National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2010-Conference Report

Floor Speech

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2010--CONFERENCE REPORT -- (Senate - October 22, 2009)

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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I rise today to address the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act of 2009--the MOVE Act. Since its inception, the MOVE Act has garnered strong bipartisan support, and today we celebrate its passage as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.

I want to recognize the importance of this Act and also to acknowledge my partners in this effort especially my friends and colleagues, Senator Saxby Chambliss, Senator Ben Nelson, Senator Bob Bennett, and Senator John Cornyn. I would also like to thank Senators Levin and McCain and their staffs, as well as the House and Senate conferees for their time, support, and work to ensure that the provisions of the MOVE Act were included in the conference report.

Every now and then an opportunity emerges to work on an important issue with a team of colleagues towards a single goal. This bill provided one such opportunity, and I am extremely pleased to have worked with such a committed team. This legislation is a bipartisan solution to a serious, yet all too familiar problem--the problem of military and other overseas voters not being able to cast their vote and have that vote counted.

Every couple of years there is a great push to improve the process of military and overseas voting. However, as soon as the election is over, Congress too often neglects to push for improved rights for military voters. That neglect is over. The needs of military and overseas voters have been heard, and met, with this legislation.

While the need for Congress to act is now, this is not a new problem and we are not the first to identify the problem and attempt to deal with it. The first revolution in military voting rights occurred not when our soldiers were overseas. It occurred during the Civil War. At that time, the right to vote was provided by the Constitution, and soldiers from both the Union and the Confederacy depended on State law to determine whether they could vote ``in the field'' during wartime.

According to historians, there were two methods of voting then. In the first system, a closed ballot box was taken to the field of battle, the ballots were cast there, and the box returned to the jurisdiction. States at the time questioned whether the act of voting outside their jurisdictions could be authorized by State law.

Other objections to voting ``in the field'' were heard when a State constitution prescribed the place, time and manner of elections; and if military voting was conducted prior to Election Day, whether early voting would violate State constitutions.

The second type of voting was known as ``proxy voting.'' A soldier's completed ballot was mailed to someone, such as a family member, in the soldier's regular place of voting. This completed proxy vote would then be delivered on Election Day. My home State of New York used the proxy vote procedure during the Civil War. While proxy voting avoided the constitutional problems of voting ``in the field,'' it was subject to other problems: the lack of a secret ballot; the transmission of the proxy ballot to the place of voting, and concerns about fraud.

Given the pressure to ensure that soldiers' rights were not diminished by their service, States in both the North and South passed laws to allow for voting for Federal office. President Lincoln, in addition to presiding over the War Department's filing of the first military voting regulations on October 1, 1864, intervened with his generals directly to ensure that those soldiers who could vote be given that right.

In an 1864 letter to GEN William Rosecrans, President Lincoln wrote these stern words: ``I have a report that you incline to deny the soldiers the right of attending the election in Missouri....... Wherever the law allows soldiers to vote their officers must also allow it.''

Eighty years later, with the country locked in the crisis of the Second World War, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt sent a very pointed Message to the United States Congress on the same issue. It begins: ``The American people are very much concerned over the fact that the vast majority of the eleven million members of the armed forces of the United States are going to be deprived of their right to vote in the important national election this fall, unless the Congress promptly enacts adequate legislation....... The men and women who are in the armed forces are rightfully indignant about it. They have left their homes and jobs and schools to meet and defeat the enemies who would destroy all our democratic institutions, including our right to vote. [They] cannot understand why the fact that they are fighting should disqualify them from voting.''

President Roosevelt foreshadows the issues we are still fighting to fix when he further advised Congress:

By the 1944 elections, there will be than five million Americans outside the limits of the United States in our armed forces and merchant marine. They and the millions more who will be stationed within the US waiting the day to join their comrades on the battle-fronts, will all be subject to frequent, rapid, and unpredictable transfer to other points outside and inside the United States.

