Tuesday, February 26, 2002

Mr. BOND. Madam President, it is a great disappointment that I rise to address this amendment. We worked for roughly 6 months in a bipartisan manner, which I previously described in this Chamber, to achieve a bill that truly does make it easier to vote and tougher to cheat.

Many of the ideas and concerns my colleague from New York raised were raised in those discussions, and we made provision to deal with all of those. It was on the basis of the changes and the agreements that we made that we supported this bill.

The Senator from New York has pointed out that maybe people still cheat. Frankly, I would like to have more protections, and if the Senator is interested in building in more protections against cheating, I would be more than happy to work with him on it.

Simply put, if this amendment is adopted, this bill will make it easier to vote and easier to cheat. Certainly, that is not what we are here to achieve.

When the motor voter law became law 8 years ago, one major impact was to create the mail-in registration card. This section was part of the overall effort to make it easier to get people registered, and it has been used in many States.

However, because of fears even then that registration by mail could encourage voter fraud, a provision was also included that granted States the authority to require everyone who registers by mail to vote in person the first time after they register. Thus, the motor voter, or MVRA, included a provision for first-time voters which specifically granted States the authority to require those who register by mail and have not previously voted in that jurisdiction to vote in person for the first time.

To date, several States have used this provision, and now they require those who register by mail to vote in person the first time they vote.

Unfortunately, numerous States have also discovered since the enactment of motor voter and its mail-in registration requirement that a dramatic number of fake names, illegal names, and duplicate names have been registered. Unfortunately, St. Louis, MO, has become the current poster child for this abuse, but as I will show shortly, it is not limited to St. Louis or to Missouri. In St. Louis this past March on the final day to register before the mayoral primary, 3,000 mail-in registration cards were dropped off. However, due to the controversies which occurred in the November 2000 election and the overall strain on the election board with just local races on the ballot, election officials did a thorough review of the cards. Some cynics say that maybe in St. Louis it is not important if you are voting for a President, a Governor, a Senator, a Congressman, but when you get down to voting for a mayor, that means jobs, and nobody wants to see cheats in a mayoral race.

Election officials did a thorough review of the 3,000 cards. Immediately, one official noted that a deceased neighbor of his was on the list. He subsequently discovered that a very well-known and highly respected former alderman, ``Red'' Villa, who had died 10 years ago, was re-registered, along with the deceased mother of another alderman. Might as well get everybody involved. Let's go through the whole ward. It appears that hundreds of the cards were filled out in the same handwriting.

If those people had been allowed to vote by signature affirmation, guess what. I bet the mail-in vote, the mail-in ballot, would have had the same signature that was on those phony mail-in registration forms.

The city attorney was brought in, then the U.S. attorney, as the number of phony-looking cards jumped into the thousands. The criminal investigation is ongoing. We hope maybe we will find out just how much fraud was attempted in the 2001 mayoral primary.

However, big problem: 30,000 cards were dropped off just prior to the registration deadline for the November 2000 election. They received no pre-election screening, like nearly every other State in the country. We do not know how many additional false names, dead people, duplicate names, and even dogs are registered. We certainly know one famous St. Louis dog, Ritzy Mekler, the mixed-breed dog registered to vote several years ago. Here is the registration form: Mekler, Ritzy; with address; place of birth is Los Angeles; a Social Security number; date of registration is 10/4/94; and here is Ritzy's signature.

Actually, the Senator from New York goes a little further in saying a mark would be good, so Ritzy could just use a paw print. All he would have to do is affix a similar paw print.

I have a feeling whoever wrote Ritzy Mekler on that registration form probably could duplicate that Ritzy Mekler signature each and every time they wanted to vote. So Ritzy certainly would be advantaged if we got rid of the requirement that you show proof that you are a live human being before you are allowed to vote.

I tell my colleagues this only to get some perspective as to what it is in the underlying Dodd-McConnell amendment, the new requirement that those voters who choose to register by mail must prove, with some form of identity, an address. Whether they vote in person or by mail, they have to have some proof. It is not the absolute requirement that they vote in person, nor is it the absolute requirement that they provide a photo ID. But what we have learned the hard way in some cases over the past 10 years is that registering by mail and then voting by mail is a recipe for vote fraud.

