Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization of 2011 - Motion to Proceed - Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, shortly we will be turning to the legislation to reform the Postal Service, and I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about a particularly important part of that discussion.

In recent years there has been a revolution in how our citizens exercise their right to vote. Instead of every American showing up in person, more and more Americans are choosing to vote by mail, using absentee ballots, no-excuse absentee voting or, in the case of my home State of Oregon, the entire election is conducted by mail. This amendment I will be offering and that I am discussing this morning--and in which I join Senator Feinstein and other colleagues--is designed to protect the millions of Americans who choose to use the post office to exercise their right to vote. This amendment protects those millions of Americans from any kind of postal delay that could disrupt their ability to ensure their vote is counted.

My home State of Oregon has a system in which all ballots are cast by mail.

In Oregon, if the ballots are not delivered by mail to the county election offices by the deadline on election night, they are not counted. So it is essential to the conduct of fair elections in my home State that delivery of ballots cast by mail not be delayed.

To prevent the potential threat to our elections from delayed mail delivery, the Wyden-Feinstein amendment would place a moratorium on the closure of postal facilities until November 13, 2012, in States that vote by mail or allow any voter to vote no-excuse absentee. It would also require the Postal Service to notify election officials of closings and consolidations and require the Postal Service to study the effect of closing or consolidating a mail processing facility on the ability of the affected community to vote by mail.

My home State consistently has high voter turnout. Vote by mail has been successful and it is popular. In my State, more than 85 percent of registered voters participated in the 2008 elections, but this kind of approach to voting is popular not just in my home State of Oregon. In the 2008 election, 89 percent of ballots in Washington State were cast by mail, as well as 64 percent of those in Colorado, over 50 percent in Arizona, and it was nearly that high a percentage in California.

In my home State, the Postal Service is a place where people send and receive packages and mail order prescriptions, and it is also a place that community residents come together. It seems to me that if we are going to close and consolidate postal facilities, not only will it harm the delivery of ballots and campaign-related mail to voters and return of the ballots to election officials, but it also will zap much of what is vital to rural America; that is, the opportunity to come and gather in one place.

Jordan Valley, located in beautiful eastern Oregon on the Nevada border, is 457 miles from Portland. With the proposed consolidations, the nearest regional processing center would literally be almost 500 miles away. If the U.S. Postal Service goes ahead with their proposed closures and consolidations, then a ballot cast in Jordan Valley could travel approximately 1,000 miles before it reaches the hands of election officials. This is unacceptable for constituents who vote in the far corners--the rural corners--of my State.

Cuts to the Postal Service mean that ballots mailed in the final days before an election may not get to election officials in time to be counted. Ballots sent the weekend before a Tuesday vote may not get into the hands of election officials by the present-day deadline of election day. Closing and consolidating postal facilities disproportionately harms the ability of rural residents to have their votes counted.

These issues raise important questions: Is closing postal facilities in States that primarily vote by mail a responsible approach? For me and many of my constituents and the millions of Americans who have chosen to vote in this fashion, the resounding answer is, no, this is not a responsible approach. Closing processing facilities and potentially impacting the delivery of ballots in a general election is a risk not worth it. Closing postal facilities will have unintended and unforeseen consequences on the impact of elections.

That is why this amendment would place a moratorium until November 13, 2012, in States that conduct all their elections by mail or permit no-excuse absentee voting to ensure that elections are fair. No-excuse voting, of course, allows any voter to vote absentee without having to offer additional reasons for their making that choice. Twenty-seven States allow no-excuse absentee voting. So not only will the constituents that I and Senator Merkley and Senator Feinstein and Senator Boxer represent in Oregon and California be affected by this amendment, but States such as Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming are part of the many states in this country that this amendment would protect.

In September of 2011, election officials in California were doing their jobs and preparing and mailing sample ballots for a September election in an isolated community in northern California. Unaware that the small post office that serves the area was closing on October 1, the sample ballots were not immediately returned so they had no reason to believe the voters had not received them. But as ballots slowly trickled in, election officials grew a bit suspicious, and they learned many voters had just received their sample ballot more than 3 weeks after it was mailed, and many had not received their official ballot yet. Election officials received no more than two or three a day literally for the first week.

Voters explained to officials there was so much confusion over the closure of the post office that they were much more concerned about receiving their other first-class mail--bills and prescriptions--than their ballots and hadn't been looking for them. They were told the contents of their post office box were being directed to the Arcata Post Office. But when they went to Arcata to retrieve it, there was no mail for them in Arcata. For 18 days, they didn't receive any mail at all.

Only 15 days before the election, the staff attempted several times to contact the Arcata Post Office but could only leave a message for the postmaster who was not returning their calls. Folks then contacted friends at a local central processing center in yet another town, Eureka, CA, who were able to give a direct line to the Arcata postmaster.

At first, the postmaster indicated nothing was wrong, but the residents, in his terms, were ``confused about the closure of their post office.'' After checking the number of ballots that had been returned from the precincts, election officials decided to resend all those ballots. The postmaster finally provided election officials with the change of address list for all residents, and they were able to correct the database, cancel the ballots that had not yet been received, and remail ballots to all voters who had not yet returned their ballots.

Obviously, the bottom line is clear. The closure of small post offices requires more preparation and sharing of information with the residents of an impacted area as well as agencies and businesses that rely on the post office to communicate with their customers. Had election officials not had a contact in that area, they may not have become aware of the problem until it was too late to resend the ballots.

Under the amendment I will be offering later with Senator Feinstein, the Postal Service would be required to notify election officials of closings and consolidations to prevent the kind of calamitous repeat of what I have described happened in a recent local election in California. Additionally, the amendment would require the Postal Service to study the effect of closing or consolidating a mail processing facility on the ability of the affected community to vote by mail and the ability of the Postal Service to deliver ballots on time in accordance with applicable State law.

Disenfranchising voters or discouraging the millions of Americans who now have chosen this new approach to voting is not a wise or prudent step for the Senate to take at this time. Placing a moratorium until after the elections will ensure that what is done in the Senate does not negatively impact voting in Oregon, California or the scores of other States that make extensive use of mail ballots in their elections.

I hope it will be possible for us to win bipartisan support for the proposition that ensuring the highest level of voting participation in our country is fundamental to our democracy. I hope my colleagues will support the amendment I intend to offer later with my colleague and friend from California, Senator Feinstein, to protect the millions of Americans who choose to vote by mail.

I yield the floor.

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