mail

now. It is just a very brief step to allowing someone to vote over

the Internet, if they are required to mail in their ballot. So I hope

you will look at that whole issue as well.

Finally, I think the issue that drove this commission and this

Committee and Congress and the American people is the inequity

that exists. Clearly, evidence has been presented that is compelling

that people from lower income areas of America are less likely to

have their vote counted than people from more affluent areas.

Montgomery County might be the exception that makes the rule

here, as our previous witness stated, Mr. Willis stated. But it really

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is an inequity that I think should be the fundamental principle

driving our efforts for electoral reform.

I thank you for your willingness to serve. I am absolutely certain

that, with the kind of weight and gravity of your commission, that

I think the Congress will clearly, and the administration will clearly, want to see your recommendations carefully scrutinized and put

into law, I hope. I also hope that the results of your efforts will

again highlight the importance of it. There is a belief, as I stated

earlier, that this whole issue has sort of faded from the radar

screen. I hope that is not the case, because it will pop right back

up again November of the year 2002, and then we will receive some

deserved responsibility and blame for not acting.

I want to thank you all for being here. Do you have any final

comments you would like to make, Bob?

Mr. MICHEL. Well, only in a sense on the funding. We had quite

a spirited debate in the very first hearing that we had down in Atlanta, on how much federal money would be available. Does that

tend to diminish the states’ action? They may say ‘‘We are going

to wait on the federal government to bail us out of this thing.’’ We

of course, do not want that to happen.

I am glad to see not only Florida, but also Georgia, took a

marked step in election reform. I think you are finding more and

more state legislatures getting acclimated to doing that. If the publicity prompts some of the other legislatures to move, then I think

we will eventually get a little better sense of feel about what that

proper ratio ought to be. We want to encourage the states to do it

with kind of seed money from the Feds, but we do not want them

totally to rely on it.

We have had to make that decision any number of times in many

other federal programs: What is the magic formula? I guess that

is why we need as much testimony as we can from as divergent

sources to get the right answer.

The CHAIRMAN. Once you find that formula, what degree of compliance or responsibility to the federal government and the American people should be exercised by the recipients of that funding?

Bill, do you have anything?

Mr. RICHARDSON. I agree with the Chairman. Senator, you really

put your finger on the key issue: What is the federal and the state

responsibility? I think Chairman Michel and our commission is

heading in the direction of the federal government not being totally

intrusive on the states, but if we can, to devise a system of incentives. I just want to keep an eye a little bit on what is happening.

I know Congresswoman Lee has worked on this extensively.

My concern is what you also said and that is minority voters, elderly voters, low-income voters, on Indian reservations, how can we

ensure that there is full voter participation? I think you have to

have a little bit of oversight. Some states have taken some good initiatives. I mentioned Florida, I mentioned Georgia. So maybe a little combination of what Bob said is what is going to be needed.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Professor Ansolabehere.

Dr. ANSOLABEHERE. I just wanted to share one final cost, feature

of the costs of paying for elections that fits with what we have

heard earlier. That is that elections are a very high fixed cost kind

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of enterprise. So from the election administrator or the county’s

perspective, there is a very high fixed cost per voter and there is

a big economy of scale for a big city or for a high populace county.

Very expensive and very difficult for rural counties to pay for election administration. We see that in the cost data very clearly.

So I think if there is some federal role maybe it does make sense

to help rural counties in particular bear some of the costs.

The CHAIRMAN. It may make some sense to have a means testing

or a priority for the lower income areas. In Santa Cruz County in

the southern part of my state, the cost of upgrading the voting machines would be a huge part of the budget.

Do you have any comment, by the way, on the Internet voting

issue?

Dr. ANSOLABEHERE. Well, I think the security experts in our

group are most concerned about denial of service. They are most

concerned about the Internet crashing during election night, not by

the volume of the Internet——

The CHAIRMAN. Like during a brownout?

Dr. ANSOLABEHERE. Exactly. A lot of the security problems have

been resolved and compared to the security of absentee voting currently it is probably an improvement.

The other problem is what we call scalability, which is with most

voting systems it is very hard for one individual to commit largescale fraud. One individual can maybe steal a couple ballots here

or there, vote a couple of times on election day to commit fraud.

With the Internet, there is the prospect of someone, some individual, committing a large-scale fraud.

