Witnesses:

Christopher Thomas, Director of Elections, Michigan Department of State; Ernest Hawkins, Registrar, Sacramento County, California; Doug Lewis, Executive Director, The Election Center

Mr. Philip Zelikow: That means that we will emphasize pointed and concise testimony and questions for the remainder of the afternoon, and we�ll do what we can to encourage all of our witnesses and Commissioners to obey that injunction. On Panel 2 we have administrative perspectives. I think we could not have a better panel of three people to discuss administrative perspectives assembled from the entire country. Again, as our usual pattern, if you weren�t here this morning, we�re going to start with the opening statements from all three of you in sequence; we�ll introduce you one after another, and then Q&A for the panel as a whole.

The first witness is Christopher Thomas. Christopher Thomas is the Director of Elections in the Michigan Department of State. To put it bluntly, Christopher Thomas runs the Michigan election system. It is fitting that he�s here, not only because we�re in Michigan, but also because Michigan has been held up to this Commission already, in our part of work, as, in some ways, a model state. We�ve heard over and over again about the need for a statewide voter registration system, and we�ve heard over and over again that Michigan is the model system of this kind, certainly among large states. So, it�s both fitting geographically and substantively that you�re our lead witness on this panel, Mr. Thomas.

Mr. Christopher Thomas: Thank you very much. It�s a pleasure to be here. On behalf of the Secretary of State Candice Miller, I�d like to welcome you home, President Ford, and welcome all of the distinguished Commission members to Michigan. It�s an honor to be seated at the table with my two distinguished colleagues who are both recognized nationally as experts in the field of election administration.

We have taken a different path in making the National Voter Registration Act a success in the state of Michigan. Given that a picture is worth a thousand words, I�ve provided two such pictures to you in an effort to keep my 15 minutes down to five, and I�ve laid those on your table there. First, let me direct you to the schematic of Michigan�s election system. In short, there are more election officials in the state of Michigan than any other state. We have 1,512 city and township clerks who serve as the primary registrars for voters in Michigan, and then we also have 83 county clerks. Simply put, a voter doesn�t have to move very far to enter a new jurisdiction and, thus, incur the obligation to re-register. In 1975 Michigan enacted the first in the nation Motor-Voter program. Motor-Voter saved the day for our mobile voters. We have consistently seen between 80 and 85% of all voter registration transaction come through the secretary of state�s branch office program.

The second picture is admittedly an unconventional illustration for the National Voter Registration Act, probably not exactly how Congress would envision a good work. By way of artistic interpretation, it is a funnel representing our registration system. The NVRA significantly increased the sources, and hence the volume, of voter registration transactions entering the funnel at the top. At the same time the NVRA put a cork or stopper in the bottom of the funnel, thus making exiting very difficult. Please understand, I�m not here today to criticize the NVRA. It is a good law. However, I am here to tell you that it dramatically changed the way voter registration files are maintained. Before the NVRA Michigan, like many states, operated a passive purging process. The NVRA ended this practice, hence the cork in the second illustration. Under the NVRA cancellation cannot even be initiated based on the failure to vote. So we were faced with a dilemma. How are more than 1,500 jurisdictions going to find reliable information that voters have moved away? Our worst fear was that the number of voters would continue to grow to the point where the total exceeded the voting age population; then the media would sit up and take notice. We needed an entirely new perspective on file maintenance. We needed to leave the old parochial ways of adding and deleting voters on a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction basis and adopt a new way that views the entire state as one system.

With this perspective, we are now tracking Michigan voters from community to community as they change their residence. Here�s what we did in Michigan. We implemented a statewide voter registration system that imposes uniformity on Michigan�s voter registration process. We already knew that the Michigan driver�s license file, which includes personal identification cards for non-drivers, is the most accurate statewide file available; it is more accurate than the national change of address program. We designed our statewide voter registration system to be closely integrated with the driver�s license file. The qualified voter file is a statewide-computerized file networked via the Internet with 446 counties, cities, and townships. The qualified voter file server and lancing is linked to the mainframe computer holding the driver�s license file. The driver�s license record for each registered voter is marked. When the driver appears to change an address, for example, the system automatically forwards an electronic voter registration transaction to the qualified voter file and prints a new application for the voter to sign. Upon populating the file over 600,000 duplicate registrations were removed.

The qualified voter file was initially rolled out in 1998. And it received its first real test in 2000, and it was a success. In 1999 we took the next step in proving the accuracy of Michigan�s driver file and registration system; Public Act 118 was enacted to accomplish three main purposes. First, the definition of residence in the vehicle code was changed to conform exactly with the definition of residence in the election law; now, Michigan residents drive and vote from the same address. Second, the manner of changing one�s driver�s license address was expanded from the older way, which required an in-person visit, to other means, such as mail and most importantly, via voter registration applications filed with local election officials. We are the first in the nation to update the driver file based on voter registration records that are filed locally. And third, we provide notice to drivers when they appear in our offices that their voter registration and driver�s license addresses must be the same.

