Kit Bond

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, to respond to the Senator from Kentucky, this in fact was one of the areas we negotiated for a long time. There is no single requirement that you must have a photo ID. We provided all of the options for other forms of identification that are set out in the bill. I respond further to the Senator from Kentucky that the U.S. Department of Justice, Assistant Attorney General Carl Thorse, for Daniel J. Bryant, advises: As to acceptable forms of identification, by the Department's reading, voters lacking photographic identification may nonetheless meet the requirement by presenting utility bills, bank statements, government checks, paychecks, or ``other government documents'' showing the name and address of the voter. Nothing in the Department's preclearance activities or other experience implies that minority voters would be less able than other voters to provide at least one of the documents accepted under this flexible requirement. I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I am afraid we have seen a bunch of straw men set up and beaten up talking about all of these people who do not have any of these means of showing their identity. We negotiated 6 long months, and we had input from all of these people. The various groups to which my colleagues from New York and Oregon have referred have looked at this bill, and we came to an agreement. Certainly, we did not expect everybody to have a photo ID. Only about 90 percent of adults have driver's licenses that show the photo ID. So we went down the list and found out that the utility bill, bank statement, paycheck, or other documents could show the ID. Provisional voting, yes, we agreed on provisional voting. I did not happen to write the section that made the provisional voting effective in 2004. I would be happy to move it to 2002. That does not cause me any problem. Let us match them up. As far as somebody not wanting to vote provisionally, we have laid out everything in the world that they can bring in to show their identity. That new arrival who just qualified to vote in this country, if he or she writes in, sends in a mail-in registration form, he or she is going to get a form back saying: OK, the first time you vote you have to have one of these. That is going to be in plenty of time for the person who takes the responsibility to register to vote to find the proper means of identification. Now, the Senator from New York talked about how the system worked just fine. I was a little concerned, reading the December 2000 article in the New York Post--and I do not have it with me, but I will bring it in tomorrow--which said they had found that 14,000 people were registered both in New York City and South Florida. I would be interested to find out how many of them voted once or twice. It could be a little problem there. We are not going to solve all the problems. The Senator from New York is right. We said we were going to make it easier to vote and tougher to cheat. We never said it was going to be automatic that everybody is going to vote. Nor did we say that we are absolutely going to knock out every cheat. What we need is good prosecution. The Senator from Oregon talked about that. He said there are some prosecutions underway in Oregon. I sure hope there are because I have not seen it. Most of the prosecuting authorities find it is too difficult because they do not have the means to identify the people who voted fraudulently. Yes, we need good, strong prosecutions. We also need in the polling place good, strong Republicans and good, strong Democrats watching each other making sure the voters get what they are entitled to. Frankly, when the Senator from Oregon said these nursing home residents cannot get up and go to a copy machine to copy a utility bill, or even the stub of a government check or a statement from a bank--if they get a Social Security check deposited in a bank, they are going to get a statement. You know what they could do; they do not even have to photocopy. They can send it in after they paid it or after they received the statement. They could send it in. Maybe somebody is going to have to get up in that nursing home and go get them a stamp and then get them a notary public. I just bet that person, if they spend enough time, put a little time and effort into it, can get them a photocopy or get them one of their ID documents to send in. I agree we ought to catch them at the beginning. We ought to catch them when they register. That is the whole purpose of the bill. That is what we negotiated when we negotiated the Dodd-McConnell compromise. We are just going to deal with the people registering the first time and say, yes, you have to prove you are a real live human being, adult citizen meeting the standards of the State registrar. The only thing we can do to prove you are a human being is with one of the multitude of provisions we have for showing that. Provisional voting is the way, if they are knocked out, that they can still come back in. We may not have solved 100 percent of every single problem. This bill certainly does not. It certainly does not prevent 100 percent of the fraud. Let me go back to the State of Oregon to talk about percentages. My friend from Oregon believes the antifraud protections included in his bill should not apply to Oregon because they have sufficient protections already in place. My colleague from Oregon was elected in the first mail-in election, and I understand there is a court challenge to the constitutionality of the system. We will be interested to see how that develops. But it was with great interest I read an article in the Los Angeles Times printed in December 2000 about a range of issues that should give everyone pause, particularly the idea that political operatives can act as mailmen. Let me read a relative portion of that article. The article is headlined: ``Decision 2000/America waits; A `Modern' Democracy That Can't Count Votes; Special Report: What Happened In Florida Is The Rule And Not The Exception. A Coast-to-Coast Study By The Times Finds A Shoddy System That Can Only Be Trusted When The Election Isn't Close.'' They say: An Oregon practice that many considered foolhardy is allowing anyone, including campaign workers, to collect ballots. Political operatives go door-to-door to gather them. In the crush of election day, people walked away with ballots collected from cars pulling to the curb outside the county clerk's office in Portland. Vicki Ervin, the Multnomah County director of elections, says she has no idea where they were going, but she has no evidence of foul play. I ask unanimous consent to have this article printed in the Record.

