U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

40–618 2008

EXPANDING AND IMPROVING OPPORTUNITIES TO 

VOTE BY MAIL OR ABSENTEE (continued) 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS 

COMMITTEE ON HOUSE 

ADMINISTRATION 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, OCTOBER 22, 2007 

Printed for the use of the Committee on House Administration 

( 

Available on the Internet: 

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

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania, Chairman 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

Vice-Chairwoman 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

Ranking Minority Member 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

KEVIN MCCARTHY, California 

S. ELIZABETH BIRNBAUM, Staff Director 

WILLIAM PLASTER, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS

ZOE LOFGREN, California, Chairwoman 

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

KEVIN MCCARTHY, California 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING

(1) 

EXPANDING AND IMPROVING OPPORTUNITIES TO VOTE BY MAIL OR ABSENTEE 

MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2007 

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

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 5:35 p.m., in room 

1310, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Zoe Lofgren (chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Lofgren, Gonzales, Davis of California, 

Ehlers, and McCarthy. 

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

Election Counsel; Matt Pinkus, Professional Staff Member/Parliamentarian; Kyle Anderson, Press Director; Kristin McCowan, Chief 

Legislative Clerk; Matthew DeFreitas, Staff Assistant; Fred Hay, 

Minority General Counsel; Gineen Beach, Minority Election Counsel; and Roman Buhler, Minority Election Counsel. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. The subcommittee will come to order. 

We will now receive testimony from our third panel of witnesses 

today. Our witnesses today are John Fortier and Warren Harrison. 

John Fortier is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he writes and comments on Congress, the presidency 

and elections. He writes a weekly column on Congress and elections for The Hill newspaper of Capitol Hill. He is a participant in 

Election Watch, AEI’s election analysis forum. He also serves as 

the principal contributor to the AEI-Brookings Election Reform 

Project and is the executive director of the Continuity of Government Commission. Previously, he managed the AEI-Brookings 

Transition to Governing Project on presidential transitions. 

Next we have Warren T. ‘‘Tom’’ Harrison, who was the director 

of elections for five Secretaries of State, several as the executive director of the Texas Ethics Commission, from September 1995 to 

December 2002. Mr. Harrison currently serves as deputy director 

and general counsel of Texas County and District Retirement System. 

Your statements will be placed in the record in their entirety, 

and our procedure is to ask that you summarize your written statement in 5 minutes. When your 5 minutes is up, the red light will 

flash. And it gives you a warning sign of yellow when you have 1 

minute to go, and when that happens, we would ask that you conclude your statement. And then, after both of you have concluded 

your written statements, we will go to members with questions. 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING

2 

So if we can begin with you, Mr. Fortier. Welcome. 

STATEMENTS OF JOHN FORTIER, RESEARCH FELLOW, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE; TOM HARRISON, DEPUTY DIRECTOR AND GENERAL COUNSEL, TEXAS COUNTY AND DISTRICT RETIREMENT SYSTEM 

STATEMENT OF JOHN FORTIER 

Mr. FORTIER. Thank you very much, Ms. Chairwoman. I am here 

today to talk about absentee voting more broadly and say a few 

things about the bill before you. 

Let me say something about the rise of voting before Election 

Day. It has been tremendous in the last 30 years. We used to have 

a situation where most States had 4 or 5 percent of their population out of town or, for some other reason, having to vote by absentee. And, in fact, in the 2004 election, we saw nearly a quarter 

of Americans vote before Election Day. That was either by mail or 

at voting stations or polling places that opened early, before Election Day. So it certainly is a trend that is worth following and 

worth this committee’s attention. 

Absentee ballots are also absolutely necessary for some parts of 

the population. There are people who cannot get to polling places, 

whether they are overseas voters or people who are sick or bed-ridden or out of town on business. But, in many ways, absentee balloting is inferior to voting at polling places. And I list a few reasons. 