In summary, the NVRA stimulated the search for a more efficient records management system. Each voter only appears one time in the qualified voter file. Common software guarantees, to the extent possible, uniformity of administration of voter registration. Several other election administration features are provided for election officials, such as AB modules, precinct workers, and whatnot. Now, once a voter enters the system, the only way out is either to leave the state or die.

I have provided the Commission with a more detailed explanation of the qualified voter file, and I am able to provide in this time period, and I�m certainly eager to answer questions on this and other aspects of the election process, such as Secretary Miller�s recent report calling for a uniform voting system. Thank you very much.

Mr. Zelikow: Thank you, Mr. Thomas. Our next witness is an exemplar of that critical level of official, the county election official. We�re pleased that Ernest Hawkins can join us. He actually comes from California, but he�s recognized as one of the best county election administrators, and one of most articulate ones, in the country. The Commission has already heard from other county election administrators, Los Angeles County and Riverside County and elsewhere. I also want to recognize, because I think they�re in the audience today, Peggy Haines is here, the County Clerk of Washtenaw County, and Ivan Carl, the Clerk of the City of Ann Arbor. So we�re very interested in the perspectives of election officials at the local and county level, and Mr. Hawkins, particularly glad that you could come here from Sacramento County to present that perspective.

Mr. Ernest Hawkins: Thank you. President Ford and ladies and gentlemen of the Commission, I�m here to tell you that election administration at the local level is really pretty simple. Candidates tell us they want to be on the ballot, proponents of majors come in and tell us they want a measure on the ballot, we gather up the issues from the candidates, set up polling places and hire poll workers, tell the voters where to vote, the voters vote, we count the ballots, and report the results. Thank you. [laughter]

Well, as we�ve all learned, it�s really not all that simple, and I�ve left out a few details. For example, in November 2000 we had 192,142 polling places in America. We collectively hired 1.4 million poll workers and spent $300 million locally to conduct elections. In my county alone we had over 200 variations of the ballot. I administered elections for 116 different jurisdictions within Sacramento County, none of which have the same boundaries. California law also required me to rotate the order of some candidates on the ballot, and I do send a sample ballot-voter information pamphlet, unique to each voter, to each voter�s address. In November 2000 the smallest of these sample ballot-voter information ballots was over 90 pages in length.

Ninety pages (was) the smallest one. In addition, we send out an additional document at the state level; sometimes the documents that we send to voters total in excess of 400 pages. And Los Angeles County material must also be made available in seven different languages, and as many as ten in the 2004 election as a result of the 2000 census. In addition, in a 21-day period just prior to the election, in my county alone, over 100,000 voters asked to vote by mail. Federal and state laws, local policies and rules govern what we do, and it�s very complicated. And as much as we�d like for this to be a perfect process, it�s not. But what is? I recently read that hospitals dispense medicine to the wrong patients almost every day, wrong surgeries, the wrong babies are sent home with parents, and I�m not picking on just the medical profession. The criminal justice system jails innocent citizens. Newspapers regularly print corrections. And who among us can claim, in either our personal or professional lives, that we never make mistakes? Does this mean that we should not strive for perfection? No. And should election administration be an exception? No. But is the system broken? Not in my opinion. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely.

What should we do then? As you know, many task force commissions and other groups have been formed to answer this question as much as this Commission. Many of these have already issued their recommendations, and others are preparing to do so shortly. I am the co-chair of the National Association of County Clerks, Recorders and Election Officials Commission on Election Reform and Standards. Just last week we issued our report, and I believe you have copies of this in your packet.

The board of directors of both organizations have unanimously adopted the recommendations contained in that report, and the recommendations are broken down into three categories: recommendations for Congress, recommendations for state legislators, and recommendations for local governing boards. The most significant of the federal recommendations-as will be the case with most other task forces and commissions, I believe-will be funding, both for equipment and administration and research. The NACO/NACRAC Commission recommended at the federal level that there be three programs. One, a grant program to help states and local government cover the one-time cost for upgrading voter registration and voting systems, including hardware, software, and related services and supplies; and [an] ongoing, formula-based funding program to share the cost of administering federal elections; and assistance in mailing materials through the creation of a special class of postage for elections material.

Other recommendations by the commission at the federal level include: that the awarding of grants be separated from any agency that has enforcement responsibilities and the grants be administered through states and not directly to local government-this is from an organization that is made of local government-that issues and confusions regarding postmarks on ballots and military and overseas ballots be addressed; that the FCC require broadcasters to run prime-time public service announcements educating voters on how to properly participate in the elections process; and that the Office of Election Administration, currently under the Federal Election Commission, be given adequate funding and staffing, implement and update the federal voting system standards, and that they collect and disseminate a variety of voter registration and elections information.