Mr. BOND. In addition to the story about the people coming in with ballots from who knows where, an even more interesting series of facts was unearthed in a study by Portland State University professor Melody Rose who did work assessing the potential for fraud and coercion in Oregon's mail-in voting. Her preliminary data is quite revealing. This is a sample, not exact, but she said 5 percent of voters in Oregon had someone else mark their ballot; 2.5 percent of voters had someone else sign their ballots; 4 percent of voters either signed or marked someone else's ballot. In a State such as Oregon with about 1.6 million ballots cast in 2000, those percentages could equate to fairly high numbers. If the preliminary data were to hold up across the entire population, that might mean 80,000 voters had someone else mark their ballots, 40,000 voters had someone illegally sign, and 64,000 voters signed or marked someone else's ballot. I am not comforted by the assertions that Oregon has everything under control and thus should be exempt from antifraud protections in this bill. We are not going to get everybody who commits fraud. I certainly hope my colleague from Oregon was correct when he said prosecutions are underway. I feel like ``Waiting for Godot'' to see the successful prosecution of election fraud. Too often they find there are better things to do. Colleagues from other States have told me about people voting freely and admitted they voted multiple times and are never prosecuted. I mentioned Cora Thigpen who voted twice. She was just getting up a head of steam. I am afraid she will not get prosecuted. We need more prosecutions. We cannot do that here. We can assess the penalties. We need strong poll workers watching each other, Republicans watching Democrats. We need strong prosecution. The minimal provisions to protect against drop houses and phony registration--which, yes, includes permitting dogs to register in Missouri and permitting lots of other people to vote illegally; there were 3,000 phony ballots for a mayor's race; 30,000 uninvestigated ballots before a general election in Missouri in November of 2000. We have to do something. We have to begin to get a handle on it and make it more difficult, if not impossible--I wish we could, and I will take any ideas anyone has to make it--impossible to commit fraud. This compromise language we worked on for 6 months was designed to take into account the need of all the special individuals who we want to make sure can vote. At the same time, we are providing money and resources for voting machines, for voter education. This bill comes at all of these problems in a coordinated way and says yes, we have to do a better job. We have to do a better job making sure that everybody who is entitled to vote gets to vote, and to make sure that those who cast the vote are not having their vote canceled or diluted by people setting up drop houses, registering phony names, whether they be nonexistent people, dead people, or dogs. The amendment of the Senator from New York undoes the compromise we have reached.

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 reregistered, 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 preelection 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 antifraud 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.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Madam President, since most of the discussion has occurred on the other side, I think we need at least 15 minutes more on this side to discuss what I think are some alternatives. Some good questions were raised by the Senator from Illinois and the Senator from Florida. I would like to have a chance to speak about them. I hope I can have at least 15 minutes for that. I do not know how much time the distinguished Senator from Kentucky will need in addition to that.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, we have worked hard and long on a bipartisan basis to try to fix a lot of problems we saw in the past without going back to look at the problems that arose in the 2000 election, the 2001 election in my State, and others. Frankly, there is some concern on this side of the aisle. The amendment is designed with the likelihood of reigniting a controversy that we thought we put aside. I agree 100 percent that Congress has a right, in its oversight responsibilities, to ask for reports from every agency of the executive branch. Frankly, that is what oversight hearings are for in the authorizing committees. That is what oversight hearings are for in the Appropriations Committee. I have asked very difficult questions of agencies, both under Democratic and Republican Presidents. I think, frankly, in the last 8 years I didn't get a heck of a lot of answers. But I don't think that we bring the oversight fights to this body and try to get the body on record with what has been in the past a very political controversy. Frankly, the Department of Justice has under consideration the allegations of criminal activity engaged in by the Gore-Lieberman campaign in both St. Louis and Kansas City. We pointed out that in those two areas, almost identical petitions were filed within 14 minutes of each other. Fortunately, the lawsuit was thrown out in Kansas City. But the judge initially ruled in favor of Gore-Lieberman in St. Louis. That is the time we found out that the person who was alleged to have been denied a right to vote had been dead for 15 months, which was probably a slightly greater impediment to him voting. That matter has been referred to the Department of Justice. I don't think we need to go down the path of making a formal legislative finding that they should report on that. I am disappointed that we seem to be getting back into this battle by opening up the controversies of the 2000 election. I urge my colleagues to ask in oversight committees when the representatives of the Department of Justice are there to speak for themselves, what the status is or why there is no report. I think we should not burden the bill that we are fighting to keep a bipartisan bill with something that smells to some on my side as an effort to reinject a partisan battle. This is all very partisan, I know, when it gets to elections. I believe you need to have good Republicans and good Democrats on both sides. I just hope the distinguished Senators from Florida, for whom I have great admiration, would use the oversight hearings to ask the questions of the Department of Justice.

