For the relief of Martha Palmillas de Morales.

Madam President, earlier today, Senator Durbin and the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights held a hearing in Cleveland to examine efforts that could hinder the ability of Ohioans to exercise one of their fundamental constitutional rights, the right to vote. These efforts, in the guise of preventing fraud, are part of a cynical effort to impede access to the ballot. Specifically, H.B. 194 in Ohio repeals a number of commonsense measures that assist people with voting.

For 8 years I served as secretary of state of Ohio, charged with administering elections, so I understand what goes into ensuring the fundamental right to vote. Inherent in that responsibility is ensuring that voting is accessible, free of intimidation and roadblocks.

As a State, over a period of decades, Ohio legislators undertook a bipartisan--and I underscore that word ``bipartisan''--effort to help Ohioans get access to the polls. When I was secretary of state, we had significant input and assistance from Republicans as we made voting laws work for huge numbers of people. We understood Ohioans had many priorities pulling them in many directions so we ought to make registration accessible. People could register using utility bills. The electric company included registration forms in utility bills. McDonald's, at my request, printed 1 million tray liners so people could actually fill them out to register to vote. At the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, people could register to vote. This was bipartisan. The legislature, when acting, would expand this right to vote, make sure this right to vote was protected. It was generally bipartisan.

Today, rather than protecting the right to vote, we are seeing brazen attempts to undermine it. We are told this bill and laws similar to it will reduce costs and reduce the risk of voter fraud. The overwhelming evidence, however, indicates that voter fraud is virtually nonexistent and these new laws will make it harder and more costly for hundreds of thousands of Ohioans to exercise the right to vote and more costly for the election system, meaning taxpayer--county boards of elections and all that.

Voters are simply not going to awaken one morning in Cleveland and vote and then drive to Elyria and then vote and then drive to Norwalk and then vote, then drive to Adena and then vote and then drive to Mansfield and then vote. People are not going to defraud the system that way. Why? No. 1, they are going to get caught, probably; and second, they are going to go to jail--all to take the risk of giving Barack Obama or Mitt Romney five more votes in a State of 11 million people. That is not going to happen.

Yet the people who are attacking our voting rights are claiming individuals are going to do things such as that to defraud--college students voting in college and then voting back in their hometown. People are not going to do that because the disincentives are too strong, the penalties are too harsh. There is simply no reason, so one can vote one extra time, that someone would possibly do that.

Let me tell a little bit about this new law. The new law--and what is disappointing to me--this new law repeals what was a bipartisan effort in 2006. In 2006, in response to some election problems of 2004 in the Presidential race, where people stood in long lines to vote, and there were other problems--in 2006, the Republican House and the Republican Senate in Columbus and the Republican Governor--with support from Democrats, so it was clearly bipartisan--passed voter reforms to set up early voting, to set up 1 week where voting and voter registration and early voting overlapped so people could actually register and vote during that week in early October. We did other things that made registration and voting more accessible.

But in spite of that, in spite of the consensus in Ohio about voting, now there is an effort to undercut that consensus. First, the law significantly reduces the early voting window. It takes away Saturday, Sunday, and Monday voting before the election, when over 100,000 people voted in Ohio that year, in 2008. This reduction in early voting was made despite the fact that evidence overwhelmingly indicates that limiting early voting will actually cost the taxpayers, boards of elections, money. Make no mistake, cutting Sunday voting was intended to suppress voting.

On the Sunday before election, Ohioans, who work long hours during the week, often go to the polls after church, fulfilling their civic and spiritual obligations on the same day. By ending early voting, the lines outside polling stations on election day will only get longer. The costs will only increase. This increases frustration and limits voting.

Another burden posed by H.R. 194 is that it bars poll workers from performing one of their most basic functions, helping voters find their right precinct. This law no longer requires that poll workers assist a confused, elderly, disabled or young voter in getting to their correct precinct. Here is how it works. We have tried to save money. As more people voted earlier, relieving some of the pressure on election day, the boards of elections have combined voting precincts. Instead, we will have fewer precincts in the same county and have to hire fewer poll workers. What that also means is sometimes they combine these precincts in these voting stations into one building so people might walk into a polling station and go to the wrong table. Under the law now, the poll worker is not required to help that person and say: No, you can't vote here, but you can vote across in the room next door, at this church or at this school. Someone today might walk in and the poll worker will simply say you are not eligible to vote in this precinct and they will walk home and not vote. This law discourages in many ways. Because these poll workers are people who live in the neighborhoods it discourages neighbors helping neighbors.

