Objection to Counting of Ohio Electoral Votes

OBJECTION TO COUNTING OF OHIO ELECTORAL VOTES -- (Senate - January 06, 2005)

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I believe it is extraordinarily important for both sides to be gracious when an American election is over. But I also believe it is extraordinarily important not to ignore urgently needed election reform, such as requiring a paper trail for every single ballot that is cast in our country. Such a paper trial is required in my home State. In this last election, record numbers of Oregonians voted. There were no allegations of fraud. The system worked, and it worked well. Unfortunately, that is not the case in too many communities in our country.

When the Senate last debated the issue of election reform, this body spent weeks debating whether one dog in the Midwest was an illegal voter. I worked with colleagues on a bipartisan basis. We made sure that dog, Mitzi, would not be allowed to vote again. Now, in the name of justice, when hundreds of thousands of Americans feel they have been disenfranchised, I don't think their concerns ought to be swept under the rug.

Credible journalists have now documented voting irregularities across the country, and that ought to trouble every Member of the body. Incredible reports come from the States of North Carolina, Indiana, Washington, Florida, and Ohio. In my view, while not proving to be of a volume that would have changed the outcome of the Presidential election, when you take these findings together, they raise very significant and troubling matters that this body should be tackling on a bipartisan basis. I do believe there is critical work ahead of this body with respect to election reform. So I did write in November to Representative Conyers to ask that he examine these voting irregularities. The problems with provisional ballots in the State of Ohio particularly concerned me because I was one of the principal authors of the section of the Help America Vote Act that involved provisional ballots. The decision of the Ohio Secretary of State to restrict the ability of voters to use provisional ballots, I thought, was troubling. His decisions raised serious questions with respect to whether they were consistent with what the Senate had in mind as we wrote that provision.

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I was also concerned about the reports from Ohio, where in one county only 800 citizens were registered to vote and more than 4,500 votes were counted. This just defies common sense, and it is one of the reasons why I have come to the floor to make the case for a continued focus on the issue of election reform.

The problems of election abuse are not ones that can be given short shrift if we are to keep faith with our citizens and ensure that their fundamental belief that our democratic system is sound is maintained. Otherwise, we will see a growing lack of confidence in the conduct of our elections, and that lack of confidence will come to overshadow some of our elections altogether. We will see many more Members of this body come to the floor demanding to know what has happened.

I end my statement with the plea that, on a bipartisan basis, this body return to the issue of election reform, correct the abuses that have been credibly documented over the last few weeks, and that we do it in a bipartisan fashion.

I yield the floor.

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