While we�re not recommending any expanded role for the federal government, we are also not recommending a one-size-fits-all solution. A national ballot won�t work, either. We already have significant unfunded federal mandates in the area of election administration: specifically, the responsibility of conducting the elections for Congress, president, and vice president and for implementing the provisions of the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act. All of which impose significant responsibilities on local government. For example, using two different models, I estimate that the federal share of the $300 million spent locally on administering the November 2000 election was $59,700,000. That figure includes overhead and indirect costs but no cost for voting equipment or depreciation of voting equipment. We do not believe it should be necessary to add any string to any federal money that is made available, and as other witnesses have spoken this morning, we recognize that jurisdiction should be complying with all of the existing federal law. And we are also suggesting that any funding, through either of the grant programs that we are recommending, be contingent upon a state having on file, with its chief election officer, a plan for providing equal opportunity to its citizens to vote and to have their vote counted.

While the NACO/NACRAC reports did not make any recommendations regarding changes in federal law, I�d like to provide you with an example of a portion of existing law that I believe has the potential of undermining voter confidence in the system. My example is the file maintenance provision under the National Voter Registration Act. Under these provisions voters can remain on the file long after they�ve moved, except in Michigan. Even after they have re-registered to vote in another jurisdiction under the provisional law, hundreds of thousands of voters are maintained in an inactive status. The problems arise from the multiple notices that depend largely on services from the postal service, and even when we get undeliverable mail, it�s not enough, alone, to remove a voter from the file. Some jurisdictions have more voters on their active and inactive voter files than they have voting age population. This can certainly give pause to voter confidence as bloated registration rules also reduce the turnout figures when the number of actual voters is compared with those that are registered. And while this particular change in law may not have had any relationship to the November 2000 election, my point is that there is some fine-tuning in federal law that may be appropriate while you are focusing on election reform. Thank you.

Mr. Zelikow: Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. And now we turn to Doug Lewis. Mr. Lewis holds no official position yet has influence in many such positions. I think it�s fair to say that Doug Lewis as executive director of the Election Center-which is a national non-profit organization involved in educating election officials-is one of the most influential people in representing the interests of state and local election administration and in understanding their problems since he deals with election administrators in every part of the country. Along with Lance Ward, who the Commission heard from in Austin, Mr. Lewis is also working on a task force report of the Election Center on election reform issues that the Commission has been following closely and is certainly one of the best such efforts of its kind. Mr. Lewis, thank you for appearing today.

Mr. Doug Lewis: Thank you. Mr. President, distinguished panel members, you know, listening to what I�ve heard already this morning, I�ve changed three or four times what I�m going to say, and so I�ll stand behind what�s in printed format for you and stick with that. But let me go through kind of where I think we are. You all have invited us in to give advice, and, you know, advice is like medicine. You get it in the right dosage, it�s just fine. But sometimes, you know, an overdose can be disastrous. So, I�m hoping that what, collectively, that we all do when we look at this process, is to understand that it is really far more complex than it appears to the eye. Those of you who have run for political office think you know something about elections, and I used to think that because I managed those campaigns I knew a lot about elections. Truth is, once I came back to work in this process-after having been an election official myself some years previous-and came back into this process to run the election center, I found out, you know, this thing is really far more complex than most of us ever know, and it�s amazing that it comes off as well as it does.

In fact, we actually get a far better form of administration of elections than we pay for, and certainly better than we deserve. And so, when I look at it, and I look at what we saw in Florida, the tendency for you, the tendency for us, the tendency for the news media to focus on Florida as being an example of exactly everything that�s wrong in elections in America is a faulty assumption, and it�s a faulty place to start. Because a lot of the information that we look at when we do a dispassionate deconstruction with no partisan issues involved in the looking at it, and go back and look at it, it doesn�t hold up nationally. Some of the worst examples of things that could happen in any election certainly happened in Florida. Probably the most disastrous of those was the legislature�s insistence on using a purge process to try to get rid of felons on the list. And you know why they did that? They were reacting to their own election disaster in Miami-Dade County, and despite all of the advice that was given to them about �look carefully at this� and �go slowly at this� and �don�t overdo this� and �don�t over-engineer this,� they went ahead and did it anyway.

That�s my fear that most of us are going to take and do this time because we overreact to what a situation is and blow that up and say that this is, indeed, now a disastrous occurrence for America and Americans, that we then engineer our own failures that become more disastrous. It is absolutely critical that every American-white, black, green, brown, old, young, Republican, Democrat, Conservative, Liberal, of any age group that is qualified to vote-feel that this process is fair. There isn�t an election administrator in America that doesn�t believe that and try to run their elections to be that way.

If there were denials of civil rights, and I don�t disagree that some of those probably did occur in some places, we are not perfect. When you�ve got 1.4 million poll workers around the country and we pay them about $5 an hour and treat them about $1 [an] hour-which is about the attention span they can give us for some of that-we�re not going to have a perfect process. But I guarantee you that the process was not designed to keep people from participating. We want them to participate. We need them to participate. We judge our sense of our own accomplishment by how many of those people do we enable to be involved in this process. They are citizens, they are neighbors, they are people who live with us, work with us, stay with us all the time, and so it�s important to us that they participate. But when we get to looking at how to reform the process, and the process can stand reforming, my lens . . . folks, look, 25 % of our elections jurisdictions in America are funded as well as any other part of government. But that�s saying 75% are marked. And while the federal government, that in 225 years hasn�t spent one dime in federal elections to support its own elections, with most of the states who haven�t spent any money to make this process better, what can we expect?