Obviously, registration by mail makes it much easier to put fraudulent names on the voter lists. Voting by mail makes it very easy to vote these names illegally. Thus, after 6 months of work, we achieved the McConnell-Dodd compromise which sought to address this problem head on: How can we stop dogs, dead people, and people registering under phony names from registering? Section 103(b) of the Dodd-McConnell substitute recognizes the fraud risks of mail-in registration coupled with mail-in voting. Thus, it creates a requirement that any voter who chooses to register by mail must provide some proof of identity at some point in the registration voting process. Proof of identity can be accomplished by any of the following: A current and valid photo identification. That could be a driver's license, or what you have to show if you get on an airplane, or what you show if you want to buy cigarettes or liquor. Most people have these. But we didn't want to limit it to people who have a photo ID. So, No. 2, a copy of a current utility bill that shows the name and address of the voter. Or, No. 3, a copy of a current bank statement that shows the name, the address of the voter, or a copy of a current government check that shows the name and address of the voter, or a copy of a current paycheck that shows the name and address of a voter, or a copy of any other current government document that shows the name and address of the voter.

Thus, the point my colleague from New York made about the disenfranchisement brought about by requiring a driver's license, a photo ID, is not applicable. That is what we worked 6 long months to achieve. A voter who chooses to vote by mail to comply with the requirements, by enclosing a copy of any of the above with his or her mail-in registration; or, two, bringing a copy of any of the above to the polling place the first time they vote; or, three, enclosing a copy of any of the above with the mail-in absentee vote.

Now, it is a backstop. We even went further for voters who show up at the poll who have forgotten their ID. They have not brought anything. They can vote provisionally. They will be able to put in a provisional vote so we don't have to guess at the polls. They will cast their ballot. It will be set aside until it can be confirmed that they are a lawfully registered voter entitled to vote from that place in that State. When they are, it will be counted.

Madam President, we must keep in mind that vote fraud is accomplished in many different ways. Some are very simple. Some have been developed to a high art form in St. Louis. You can place false names on the voter rolls and vote them absentee. It is the easiest, usually the safest, particularly if the registration and voting are all done by mail. No sweat, no problem. Just sign. Have everybody write down their names. Under this system, I could register my colleague from New York. I certainly would not do anything unlawful. But he might wind up as a Republican voter in southwest Missouri with his mail-in registration and his signature which will match that registration on every ballot he casts thereafter.

Or, second, you can use out-of-date voter rolls and then move people around to vote repeatedly, using the names of people who died or moved or the false names that have been placed on rolls over time. Or you can run extra blank ballots through the voting machine at the end of the day or toss out boxes from key precincts. These are the simple things. We do not deal with all of them here. They are problems that afflict our system across the country.

For anybody who thinks it is just a Missouri problem, let me assure you the problem goes on nationwide. Let me give a sample of some of the things we have found from news articles. The Palm Beach Post, May 28, 2001, says that more than 5,600 people appear on a statewide list of suspected felons who voted illegally on November 7, 2000, 766 of them voting in Palm Beach County, 68 percent of whom were registered as Democrats. The Miami Herald, January 19, 2001, reports that 452 felons voted illegally on November 7, 2000; 343 were cast by Democrats, 62 by Republicans. The Miami Herald, January 24, 2001: 90-year-old Cora Thigpen voted twice in the Presidential election. I bet she would have liked to have voted more. I guess she ran out of steam after casting a second ballot.

But hers was one of more than 2,000 illegal ballots cast in the election by Floridians who signed affirmations swearing they were eligible to vote but were not. Poll workers never checked, ignoring county rules that were intended to combat fraud. One poll worker pointed out:

There are really no safeguards. This system is set up to allow people to vote.

The Florida Sun Sentinel, January 17, 2002, points out that at least 162 ballots in Duval, 200 in Volusia, 43 in Pinellas County were from voters who were ineligible. The newspaper points out that providing false information for a vote is a felony but prosecutions are rare.