One, the protections of the polling place that are there to protect 

the privacy of the vote do not travel with the absentee ballot. When 

an absentee ballot is sent out to you, there is the possibility of coercion from your spouse, from your employer, from your union, from 

your religious affiliation. If you are pressured by someone and you 

go to a polling place, you can thumb your nose at them and vote 

however you want when you pull the curtain. But when you have 

an absentee ballot, we don’t know what pressures you have. So 

that is a concern of absentee balloting that was a concern for those 

who instituted absentee balloting a hundred years ago. 

Second is fraud. Fraud is a very difficult issue to discuss. There 

are lots of different opportunities for fraud. It is hard to measure. 

But certainly with absentee balloting, there are some additional opportunities for fraud. There have been certain cases of interception 

in the mail and people filling out ballots for those who—not their 

own ballots, but other people’s ballots. Again, academic research 

has not been able to measure this. It is hard to know how much 

of that goes on. But certainly there are some additional opportunities. 

A couple of other issues I will raise about absentee balloting 

which are less certain. There are certainly people who worry about 

the error rates of absentee balloting. And there is some varied initial academic research on this, but really not a strong body one 

way or the other. And the worry is that some of the checks that 

we put into the polling places, the checks that prevent people from 

overvoting or undervoting, are not there for absentee balloting and 

that we may find that there will be more ballots spoiled by voters 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING

3 

who vote absentee. And, with that, we certainly need more research, but it is a possibility. 

And finally, absentee balloting lengthens the voting period significantly. And while you might vote a month or 6 months or weeks 

before an election, you might find that there is a development in 

the election or that there are important debates that you missed 

as a voter, and we worry about too long a voting period. Certainly 

absentee balloting has those difficulties. 

Quickly, there are a couple of stated benefits. One is convenience, 

and I think absentee balloting clearly is a convenience and clearly 

is——

The CHAIRWOMAN. Could you press the button on your mike? I 

am having no trouble hearing you, but apparently it may not be 

picking up. 

Mr. FORTIER. That will do it. 

In terms of convenience, absentee balloting is convenient, and 

surveys have shown—surveys in Oregon, where they vote all by 

mail—that people like this convenience very much. 

I will say also that there are other convenience voting methods—

voting at polling places early, voting at election super-centers that 

they do in Colorado—which have also shown to be popular. So it 

is not the only popular convenience method. 

And then, finally, the big question about turnout. I think the academic research does not show a significant increase in turnout or 

really even a statistically significant increase in turnout. There is 

a vast body of research. There are some studies that will show a 

small increase in turnout, but overall the evidence is that absentee 

balloting, while it is more convenient and removes obstacles, does 

not increase turnout. 

The exception is in small, local-turnout elections where a voteby-mail election in a referendum or a local mayors race in a small 

town might increase turnout. But, in a Federal or congressional 

race, it will not. 

I am running out of time, but briefly I will say, if I were looking 

to you as State legislators, if you were here in a State, I would 

warn you about expanding absentee balloting too much because of 

some of the reasons I put forward. And, also, I would recommend 

to you other options. Certainly, many States have moved toward 

early voting at polling places, which have the protections of the 

polling place. And I mentioned also these super-centers or vote centers that Colorado has, which some of the research has shown that 

there is some increase in turnout. 

And, finally, I would say, as members of Congress, there is such 

a great of variety of practice out in the States that I would be careful about making the decision for the States, whether a State is 

going to choose to be an early-voting State at the polling place, 

whether it is going to be an absentee-voting State. That is better 

left to the people in that State than Congress jumping in and making that decision for them. 

I will leave that here and take questions from you later. 

[The statement of Mr. Fortier follows:] 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING

4 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING


Insert graphic folio 011 40618A.001
5 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING


Insert graphic folio 012 40618A.002
6 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING


Insert graphic folio 013 40618A.003
7 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING


Insert graphic folio 014 40618A.004
8 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING


Insert graphic folio 015 40618A.005
9 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING


Insert graphic folio 016 40618A.006
10 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING


Insert graphic folio 017 40618A.007
11 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING


Insert graphic folio 018 40618A.008
12 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING


Insert graphic folio 019 40618A.009
13 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING


Insert graphic folio 020 40618A.010
14 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING


Insert graphic folio 021 40618A.011
15 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Fortier. 