And if we expect that the burden is still going to be carried strictly at the local level, we can�t expect a great deal of improvement because when it comes to a choice between potholes in the streets, a road grader that can remove the snow, or buying a new voting system, I can guarantee you where those local budget authorities are going to make that decision, and it isn�t going to be in favor of elections. We want to do the right thing, and we want to make sure that this thing comes out right for everyone. It�s in our interest to do so, but more importantly, it�s in democracy�s interest to do so. Thanks.

Mr. Zelikow: Thank you, Mr. Lewis. And now we�ll open the floor to questions for any or all of the panelists from members of the Commission.

Mr. William Coleman, Jr.: Mr. Thomas, may I ask you two questions? One is, in Michigan if a person is convicted of a felony, do they lose their right to vote?

Mr. Thomas: Anyone who�s incarcerated after conviction cannot vote, but their rights are automatically restored once they�re released.

Mr. Coleman: So, if the person�s in jail, he can�t vote. Do you change the registration?

Mr. Thomas: We really don�t. We have not tried to link into that system. Not to be flip, but the way we do it is, we don�t mail ballots to prisons. And frankly, that�s how it�s worked.

Mr. Coleman: Well, how do you know he�s in prison?

Mr. Thomas: Well, if they are in prison and they�re applying for an absentee ballot, that�s where they would be requesting that it be mailed. We do not keep track through the court systems of people who are incarcerated.

Mr. Coleman: Now, a person who�s not a citizen, I take it under certain circumstances, they can obtain a license to drive a car. Now, when that person becomes a citizen, how do you make sure they get on the roll?

Mr. Thomas: Well, I think during the whole naturalization process, the courts that do that. They�re encouraged to file a voter registration application, and when they come back to any of the secretary of state branch offices, they�re likewise given that opportunity.

Congressman Robert Michel: Chris, you dwelt on Motor-Voter registration. When I was in the Congress, I voted against it because my secretary of state in Illinois said, "Bob, you�re going to open this thing up to mass fraud," speaking of Illinois, particularly Cook County. So I voted against it, and, of course, there have been several witnesses who have talked, not condemning it out of hand, but saying there need to be corrections. And so, while I don�t hear everything all that well, I�m going to read your testimony very carefully afterwards, and same with all of you, because that�s a really sore one with me. If it works, fine, good. If it needs corrections, we ought to be recommending how it ought to best be corrected without denying people the right to vote.

Mr. Thomas: The one suggestion I would make, and the Congressional Budget Office-when the NVRA was going through the process-concluded that a computer was not necessary in order to operate the NVRA, and I think that�s just plain wrong. I think what it did was push us into a whole different type of records management that benefits everybody, keeps people on the rolls, and gets out of the business of purging all the time. So, federal money for voter registration systems statewide, I think, would be a positive move.

Mr. Zelikow: Do either of the other two have a comment on the NVRA? Mr. Hawkins, I know you addressed that in your prepared statement. Mr. Lewis, I don�t think you did.

Mr. Lewis: No, and because I think for the most part, we have said over a period of [a] year now, that there are some administrative pieces of NVRA that we would like to amend in order to clean up and make our list maintenance process better. There has been great fear on Capitol Hill, particularly of advocacy groups, that if we open up NVRA, it may become eviscerated, and as a result of that, they have not wanted any amendments of any kind. It�s not a perfect piece of legislation in the sense of administrative process. And so, there�s some part of it that we would like to fix, but at this point there doesn�t seem to be a bipartisan effort that�s willing to do that. And so, we haven�t really done that and haven�t pushed it.

Mr. Zelikow: Ms. Ravitch?

Dr. Diane Ravitch: Mr. Thomas, I wanted to follow up on a question the Secretary Coleman asked. If people are registered to vote through their motor vehicle office, how do you know whether or not they�re citizens?

Mr. Thomas: We do not track citizenship in the driver license offices, nor does any other state. They�re required to certify when they sign. They still have to sign a voter registration application. We have a question across the top of our form that says, "Are you a United States Citizen? Yes or No?" So they�re given that opportunity to make that disclosure to us. We do not keep that in any kind of an electronic format.

Mr. Lloyd Cutler: One of you has said that where the federal money is needed most is at the local level, at the county level, but you also said that the federal money should go to the states for distribution to the counties. How can the federal government assure that the money, if it goes to the states, will actually reach the county level in sufficient quantities?