Moving over to Texas, the Houston Chronicle reports that in 1991, a special election in Harris County revealed that in precinct 85 where the election judge hired six relatives as clerks, 600 ballots were counted even though only 316 voters had signed in to vote. After the 1992 Presidential election, the vote registrar found that 6,707 illegal ballots were cast in Harris County. Prosecutors contend that voting violations are almost impossible to prosecute because the law is set up only to encourage participation in elections, not to prevent voter fraud.

Moving closer to where we are now, in Virginia, the Washington Post, on November 10, 1998, said 11,000 ineligible felons and nearly 1,500 dead people are registered to vote in Virginia, according to State auditors. In the previous November's election, 1,700 felons voted along with 144 dead people. That is quite a theological accomplishment for Virginia.

State and national election specialists were quoted in that article as saying that part of the problem in the Federal motor voter law, which is designed to make it easier to register to vote, is that it also makes it tougher to protect voter lists from fraud and error.

In Wisconsin, January 21, 2001, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said 361 felons were found to have voted illegally in Milwaukee on November 7. A review found that there were virtually no safeguards or notification requirements to prevent or discourage ineligible voters from participating. It is basically an honor system. When fraud is discovered, officials say it is rarely enforced.

California has its own problems. I won't go into all of them. February 1, 2002, the California Journal noted that north California artist Judith Selby, who often scours the beach looking for ingredients for her artwork, found a lid from one of the 63 missing absentee ballot boxes. She recognized the importance of it so she turned the castaway ballot box into an artistic poster entitled, ``Cast Your Vote--Away.''

In Colorado, a Saudi man detained by Federal authorities for questioning about the September 11 terrorist attacks voted in Denver during last year's Presidential election, even though he was not a U.S. citizen. The Denver city clerk and recorder said it is hard for election officials to discover if someone lied about their citizenship unless someone complains.

In North Carolina, a Pakistani man facing a vote fraud charge has been linked to at least two of the September 11 hijackers.

In Indiana, an examination of inaccurate voter rolls shows that tens of thousands of Indiana voters appear more than once, according to the Indianapolis Star of November 5, 2000. More than 300 dead people were discovered to be registered. One woman who died in April 1998 was found to have voted in the fall election.

Motor voter was partially to blame because it allows people to register to vote, but it is far more difficult to rid the rolls of invalid names.

Of course, there are our good friends in Alaska. According to an FEC report, Alaska had 502,968 names on its voter rolls in 1998, but the census estimates that only 437,000 people of voting age were living in the State that year.

How would the Schumer amendment work? Let me go through this for you. A vote fraud planner fills out numerous false names, uses his or her own address as a return address. Typical would have been multiple names at the same address in one household. This is a drop-house scheme. It is identified by the secretary of state in Missouri as one of the more recently used schemes in Missouri. Eight or more adults registered from a single family residence makes us a little suspicious that there may be some phony registrations there.

Under current law in Missouri, as in most States, these new voters request absentee ballots, and just like that fraudulent voters are registered and fraudulent votes are cast, with the same person signing the fraudulent registration and signing the absentee ballot. It works like clockwork.

Under the original compromise bill, the Dodd-McConnell amendment, this huge loophole is eliminated by the simple proposition that if you register by mail, you need to provide an ID before you vote the first time. You can provide the ID in person or by mail, but you must provide an ID. The bill is very careful to provide numerous options for the ID: Driver's license, other photo ID, utility bills, bank statements, government checks, or other documents--something to show name and address and existence. It is pretty simple, common sense.

Is there a real live person behind the name? Or is it a dog? Or is it a dead person? Or is it somebody conjured up to be a ghost resident in your drop-house location?

Under the amendment being offered by the Senator from New York, all you need to do is use the same handwriting you did to register falsely and you will be able to vote falsely. As I said, Ritzy Mekler could have done it. She got herself registered. Somebody filled out the card. As long as somebody went to the trouble to get the dog registered, follows up and signs Ritzy's name, pretty much the same way when she votes absentee--no problem. Ritzy's vote counts.

Sometimes debates are complicated and intricate. There are provisions that we worked through in this bill that are very difficult. We worked hard to straighten them out. But this one is very simple.