And now we would welcome your testimony, Mr. Harrison. 

STATEMENT OF WARREN HARRISON 

Mr. HARRISON. Thank you, Madam Chair and members. 

First of all, let me give the usual lawyer disclaimer. I don’t work 

for the State of Texas anymore. And so, none of my comments are 

on behalf of the State of Texas. Any comments I make today are 

my own, based on my experiences when I did work there. 

As I said in my statement, I came to work in the Secretary of 

State’s office in the election division in 1987. I became the director 

of elections in 1988 and was there until 1995, when I moved over 

to another job in State government. I was very involved obviously 

in the elections process. I was also the founding director of a national group called the National Association of State Election Directors. 

Prior to 1987, Texas had—we had what we called ‘‘two absentee’’; 

we had absentee voting by personal appearance, and we had absentee voting by mail. And in personal appearance, you would go to 

the polling place, and if you were to vote absentee, you would have 

to sign an affidavit stating one of the reasons under the statute 

that you wouldn’t be able to vote on Election Day. 

At that time, I was practicing law in Harris County, which is 

Houston, and myself and a lot of judges, a lot of other lawyers 

stood in line and said we weren’t going to be in the county on Election Day and voted absentee, although, quite honestly, we didn’t 

know at the time if we would be in the county or not. But our dockets and our trials were such that we voted absentee. 

In 1987, then-State Senator, now-Congressman Chet Edwards 

came up with a bill to change absentee voting by personal appearance and did so. And the legislature, in its wisdom, deleted all of 

the excuses that were needed to vote absentee by personal appearance. Again, it didn’t impact the mail voting, just absentee by personal appearance. So after that point in time, you just had to go 

in and vote. You didn’t have to sign an affidavit or anything. You 

just showed up to vote in what we now call ‘‘early.’’

In 1987, like in almost every odd-numbered year since the late 

1800s, Texas held a constitutional amendment election on our 

State constitution, and we thought the turnout was going to be just 

tremendous because of this new, easy way to vote. And unfortunately, that didn’t happen. 

So we had elections, obviously, in 1988, 1989, and 1990. Some of 

the larger counties, especially, wanted to put these absentee-bypersonal-appearance voting places in periods of high pedestrian 

traffic. But the law really didn’t allow that because they said they 

all had to be open the same days and the same hours as the main 

location, which is the county courthouse. So, in 1991, the legislature again changed the law to say the Commissioners Court could 

establish branches that could be open on different hours and different days than the main polling place during absentee voting, 

and also changed all references to ‘‘absentee voting by personal appearance’’ to ‘‘early voting.’’ So, since that time, we have called it 

‘‘early voting’’ in Texas. 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING

16 

After the changes in 1991, there were two types of early voting 

or absentee by personal appearance that became prevalent. One 

was mobile voting, which I used to tell people was not driving 

around with a voting machine in the back of a pickup truck, but 

it would take one location and say that people could vote at this 

location, these hours, on this day, and move it again the next day. 

That has worked very well, I can say, in Travis County, where 

the capital is located and where I live. Because of State government, the county clerk one day will have an early-voting polling 

place in one particular State building, all the employees get to vote, 

and then it will move to another. 

We were concerned at the time about, if you can imagine, politics 

coming into effect and that someone just may stick these in a particular area where they wanted their voters, so to speak, to turn 

out. So we made sure that it had to be distributed properly and 

that proper notice was given to the voters. 

The other thing that became prevalent was what we came to call 

retail voting, where they would use malls or grocery stores to hold 

early voting. In the last several years, I have voted in my local 

Randalls grocery store, where they have a polling place during 

every election. When I go back to Austin tomorrow, our early voting has begun for our next constitutional amendment election. I 

probably will go vote early tomorrow at that polling place. The voters love it; it is extremely convenient. 

You know, we think that, ‘‘How could anybody not vote in Texas, 

because we made it so convenient,’’ but they don’t vote. As John 

said, turnout has not increased. We thought for sure this would increase turnout, and it didn’t. All that has happened is that people 

that used to vote on Election Day now vote during this early period. So it hasn’t increased turnout. 