This is a solution in search of a problem. It is not something we need to do. There was consensus in Ohio that things needed to change after 2004. The laws enacted in 2006 led to shorter lines, more clarity, and less frustration for voters. While none of the changes I mention today make it impossible to vote, they build burdens to voting, burdens that have no good reason. That will mean fewer minority voters, fewer young voters, fewer elderly voters, fewer disabled voters. That may be what some politicians in this town want, but it is not what the people of Ohio want. Ohio deserves better when it comes to protecting our most fundamental constitutional rights.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address bills pending or already signed into law in 47 States that will disenfranchise voters. These bills will prohibit address changes at the polls, end volunteer- run voter registration drives, eliminate same-day voter registration, and limit the ability of absentee voters to cast their ballot. Many of the bills include highly restrictive voter photo identification requirements.

Just this month, Mr. Speaker, the Ohio State Legislature passed and Governor Kasich signed into law one of the most draconian voter measures in the Nation. Ohio's House bill 194 invalidates a vote where a voter properly marks the ballot in support of a particular candidate but also writes in the name of that same candidate. These bills dramatically reduce the time allotted for early voting and eliminate the requirement that poll workers direct voters to the correct precinct. These new policies are a clear attempt to prevent certain predetermined segments of the population from exercising their right to vote.

To be frank, Mr. Speaker, these efforts have an all too familiar stench of the Jim Crow era. The bill pending in my State and all the others are the works of covert opportunists seeking to disenfranchise and suppress the rights of American citizens. I'm here today to tell you that we will not relinquish our constitutional rights, and we plan to fight to uphold the franchise others fought and died to protect. We will not lie down.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from North Carolina, Mr. G.K. Butterfield.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield to my good friend, the Congresswoman from Florida, Corrine Brown.

All across the country we are witnessing efforts to suppress minority voting rights. How is this being done? By deterring minority voters from registering to vote and from going to the polls in an organized effort to turn the clock back to the period prior to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. I am from Florida, and in my State, our current Governor, Rick Scott, is doing everything he can to follow in the steps of what has occurred across the country, striving to stamp out the gains we worked so hard for so many, many years to achieve.

In Florida, earlier this year, Governor Scott signed the Omnibus Elections bill, which takes away many of Florida voters' basic rights. Its provisions include numerous hideous items much like those in bills passed in other State legislatures around the Nation to keep African Americans and Hispanics from going to the polls or refraining from participating in early voting in the upcoming 2012 elections.

The new law passed in Florida would make voting more difficult for people who have recently changed residence as well as shorten early voting time, from 14 days to 6 days. It would provide a 100-foot buffer between voters standing in line to get information. And it goes on and on and on. In addition, it imposes a $50 fine on election supervisors who are late in filing routine reports to the State.

After what happened in Florida in the 2000 coup d'etat, it is amazing to

me that Florida would pass such hideous laws. I think it's very important that the Justice Department weigh in and that the people in Florida are not disenfranchised.

I thank the gentlelady for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, across the country, Republican-led legislatures are pushing and passing laws that will suppress minority and elderly voters in the coming election. Under the guise of ``eliminating voter fraud,'' Republicans have a solution to a problem that simply does not exist. In my home State of North Carolina, where the Republican legislature is attempting to require voter ID at the polls, there were only 44 cases of voter fraud in the 2008 and 2010 elections combined. Forty-four cases out of over 7 million ballots cast. Is this a serious voter problem? No.

Unfortunately, it is a cynical and malicious Republican attempt to suppress minority and elderly voters who turned out in historical numbers for the 2008 elections. Almost one-fourth of African American voting age citizens and one-fifth of seniors do not have government- issued ID; yet new laws require them to pay for IDs in order to vote. This is a poll tax. We must inform our constituents that their fundamental right in a democracy is being infringed and fight back against this voter suppression epidemic.