A concurrent resolution to provide for the counting on January 6, 2005, of the electoral votes for President and Vice President of the United States.

Mr. President, I commend and thank our colleague from California who, as a result of her objection, has allowed us to have a couple of hours here to debate and discuss the events that occurred on election day this year. I thank her for doing that. Whatever occurred during the day, I think it is important that this body take a moment now and review what has occurred since election 2000 and this election as well. I recognize we are still operating under a very imperfect system when it comes to the Federal elections in this country. I thank the distinguished minority leader, Senator Reid, for commending this body for its support of the Help America Vote Act that we adopted almost unanimously in this body a couple of years ago, through the work of Senators McConnell and Bond and others.

It was certainly not a perfect piece of legislation, but it was the first time in the history of this country, outside of the Voting Rights Act, that this body, the Congress of the United States, spoke comprehensively about the conduct of Federal elections.

I point out to my colleagues that while certainly things need to be done to improve even that effort, there were 119,000 provisional ballots cast in the State of Ohio that never would have been counted had we not adopted provisional ballot requirements.

There are certainly legitimate questions about what does and doesn't constitute a ballot. I am drafting for my colleagues' approval a comprehensive piece of legislation that deals with the shortcomings in the HAVA bill itself.

The fact is we are going to have access to statewide voter registration. The fact is we are making it possible for 20 million disabled Americans to cast a ballot independently and privately.

I know personally what this is like, having watched a sibling of mine having to cast a ballot with the help of someone else, despite two master's degrees and being a teacher for 40 years. We also put into HAVA the requirement that every voter have the right to see his or her ballot before actually casting their ballot. HAVA required that all voters who are challenged, for any reason, have the right to cast a provisional ballot. The Federal Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit of the United States affirmed the absolute right to receive a provisional ballot, without any additional requirements.

We have made great progress here. More needs to be done, clearly, if we are going to make a Federal election system exist where every vote will be counted and every eligible person will have an equal opportunity to vote.

I appreciate the opportunity here to talk about this. My hope would be that we would build bipartisan support, just as we did 2 years ago in adopting the Help America Vote Act, in both bodies, and get the kind of bipartisan support necessary so the conduct of elections, Federal elections, will have a system that has the confidence of the voters of this country.

I think it was Thomas Paine who, more than 200 years ago, said the right to vote is the right upon which all other rights depend. If you don't get this right, every other right is in jeopardy, and that is the business we need to be about.

Obviously events in Ohio and elsewhere raise legitimate and serious concerns. In this country we are still operating Federal elections on the basis of a voluntary work, pretty much, of local people. It worked pretty well for many years. It doesn't work any longer. It has to be changed. We have to do a better job. It is important that this body, the Congress of the United States, say to the American public we are going to do everything we can to see to it that you have an equal opportunity to vote and that your vote will be counted, and we are going to have the people, the technology, and the resources in place to make that happen.

We have made great strides. More needs to be done. The Senator from California has given us an opportunity today to highlight the importance of this. I regret that the Senate finds itself in this situation today where we find that the American public still lacks confidence in the legitimacy of the process and the results of our presidential elections.

But as painful as this debate today may be, this discourse is necessary to ensuring the American public that we, here in Congress, hear their concerns and frustrations, and will continue to fight to see that their most basic of all democratic rights--the right to vote--is secure.

Sadly, the concerns we are hearing expressed today are all too familiar to those we heard exactly 4 years ago following the debacle of the 2000 presidential election.

Following the 2000 presidential election, Congress responded to the problems which arose in Florida and other states by enacting bipartisan legislation, the Help America Vote Act, which I was pleased to coauthor. The goal of that bill was to ensure that every eligible American would have an equal opportunity to cast a vote and have that vote counted, regardless of race, gender, disability, language or party or precinct; and, that it would be easier to vote, but harder to defraud the system.

The Help America Vote Act--or HAVA--had the support of countless civil rights, disability, language minority and voting rights groups, and organizations representing state and local governments. HAVA has been hailed as the first civil rights law of the 21st century and I am committed to ensuring that it is fully implemented as such.