Mr. Lewis: I think what we�ve discussed, at least in talking about the grant proposal stuff, we think, probably, the worst situation is to have [is] where local governments directly petition some federal agency for dollars because what it really means is the wealthy, who have lots of staff members and lots of ability to pursue grants, then get them. Our feeling has been, all along, that the states-and one of the recommendations that you certainly got, the Election Center�s recommendations from the National Task Force, in your briefing books and I would at least like to reiterate, and I please hope that you will keep those confidential until we�re ready to release them, but at the same time-we�re recommending a very strong role, both for the federal government and an increased level of responsibility for state governments in terms of oversight and the ability. State governments, it seemed to us, know better about their own state, their own local jurisdictions, in terms of what their needs are and what their ability to deliver on what they�re asking for is.

Mr. Hawkins: We also feel that it would just be an overwhelming responsibility. We�d create a bureaucracy that probably would not be able to function, trying to take grants from as many local jurisdictions that would be making applications. So we�re looking at it more from a practical point of view as well.

Mr. Lewis: Because this is not just 3,000 counties, 3,155 counties. It�s also, in Chris�s case, the 1,500 townships; in Wisconsin�s case, the 1,200 townships; and in New England�s case, all of their townships. And so, when you look at this, it is really 6,800 jurisdictions. And so, it�s far bigger than it appears on the surface.

Mr. Coleman: Mr. Thomas and Mr. Hawkins, may I ask you a question? And honestly, it depends upon your jurisdiction. The question is, in the last election how many people in Michigan voted who shouldn�t have voted in terms . . . they were not eligible and somehow they got to vote. And also, how many were denied the right to vote when they showed up at the polls for reasons which we now would think are wrong reasons? The answer, note, is zero to both of them.

Mr. Thomas: I�d like to say zero to both, but I�m sure that�s not the case. In Michigan we have a provision that�s called an affidavit ballot, and if you show up at the precinct and your name is not on the list and you�re willing to swear an affidavit that you did, in fact, did file a voter registration application prior to the close of registration, show positive identification, photo ID, to prove your identity and your residence within that precinct and fill out a new voter registration application, you are allowed to vote. Now, that occurs after the election officials call back to the clerk�s office. They have the ability in the clerk�s office to check our statewide file to make sure you�re not registered somewhere else prior to them giving affirmation for you to go ahead and vote. That is not a provisional ballot in Michigan, that�s a ballot that�s cast. There�s no pulling that back. There�s a move, right now, to reconsider that, but we had it put into law when the NVRA came in because, in Michigan, the reason we never went with mail registration is precisely because of these 1,500 jurisdictions. And while people in Michigan are very smart, they don�t all know where they live because postal addresses are different from, say, townships. Ann Arbor is a city postal address-probably serves 10 or 15 communities around here-so people would mail everything to the Ann Arbor city clerk. So, we expected that with mail registration there were going to be people who were going to show up on Election Day and their forms were never received.

Mr. Coleman: Mr. Hawkins, what�s the answer in your case?

Mr. Hawkins: In California we should not be turning anybody away from the polls for any reason. We do have provisional ballots. What we do first-if somebody appears at the polling places not on the roster, either on the active or inactive list-we first try to determine if they�re at the correct polling location. If they�re not we would direct them to the correct polling location. If they claim that they have registered to vote-for example, in front of a Kmart or a WalMart or a DMV-and we have no record of it, we allow them to vote anyway, but it�s a provisional ballot. We verify their eligibility to vote during the canvas of the vote following the election, and if we determine that they are eligible, we count those ballots.

Mr. Coleman: Can this backward-way thinking, in either Michigan or in California . . . if the final vote for the president had been by less than 1,000 votes and people had really begun to examine that, you�d find nothing embarrassing . . .

Mr. Hawkins: Anything you examine in great detail, you can probably find irregularities. In terms of your first part of your question, whether or not there were people who voted in my jurisdiction who weren�t eligible, I would answer that I don�t believe there were any; at least none came to my attention. That doesn�t mean that that didn�t happen. Under close examination there may have been people who voted twice or who voted who were not eligible. But there were no allegations made to me, and there were no challenges on that basis.

Mr. Zelikow: President Ford, Senator Boschwitz, and Dean Sullivan. President Ford?

President Ford: Mr. Thomas, if an immigrant, non-American citizen applies for a driver�s license, then I understand you to say that he or she can sign an affidavit as to what?

Mr. Thomas: No sir, if they apply for a driver�s license and they�re an immigrant non-citizen, they�re not entitled to register to vote. There is no mechanism for them to get on the voter registration rolls until such time as they become a citizen.

President Ford: Now, when they apply for the driver�s license and don�t acknowledge that they are immigrants, are they punishable?

Mr. Thomas: Yes, they are. This is the whole issue with the NVRA. I mean, the NVRA nationwide, except for those states that have Election Day registration, requires the offering of the opportunity to register in the driver�s license offices without an ability to require any proof of citizenship. It�s self-certifying.

Mr. Zelikow: But to follow up, if they certify falsely . . . that�s a crime?