I don’t have a lot of time to talk about mail voting. I am not a 

big proponent of mail voting because of the fraud that we have had 

in Texas in the past. And I am not exactly sure how to cure that. 

I know the legislature has tried with some signatures. But when 

I was director of elections, I know we tried several criminal cases 

that the Texas Rangers investigated for fraud in the mail-voting 

process. 

Thank you very much. 

[The statement of Mr. Harrison follows:] 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING

17 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING


Insert graphic folio 27 40618A.012
18 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING


Insert graphic folio 28 40618A.013
19 

The CHAIRWOMAN. I thank you both. 

We will now move to questions. And since this is the minority’s 

witnesses, I would like first to, out of courtesy, recognize the ranking member, Mr. McCarthy, for his 5 minutes of questions. 

Mr. MCCARTHY. Well, I appreciate that, Madam Chair. 

And I first would like to go to Mr. Harrison, the former elections 

director for the State of Texas. 

You briefly stated about the fraud when it came to mail voting. 

Could you elaborate on that, on some of the fraud that you have 

found in Texas when it comes to absentee mail voting? 

Mr. HARRISON. We used to have what came to be known as, and 

sounds like a sexist remark, but bag ladies. What these ladies 

would do would be—and especially in the small city elections, they 

would go around and collect the ballots, especially from the elderly, 

the mail ballots, and then vote them and mail them in. 

I have sat in many an early ballot board, back when I was director of elections, where they would compare signatures, and, you 

know, the signatures that had to be compared were even obvious 

to the human eye that it wasn’t the same signature, and they 

would throw the ballots out. I remember one particular election in 

a little town called Bay City where they threw out 640 ballots because the signatures weren’t the same. 

And a lot of other cases where they would go in and someone 

would say they were going to assist—and, again, usually it was the 

elderly; sometimes it would happen in nursing homes—assist them 

in their balloting. But when the investigators would go back and 

talk with the voter, they never really marked the ballot. They told 

the individual, ‘‘I want to vote for X,’’ but they never really knew 

whether that person voted for X or not. 

I mean, that is the problem with mail balloting, is—— Mr. MCCARTHY. And you had the intimidation of the person not 

being—— Mr. HARRISON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MCCARTHY. To Mr. Fortier, the signature gathering—an interesting thing; unfortunately you weren’t invited to the other 

panel hearing that we had, but in there we had a Secretary of 

State from Maine. And I was asking her the question about signatures, verifying them. Her answer to me was, ‘‘We don’t ask for signatures in Maine. We know everyone.’’

Now, I have concern—because, in California, they have what 

they call bounty, where both parties go out and hire people to sit 

at a shopping center and get voter registrations. If someone takes 

the ballot and fraudulently fills it out and signs it, couldn’t they 

apply for an absentee and, at the same time, still vote and it be 

counted because the signatures would match? 

Mr. FORTIER. I think the signature-checking procedures vary 

greatly from State to State. I have indicated that I am not a big 

fan of vote by mail. But Oregon, which is 100 percent vote by mail, 

actually has a system of checking every signature, to their credit. 

Many States do not, or have less serious procedures. There is training and some seriousness of purpose in Oregon. 

So I guess I do worry that, in many places, there is this requirement that is something of a formality, and it is not followed 

through on as thoroughly as it might be. 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING

20 

Mr. MCCARTHY. I read in your bio that you had academically 

studied about elections and voting and patterns. Voting in person 

or voting by mail, which one brings about the greatest form of 

fraud, when there is fraud? 

Mr. FORTIER. I think it is very difficult to measure fraud. What 

I like to say is I believe there are additional opportunities for fraud 

in voting by mail. Certainly, you could find, in every stage of the 

process, ways in which people would like to get at our elections, 

and we would be wise to protect against them in all forms. But, 

certainly, when a ballot leaves the polling place, there is no one to 

watch over it. There are no—we don’t have both parties, representatives from both parties, there to raise objections to certain things 

that might be done with the ballot, like we do at the polling place. 

