Date: 2003-09-16
Speaker: CORRINE BROWN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Florida

Mr. Speaker. I am very pleased with the decision made yesterday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that declared the use of older voting machines would again lead to the disenfranchisement of minority voters. I applaud the court for deciding to assure voters that the basic fundamental requirements of equal treatment and fairness are carried out. Underlying this. I quote from Justice Kennedy who wrote: "Voting is one of the most fundamental and cherished liberties in our democratic system of government." To me. the California decision highlights a painful lesson our country learned from the 2000 elections. that it is not possible to hold a fair democratic election if voters are not guaranteed their votes will be fairly counted. I read in the paper and have heard on the news a lot of talk about hanging chads and other technical problems that led to the Suprene Court selecting George W. Bush as the President in the 2000 Presidential election. but let me tell Members that in my district. Floridas third. 27.000 votes were thrown out and never counted. Let me repeat. 27.000 votes from precincts 7. 8. 9 and 10 tossed out. never counted from minority neighborhoods that" vote 98 percent Democratic. In California. the voting machines that 44 percent of the voters were going to use in the October 7 recall election were so questionable that Californias Secretary of State. a Republican. was not planning to allow this equipment to be used in future electiois. And take note. the comparison he drew for the dire situation was that California should not wait for a Floridastyle election problem before going ahead to replace their outofdate voting machines. In the court decision. the 9th Circuit stated that 40.000 citizens of California would have their votes uncounted because of old machines they were planning to use. I repeat. 40.000 votes. In add1tion. a quarter of the State polling places are not yet functioning because election officials did not have enough time to prepare for the recall. To me. the situation in California clearly shows that we still have quite a ways to go in reforming our voting system. And to make matters worse. even though just last year we passed an election reform bill. the Republicans have blocked full funding. Up to this moment. we still need another $2 billion before the end of the year to ensure that we do not repeat the 2000 election. Yet if we fail to provide the States with this badly needed funding. we may be headed right down the same path. to face this terrible situation that we were in just 3 years ago. Here we are. 3 years later. the leader of the free world and at the same time the laughingstock of the free world telling other nations that we do not support them or we are going to sanction them because we consider their elections to be unfair. yet here at home we cannot get our own elections right. I completely support the circuit courts decision and hope to see the election postponed until they get better equipment in place. We must never. ever repeat what happened in Florida. We certainly do not want to witness a repeat of the 2000 Presidential election. In closing. I think the recount in Florida. the redistricting problem in Texas. and the recall of Californias Governor is part of a right wing conspiracy to politically enslave the American people.