Objection to Counting of Ohio Electoral Votes

OBJECTION TO COUNTING OF OHIO ELECTORAL VOTES -- (Senate - January 06, 2005)

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Ms. MIKULSKI. 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Like many Americans, I was shocked in 2000 to see how outdated the voting systems in America were.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.

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