What I didn’t discuss in my testimony—and I have a book on absentee and early voting—is some of the early history of absentee 

voting. It especially came about in the era after we put in the secret ballots. And those who put in the secret ballots did so to combat a lot of corruption and big-city machines. And that memory was 

still there for the people who instituted absentee balloting. They 

wanted to preserve some amount of privacy, with the witness requirements and the signature requirements and the stating a reason. That was all coming out of the idea that we cared about the 

privacy of the ballot, as well as giving those people who needed absentee ballots the absentee ballot that they needed to vote. 

Mr. MCCARTHY. But you still believe in allowing choice, like 

early voting in person, because you get the privacy to go in and you 

don’t have the intimidation, and even maybe the intimidation 

around a kitchen table or not to vote with your spouse, even 

though you disagree with your spouse. 

Mr. FORTIER. I would like to separate fraud and coercion. There 

may be a gray line in between. But, certainly, we are protected 

from coercion at the polling place because, no matter what the 

pressures, if we go in and secretly cast our ballot, then we can do 

what we like. With an absentee ballot, it is not always clear that 

a voter can do that. Either subtly pressured or overtly pressure, 

somebody might see that ballot and say, ‘‘Look, you filled it out 

right,’’ or, ‘‘You haven’t filled it out right.’’ Mr. MCCARTHY. Thank you very much. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Does the gentleman from Texas have questions? 

Mr. GONZALEZ. I just have a real quick one for Mr. Fortier. 

You indicated that there is no empirical evidence, there is no evidence that the easier you make it to vote, such as mail-in ballots 

in Oregon, results in increased voter participation. If you could 

elaborate on that? 

Mr. FORTIER. Yes. I think the theory is, if you remove the obstacles, they will come and they will vote. And we have tried that in 

a number of areas, and it has not always worked out that way. 

I will say that both, as Mr. Harrison indicated, in voting early 

at polling places but also voting by mail, either the Oregon system 

or States that have expanded their absentee balloting, we have not 

seen—a number of studies really have not seen a significant increase in voting. 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING

21 

But the exception is this: in the very low turnout elections. Essentially, what we do is we move voters around. We find voters 

who are habitual voters who are going to vote, whether they have 

to go to the polling place or whether they are choosing to mail in 

their ballot or they are going to an early place, they tend to vote 

in roughly the same rates. These methods of early voting in polling 

places and absentee voters also do not increase—get new voters to 

the polling place. 

The only new method which I would recommend us looking at 

more, which Colorado has instituted, is these voting super-centers 

where, on Election Day, they are well-situated; you can go to any 

one in your county. There has been some evidence that there is a 

rise in turnout and attraction of new voters. 

My main message is there are other convenience methods; we 

should look at them. And many States may choose to go a different 

route than absentee balloting, and we may not want to put that on 

them. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. I was under the impression that no-excuse absentee voting—and, of course, Oregon is all mail—did result in some 

increase in Oregon. I mean, that would not be accurate? 

Mr. FORTIER. Well, the problem is that you have in Oregon a 

State that was a high-percentage-voting State before they instituted vote by mail and has been a high-voting State after it instituted voting by mail. It is not clear we can attribute the high voting to the mail voting. It is broader; it has to do with the political 

culture. 

So there are some individual studies that show small amounts of 

increases. There are some studies that show decreases. There are 

some studies that show an essentially nonstatistical increase. But 

the general consensus among academics is that voting by mail and 

voting at polling places do not show increases in turnout, with the 

exception of that caveat I mentioned earlier, that the local elections 

that are going to have very low turnout, then you do get habitual 

voters willing to send in their mail ballots. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Thank you very much. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. The gentleman yields back. 

The gentleman, Mr. Ehlers, is recognized for his 5 minutes. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

First of all, I would like to enter an opening statement into the 

record. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. Without objection, it will be entered into the 

record. 

[The statement of Mr. Ehlers follows:] 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING

22 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING


Insert graphic folio-36-here 40618A.014
23 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING


Insert graphic folio-37-here 40618A.015
24 

Mr. EHLERS. I appreciate the testimony. Both of you have said 

essentially the same thing, that these various methods, which are 

ostensibly started out as a way to increase turnout, did not increase turnout, but they may have increased convenience. Am I 

summarizing it correctly? 