While the results of the 2004 presidential election may not have been contested in the same manner as those of the 2000 election, the jury is still out on whether HAVA successfully addressed all the problems that arose in the 2000 election. While I believe there is still much work to do to ensure the franchise for all Americans, I am confident that without HAVA, thousands of eligible American voters would not have been able to cast a vote, nor have their vote counted, in the November 2004 presidential election.

It is important to remember that HAVA is not yet fully implemented. In some respects, the most important reforms have yet to be implemented by the States.

These reforms include:

mandatory uniform and nondiscriminatory requirements that

all voting systems provide second-chance voting for voters;

full accessibility for the disabled and language

minorities;

a permanent paper record for manual audits;

uniform standards for what constitutes a vote and how such

a vote will be counted for each type of voting system used by

a State; and

a computerized statewide voter registration list which must

contain the name and registration information for every

eligible voter in a State and be electronically available to

every State and local election official at the polling place

on election day.

Had these additional reforms been in place on election day this November, many of the Election Day problems that arose across the country could have been avoided or resolved at the polling place.

But one of the HAVA reforms that was in place this November did make a difference: the requirement that all States provide a provisional ballot to voters who are challenged at the polls, for any reason. This requirement ensured the franchise for thousands of Americans on November 2 last year.

In Ohio alone, 155,000 voters cast provisional ballots, of which an estimated 77 percent were counted. That represents over 119,000 American voters who otherwise might not have been able to cast a vote or have their vote counted, but for HAVA.

Some States, including Ohio, attempted to restrict the right to a provisional ballot, but were ultimately unsuccessful. The Federal Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit of the United States affirmed the absolute right to receive a provisional ballot, without any additional requirements, in the decision of Sandusky vs. Blackwell decided on October 26, just one week prior to the election.

More importantly, that decision upheld the right of an individual voter to seek judicial redress of the rights conferred by HAVA and upheld HAVA as a civil rights law enforceable as such in the courts.

As with any comprehensive civil rights legislation, HAVA's reach and effectiveness will have to be hammered out by the courts. As that process plays out, coupled with the States' implementation of the remaining HAVA reforms, we will be in a better position to assess whether this landmark legislation hit the mark or needs further reform.

But it is already clear, based on the November election, that it will take further reform to ensure that all eligible Americans have an equal opportunity to cast a vote and have that vote counted. We already know that States are implementing the provisional ballot requirements in significantly differing manners. It is simply unacceptable that a Federally-guaranteed provisional ballot, cast for President of the United States, may not be counted simply because of the local precinct that the otherwise eligible voter was standing in at the time he or she voted.

We know from the November elections that election officials did not provide sufficient numbers of machines to ensure that all voters could vote in a timely manner. We also know that many voters, such as those in Ohio, were still forced to vote on antiquated equipment such as the punch card which disenfranchises minority voters at greater rates than other voters, or use ballots that are confusing. And we know that some states still insist on purging voters based on inaccurate lists and refuse to reinstate the voting rights of felons, even after they have completed their debt to society.

It is time to consider whether, for Federal elections, there is a national responsibility to ensure that no matter where and how a ballot is cast for the office of the President of the United States, all Americans will have confidence that their vote was cast and counted in a uniform and nondiscriminatory way.

I will be introducing comprehensive election reform legislation when we reconvene which will build on HAVA and address these and other issues. My proposal will:

require states to provide enough machines, and ensure they

are geographically distributed;

ensure that the provisions of HAVA that require that voters

have a chance to verify their ballot before it is cast and

that an audit trail exists to establish that such ballot was

counted are implemented;

require states to offer extended voting times to ensure

that single parents, the disabled, and those who simply

cannot get to the polls on the one day can still cast their

vote;

ensure that only eligible voters can vote, but that no

voter who is eligible will be barred from the polls simply

because he or she did not check a box on a form; and

require the reinstatement of felons for the purpose of

casting a Federal ballot.

And my legislation will provide the Federal funds necessary to ensure that the states can timely implement the reforms.

The Help America Vote Act is an historic landmark legislation that comprehensively defines, for the first time in this Nation's history, the role of the Federal government in the conduct of Federal elections. It was an important first step, but our work is not done.