Mr. Thomas: Yes, indeed.

President Ford: How many people have been tried/convicted? Do you have any idea?

Mr. Thomas: Not in this state.

President Ford: You mean, in the whole state of Michigan, nobody tried to vote who was not an American citizen?

Mr. Thomas: Well, I wouldn�t say nobody tried. I would say that no case has been brought to our attention at the state level, or any prosecuting attorney�s office, that I�m aware of, in terms of prosecution. I�ve been in this job for 20 years now, and I have not seen one yet. Now, have there been non-citizens who registered? Certainly. You will find folks that come from some countries, they don�t argue with people across a counter, even a driver�s license office. We�re used to arguing with those people; that�s okay. But from some countries, anyone in an official position, you don�t argue with them, and if they shove a form at you, you fill it out and push it back. So, did some get on the rolls? Yes. Has there been any documentation that they actually voted? Not that has been made. Now, there was a time when you could cross a border with a voter registration ID card. Now, INS, as I understand, has revoked that and said that a voter ID card is no longer a good piece of identification to go to Canada. So, I think if there was ever any kind of incentive for folks to get an easy way to move back and forth, that�s been taken away. Does it happen? Yeah, I�m sure it does. Do they follow through and vote? You know, I wouldn�t be shocked if someone did, but it certainly has not been alleged or documented.

Mr. Zelikow: Senator Boschwitz.

Senator Boschwitz: I�d like to ask two questions. Number one, do you require voters to give you some type of identification, pictorial identification, in Michigan or Sacramento, and what do you think of such a requirement? And then I would direct my question also to Mr. Lewis.

Mr. Thomas: We do not in Michigan; it was enacted into Michigan law a few years back. Our then-attorney general declared it unconstitutional, so we have not implemented that. So there is no identification required. Frankly, I don�t know that it�s really a necessary requirement.

Mr. Hawkins: We don�t require identification either at the point of registration or at [the] point of voting except for provisional voters, and then we do ask for positive identification. We ask for two forms of identification. We�ve had legislation introduced a number of times in the California legislature to require identification at the point of voting. We�ve also had legislation that would require a person to be seen by someone at least once to establish that they are a real person: either at the point of registering or, if they registered by mail to vote, the first time in person rather than being able to vote by mail. Those legislative efforts have failed.

Senator Boschwitz: What do you think of the requirement of voter ID?

Mr. Hawkins: I have mixed feelings. It certainly, from a perception point of view, it�s a good idea. From an implementing point of view, it�s difficult. What do you accept as identification becomes a real issue.

Senator Boschwitz: Driver�s license . . .

Mr. Hawkins: A lot of people don�t drive.

Senator Boschwitz: Well, I don�t know how they register in Michigan, but I don�t want to ask three questions . . .

Mr. Lewis: Senator, don�t hold me to this: I believe when I did a survey on this for the U.S. House, I think there were 11 states that require some form of positive identification. And there were 3 states that came within the last three years; I believe Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana all passed legislation adding these. And I think the cases of where it has survived and done okay, it�s not that you can only have a driver�s license, it�s that you have any one of a number of acceptable alternatives to a driver�s license, anything that would be considered official, like a utility bill or what have you that would show form of identification. But as I remember, I believe there are 11 states that have this.

Senator Boschwitz: What do you think of that requirement?

Mr. Lewis: It is such a philosophical argument, quite frankly, that the two parties cannot agree on. The two political parties just can�t seem to agree that it�s a problem, and, therefore, there can never be an approach, it seems to me, to a solution to it because the two parties just see this very differently philosophically. The truth is, we�re probably the only democracy in the world that doesn�t require it, and so when you look at it, to get a library card you�ve got to prove more than you do to get a voting card in America. You worry about the chilling effect it might have on voters if it�s used again as another discriminating tool, and so you worry about anyone having that in their hands as a tool to make another . . . that might be disproportionately applied. Yet, on the other hand, if you�re in the elections business, you want to be able to say with certainty to everyone that the people who got to vote were the ones who were entitled to vote and that there�s integrity in the process. I don�t know what the appropriate answer is, and it�s one that�s raged in Congress for a long time.

Senator Boschwitz: If you don�t know, how are we supposed to know? But let me ask my second question. One of our witnesses, I think in California, was the secretary of state of Oregon. There they have no polling places; everybody votes by mail. I would like to ask what your thoughts, your opinions, are on that, and we�ll reverse the order. Mr. Lewis, if you would start, and most specifically, is that an invitation to fraud? Or, give us your judgment on that.

Mr. Lewis: Certainly, in some parts of the country, it would probably have less desirability than in other parts. Oregon has always convinced us that they have no dishonest people in Oregon, and therefore, that their process always works extraordinarily well because there is no dishonesty there. And, certainly, when you look at Washington State, 56% of their voters vote by mail in an all-mail ballot. The people who have been the election officials in Texas have told me, which is where I live now and have for 28 years, tell me that it�s probably the last thing they want in Texas. It�s one of the reasons they created early voting so that there would be in-person voting other than vote by mail. And so, in places where poverty is high, in places where there has been systemic fraud, then it�s probably not as desirable as in other places. Poverty tends to lead to . . . you know, if the real source of jobs or the real source of income tends to be government, then there tends to be vote fraud.