Mr. BOND. I thank my colleague from Connecticut. I would turn over the time arrangements to the distinguished Senator from Kentucky, who is the ranking member and is responsible on this side for managing the bill, but I wanted to comment on a few items. My good friend from Connecticut, the other Senator from Connecticut, has raised some points. I come at it from a very different perspective. I want to share that very briefly. No. 1, I wholeheartedly agree that many of the problems we have in elections today arise from the lack of dedicated, partisan poll workers and watchers looking over each other's shoulders in the election booth. This is where a lot of the problems can be cleaned up. I am most interested and will look with a great deal of interest on any recommendations where we can get the young college Democrats and Republicans to be involved in the elections because what elections need are partisans who are aggressive and informed and will provide a check on each other to make sure the voter hears both sides and makes sure nobody who may vote for one side or another is not given full information. Precisely for that reason, I question whether we ought to be releasing a whole group of Federal employees, who have important responsibilities serving us on a day-to-day basis, from their responsibilities to be nonpartisan poll workers. I want the biggest partisans in the world. We had a mess in Missouri, as I have described, when I ran for Governor in 1972. I vowed to clean it up. I got the meanest Republicans I could find to serve on the election board as my representatives in the major metropolitan areas. I went to my friends who were the Democratic leaders of the Missouri General Assembly and I got them to nominate for me some of the meanest partisan--well, they were nice people but some of the very toughest, most committed partisan Democrats. They watched each other, and the system worked. That is how the system works. It is the partisans. I think there is a great role, and I respect those who are totally nonpartisan, but I do not want them looking out for my interests in the polling booth. So I have real reservations about trying to put nonpartisans into partisan elections. One other thing: We have so many of the folks back in the country where I am from who, if they thought Federal employees were coming in to their local elections, would think of civil disturbances because this would not sit well in a few areas of my State, and I perhaps would suggest Montana might find that to be a bit objectionable. So I commend the Senator from Connecticut for his idea, but I think it is searching for a question rather than a solution to the problems we have. I turn it over to the managers to determine any arrangements that need to be made, and I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND. Madam President, I concur with the Senator from Connecticut we should move along as quickly as possible. There were a number of items raised. Apparently, there was a misunderstanding. The Senator from Illinois claimed I said some things I didn't say. I didn't say there were no problems. I didn't say they didn't have a problem in Cook County. They have a court order. Apparently, they do have a problem. They may well have a problem in Palm Beach County. I said we provide some money that can assist them in curing their problem. We want to see elections honestly and fairly conducted and do everything we can to assist the voter to make the right choice and be able to cast their ballots as they wish. There is no requirement in this bill that if you have a paper ballot you have to have a machine to check it. If you have a mail-in ballot, you don't have to send it back if it is overvoted or undervoted. If you have an optical scan, there is no way to check it. On these things where there is a piece of paper, optical scan or a punchcard, we say we are putting money for voter education to tell voters how to do it. It is not like the poor people trying to come up with ideas about what is a hanging chad or what is a pregnant chad. With a little voter education you can tell them, if you are not sure after you punched the ballot, you look at it. If you do not think you got it right, you can get another one and do it right. There is an obligation on the voter and there are all different kinds of voting equipment and systems to make sure he or she makes the right choice. As I said, part of that is making sure if you want to vote for candidate A, you vote for candidate A. This is not a big brother nation where we go in and guarantee everybody is going to make every right choice. There are lots of errors. As a matter of fact, some of the most expensive equipment we have, the DRE equipment, a whiz-bang machine, the error rate is equal to the error rate on punchcards. By the way, the studies that have been done show there is no link whatsoever between the kind of system or the technology available and the economic status of the voting area. That is what I would call a red herring. St. Louis County, MO, has some of the wealthiest and some of the poorest voters in our State. They all get to use a punchcard. In Audrain County, MO, we don't have a lot on the high end. We have a lot in the low end. We have a lot in the middle. We use a punchcard. I don't think we ought to be saying that because folks in Cook County or Palm Beach have had problems with punchcards--given the fact that our county clerk in Audrain County makes the system work for the people who vote there, we should not have to go back and tell them: Whoa, you have to spend some money, take the available Federal resources, match it, because you need to have a different kind of equipment to check the punchcard. Most of the folks back home at the coffee shop would say, after all this whoop-de-la in Florida, they are going to look at the ballot and make sure they punched the things out that they wanted to punch out. I do not believe we need to intrude further on the management of elections by saying you can't use a punchcard machine unless you have another form of device. I urge my colleagues to defeat the amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND. Madam President, I might suggest, we just had an amendment from your side. If this amendment could be handled in 15 minutes, why don't we work on getting time agreements, go back and forth to the extent that we have an equal number of amendments?

