Support the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act

SUPPORT THE VOTER CONFIDENCE AND INCREASED ACCESSIBILITY ACT -- (House of Representatives - April 21, 2004)

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) for his outstanding national leadership for his question of the integrity of our vote and wish to join him in support of H.R. 2239, his measure to instill voter confidence and increased accessibility of 2003 by requiring a voter-verified permanent record or hard copy under title III of the Help America Vote Act that we passed back on October 29, 2002.

The bill does need perfection, and it is to the gentleman from New Jersey's (Mr. Holt) great credit that over 132 Members of this House already signed on as co-sponsors of this measure.

It is a pleasure to join the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Udall), the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price) here this evening, and the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown) in supporting this measure.

Let me just say that the goals of the original act were to provide funds for new voting equipment and training and that the Election Assistance Commission that was established as a national clearing house for Federal elections was expected to do many things that they have not done to date, simply because they were appointed too late. In fact, a year
late. They were not confirmed in their position until December 9 of last year. And the first public meeting of the commission was just about one month ago on March 23. Therefore, when counties in our congressional district looked to the Federal Government for information about secure voting systems, and which electronic voting devices can really
be trusted, guess what? There is no advice, because the commission has not completed its work. And in fact as we meet
here today, the public comment period on the various State election plans that have been submitted to the Federal
Register for comment which will end on May 8 allow for the States to self-certify. Those comments are just given back
to the Secretaries of the various States and then Federal money begins to kick in, $2.3 billion for election training, $650
million for equipment; but the point is that there are not Federal standards by which we can judge this equipment. This
has never happened before across our Nation.

There are many delays associated with those appointments to the commission, and several deadlines in HAVA have already been missed in that act. I will submit those for the record tonight. It is important to say over two dozen States have requested and granted a waiver for compliance with the HAVA voting equipment requirements until the first election after January 1, 2006.

I would say to many elections officials across this country and across my own State of Ohio who have asked me, go to the act. We can provide this to you. You do not have to buy this equipment this year if you do not believe it is secure. If you do not believe the smart cards are trust worthy, you do not have to buy those machines under the act that we passed here. There are no Federal standards in place yet so you have no guidelines. So why make decisions prematurely?

We want to make sure that that equipment works once you bring it on line, and you have to think about the long-term costs of the maintenance of the electronic equipment. Right now the act does not provide for storage costs at a certain
humidity, which many of those electronic systems do require. You have to also think about the training of the booth
workers who will be working this year. The training money has not gone out yet. Who will do the training? What kind
of training? Will we be sufficiently trained on this new equipment by November or should you use your traditional
system that has been in place through this year and then move the HAVA legislation and then the equipment and so
forth on board for elections after January 2006?

I just wanted to mention the gentleman from New Jersey's (Mr. Holt) tremendous work in this area, specifically as regards the paper trails and how you recount from a device that sends its votes into cyberspace.

We currently have several places in the country where elections have been conducted on this equipment and the votes cannot be recounted because the votes are in space. There is no paper record. There is nothing in the machine you can
go back to. It only repeats what it did before. There is no paper record. And I totally support your efforts to try to get an auditable, verifiable paper trail. With all of the money we are spending, well over a billion dollars in this country, why
can we not get it right the first time and make sure that whatever is necessary to provide that machine with intelligence
so we can audit that trail is available? In the State of Ohio, I will end and just say, we have a State requirement that if
an election is within one half of 1 percent, we must recount. It is Ohio's statute. We must do this. If we have votes in
cyberspace, there is no way that we can accomplish this state-mandated test.

So I want to thank the gentleman for taking on this major effort. And believe me, you have my support in the Committee on Appropriations and in any other way to try to get these machines to function the right way and to get our
poll workers the proper training before the election in which any of this equipment is brought on line.