There is a second issue here which does have to do with standards, and that is that all the electronic equipment upload the ballots electronically. So some of those interfaces are through the

Internet already. So the Internet, to the extent that we are getting

electronic equipment out there, is present either directly or in ballots being uploaded through modems. The prospect of some sort of

security breach exists there.

But our security guys tend to be nervous about all sorts of

things.

The CHAIRMAN. Given what hackers have been able to accomplish, I think it is a very legitimate concern.

I thank the witnesses and I really am appreciative of your presence here today. Thank you very much.

This hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 11:08 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

(69)

APPENDIX

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF STATE LEGISLATURES

The National Conference of State Legislatures has established a bipartisan Task

Force on Election Reform to assist state legislatures in their efforts to improve election technology and administration. The Task Force is focusing its efforts in three

areas:

• Restoring faith and public confidence in state election systems;

• Ensuring that election reform on the federal level complements state efforts,

does not pre-empt state authority and allows states the ability to be innovative; and

• Providing states with important information on methods and best practices to

address election reforms.

The NCSL Task Force will issue a report at the NCSL Annual Meeting in August

2001. In the interim, the Task Force has adopted the following recommendations for

any federal election reform legislation:

• NCSL acknowledges that a national debate on election reform has begun and

that any Congressionally mandated changes in elections processes necessarily will

impact state and local elections. NCSL recognizes that state law controls the processes and the administration of matters pertaining to federal, state, and local elections. It logically follows that NCSL, as the national voice of the various state legislatures, should be at the center of this national debate.

• NCSL finds that most of the significant federal legislation introduced in the

107th Congress contains guidelines for the formation of an election commission or

task force to examine election issues and to develop guidelines or mandates for federal elections which necessarily will affect state and local elections. NCSL recognizes Congress’ desire to have a voice in the national debate on election reform and

understands the formation of a federal commission or task force to provide such a

voice may be inevitable. NCSL believes that it must be an equal partner within any

such federal commission or task force because this effort must be a partnership

among federal, state, and local officials.

• Should Congress move forward with election reform legislation that requires the

formation of a federal commission or task force to examine election reform issues

in the states, NCSL will lend its support to such effort only if state legislators are

included in the composition of any such commission or task force.

• NCSL acknowledges that, due to events surrounding the last Presidential election, public confidence in the elections process must be restored. NCSL recognizes

that states may need federal block grant funding to assist in the implementation

of new and innovative election reform procedures. NCSL also believes that such

funding should be based on broad principles, not upon specific mandates which

would lead to a ‘‘one size fits all’’ approach to elections. Therefore, NCSL supports

a block grant formula which awards money to states for broad-based purposes dealing with election reform, and opposes any funding mechanism which seeks to mandate specific requirements on the states.

• NCSL is of the opinion that the creation of another new agency to administer

these block grants is unnecessary, believing that the Federal Elections Commission

may be the most appropriate federal agency to administer any such federal block

grant program.

• NCSL supports federal block grant funding to states for the following broad

purposes:

• Improving election technology, systems and ballot design;

• Facilitating voter registration, verification and maintenance of voter rolls;

• Improving the accuracy and security of election procedures and vote counts;

• Educating citizens on representative democracy and election processes and systems;

• Providing greater access to voter registration and polling places especially for

rural and disabled voters; and

• Providing training and education opportunities for elections personnel.

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Overview of State Election Reform Legislation

On May 4, the Florida legislature passed what is by far the most sweeping election reform proposal passed in the states this year. The Florida bill, SB 1118, contains the following provisions:

• $24 million for new voting systems. The bill bans punch card machines and requires counties to purchase electronic or optical scan precinct-count equipment by

2002. The state will give smaller counties $7,500 per precinct for equipment purchase, and larger counties will get $3,750 per precinct.

• $6 million for counties to conduct voter education and poll worker recruitment

and training.

• $2 million for the creation of a statewide voter registration database

The bill also:

• Requires the secretary of state to create a uniform ballot design to be used

statewide.

• Requires data collection and reports of voter error (overvotes and undervotes).

• Establishes no-excuse absentee voting.

• Allows for provisional ballots, permitting a voter who claims to be registered

but whose eligibility to vote cannot be determined at the polls on election day, to

cast a ballot.

• Sets new deadlines for counties to submit election returns to the state.

• Creates uniform recount provisions.

• Requires the secretary of state to develop rules for determining voter intent.

