Date: 2005-01-06
Speaker: CORRINE BROWN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Florida

Mr. Speaker. in the aftermath of the 2000 election. in which my congressional district witnessed the discarding of 27.000 votes. I am displeased to see that the Congress is here again today. 4 years later. continuing to confront many of the same problems we faced in the previous election. Many Members of Congress here to voice their own concerns. as well as echo those of citizens across the county. are engaging in floor debate to publicly enunciate their doubts and worries with respect to the veracity and/or fairness of the 2004 election. The goal of my colleagues is not so much to systematically overturn the 2004 election results. but rather. to bring about honest and opendebate today to the House floor. Clearly. a formal challenge to the elections outcome could not change the results. but what it can do is to at least force both Chambers to engage in open debate and speak clearly about the serious flaws we have experienced in our last two presidential elections. I believe this debate is beneficial for our democracy. particularly in light of recent events that went on in my State in Florida. as well as apparent discrepancies in Ohio. With respect to the Ohio vote count. I find the objections stated by my close friend and colleague. Congresswoman STEPHANIE TUBBS JONES. to be most disturbing. According t6 her press statement. among the numerous discrepancies in her state. perhaps the most egregious included: "large percentages of rejections among provisional ballots. numerous problems with voting machines. and significant flaws in registration processes and procedures." These very serious concerns. I believe. deserve to be discussed and debated by the Congress. in an open public forum in full view of the American public. In addition. I would like to enumerate numerous other discrepancies that were contained in a report put out by the Judiciary Committee entitled. Preserving Democracy. What Went Wrong in Ohio. about the 2004 elections: The misallocation of voting machines led to unprecedented long lines that disenfranchised scores. if not hundreds of thousands. of predominantly minority and Democratic voters. Mr. Blackwells decision to restrict provisional ballots resulted in the disenfranchisement of tens. if not hundreds. of thousands of voters. again predominantly minority and Democratic voters. Mr. Blackwells widely reviled decision to reject voter registration applications based on paper weight may have resulted in thousands of new voters not being registered in time for the 2004 election. The Ohio Republican Partys decision to engage in preelection "caging" tactics. selectively targeting 35.000 predominantly minority voters for intimidation had a negative impact on voter turnout. The Ohio Republican Partys decision to utilize thousands of partisan challengers concentrated in minority and Democratic areas likely disenfranchised tens of thousands of legal voters. who were not only intimidated. but became discouraged by the long line. Shockingly. these disruptions were publicly predicted and acknowledged by Republican officials: Mark Weaver. d lawyer for the Ohio Republican Party. admitted the challenges "cant help but create chaos. longer lines and frustration." Mr. Blackwells decision to prevent voters who requested absentee ballots but did not receive them on a timely basis from being able to receive provisional ballots likely disenfranchised thousands. if not tens of thousands. of voters. particularly seniors. A federal court found Mr. Blackwells order to be illegal and in violation of HAVA. Second. on election day. there were numerous unexplained anomalies.and irregularities involving hundreds of thousands of votes that have yet to be accounted for: There were widespread instances of intimidation and misinformation in violation of the Voting Rights Act. the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Equal Protection. Due Process and the Ohio right to vote. Mr. Blackwells apparent failure to institute a single investigation into these many serious allegations represents a violation of his statutory duty under Ohio law to investigate election irregularities. We learned of improper purging and other registration errors by election officials that likely disenfranchised tens of thousands of voters statewide. The -Greater Cleveland Voter Registration Coalition projects that in Cuyahoga County alone over 10.000 Ohio citizens lost their right to vote as a result of official registration errors.. There were 93.000 spoiled ballots where no vote was cast for president. the vast majority of which have yet to be inspected. The problem was particularly acute in two precincts in Montgomery County which had an undervote rate of over 25 percent eachaccounting for nearly 6.000 voters who stood in line to vote. but purportedly declined to vote for president. There were numerous. significant unexplained irregularities in other counties throughout the state: (i) in Mahoning county at least 25 electronic machines transferred an unknown number of Kerry votes to the Bush column. (ii) Warren County locked out public observers from vote counting citing an FBI warning about a potential terrorist threat. yet the FBI states thatit issued no such warning. (iii) the voting records of Perry county show significantly more votes than voters in some precincts. significantly -less