The real test, however, will be not so much on how we vote in the next few minutes on some resolution here, but whether in the coming days we are willing to pass legislation to fill in the gaps that are left vacant as a result of our inability to get more done with the HAVA bill.

I believe we can do it. We did it in the last Congress. We ought to do it in this one, so we never again have questions raised about the legitimacy of the election process or results, in any State, of a Federal election.

I look forward to working with my colleagues, and the civil rights, disability, language minority, and voting rights communities, as well as State and local election officials, to continue our work to ensure that all Americans have access to the most fundamental right in a representative democracy: the right to cast a vote and have that vote counted.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I rise to discuss an issue that Congress tried to address after the 2000 election nightmare. Frankly, I am stunned to be standing before you 4 years later to take up the same issues of voting irregularities and uncounted votes. And I thank my colleague from California for bringing this important issue before the Senate for debate. Her opposition serves as a call upon the Congress to take action this year to address the ongoing problems in our electoral system.

Today, I will vote to certify the result, but once again we see that the election system in the United States does not work to provide absolute confidence in the results. Today, I am voting to certify the results because I do not believe that the voting problems changed the outcome of the election. Certification should not be delayed further under such circumstances. I believe the majority of voters in Ohio have spoken and that result should be certified.

But while I do not question the result, I rise today to call attention to what went wrong, to the disenfranchised voters, the broken machines and problems people had casting their ballots on election day.

This should not be happening in the United States of America. When we vote for President, we should all have total confidence that every vote counts and that every vote is counted.

There simply should be no questions or problems when we vote for the President of the United States. But, here we are, again, talking about voting problems and talking about lost or uncounted votes.

Like many Americans, I was shocked in 2000 to see how outdated the voting systems in America were. I was also shocked to see how easy it was to manipulate those voting systems and how easy it was for votes to be lost or go uncounted.

It was literally unbelievable. I asked myself, how could such things happen here in the United States? In 2000, we all learned that many ballots, many people's votes, were thrown out, lost, misplaced, or miscounted.

We saw election officials who did not know the rules and some who appeared to ignore the rules.

We witnessed innocent mistakes, machine mistakes, ballot mistakes and mistakes that were not so innocent.

The result was that many votes simply did not count.

The Presidential election of 2000 was an eyeopener. Our election systems in this country, the World's oldest democracy, were broken and needed to be fixed.

Republicans and Democrats agreed this had to be done. It was important. It was vital.

And we did something. We passed the Help America Vote Act. We set standards. We authorized money for the states to help them get new machines, new technology and fix their electoral systems. We provided for provisional ballot systems so that if there was a question about a voters registration they could still cast a ballot.

We thought that our voting systems were well on their way to being fixed. We thought that we would never have another election like 2000. We thought that all votes were going to count and all votes were going to be counted.

We were wrong.

We now see, in 2004, 4 years after the 2000 election debacle, we have people standing in lines for hours because polling places could not handle the turnout, people being given the wrong information, machines breaking down, too few machines in some precincts, ballots being lost or misplaced, and voters being told to go to the wrong place to vote. That is simply not right.

It is not clear if these problems by accident or intended, but the result was that again people were not able to cast their votes or their votes simply were not counted. That's just wrong. That is not suppose to happen in the United States.

And where did much of this happen? In minority neighborhoods, in cities, in economically distressed areas, in primarily Democratic areas across the Nation. I ask myself, is this just a coincidence? Those communities do not think so. And it is critical that we let them know that we take their concerns seriously.

What happened in the last election is less important than making sure that it never happens again. These communities need to know that the Congress is taking action to meet their concerns and will work to correct the abuses that were documented in many States in 2004.

This is not a Republican or a Democratic issue. Ensuring that every registered voter who wants to vote can vote is not a partisan issue. It is an issue of what it means to be an American. In 2004, everyone should agree that every vote should count and we have to do whatever is necessary to make sure that happens.

I call on the Congress to renew its efforts to ensure that there is true electoral reform that every American who casts their ballot can be sure it is counted and that every American who wants to cast their ballot has that opportunity. This Congress should take three steps:

We should fully fund the Help American Vote Act so that all States have the resources that they need to truly reform their electoral systems.