• Creates uniform standards for voting by overseas citizens.

• Requires the secretary of state to set standards for and county election supervisors to implement voter education, including but not limited to registration, polling place and absentee balloting procedures, voter rights and responsibilities, sample ballots, and public service announcements.

• Sets standards for poll worker training.

• Eliminates the run-off primary.

• Requires a study of the feasibility of establishing uniform statewide polling

place hours.

Other legislatures around the country have been busy with election reform as

well. Nearly 1,600 bills have been introduced to date, and 130 have been signed into

law as of May 4, 2001. 1,100 bills are pending in the 32 states where legislatures

are still in session.

Some of the highlights of new election laws are:

Voting Systems

• Georgia passed SB 213, which requires the adoption of uniform election equipment throughout the state by 2004. Georgia will conduct a pilot project to test electronic touch-screen voting equipment in the 2001 municipal elections. They have established the 21st Century Voting Commission to oversee the pilot project and to

advise the state on the selection of new voting equipment.

• The Maryland General Assembly has passed HB 1457 and SB 833 (both are

currently awaiting gubernatorial action), which require the State Board of Elections,

in cooperation with local boards of elections, to select and certify a new voting system to be used in all counties in the state. Under the Maryland plan, the state

would pay for half the cost of acquiring and operating the new system, and counties

would pay the other half.

• Idaho passed H 206 requiring that voting systems meet Federal Election Commission standards and undergo independent testing authorized by the National Association of State Election Directors.

Standards for Counting and Recounting

• Colorado passed SB 132, which expands the time allowed for recounts from 21

to 30 days, and stipulates that ballots must be recounted using the same procedures

by which they were originally counted.

• Virginia passed HB 1843 and HB 2849, which require the State Board of Elections to provide standards for determining whether a ballot has or has not been

voted for a candidate and for promoting a timely and accurate resolution of recount

questions. Virginia also passed SB 986, which sets specific standards for reviewing

punch card ballots that are not accepted by a counting machine because chads are

not fully separated from the card.

• The Washington Legislature approved HB 1644 (currently awaiting gubernatorial action), which specifies uniform statewide procedures for recounts.

• Kansas passed SB 126, which specifies who pays for recounts in national and

statewide races.

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Registration

• The Colorado legislature passed HB 1307 (currently awaiting gubernatorial action), providing for the establishment of a computerized registration database.

• Indiana passed a similar measure, HB 1510 (awaiting gubernatorial action),

creating an Internet-accessible statewide voter registration file.

• SB 213 in Georgia establishes a new process for removing deceased voters and

convicted felons from voter registration lists.

• Kansas passed SB 127, enabling the secretary of state to create within the centralized registration database a category of inactive voters (voters who have failed

to vote in two consecutive elections or who have failed to respond to confirmation

mailings). The bill also permits county election officials to use Social Security Administration data to remove deceased persons from voter registration lists. Kansas

also passed SB 63, requiring the use of the last four digits of voters’ social security

numbers in registration lists as a way of identifying registered voters.

• Montana passed HB 204, making it easier to remove inactive voters from registration rolls.

• South Dakota passed two bills which will completely revamp their system of

voter registration. HB 1252 creates a centralized voter registration database in the

secretary of state’s office. HB 1009 creates a process for keeping the centralized

voter database up-to-date by providing means of removing the names of voters who

are deceased, who have been declared mentally incompetent or have been convicted

and sentenced for a felony, and who fail to vote, update their registration, and fail

to respond to confirmation mailings.

• Virginia passed a package of 11 bills to clean up their registration system.

By far the most common subject of bills this year is the establishment of task

forces, study commissions, and interim committees. At least 75 bills proposing studies of election laws have been proposed in 28 states. The intense media and public

scrutiny of election laws that has gone on since the drawn-out Presidential election

last year has clearly placed pressure on legislatures to act. However, many states

are finding that the issue is broader and more complex, and that solutions are more

expensive, than they initially thought. Taking some time to study the situation is

a pragmatic first step and can help states come to grips with the complexity of the

issue. Some of the proposed studies are broad in nature, looking at election procedures as a whole; others are highly specific and propose studies of issues such as

Internet voting, voting systems, recount procedures, and poll working training and

recruitment. Newly passed legislative measures that propose election reform studies

include:

• Georgia passed SB 213, which creates the 21st Century Voting Commission to

study voting systems and recommend a new system for the state to adopt by 2004.