He concluded by arguing that ``..... What is needed is a complete change of machinery for absentee balloting, which will give [the armed forces] all over the world an opportunity to cast their ballots without time-consuming correspondence.......''

I am subjecting us all to a bit of a history lesson here because I believe this is a very fundamental--and yet unresolved--issue facing our military and our system of elections. We meet again, 65 years after President Roosevelt's Message to Congress, and 145 years after President Lincoln's directive to let soldiers vote, to again address fundamental improvements to military and overseas voting.

Building on the tools already in law, this legislation creates a system of improved access with multiple fail-safes built into the process. We use new technology to create more options for registration and ballot delivery, and at long last provide enough time for the military service men and women to vote. The lost letter, the late delivery, the ballot not notarized, and the last-minute troop transfer should no longer impede these voters from having their votes counted.

What we did in the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act will have a direct and dramatic impact on the rights of military voters.

In May 2009, I chaired a hearing in the Committee on Rules and Administration on the problems that military and overseas voters face. What we heard was nothing short of shocking.

We learned that during the 2008 general election, our military and overseas voters still faced a complicated and convoluted system that made it impossible for many of them to have their votes counted.

The committee convened a study of last year's election, which revealed that more than one in four ballots requested by military and other overseas voters were never received by local election officials and, thus, never counted. Let me repeat: one in four ballots requested were never counted. We owe our men and women in uniform more. Does it make sense that they are fighting for the very freedoms that we enjoy, yet are unable to choose their Commander in Chief? No, it does not.

If we can deploy tanks, high-tech equipment, and food to the front lines, we can figure out a way to deliver ballots to our troops so that they can be returned and counted.

The MOVE Act does precisely that, correcting many of the flaws that riddle the absentee balloting process for overseas voters.

By modernizing the voting process, increasing accessibility to voter registration and balloting materials, and requiring election officials to send out ballots to military and overseas voters in time for them to be returned and counted, this legislation--at long last--brings overseas voting into the 21st century.

Consider a letter one soldier sent to the Overseas Vote Foundation after the 2008 election, in which that solider said: ``I hate that because of my military service overseas, I was precluded from voting.'' That solider continued, ``Of all people, deployed servicemembers should have a guaranteed ability to vote.''

I say here on the floor of the Senate that I absolutely agree.

The MOVE Act will ensure that military and other overseas voters know how to register to vote and how to request an absentee ballot. They will receive their ballot in a timely manner, and have that ballot counted on election day.

How did we accomplish that goal? Through a number of simple, straightforward fixes to the overseas voting process:

First, this legislation gives the right to military and overseas voters to request--and requires States to send--registration materials, absentee ballot requests, and blank absentee ballots electronically. In the computer age, it is long past time we used technology to speed up the voting process. For many troops, this quick transmission of ballots will give them for the first time a sufficient number of days to vote.

Second, this legislation ensures that overseas voters have at least 45 days to complete their absentee ballots and return them to election officials. For those voters who have no access to electronic delivery of ballots, this should provide the time for a ballot to travel to Iraq or Afghanistan, and back to the local election official. This need was exposed by a 2009 Pew Charitable Trusts study aptly named ``No Time to Vote.''

This legislation also requires that military absentee ballots be sent through expedited mail procedures, further reducing the transmission time for voted ballots to make it back to local election officials.

In the Rules Committee hearing, we listened to the concerns of Air Force LTC Joseph DeCaro. One major concern he described was that there was no way to ensure that the ballots had been properly received by the election office. This legislation will allow military and overseas voters to determine whether their ballot has been received by the local election official. That way, if their ballots are not received, the voters can take steps to ensure a replacement vote is cast.

If a ballot is lost, or cannot be re-sent in time, we require the Department of Defense to create an online tool that allows military and overseas voters to identify all the races they are qualified to vote for, and submit a replacement ballot immediately. This ensures that troops can complete a full Federal ballot in time for the election.

