Absentee Ballot Track, Receive, and Confirm Act

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2510) to amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to reimburse States for the costs incurred in establishing a program to track and confirm the receipt of voted absentee ballots in elections for Federal office and make information on the receipt of such ballots available by means of online access, and for other purposes.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in support of H.R. 2510, the Absentee Ballot Track, Receive, and Confirm, or TRAC Act. I would like to thank House Administration Committee Chairman Brady, Ranking Member Lungren, and Election Subcommittee Chairwoman Lofgren for allowing this bill to come forward today. I would also like to especially thank our subcommittee's ranking member, Mr. McCarthy, for joining me in introducing this bill. I appreciate my California colleague's input in support of this important legislation. This is a better bill because of his efforts, and I hope that the members of our subcommittee can continue to work together across party lines because election administration need not be a partisan issue.

We introduced this bill after hearing from absentee voters that they would like to know whether their ballots were sent, whether their ballots were received, and whether their votes were actually counted. In most cases, the fears of one's mail-in ballot somehow being lost in the system are unfounded, but we all know that the worry is still there, and sometimes there is real reason for concern.

We have all heard election horror stories from people who simply did not receive a ballot they requested. Other voters have called their overwhelmed election officers and waited on hold for far too long trying to find out what happened to their ballots. And most voters never know whether their absentee ballot actually was counted. Was there a problem with their signature, they might wonder? Was the ballot damaged in the mail?

Our Nation's voters deserve electoral procedures that are transparent and that strengthen their faith in democracy. The good news is that it is possible and practical to track absentee ballots. If voters can identify a problem early, they can work with their election offices to fix it and ensure that their votes count.

The TRAC Act is modeled on a successful piece of bipartisan California State legislation that allows voters to go online or call a phone number to easily find out whether an elections office has sent out a ballot, whether a completed ballot has arrived back at the registrar's office, and whether the registrar has counted the ballot; and if not, why not?

Absentee tracking has been a proven success in California and in several other States. In my home county of San Diego, over 98,000 voters checked their ballot status online last November using such a system.

Tracking gives voters easy access to the answers they need, and it takes a burden off the phone lines at elections offices. Absentee ballot tracking is particularly useful for our men and women in uniform serving overseas who have difficulty phoning their elections offices during regular business hours. The TRAC Act would allow the Federal Government to reimburse States for establishing absentee tracking systems. And setting up these tracking systems can be done for just a few thousand dollars in many jurisdictions. San Mateo County in California, for example, did it by simply linking their database to their Web site, and many other counties have followed that model. In these tough economic times, even the small grants we are offering States today will be especially helpful.

I ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join Mr. McCarthy and me in supporting this effort to strengthen the democratic process and give American voters the electoral certainty they deserve.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).

Madam Speaker, I have no additional speakers. I urge passage of this legislation. And I yield back my remaining time.

Madam Speaker, before I came to Congress, I had the privilege of serving 8 years as Michigan's Secretary of State. In that job, one of my key responsibilities was to serve as the state's Chief Elections Officer. During my tenure, we made great strides in improving the accuracy and security of the elections system in our state.

However, as any former or current Secretary of State can tell you, one of the greatest challenges you have is convincing non-voters--those who are eligible to vote, and may be registered, but fail to participate in the electoral process. One of the common challenges in changing the views of these citizens is countering the belief that the system doesn't work either due to corruption or negligence or some other issue. So, these citizens fail to exercise their Constitutionally-given rights to choose their government, and they don't vote.

As elected officials, we need to take whatever measures we can to increase the public's confidence in the voting system. One of the greatest achievements of my tenure as Secretary of State was the creation of the Qualified Voter File, which provided for easy determination of who is and is not a registered voter. In fact, the Ford-Carter Commission on Federal Election Reform cited Michigan as a national model in this area. This device was critical to ensuring that we have full voter participation and that no one is needlessly disenfranchised.

Absentee ballots, historically, have been an area that has contributed to this perception. Many have seen these ballots as ripe for corruption and many voters are unsure what happens with their ballots after they mail them in. The bill we are considering today will go a long way towards correcting these perceptions.

H.R. 2510, the Absentee Ballot Track Receive and Confirm Act, authorizes grants to states that choose to establish procedures to track absentee mail-in ballots. These systems would allow voters to find out for themselves the status of their absentee ballot. Voters will now be able to determine when their ballot should arrive, if the elections office received it and whether it was counted.

Additionally, this measure protects the secrecy of the ballot by only marking the outside ballot envelopes. No other information about the voter or how that vote was cast will be recorded.