• Montana passed HJ 8, commissioning an interim study on election reform.

• Nebraska passed LB 67, which creates a six-member task force to conduct a 2-

year study of the election process.

• North Dakota passed HCR 3039, which encourages the secretary of state to establish a committee to study election laws.

• Pennsylvania passed H.R. 14, creating a joint select committee to study the

laws, practices and procedures of elections.

• Virginia passed HJ 681 and SJ 363, which create a joint subcommittee to study

the state’s election process and voting technologies.

1,100 bills are still pending in the 32 states whose legislative sessions haven’t yet

ended. A few states are considering sweeping election reform bills. These bills encompass everything from registration procedures to announcing election results, and

everything in between. Most bills, however, focus on narrower topics. They tend to

reflect problems that were highlighted in the 2000 elections, or are modeled after

successful programs in other states. These include:

• Absentee voting.

• Ballot design.

• Modernizing voting equipment.

• Standards for counting votes and judging voter intent.

• Recount standards.

• Modifying the Electoral College.

• Poll worker recruitment, training and compensation.

• Registration procedures.

• Requiring voter ID at the polls.

• Alternative voting methods, such as Internet voting and mail ballots.

• Campaign practices.

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PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION

Mr. Chairman, Senator Hollings, members of the Committee, the Federal Election

Commission (FEC) is pleased to submit this testimony for the record in connection

with this very important hearing on federal election reform.

There has been considerable discussion about the need for federal assistance to

the state and local election administrators responsible for acquiring, installing, operating and maintaining the nation’s voting machinery. The 2000 Presidential election

raised issues about both the adequacy of voting machines and the standards used

by local election officials, who, in some cases, are not trained election administrators. Apparently, there is a general consensus the federal government could provide

valuable and timely assistance to the states to improve their election administration. We believe the FEC is well positioned to provide that assistance.

The federal government already has taken steps to help state and local election

officials make informed decisions about voting equipment. In response to requests

from states for technical assistance, Congress authorized the FEC to develop national Voluntary Voting Systems Standards (VSS) for computer-based systems.

These standards, first published in 1990, established minimum performance requirements for reliable voting systems. The FEC has established an Advisory Panel

of election officials from around the country to assist with this and other election

administration projects.

Despite limited funds, the FEC’s Office of Election Administration (OEA) is in the

process of updating the existing standards. In fact, the FEC began this modification

of VSS in 1999, long before the 2000 election. The FEC plans to release Volume I

(Technical Standards) of the updated VSS for public review and comment on June

29, 2001. Volume II (test criteria) will be released for public comment on October

31, 2001, with the FEC issuing the final updated standards (Volumes I and II) on

April 12, 2002.

The VSS currently are being used in a national testing effort overseen by the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED), who have established a process for vendors to submit their equipment for evaluation under these national standards. States are free to adopt the VSS. Thirty six states have done so, either wholly

or in part. The standards do not dictate a particular type of design for voting equipment; instead they measure the reliability of existing voting equipment, without stifling future innovation.

While establishing the VSS was a useful initial step toward raising the quality

of voting systems, the problems in the 2000 election illustrate the need to expand

the VSS in two crucial areas. First, the standards should be enhanced to address

human interface with the voting system to prevent, for example, a poorly designed

ballot from causing confusion at the polling place. Thoughtful and logical ballot layout should use time-tested elements borrowed from the graphic and communication

design communities to make voting a more natural, intuitive function. Second, the

VSS should be expanded to include certain standards for operation, for example in

the area of maintenance. While a machine may meet a particular standard when

it is new, repeated use without proper maintenance can render a machine ineffective or useless. Other areas of interest to election officials include operational standards for testing and measuring performance of equipment, acquiring new systems,

and security.

In addition to updating and expanding the VSS, the FEC also believes, the federal

government should make a sustained commitment to help state and local election

officials gather and compare data about the nature of any equipment failures that

occur. As numerous witnesses have testified, the lack of consensus among the states

about the pros and cons of punch-card, optical scan, and direct recording electronic

(DRE) voting systems is fueled, in part, by insufficient comparative data. As members of the technology and design communities have noted, there is no formal mechanism for systematically reporting voting equipment failures. Until there is a national commitment to track the performance of voting equipment over time, voters

and election officials will find it difficult to determine whether their jurisdiction’s

equipment is performing as well as it should.