The legislation prevents election officials from rejecting overseas absentee ballots for reasons not related to voter eligibility, like paper weight or notarization requirements. I ask you, how can a marine in Fallujah find a notary?

The legislation has the Department of Defense work with election officials to define and improve election data related to military and overseas voters. More accurate election data will reduce future problems and speed fixes to the voting process.

Finally, this legislation expands resources for overseas voters through the Federal Voting Assistance Program.

As a result of this new legislation, the Department of Defense will use online tools to train and inform its staff on crucial voting information. And all military servicemembers will receive uniform notices and information via e-mail prior to registration or election deadlines.

Finally, this legislation directs that every military installation have a place where soldiers can register to vote, update their registration information, and request an absentee ballot. Military voters, as they are transferred or reassigned to different bases, will be provided the opportunity to change their election information.

We also know that that there are improvements still to make. A pilot project included in the legislation will promote research into new technology to help assist future voters with absentee balloting. The tools and mandates set forth in this legislation are minimum requirements. And if technology can improve secure ballot transmission, we want that work done.

Again, it is simply unacceptable that those who fight to defend our freedom often face the greatest obstacles in exercising their right to vote.

While good work has been done in the past to improve military voting, I firmly believe that the MOVE Act has incorporated the best and strongest ideas on how to ensure a modern military receives every opportunity to cast their ballot. Working with States and local election officials, we must encourage prompt implementation of the MOVE Act so that the benefits of the act will impact voters in the 2010 elections.

In our Rules Committee hearing this May, I made the public commitment that we would not have another Federal election without these tools in place for our military voters, and I am very pleased that this act was agreed to by the House and Senate. I again thank our colleagues in this truly bipartisan effort, and I look forward to President Obama's signature on this important piece of legislation.

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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I rise today in support of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Matthew Shepard was brutally murdered more than 11 years ago, and yet the bill that bears his name it still not law. Today, we will finally send this historic bill to President Obama for his signature.

Many of us here in Congress have fought for this day for years--my dear friend, the late Ted Kennedy, fought for this day for decades. It is a bittersweet day. For as much as this is a victory for all who stand for civil rights, it brings to mind those horrible crimes committed simply because an individual is gay, or black, or Latino, or Muslim, or because of any other aspect of their being.

These crimes must not be met with silence, but rather, with our loudest voices.

In an era in which we elected our first African-American president, we must condemn crimes based on racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, or any other small-minded and intolerant angst. We must act, as these are crimes inflicted not merely on individuals, but on entire communities. They are attacks meant to not only break bones, but to break spirits. These crimes know no state boundaries--they are a national problem.

And today we will present the President with a national response. But let me be clear: this legislation does not criminalize speech or hateful thoughts. It seeks only to punish action--violent action that undermines the core values of our Nation.

One particularly chilling hate crime occurred in my home state of New York less than two weeks ago. The victim, Jack Prince, was leaving a deli in College Point, Queens late at night when two men started yelling anti-gay slurs at him. Suddenly, the perpetrators began beating him, savagely breaking Jack's jaw, his ribs, and causing both of his lungs to collapse. This crime, which was caught on video, shook the entire gay community.

This legislation sends a clear message to Jack's perpetrators and to all others: In America, we do not tolerate acts of violence motivated by hatred. In America, you are free to be yourself, and you should never be attacked for being so.

The time for waiting is over. The time for silence is over.

With the Matthew Shepard Act, we are helping local law enforcement stamp out crimes like the one committed earlier this month and punish its perpetrators. With the Matthew Shepard Act, we are saying, ``Enough!''

And, with the Matthew Shepard Act, we are honoring a brave soul. I personally want to thank Judy Shepard and all who continue to fight alongside her to make sure that we not only remember her son's life, but that we continue to strive for a better America.

For one last time, let me say: I urge my colleagues to support the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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