We need to pass legislation to ensure that there is a voter verified paper trail on electronic machines so voters can verify that they cast their ballot and who they cast it for.

We need to re-examine the issue of electoral reform to see what steps the Congress needs to take to ensure that the voting rights of all Americans are protected. So that we have uniform standards. So that provisional ballots work, people do not have to wait in long lines, machines are operative and voters can get to the polls on election day.

And, we must do it now, before this issue fades from view again. The media will move on to other issues. We will move on to other issues. There are many important issues that this Congress will address this year, but as we look forward, and this year celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, we must make this a priority issue. We must act to protect those vital rights and protect our democracy. There is no better way to honor this historic Act than to ensure that we fix the problems in our electoral system that continue disenfranchise voters.

I thank my colleague, Senator Boxer, from California for giving us the opportunity to debate these important points and focusing the spotlight on the voting problems still facing our democracy. And while I vote today to

certify the election, I do not certify how our electoral system works in the United States and on that front we must now act.

I look forward to working on this with other members of the Senate. But, we must not be here in 2006 or 2008 talking about how shocked we are to see yet again votes not counted, ballots missing, lost and misplaced, and confused election officials. We must act this year, while the spotlight is still on, to do more to ensure that all voters will have confidence in our electoral system.

Mr. President, I advise Members on the minority side if they

want to speak on this issue, I have been informed that when the speeches end there will be a rollcall vote. If people are waiting to come here an hour from now, they may not get the chance to speak. Members who want to speak should come here now. I have been informed on the majority side there may not be another speaker or, if so, maybe only one other speaker.

For my side, I repeat, as I understand the rules, they should be here to speak for the 5 minutes when the time comes. That time is now.

Mr. President, I spoke on a procedural matter earlier. I ask unanimous consent that not be deemed to be my speech in regard to this matter.

Mr. President, today great men and women of our Armed Forces are working to bring the right of free and fair elections to Iraq. In less than a month, there will be elections in Iraq. The sacrifice of our military demands that we work to ensure our own elections are fair. That is why today's debate is here, and I applaud my friend from California for allowing us to talk a little bit about elections generally.

A constitutional right that can be said to help secure all other rights is the right to vote. History has shown us that the right to vote demands constant vigilance and attention. While secured by our Constitution, widespread disenfranchisement of African Americans and other Americans led to the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the amendments in 1970, 1975, and 1982.

Constitutional protection was not enough. We needed tough new laws and took action. More recently, the abuses in Florida 4 years ago demonstrated the need for change and led to reform--and it was reform-- in the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

I spread on the Record today the good work of Senator McConnell, Senator Dodd, and Senator Bond. There were others, but those are the three who stand out in my mind.

While the literacy tests and poll taxes of the past are gone, a more insidious form of disenfranchisement continues to taint our electoral system.

In this past election, in the State of Nevada, phone calls were made to heavily African-American parts of Las Vegas to try to trick those voters into not voting. The same happened in the Hispanic areas of our State, especially in Clark County. These calls, which we were unable to trace, told voters election day was November 3, not November 2.

Our registration process in Nevada is also tainted by the proven destruction of Democratic voter registration forms. This is clear. It happened. There was a company hired by the Republican National Committee to register only Republicans. We had people come forward and say they destroyed Democratic registration forms. That investigation is still underway.

In some of my earliest elections in Nevada, private individuals dressed in uniforms meant to resemble police officers stood around polling places in minority voting spots to frighten people from coming to vote, and it worked. These officers were posted, as I indicated, at the polls to intimidate these minority voters.

In this past election in Ohio, we heard a lot about what appeared to be wrong there, and I hope there will be more done to determine what went on in Ohio.

Legal challenges to restrict provisional voting, a provision of HAVA, which is the Help America Vote Act which I talked about earlier, meant to cure the widespread disenfranchisement of minorities in Florida and around the rest of the country.

These problems damage our system, deny our citizens equal protection, and undermine the right to vote. Rooting out this corruption requires not only strong laws but I believe strong hearts. It relies upon the integrity of our election officials in every State and each one of us to speak up when abuses occur.