For the Commission’s efforts to update and enhance the existing standards to be

successful, there must be participation from the interested public, including election

officials and the technology and design communities. The contribution of citizen organizations also will be critical to the ultimate success of the standards. Setting

standards essentially is a matter of identifying what works and what does not. And,

it emanates from the collective experience of vendors and purchasers, of experts and

end users.

With several Senate and House hearings held this week to address voting technology and election reform issues, we hope Congress will continue to examine how

73

the federal government can contribute to improving election systems nationwide.

Coupled with an on-going commitment to gathering data on actual voting equipment

performance, up-to-date standards can go a long way toward ensuring the quality

of voting systems, while still allowing innovation and improvement to occur.

The FEC believes an objective, comprehensive approach is the best solution to the

current issues about federal election administration. While an immediate response

might be for Congress to provide federal funds to acquire new voting machinery,

that approach alone would not address the establishment of ballot design standards

and operation standards for testing and performance measurement of voting equipment, maintenance, acquisition procedures for voting systems, and system security

practices.

The FEC has submitted a proposal to Congress which is designed to accomplish

the objectives noted in this testimony as noted by several witnesses. We believe the

most efficient way to accomplish these objectives for improving the nation’s voting

systems is to buildupon the work begun by the FEC’s OEA. Any federal initiatives

to improve election administration should be located at the FEC, both to leverage

existing expertise and to build on existing relationships with state and local election

officials. This is a critical advantage if swift and meaningful assistance to state and

local officials is sought for future elections.

We have submitted for the record a copy of the Federal Election Commission’s

proposal for an enhanced FEC/OEA mission. It was prepared in response to the numerous calls for reform of election administration. This enhanced support for OEA

is sought to assist state and local election administrators to develop election administration standards and guidelines.

We also submit for the hearing record various resolutions in support of the FEC’s

enhanced OEA budget request. Organizations that have adopted resolutions are:

• The Election Center.

• The National Association of State Election Directors.

• The National Association of Secretaries of State.

• The International Association of Clerks, Recorders, Election Officials and Treasurers.

• The Council of State Governments.

• The National Conference of State Legislatures.

• The National Association of Counties and the National Association of County

Recorders, Elections Officials and Clerks.

We thank the Chairman and members of this committee for holding this hearing.

The FEC welcomes any questions you may have.

January 31, 2001.

Hon. RICHARD B. CHENEY, President of the Senate.

S-212, the Capitol, Washington, DC 20510

DEAR MR. VICE PRESIDENT: The Federal Election Commission herewith transmits

a supplemental fiscal year 2001 request for additional funds.

Specifically, the FEC is requesting $3 million in no-year funds and 3 FTE (6 staff

for 50 percent of 2001). This proposal would provide for an enhancement of the FEC

Office of Election Administration (OEA) mission. It is in response to the numerous

calls for reform of election administration. This enhanced support for OEA is sought

to assist state and local election administrators, who are responsible for administering federal elections, to develop election administration standards and guidelines. The FEC’s current fiscal year 2001 funding level will not support this effort.

A copy of the formal supplemental budget request is enclosed.

Sincerely,

DANNY LEE MCDONALD,

Chairman.

DAVID M. MASON,

Chairman, Finance Committee.

FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION FISCAL YEAR 2001 SUPPLEMENTAL REQUEST

Pursuant to our authority as a concurrent submission agency, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) is seeking a fiscal year 2001 Supplemental Appropriation request for $3 million dollars in no-year funds (i.e., funds that would be available beyond September 30, 2001) and 3 FTE staff (6 staff for 50 percent of fiscal year

2001). This proposal for supplemental funding in fiscal year 2001 would provide for

an enhancement of the FEC Office of Election Administration (OEA) mission. It is

74

in response to the numerous calls for reform of election administration. This enhanced support for OEA is sought to better assist state and local election administrators who are responsible for administering federal elections to develop operational standards.

There has been considerable discussion of the need for federal assistance to the

state and local election administrators responsible for acquiring, installing, operating and maintaining the nation’s electoral machinery. The 2000 Presidential election raised issues with regard to both the adequacy of the voting machines and the

standards, or lack thereof, used by local election officials, who in some cases are

elected political officials and are not necessarily trained election administrators.

