Date: 2004-04-21
Speaker: CORRINE BROWN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Florida

Mr. Speaker. first of all. I want to thank the gentleman for holding this meeting today to discuss the elections and how we are going to ensure that we have a fair election in 2004 and hbw we are going to make sure that people in America get a chance to vote but also that their votes will count. but I do have to correct my colleague on just one thing because Florida is not just known in the country. it is known throughout the world. because of this last election. I just returned from Eastern Europe and I tell you. anytime I mentioned that I am from Florida. there is a sympathy in the look. that I receive because they wonder how in the world that South Africa could get it right and we could not get it right in the great State of Florida. The correction I want to make is that the election in Florida was not close. It was not close at all. Statewide. over 150.000 votes were thrown out. but I want to talk to you about what was very up close and personal for me in that in my District. in the 3rd Congressional District of Florida. in Duval County alone. iln precinct 7. 8. 9 and 10. over 27.000 votes were thrown out. 27.000. I have here on my right the gentleman from North Carolina who came to Duval County at a hearing where all the problems that Florida experienced was discussed and the depth of the seriousness of throwing out 27.000 votes. Why were they thrown out? Because they had old machines. and the machines. when you vote. they just spit the ballot out. and we never counted them. To this day. 27.000 ballots were not counted. The sad part about it is that the supervisor of elections did not inform us. By law. you can ask for a recount in 48 hours. They. did not even tell us until at least four days after the election that they had thrown them out. By the way. I was watching television. The supervisor of elections came on television. and the reporters were asking him how many votes were thrown out in Duval County. He said. oh. 27.000. I mean. 27.000. So we have to make sure that that never happens again nowhere in the United States. When I travel around the world and I go to places like Haiti. they did not have 27.000 votes thrown out. When I go to Africa and monitor their elections. I mean if we are going to be the voice of freedom. it starts with the election. Let me just say that I supported the initiative on the Help America Vote Act that was passed back in 2002. and I thought it was particularly important that the law provides money to help states replace and update their old and outdated voting machines. Now we can see why this is so important because of what happened in Florida. just during the last primary. During the primary even though voter turnout was light. serious problems occurred. For example. voters were incorrectly given computer -cards that let them vote only on local issues and not on the issue that they came to vote for. the presidential primary. So the fact is that in many counties. the machines did not work. and even the experts.. the computer scientists. warned that votes and entire elections. in fact. could be stolen by rigging the codes that run the machines. and the only defense against this is a paper trail. in every vote count. so that a paper ballot could be counted if the machines tallies are brought into question. To me. after what happened in 2000. I think of all places. Florida definitely needs a paper trail. We need a paper trail. Nothing has changed in Florida. We still have the same governor. Jeb Bush is the governor of Florida. and we still have a system in place where the governor paid a firm out of Texas $4 million to verify felons. Well. it did not matter whether you were a felon or not. If your name was James Brown or CORRINE BROWN. we just too k all of the similar names out of the system. and you were not even notified so that you could correct it before the election. So when you went to the supervisor of elections office. where you have been going for the past 30 years. you were told that you could not vote because you were a felon and you had no recourse. We had nothing in place that you could cast your ballot and later we could rectify it. and so all of those people. thousands. was turned away on election day. About three weeks later. they got a letter from the supervisor of their elections saying. whoops. we made a mistake. and we in this Congress and we in this country are still suffering from that mistake. and we have to be committed that what happened in the 2000 election will never happen again in this country. We have to make sure that we put the credibility back for the American people and for the world because -the world looks at us as a -beacon of light. of hope. and yet they wonder why we cannot get it right in the United States. Maybe the reason why we cannot get it right is because we do not want to get it right. I enjoy a good campaign. but the end result is we have got to make sure that when the American people go to the polls in November that they can vote. that their vote will count andthere is verification of the vote. I thank the gentleman very much for having this opportunity to talk to the American people about a system that is still broke. and if we do not put the money. the oversight and the security into the system. then shame on us.