It is my hope the debate today will once again lead to action to cure some of the more glaring defects of the 2004 election. One of the most significant problems in Ohio and in many other States was the lack of measures to ensure the integrity of electronic voting machines. While we have made improvements that are historic with HAVA, one important omission is in this area; that is, electronic voting, how to ensure the integrity of it.

In the last election, of all 50 States, Nevada was the only State where we had total electronic voting with a paper trail. When you voted in Nevada, you did your electronic voting and you could look right there to see for whom you voted. No mistakes. You did not take it with you, of course, but it was in the machine, and if there was a recount, it could be determined easily.

This is the way it should happen all over America, an electronic machine with a paper trail.

Last year, my colleague, the distinguished junior Senator from Nevada, Mr. Ensign, and I introduced a measure to require paper trails for electronic voting machines every place. We will introduce our bipartisan Voting Integrity and Verification Act in this Congress.

I hope that as we consider the 2004 election today--I ask unanimous consent for one additional minute, Mr. President.

I will end by saying we look forward to enacting commonsense measures such as the Voting Integrity and Verification Act which Senator Ensign and I will introduce in a few days to continue to improve the integrity of our elections.

I do not view the need to consider these additional reforms as a sign that our electoral system has failed. That we learn, investigate, and reform demonstrates its strength. The only failure following the 2004 election would be to not acknowledge and act to strengthen the right to vote.

I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will join with me in that effort.

Mr. President, free and fair elections are the foundation of our democracy. Thanks to the efforts of tens of thousands of citizens, millions more Americans registered and went to the pools this year. But despite this dramatic expansion in public participation, many voters faced barriers to casting their ballot. Disenfranchisement and barriers to voting are fundamentally undemocratic and should be unacceptable in the freest nation in the world.

On November 3, I conceded the Presidential election to George Bush and also expressed my commitment to ensuring that every vote in this election is counted. The questions being raised by my colleagues in Congress about the vote in Ohio are important. As evidenced by the media and Congressman John Conyers' report of the vote in Ohio, there were many voting irregularities in the November election that led to the disenfranchisement of voters. These included long lines at predominantly minority polling places resulting from the failure to provide sufficient number of voting machines; voter intimidation and misinformation; the restriction of provisional ballots in a fashion that likely disenfranchised voters; and instances in which malfunctioning voting machines transferred Kerry votes to Bush.

I strongly believe that we need to investigate this election and reform our system. However, while I am deeply concerned about the issues the questions and issues being raised by this objection and think they are very important, I do not believe that there is sufficient evidence to support the objection and change the outcome of the election and I am not joining their protest of the Ohio electors.

Despite widespread reports of irregularities, questionable practices by some election officials and instances of lawful voters being denied the right to vote, our legal teams on the ground have found no evidence that would change the outcome of the election.

It is critical that we investigate and understand any and every voting irregularity anywhere in our country, not because it would change the outcome of the election but because Americans have to believe that their votes are counted in our democracy.

We must take action this Congress to make sure that the problems voters encountered in Ohio and elsewhere never happen again. We must make sure there are no questions or doubts in future elections. It is critical to our democracy that we investigate and act to prevent voting irregularities and voter intimidation across the country.

I strongly support the efforts of the civil rights and voting rights groups across the country that continue to investigate what happened in 2004 and how we can ensure it will never happen again. A Presidential election is a national Federal election but we have different standards in different States for casting and counting votes. We must have a national Federal standard to solve the problems that occurred in the 2004 election.

I am calling on my Republican colleagues to put election reform on the congressional agenda this year. The Republican leadership in the House and Senate must commit to make protecting voting rights a priority and commit to adding election reform legislation to the legislative calendar this year. One goal must be to eliminate barriers to voting, to encourage the greatest level of civic participation possible, and to restore confidence in the notion that every eligible voter will have the opportunity to vote and to have their vote counted.

I have spoken with Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid and my colleagues in the House and Senate about my intention to introduce legislation this year to ensure transparency and accountability in our voting system and the need for the Democratic Caucus to make voting rights and electoral reform one of our top priority pieces of legislation. Election reform will be one of my top agenda items.