FEC ROLE

OEA was created under 2 U.S.C. § 438(a)(10), which mandates that the Federal

Election Commission serve as a national clearinghouse with respect to the administration of federal elections. The FEC has staffed OEA with recognized election experts who have extensive experience in election administration. Moreover, the FEC’s

Commissioners are themselves well-versed in a variety of issues that confront election administrators. Prior to their service at the FEC, several Commissioners had

substantial experience in election administration and other election issues, including

selecting and testing voting equipment for both urban and rural areas, supervising

the resolution of contested Congressional elections, and practicing election law in

the area of recounts. Federal initiatives in improving election administration should

be located at the FEC to leverage this expertise and to build on existing relationships with state and local election officials. This is a critical advantage if rapid action is desired and if meaningful assistance to state and local officials is to be provided for future elections. The proposal also avoids creating any new, duplicative bureaucracy.

The OEA staff serves as an objective moderator, brokering the interests of issue

groups such as the disabled community with the interests of election officials and

political office holders. They have experience working with the vendors of voting machines as well as with the election officials and state officers responsible for acquiring and operating voting machinery. OEA has worked with many groups of election

officials and has chaired numerous meetings with election administrators to address

a variety of issues, including polling place accessibility, Internet voting, and the Voting System Standards. OEA has participated in the implementation of federal initiatives in election administration, such as the Polling Place Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act and the National Voter Registration Act (‘‘Motor Voter’’),

and has been engaged in a multiyear project to revise voluntary Voting Systems

Standards (VSS), which represent technical standards for voting equipment. As a

result of these efforts, OEA has gained the confidence of the election community by

working closely with local and state officials on these collaborative efforts.

FEC PROPOSAL

An objective, comprehensive approach is the best solution to the current issues

regarding administering federal elections. The FEC proposal is designed to address

both short-term and long-term issues. While an immediate response might be to provide federal funds to acquire new voting machinery, that approach would not address the establishment of operational standards for the testing and performance

measurement of voting equipment, acquisition procedures for voting systems, system security practices, and ballot preparation and design.

The FEC proposal is designed to accomplish five objectives:

• Enhance the existing voluntary voting system performance standards (VSS)

that provide election officials with testing and measurement criteria to verify the

performance, accuracy, reliability, and security of election systems. The VSS are

currently being updated by OEA, with completion expected by the end of calendar

year 2001 (funded with existing fiscal year 2001 money). The enhancements would

expand existing standards and test criteria to address design/performance features

that optimize ease of use and minimize voter confusion.

• Extend the scope of the voluntary standards beyond testing and measurement

to include operational standards for acquisition, installation, testing, training, administration and maintenance of both existing and new automated voting systems.

Develop standards for other management issues such as planning for and administering elections; system security practices; ballot design and preparation; public

education; contested elections; and recounts. Provide up to date information and assistance for issues such as ballot access, reprecincting, and absentee and early voting. Establish and disseminate information on best practices in election administration.

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• Complete a census of existing election systems.

• Identify the needs and resource requirements of local and state election officials,

to assure that the most pressing needs are addressed, and that best practices are

widely disseminated.

• Design grant program criteria by which federal funds could be distributed to

state and local jurisdictions should Congress decide to provide funds for the replacement of voting systems or for other election administration needs.

The most efficient way to meet these objectives to improve the nation’s voting systems is to buildupon the work already accomplished by the FEC’s OEA. Ongoing

funding will be required in future years to ensure that all aspects of the VSS are

kept up-to-date.

FY 2001 SUPPLEMENTAL PROPOSAL

This supplemental proposal requests $3.0 million in no-year funds. Work would

begin on enhancing the VSS (beyond the update of the VSS funded by existing fiscal

year 2001 funds) and on developing the operational standards in fiscal year 2001.

The gathering of information regarding the needs and resource requirements of

state and local election officials and the development of the proposals for research

would occur in fiscal year 2001. In addition to any supplemental funds remaining

after fiscal year 2001, the fiscal year 2002 and later Budget Requests would contain

funds for continuing work on the operational standards and for a comprehensive

educational and information outreach program to widely disseminate the enhanced

VSS, the operational standards, and other OEA elections administration efforts. Finally, if Congress determines to enact a grant program to provide federal financial

assistance to state and local election officials, OEA would administer the grant program.