Vote fraud is occurring. People are trying to cheat to win elections. The Dodd-McConnell bill takes some basic, commonsense steps toward eliminating some of the most obvious fraud. The Schumer amendment says: No, we need to keep these fraud options open. We need to make drop-house schemes easy. We need to keep voting franchises available to dogs--maybe even cats.

For those who wish to protect the status quo, the Schumer amendment does just that. It guts section 103(b) protections in two ways. First, it adds two additional methods to comply with the in-person voting requirements thus effectively abandoning the voter's responsibility to provide some independent proof of his or her identity. Instead, the Schumer amendment would simply require the voter to sign an affirmation that they are who they say they are. It would also require the State and precinct to set up a verification system that would compare the signature of the individual with that of his or her registration document--as another alternative.

Ritzy Mekler's signature would be scanned into the machine so we would know that whoever signed Ritzy Mekler was really signing Ritzy Mekler the next time the dog voted.

Second, for those who vote by mail, the voter would have no responsibility to show proof of identity, as none would be required from the voter. The State would instead have to set up a signature verification system that would, again, match the voter's signature on their ballot with that on their registration card.

Taken together, these provisions eliminate the proof of identity requirement which is the backbone of the anti-fraud protection. But it appears to me that the Schumer amendment would actually go beyond gutting the identity provisions, as the scheme would roll back the efforts by several States to require first-time voters who register by mail to only be allowed to vote in person the first time after they register.

These States: West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Michigan, Illinois, Nevada, and Louisiana, will have their efforts completely undercut by the Schumer amendment.

Why have we not heard stories from these States that have shown that the groups the Senator from New York mentioned have been so terribly disadvantaged, such as the elderly voting in West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Michigan, Illinois, Nevada, and Louisiana? I think their system makes common sense. St. Louis City, after the threatened vote fraud in the mayor's race in March of 2001, required people to show up with a photo ID with their address on it. Nobody complained. As a matter of fact, the citizens in St. Louis may have had an honest election. It was a show stopper. The media watched closely. They congratulated them, and it worked. I did not hear that people were disadvantaged.

The Schumer amendment would actually protect the law--the drop-house scam, one of the most common vote fraud schemes used today. As I said, this scheme is when one individual fills out registrations for multiple names at one address. Then that same individual requests absentee ballots for all of those names and votes all of those names in the privacy of his or her own home. How simple is that?

The Schumer amendment and those who vote for it are simply saying go ahead. Drop-house schemes would now be specifically protected under Federal law as States would not be required to allow the new mail-in to register to vote in person, nor would they be allowed prior proof of identity. The drop house is free and clear of any commonsense scrutiny by speeding that provision into States that now take some steps to prevent it.

But this is serious business. This amendment makes a mockery of the business. Americans across this country follow the rules. They fill in applications honestly. They provide an identification. They stand in line. They are not afraid of hard work, and they care deeply about this country.

As the Missouri Court of Appeals said when it struck down an illegal voting scheme to keep the polls open after closing time in November of 2000, it is just as much an important part of your civil right to cast a vote as to make sure it is not diluted by having your vote canceled by somebody who votes illegally.

The end does not justify the means. If you think it is important to win an election in any way rather than win it fairly, then maybe this is something you want to keep open--these loopholes. I don't.

I have listened to an awful lot of people in Missouri who want to get out from under the shame of what the media has shown to have occurred in our elections.

In most of the country, everyday folks--folks you see at the coffee shop, the folks you see at the nursing homes--I talk to them. They express concern. They do not understand when you try to explain to them that it was just too much to ask of a voter who chooses to register by mail to actually provide some proof of who they are and where they live at some point in the process.

So the choice is clear. The choice of the Schumer amendment comes down to the question: Do we want to protect the honest voters from those who would cheat them or do we protect the rights of dogs and the dead to register to vote, the people who operate the drop-house schemes, the people who operate all the other phony mail-in registration schemes to continue to steal votes? What is the most important action we take as citizens in a republic? It is to cast our vote.

I hope my colleagues will join me in rejecting this amendment.

I yield the floor.