I will be meeting in coming weeks with key leaders on both sides of the aisle and from civil rights and voting rights groups across the Nation. I plan to use the information gathered by Representative Conyers in his report, and information from other investigations underway, to guide my legislation.

We must invest resources in our country to help State and local communities purchase modern voting machines and do research and development on safe and secure forms of voting. We must ensure that our voting machines enable voters to verify their vote.

No American citizen should wake up the morning after the election and worry their vote wasn't counted. No citizen should be denied at the polls if they are eligible to vote. As the greatest, wealthiest nation on Earth, our citizens should not have to be forced to vote on old unaccountable voting machines. And, as the greatest, wealthiest Nation on Earth, our citizens should never be forced to vote on old, unaccountable and nontransparent voting machines from companies controlled by partisan activists.

Together we can put the critical issue of electoral reform on the front burner in Washington and across the country.

Mr. President, 204 years ago, Thomas Jefferson took the oath of office as President of the United States in this very Capitol. He was the first President ever to do so. As he walked from a boardinghouse on Pennsylvania Avenue toward this building on the morning of his inauguration, he must have marveled at what was about to take place.

For the first time in American history, power was changing hands from one party--the Federalists--to the other, the Democratic-Republicans. John Adams willingly left office. No shots were fired, and no monarchs were hanged. Unlike their brethren in Europe, Americans, under our glorious Constitution, had mastered the peaceful transfer of authority from one faction to another. Jefferson called his election the ``revolution of 1800,'' brought about ``by the rational and peaceful instruments of reform, the suffrage of the people.''

But America's tradition of this peaceful transfer of power is now being challenged.

The obstruction of the counting of the electoral vote undermines the tradition that Jefferson and Adams established. By blocking this vote when there is no possibility whatsoever of overturning the result, the legitimacy of our republican form of government is questioned. I am sure that is not the intention of my colleagues who have forced us to debate this. Yet it is undoubtedly the result.

I understand that a minority of a minority protests the presidential vote in the State of Ohio. But President Bush has indisputably won that State by over 118,000 votes, and the votes have been counted twice.

Some of my colleagues have claimed that, even though they agree that President Bush has won Ohio, they must take this opportunity to speak about the need for electoral reform. I submit that hijacking a presidential election to use as a personal soapbox is shameful.

Electoral reform may very well be desirable--for as long as people administer elections, elections will be imperfect. There will always be some irregularities, most due to innocent mistake, some to outright fraud. We should absolutely do everything possible to combat this.

But if electoral reform is needed, Senators should introduce legislation. They should not obstruct a legitimate count of the electoral votes where there is an unequivocal victor. They should not trample on the proud republican government our Founding Fathers bequeathed us. They should not mock the beautiful concept that sovereignty lies with the people, while our troops are fighting and dying to plant that concept in the soil of Iraq.

Even the junior senator from Massachusetts has not endorsed the radical scheme that a minority of a minority has unleashed on us today. In an e-mail to supporters yesterday, Senator Kerry said that he would not participate in this petulant protest but, rather, will propose legislation to address perceived deficiencies in our electoral system. This is the only proper route to take, and history will applaud Senator Kerry for disavowing what is happening here today.

This is an ignominious beginning to the 109th Congress. Last month I spoke about the desire on this side of the aisle to work with our colleagues in the other party to get things done for the American people in a spirit of bipartisanship. I'm still holding onto that hope. I appeal to cooler heads on the other side of the aisle: Don't let a fraction of your number march you down a dead end.

The words that we say here today amount to little against the fact that in 2004, the President won an overwhelming victory in Ohio and 30 other States, and received 286 electoral votes. Years from now, that fact will still be obvious. I hope that the damage done from this assault on our traditions is not.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

The following Senators were necessarily absent. The Senator from Virginia (Mr. Allen), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning), the Senator from Montana (Mr. Burns), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Craig), the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Ensign), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Frist), the Senator from Texas (Ms. Hutchison), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski), the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Shelby), the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Chafee), the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Lugar), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Martinez), the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Thomas).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Kyl), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain) would have voted ``nay''.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.