The $3.0 million would be spent as follows:

1. Development of Election Operations Standards—$1,100,000. Enhance and expand the VSS standards to establish operational standards for the procurement, installation, testing, operation, and maintenance of voting systems; develop standards

for system security, ballot design and preparation, public education, training, polling

place access and absentee processes. These new standards would focus on election

planning and the vote tabulation process and would be designed to assist election

officials in correctly setting up and operating the voting systems during elections.

Some of this money also would be used to expand the existing qualification test criteria to address design/performance features that optimize ease of use and minimize

voter confusion. The standards would be consolidated in a best practices in election

administration document.

2. Update and Develop OEA Publications—$300,000. Update and develop publications addressing current election issues, including elections and recounts, absentee/

early voting options, and contested elections. The FEC also would explore developing models for administering elections, and models for ballot design, as well as

models governing the conduct of elections and the counting of votes. The emphasis

of this project would be to disseminate needed information to local election officials

and provide extensive training opportunities. In future FYs, OEA staff and contractors would conduct workshops at various locations to present the materials and

models and to provide training sessions for state and local officials on best practices

in elections administration. The scope of the outreach and training envisioned is far

beyond the ability of OEA within the limits of current funding levels and would be

part of the additional funding requested for these projects in fiscal year 2002.

3. Identify Needs and Resource Requirements of Local and State Election Officials—$450,000. A major portion of these funds would be used for OEA to meet with

state and local election officials to determine their resource requirements and to obtain their guidance on election policy issues that can be incorporated into the development of election operations standards. In addition to its existing Advisory Panel

of State and local election officials, OEA would also consult with groups such as the

National Association of State Election Directors (NASED), National Association of

Secretaries of State (NASS), International Association of Clerks, Recorders, Election

Officials and Treasurers (IACREOT), and the Election Center to ensure that there

is broad participation and support for the development of new standards or proposed

best practices and model procedures. This initiative would allow election officials to

compare and share solutions for election problems developed by other election jurisdictions and officials.

4. Design Grant Program Criteria to Provide Federal Funds to State and Local

Jurisdictions—$500,000. This project would establish an OEA data base on the election systems in use in all local jurisdictions. This would allow estimates to be developed for the cost of replacing existing voting systems nationwide with systems that

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meet the standards for improved performance. The FEC would recommend to Congress a grant program, including proposed criteria for the distribution of funds. If

a grant program were established, the funds to cover the grants would be sought

in future budgets.

5. Additional OEA staff—$650,000. Funding would be used to hire 3.0 additional

FTE (6 staff for 50 percent of fiscal year 2001): a Senior Level Administrator; 2

project managers to administer the project; a technical position to provide technical

advice on the contracts and assist with the workshops; a conference and workshop

planner and coordinator; and one clerical position employee. The six additional staff

would cost $262,000 in fiscal year 2001. The remaining $388,000 would be used to

support the conferences for consultation with state and local election administrators.

Estimated budget:

Personnel—$262,000

Travel—$100,000

Printing—$125,000

Postage—$ 25,000

Conference expenses—$ 50,000

Equipment, etc.—$ 63,000

Rent $25,000

The requested travel and printing in fiscal year 2002 and future years would be

used to disseminate the new standards to state and local election officials through

a series of workshops starting in fiscal year 2002. OEA anticipates holding a conference in fiscal year 2002 to introduce the updated VSS to election officials.

FY 2001 VSS PROJECTS AND FISCAL YEAR 2002 FUNDING

The projects proposed above are in addition to the current VSS updates that OEA

plans to complete by December 2001. Budgeted fiscal year 2001 funds will be used

to enhance the current VSS and to hold Advisory Panel meetings on the VSS updates, as well as to consult with elections officials in initiating the development of

operational standards. In fiscal year 2002, OEA will hold a conference to introduce

the revised VSS to the election administration community. When the operational

standards are completed, fiscal year 2002 funds will be used to undertake a comprehensive educational outreach program to widely and aggressively disseminate

the new standards.

In sum, the proposed course of action is as follows: complete VSS updates with

current fiscal year 2001 funds; use the fiscal year 2001 Supplemental (no-year

funds) to expand VSS technical standards and develop operational standards, undertake an assessment of elections administration resources and a census of current

elections systems, and design grant program criteria; complete the operational

standards and initiate comprehensive educational and dissemination program in fiscal year 2002 (with some of the no-year fiscal year 2001 funds and the funds requested in the Full fiscal year 2002 Budget); and implement any enacted grant program in fiscal year 2002 and future fiscal years.

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