Okay. So there is no reason to set up these alternate methods for 

increasing turnout. There may be good reason to increase convenience. And that certainly is fine with me, as long as we can assure 

the sanctity of the ballot. 

And that has been my greatest concern. It stems from an incident we had a number of years ago on this committee, where I was 

put on one of the committees to examine a contested election. And 

we held a hearing in the community where the election took place. 

And it was astounding. You know, people were under oath, they 

had to tell the truth. It was astounding how much corruption we 

unveiled just in a 2-hour hearing. And that convinced me that 

there is still fraud alive and well in this country, although not everywhere, but certainly in certain places. 

And my concern about the early morning, if it is not done in a 

polling place or the voting by mail, any of these, is that it increases 

the opportunities for corruption, for fraud. It does not guarantee it, 

because every community is different, and in some communities the 

people tend to be very straight-arrow on voting. Other communities 

are not. And you certainly increase the opportunity for fraud. 

Would you agree with that statement? 

Mr. FORTIER. I do. I think fraud is a hard thing to measure overall. 

Mr. EHLERS. Right. 

Mr. FORTIER. And we can all debate whether there is a lot of 

fraud, a little fraud, where it is. But I do think that there are some 

additional opportunities when the ballot leaves the protections of 

the polling place. 

Mr. EHLERS. Yeah. And that is the difficulty I have with it. The 

absentee ballot was instituted as a means of providing the opportunity to vote for people who cannot go to the actual voting place. 

And even though there is a chance of increased fraud there, I think 

it is fairly small. If you have citizens who are diligent about voting 

and want to vote even if they are out of town or ill, you are not 

likely to encounter much fraud. 

If you have early voting or other mechanisms, then you really 

open the door for fraud. And that is a big concern of mine, because 

I have seen it in action. And, of course, the history of our Nation 

is not without fraud, whether it is Tammany Hall or the 

Pendergast machine or the Daley machine that—I wouldn’t accuse 

the present Mayor Daley of that, but I have heard enough stories 

about the previous mayor and various other parts of the country 

where fraud was rampant. It really opens the door. 

I am intrigued by your comments about voting convenience, 

which I think is a legitimate thing to do as long as it is supervised. 

And when you use that term, you are mostly referring to that, 

aren’t you, the super-centers or locating it in stores or things like 

that, or allowing people to vote in places other than their normal 

voting place? That is all purely for convenience, correct? But you 

still have all the controls you would otherwise? 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING

25 

Mr. FORTIER. There are, in many of the early-voting centers, 

basic protections of the polling place that you would have on Election Day. The States do these in various ways, but I think a lot 

of them are worth looking at. 

And the numbers are so big, the increases are so big, in both absentee voting and in early voting at polling places, that I think 

there is a demand for convenience, especially in the Western States 

and a number of Pacific States, that we shouldn’t look down at the 

idea of convenience. But I am for doing it in a way that keeps those 

protections of the polling place. 

So I am more open to doing some things on Election Day: longer 

polling hours; going toward super-centers, at least experimenting 

with them; and also some period of early voting. I prefer it not to 

be too long, because I have some concerns about a long, long election. But a week or 10 days of voting certainly does provide a convenience to people who would want to vote on those other days. 

So I think there are a lot of convenience things we can look at 

that are not absentee voting. 

Mr. EHLERS. I find it interesting that, in our Nation, we have 

States advocating early voting, mail-in voting, all these things 

which increase the probability of fraud, and we have other States 

passing voter ID bills, trying to decrease fraud. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. EHLERS. Just one last comment. I really am very skeptical 

about this, and I hope we look at it very carefully before we do anything on it——

The CHAIRWOMAN. The gentlelady from California is recognized. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

And I appreciate your testimony. 

I wanted to go to one of the issues that you raised, Mr. Fortier, 

in your testimony. I don’t think you raised it here in the same way. 

But the voting error rate, could you give me some sense of that? 

Because I think you were suggesting that it could be greater for 

absentees than for op scans. And I wonder what your take is on 

the election of Florida, where there were 18,000 undervotes. Have 

you seen 18,000 undervotes ever in an absentee? 