Mr. Hawkins: It�s not difficult to imagine how you can register and vote multiple times when you never have to see a living human being, so when you register to vote by mail and you also vote by mail through the process that�s prescribed for voting for by absentee voting, there is the potential, certainly, for fraud. And, as Mr. Lewis said, it�s different in different parts of the country depending on what the perception of the potential for fraud is.

Mr. Thomas: We have supported a very �go-slow� process here in Michigan, which would be to try it out in some local elections where there are ballot proposals. It really hasn�t gone anywhere. I think where we can guarantee the sanctity of the election process is in the polling place, and as soon as we leave that building, essentially, all bets are off. We can pass all the laws we want, to put prohibitions on it, but if there�s going to be mischief, and it�s out in the community, the election officials are not going to be able to do much about that. So, we would recommend to go slow there, at least in Michigan. We are advocating early voting, which is something where people show up at convenient locations within two weeks prior to an election where they can actually vote, and we�ll probably move into the area of open absentee. That�s being debated right now.

Senator Boschwitz: Thank you.

Dean Kathleen Sullivan: A question to Mr. Lewis and Mr. Hawkins: I wonder if you could just help us understand the political theory of local control over federal elections. One can understand why we would want to have local variations, say, in zoning laws. Some towns might want to be pristine, others might want to have more commercial billboards. You can understand local variation in education. Some communities might want to invest more in their schools than in other communities, and then people can vote with their feet among these local jurisdictions. It�s a little harder to understand why there�s any political [tape break] . . . to have local variation in the methodology or the conduct of federal elections. So could you just enlighten us a little bit on why you think, or what are the most important features of local government that should create local variation in your view? And normally, we think local governance should vary in their policies according to how much they�re willing to invest in things. The schools are an example. And yet here you�re saying the local governments want the authority but the federal dollars to support it. So what�s the reason for having local option of any kind?

Mr. Hawkins: This goes back, actually back all the way, to the founding fathers who were so distrustful of centralized voting authority. We had both the distances of the counties and the cities and the townships and the amount of time it took to get to anything. And so, that forced, by nature, local elections, and, secondly, because they didn�t want any strong centralized authority; they wanted it to be inefficient. And Lord knows, we�ve proven that that�s what it is, you know. And yet that same inefficiency has given us probably the greatest protection against vote theft, theft of offices, because you would have to have the collusion of so many people involved in any election for almost any kind of deal, that it becomes almost a practical impossibility to steal a statewide or even a federal election, so it�s got some aspects of niceties to it, in terms of just voting technology.

It gives us some lab experiments because County A buys a new voting system, and they find out whether or not it actually works and is it good and is it what they hoped it would be and so on. And as it proves itself, other counties surrounding them and in other parts of their state tend to adopt some of these new ideas, so it�s got aspect there. In terms of the real administrative reason, it�s because almost all of the elections are run at the local office. And we all tend to see the big races for president and governor and what have you, but we don�t tend to see all the school board, the municipal water district, the fire district, you know, all those others that go on that are held all the time.

I mean, in California, they�ve got an election every other day for something. I mean, they�re going on all the time. This is how elections happen, and it�s worked exceedingly well for 225 years. I think, instead of condemning the fact that it�s run locally, we ought to be applauding the fact that these folks in 225 years-we screwed up one time, in one state, well, maybe some pockets of other states-but if you look at and sit down with Chris�s colleagues nationally and ask them about the elections in their state, you�re going to find 98.5 % of the elections in America were run exceedingly well, and so, that�s why. That�s where it is; that�s where it stays. And probably, the realistic thing is the federal government couldn�t run this very well. This is not something the federal government can do. Does that exclude that the federal government can�t set standards? No, it does not. And in fact, there probably ought to be some more standards.

I�m an advocate of having a lot more state standards than we have now, that we ought to be doing a lot more things together within the state than we currently do. Some states do a better job of that than others, as Michigan obviously does with their voter registration files. But the truth of the matter is, most of the elections we run, as Mr. Lewis pointed out, are at the local level. I have 116 jurisdictions that I conduct elections for, everything from school board to mosquito abatement district and cemetery districts, and these elections, which don�t get a lot of public attention, are of no interest, or little interest, to the state or the federal government. So, most of the work that I do is at a local level-that isn�t the federal elections, that isn�t the statewide elections-it�s the local elections.

Mr. Lewis: We do need more state standards, but most elections are local.

Mr. Zelikow: I�ve got Mr. Seigenthaler and Mr. Richardson on my list, and the list is now closed for questions as we attempt to wrap up this panel with unusually concise questions and pointed answers.