ballots than voters in other precincts. and voters casting more than one ballot. (iv) in Butler county a down ballot and underfunded Democratic State Supreme Court candidate implausibly received more votes than the best- funded Democratic Presidential candidate in history. (v) in Cuyahoga county. poll worker error may have led to little known third party candidates receiving twenty times more votes than such candidates had ever received in otherwise reliably Democratic leaning areas. (vi) in Miami county. voter turnout was an improbable and highly suspect 98.55 percent. and after 100 percent of the precincts were reported. an additional 19.000 extra votes were recorded for President Bush. � Third. in the postelection period we learned of numerous irregularities in tallying provisional ballots and conducting and completing the recount that disenfranchised thousands of voters and call the entire recount procedure into question (as of this date the recount is still not complete): Mr. Blackwells failure to articulate clear and consistent standards for the counting of provisional ballots resulted in the loss of thousands of predominantly minority Mr. Blackwells failure to issue specific standards for the recount contributed to a lack of uniformity in violation of both the Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clauses. The voting" computer company Triad has essentially admitted that it engaged in a course of behavior during the recount in numprous counties to provide "cheat sheets" to those counting the ballots (Preserving lemocracy. What Went Wrong in Ohio. A Report Put out by Democratic Judiciary Committee Staff). Moreover. in my State of Florida. the problems that surfaced regarding the 2004 election related more to pre election irregularities. Examples are plentiful. examples include: Duval County. where I had to personally fight to get additional early voting locations in the county so citizens could vote early if they so desired. in Orlando. along with many of my Florida colleagues. I demanded a Department of Justice investigation into police misconduct and voter intimidation. in which the Florida Department of Law Enforcement officers intimidated elderly members of. Orlandos black community. wherein armed plain clothes police in Orlando went house to house to question. or rather intimidate. dozens of elderly African American voters in their own homes. It is not surprising to me that many of the people that were questioned were volunteers in get out the -vote campaigns. Lastly. we saw once again that the Florida elections supervisors were on the verge of incorrectly purging thousands of Florida citizens from the voting rolls. an action which fortunately was never completely carried out because of a CNN lawsuit requesting to see the names on their list. Let us remember that during the 2000 elections. in my district alone (Duval County) there were approximately 27.000 ballots that were spit out by faulty machines. A disproportionately large percentage of these votes came from City Council Districts 7. 8. 9 and 10. primarily African American residential areas. Even more disturbfhg to me was that the Supervisor of Elections office didnt release these figures to local officials until after the 72 hour deadline had passed. As a result. there were no legal avenues to demand a recount. Moreover. it often goes unpublished that Florida Governor Jeb Bush spent $4 million of taxpayer money to purge a list of suspected felons from the rolls across the State: but whether or not this list was accurate was of little importance to Governor Bush. Apparently. it was the responsibility of the accused citizen to correct his or her status. Only later did we learn that the reason many of the people were incorrectly purged (estimates go as high as 5057.000) was merely because their name was the same as. or similar to. one of the purged felons. For this reason. during the 2000 elections. some of the local election supervisors went so far as to refuse to purge names from the list of their voter rolls because. they argued. they did not have faith in how the state compiled its list of disqualified voters. Moreover. as part of a grassroots effort to encourage voters. particularly minorities. to get out to the polls. I organize motor voter drives. Yet during the last election. many voters. especially African Americans. were wrongly purged from registration lists. and many who had signed up at state motor voter vehicle offices never had their voter registration fully processed. As a result. these voters were disenfranchised as well. It is for this reason that provisional balloting is so important (wherein if a voter has not reregistered after moving within the same county. he or she may cast a provisional ballot at the polling place of their current residence). Unfortunately. to this day. the state of Florida STILL does not completely follow through with provisional balloting because. in Florida. if one casts a provisional ballot in a voter precinct which is not their own. their vote will be discarded. To close. I reiterate that I strongly support todays Floor discussion. and pledge to continue to do everything within -my capacity as a Member of Congress. and as the Democratic Partys Voting Task Force. to improve our voting system to ensure that everyones vote is counted in future elections. and that our democracy remains just that. a democracy. not a plutocracy ruled by the elites. "