The right to vote is one of the most cherished rights that we have as citizens. This measure will reduce the potential for fraud and restore confidence in absentee voting among the public. Furthermore, absentee voters will gain the knowledge that their vote has been counted and they are not being disenfranchised through the process.

I urge my colleagues to support the measure.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in support of this bill, the TRAC bill, which will encourage States to adopt measures toward the modernization of election systems.

The legitimacy of our election systems is based on the public trust that properly cast ballots are counted, and in the case of absentee ballots, reach their appropriate destination. Any time an election system fails to include properly cast ballots there is cause for concern as to the legitimacy of the outcome.

Long gone should be the days when dog-eared absentee ballots are relegated to dark and dusty corners of election offices with voters never having the certainty that their vote counted. By instituting a tracking system, States can further ensure the security of their absentee ballots. Some have said this is really promoting uniform postal progress information for election shipments. Moreover, an absentee ballot tracking system will enable voters to act as guardians of their own vote, providing them the ability to call attention to ballots that fail to reach their destination.

An important aspect of this bill beyond the benefits of a ballot tracking system is that it is a voluntary, incentive-driven program. Whereas each State approaches its election process from a unique background and context, this voluntary program empowers the States to modernize their election systems in a manner appropriate to their particular challenges. The Committee on House Administration has held several hearings over the past year dealing with challenges to the administration of reliable and credible elections. Through the testimony of many qualified witnesses, we have come to realize that one particular subset of voters who are particularly vulnerable to those challenges is overseas military voters. My colleague on the committee, Mr. McCarthy, has introduced a piece of legislation which will help remedy that disservice to our men and women in uniform. And just as we take up this bill today, I am hopeful that we will soon see Mr. McCarthy's bill brought before this body for a vote.

It simply isn't acceptable for ballots to disappear, some might say, like wandering puppies. We owe our uniformed servicemembers better than that.

Madam Speaker, I urge support for this measure, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlelady from California, and I rise in support of the Absentee Ballot TRAC Act. I commend her and Mr. McCarthy for crafting this commonsense measure, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

For the sake of good democracy, we must do all we can to have accessible, reliable, auditable voting. And we must do all we can to remove every reason for voters to believe that the voting system is not working well, to remove any doubt that they might have that votes are not counted as they intended.

Every year, some number of absentee ballots are requested by voters but not received, or delivered to voters but not returned to the election officials. The Election Assistance Commission's 2004 election administration voting survey reported that on average, only 89 percent of absentee ballots requested were returned. The 2006 Election Administration and Voting Survey reported that on average, a quarter of domestic civilian absentee ballots were rejected due to untimely receipt. And according to a survey of military and overseas voting in 2008 conducted by the nonpartisan Overseas Vote Foundation, more than 1 in 5 American voters living overseas, including military personnel, did not receive their ballots on time for them to be counted in the 2008 election.

Every such instance of nonreceipt or nondelivery must be treated as a probable instance of wrongful disenfranchisement because we can assume voters would not have requested the ballots if they did not intend to vote. And that's why I support this commonsense measure. It would reimburse States for establishing programs to track and confirm the receipt of absentee ballots and make available to the individual who cast the ballot information on the receipt of the ballot, and information about whether or not the ballot was counted. This would be done by means of on-line access using an Internet site of the official's office.

I commend this bill to my colleagues, and I thank the gentleman and the gentlelady for proposing it.

Madam Speaker, I urge the Members to support H.R. 2510, a bill to amend the Help America Vote Act. This bipartisan bill, sponsored by Representatives Susan Davis and Kevin McCarthy, and reported unanimously from the Committee on House Administration, will reimburse states for the cost of tracking and confirming absentee ballots.

More voters than ever cast their ballots by mail. Many remain anxious that their ballots may not reach election offices on time--they question whether their votes are actually counted.

H.R. 2510 provides incentives to states to develop systems allowing voters to track their ballots. Voters will be able to use the internet or a voter hotline to track whether the elections office has sent out a ballot, whether the completed ballot has arrived back at the registrar's office, whether the registrar has counted the ballot, and if not, why. Highly effective systems like these are already in place in counties in California, Washington, Virginia, Kansas and my home state of Pennsylvania.

Voters and election offices both benefit from ballot tracking technology. With voters able to track their ballots, transparency and voter confidence in America's election system will be greatly improved. Voters will be able to receive accurate and updated information on the status of their ballots and confirm whether they were counted.

Once this legislation is fully implemented, it will save costs for local governments and take the strain off election offices.

I urge all my colleagues to vote for this bipartisan legislation.