Mr. John Seigenthaler: In the light of time, Mr. Chairman, I�ll pass.

Secretary Bill Richardson: Mr. Lewis, let me just say that you�re extremely experienced in this issue, and you know the issue cold; however, I think you�re basically saying that, you know, there�s just been an aberration in Florida, and we shouldn�t condemn the whole system. You know, I come from New Mexico; we have problems there all the time. We have a lot of problems. I think it�s important that you not be defensive, but while I respect the long experience that you�ve had, let me ask a question which I think you can answer. And I think I do respectfully disagree that, you know, that local people know it all; therefore, leave them alone. I think that�s almost what you�re saying, but . . . recognizing that local people and recognizing that local county officials - and I think Phil introduced two here today - I believe that really the keys to making this happen, making improvements in our electoral system, mechanically, because you know we can issue dictums, but if there�s a county clerk in the town of 14 people that makes sure the law�s being followed, that�s the most effective way that you will have the law followed. What is it that you, even minimally, would want to see that local county clerk have that he or she doesn�t have today that you think would be an improvement in the system, and I hope you don�t just say more money. I hope you say money to do this or a process that will make this a little better. In fact, you know, maybe the two of you can answer because I sense that, Mr. Thomas, that there�s a little bit of a reformer in you. You�re all reformers, but you know what I�m trying to say.

Mr. Lewis: I think you�re going to find, particularly once you read our task force report, you�re going to see that there�s a great deal of reform in us, too. And if I have acted somewhat defensive on the part of the elections administrators in America, understand that we�ve been under attack for a long period of time as either being racist or incompetent, and I don�t think we�re either, quite frankly. As elections officials, we�re not looking to rise from obscurity headed toward oblivion; now that�s not what we want to do. What we need to do, quite frankly, and it�s one of the things that we have attempted to do at the Election Center as a 16-year-old non-profit organization, is to give better education to local elections administrators on how to do this process and to think outside of the box and to look at the process and understand the process and how to change the process with changing times, with changing technologies, with changing laws, and right on down the line.

And yet, I�m going to say to you that most of these local jurisdictions� budget authorities fight them tooth and toenail because, you know, it�s a boondoggle to travel to get an education. As one of our local election officials said, you don�t learn anything new sitting at home talking to yourselves, and yet that�s what we�re being forced into. When you look at . . . and let me give you . . . for instance, two years ago, just two years ago, the last one of my members-and I�ve only got about a thousand; the Election Center is the biggest elections organization in America-but out of that thousand offices around the country, just two years ago did the last one of them get a fax connection. I was in Ohio this year speaking to the Ohio elections officials, 88 counties. Now, Ohio�s not a backwards state. This is not a backwards state. Yet half of them don�t have an Internet connection.

So when we�re talking about the process, you said to me that you hope that we don�t look at it in terms of money, but that�s how the real world is-that if you are kept down on staff, you cannot hire staff, you cannot have capital expansion dollars in terms of being able to modernize your office for the tools that are necessary and to have voter registration databases and to have technical people on your payroll so that they can fix equipment and handle voting equipment-without those dollars . . . let me tell you some unholy alliances that get made, which is on voting systems. We buy these voting systems, and we have to contract with the system�s manufacturers to run elections because we don�t have any technical dollars to learn how to fix them and how to program them and whatever. That�s scary for most of us. And so, it�s dollars for education; it�s dollars for better tools. It�s recognition that the population has grown and that the numbers of voters have grown, and yet, in most of these instances, we�re still running with the same number of people that we had 22 years ago, managing the elections process in almost all of these offices. And that is a crime.

Mr. Hawkins: In addition to all of those things, I would say that probably the weakest link in the voting system, in my opinion, is the poll workers because no matter how hard we work, no matter how much care we give, and thought we give to how we run elections, on Election Day we turn it over to 1.4 million people who, as Mr. Lewis said, are paid mostly minimum wage and get maybe an hour�s training. In the area of reform, I would like to see that changed. I would like to see us have the ability to train our poll workers better and to pay them better and to hopefully have a better pool of people to draw from. I think that would improve the elections process tremendously.

Mr. Thomas: Mr. Ambassador, if I could throw something in there. I think the state rule is to provide resources, and that turns into dollars. Now, they are not dollars that are going to be mailed down to local units, but they are by way of services. And that�s what our voter registration . . . you know, we paid for that, we paid for the software, we paid for the hardware, for all the units, and each year we buy them their Internet connection by which this thing operates. And I think the next step we�re proposing to take is that we will buy their voting system for them, and we will see if, through those economies, we can�t get a better deal and if we can�t step in to assist in the maintenance so they are not relying totally on vendors. So, I think the states have a real big role to play in terms of uniformity, and the uniformity question has got to come from the state. And we find here it�s a partnership with the local governments; none of this stuff works when you put as much high-tech out there as you want, but if you don�t have competent and honest election officials, it�s just not going to work. It works here. We�ve got a good history, but we�re all contributing. And I think that�s very important.