Or, what we are told is that there are actually relatively few, and 

that, in fact, in that election, absentee undervotes were a pretty 

normal, average number. How can you explain that? 

Mr. FORTIER. Well, what I try to say in my testimony is that I 

don’t think we have enough information about this. And I do recommend, from whatever avenue, that there be a much more serious 

look at this. 

My main point is this, that there are—Congress has, in the Help 

America Vote Act, called for error-checking provisions that occur at 

the polling place, whether it is through DREs or Opti-Scan, where 

they warn you that you—they will prevent you from overvoting or 

they warn you that you have undervoted. 

Now, those mechanisms are not perfect, and we may have ballot 

design problems, other problems, which we should improve. But 

those protections, at least if put in place at the polling place, allow 

some voters to get their ballots counted that otherwise would not 

be counted. 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING

26 

If you fill out an absentee ballot and you accidentally vote twice 

for president, because of ballot design or whatever, there is no way 

for you to come back and correct that error like there is at the polling place. 

So I cannot tell you that the error rate is higher or lower. But 

because of that opportunity, we have that concern. So I am for 

more research, but I cannot tell you today that there is research 

that says it is lower. It is a concern, not a finding. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. Okay. I believe people actually can go 

to the registrar if they feel that they have done that, someone with 

an absentee vote, but—— Mr. FORTIER. But often they don’t know. That is the thing. They 

do it, and they are unaware that they have voted twice or left a 

ballot—and then there is no way to check it. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. Yes. Okay. 

I wanted, also, to just talk a little bit about the convenience 

issue. Because I am not sure—are you suggesting that, you know—

I think you said convenience is okay, but we wouldn’t want voters 

to vote too early or to, perhaps, vote leisurely at home so that they 

might, you know, not have the certain pressure that they have at 

the voting booth. 

Is that what you said? Or, could you define that——

Mr. FORTIER. I am actually for convenience in voting. I don’t 

think we should look down at it at all. Some people say, ‘‘Well, it 

doesn’t increase turnout, but it is convenient, and that is not 

enough.’’ I think convenience is both important and it is also demanded by the public. 

My concern is that there are different ways to get at convenience. 

And whether that is improving Election Day by various methods 

or—I think early voting at polling places also provides a level of 

convenience and is popular in places like Texas. I prefer those because they have the protections of the polling place. 

What I said about the length of the election, I do fear that someone voting for 6 weeks before an election may miss out on important information; there may be developments. I think it strays 

away from a, kind of, concentrated period where we focus on the 

election. So I am for a shorter period, but I don’t have a definite 

time—a week, 10 days. Absentee ballot, by definition, is coming out 

45 days beforehand. That is my concern. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. Yes. Thank you. 

And, Mr. Harrison, I appreciate—you were talking mostly about 

early voting, and I certainly would encourage all kinds of ways of 

doing that. I think that the difficulty is that you still need a number of people to be trained and responsible and taking care of those 

polling places, as well. And for a number of counties, they find that 

to be difficult. They have a tough time getting people on Election 

Day itself. And that is why many registrars across the country do 

acknowledge that, in fact, it does assist them greatly to have people 

to have that opportunity. So I—— Mr. HARRISON. Yes, maam. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California [continuing]. Certainly would want that 

to be clear, that this doesn’t, in any way, say, ‘‘This is better than 

that.’’ If early voting can be held well in a county and in a State, 

that is a good thing, especially if it gives that people the ability to 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING

27 

do that. But many people, that is not a reality for them. And, in 

fact, they find longer lines for early voting than they would during 

Election Day. 

Mr. HARRISON. Definitely, they do. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

Mrs. DAVIS of California. Thank you. 

The CHAIRWOMAN. At this point, I would just like to make note 

that it was actually the Secretary of State of Vermont who was at 

our hearing last week, not Maine; and note that the names of these 

witnesses were not sent to us last week. 

And, with that, this hearing is adjourned, with thanks to the witnesses. 

[Whereupon, at 6:07 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

Æ 

bajohnson on PROD1PC77 with HEARING