Mr. BOND. Madam President, is this another amendment?

Mr. BOND. Madam President, I thought that the Senator from Montana was going to be able to go after the first amendment. I had an amendment on the death tax and small business depreciation. We were trying to expedite the procedure. I ask how long this amendment will take.

Mr. BOND. If the Senator from Connecticut would yield me 1 minute, Madam President, as the Senator mentioned, this is one of the provisions on which we worked long and hard. I advocated greater flexibility for purging. But at the same time, I was asking for more controls over mail-in registrations, making sure we had live people voting once, not dead people, not dogs. We came to a compromise in our negotiations that obviously went further than the other side would like on verifying mail-in registration and didn't go as far as I would like on the punching. I will vote with my friend from Connecticut, although I believe and I am quite confident that the Senator from Montana has pointed out some real problems. I hope perhaps we could in conference continue the discussion to make sure we keep the voting lists clean. That is not just a problem for preventing fraud, that is a problem for assuring there is not unnecessary hassle or delay with the people who want to vote. Clean, adequate, statewide registration rolls make it easier to vote and tougher to cheat. I hope we can have further discussions in this area to make sure we provide the best tools possible to the State and local officials while maintaining the basic goals of the Federal legislation.

Mr. BOND. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote and move to lay that motion on the table The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. BOND. Madam President, briefly, this is not, as has been characterized, a replay of the basic Voting Rights Act. We assure everyone has a right to education. We are just not mandating a new machine be purchased in every jurisdiction, whether they need it or not. They work in many jurisdictions. If they do not work, let those jurisdictions fix them. We are not going to mandate that everybody spend money on them. I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. BOND. Madam President, I know there are many concerns about voting. We cannot solve all of them in this bill. I think we have reached a workable position where we will provide assistance to States and localities to improve their voting system. If a State wants to change its voting machine, or if it wants to add a new kind of machine to check punchcards, it can do that. If the system does not work in Chicago, or if it does not work in Illinois, there is money in this bill to allow them to change it. If it works in Missouri, why should we be told we have to spend money on a whole raft of new supplementary equipment or new machines? There is $3.5 billion in this bill. We hoped when we put this money in that it would provide enough money for at least every polling place to have a machine which was accessible to the visually impaired. We want to make sure this money goes to provide equipment that serves special needs people. That is one of the strengths of this bill. I see no reason why we ought to tell States what kinds of general machines or systems they use. If it works, do it. If it does not work, fix it. St. Louis County, which I represent, is one of the largest voting jurisdictions in the country with 650,000 registered voters. St. Louis County uses punchcards. Its error rate in the November 2000 election was 0.3 percent, the lowest in the country for large jurisdictions. St. Louis County is a microcosm on the United States, across the demographic and socioeconomic scale. This county manages to do it quite well, and I have not heard any concerns elsewhere in our State regarding punchcards. We vote with a punchcard. Know what you can do? A punchcard is not something where it is in the machine once you have cast the ballot. You can take the punchcard out and look at it before you put it in the box. You could look at that punchcard and see what you punched out. Now, there is new equipment to put different colored lines on that punchcard or any other system that one wants on that card, so when you walk out of there, you can hold it up. We expect some basic competence of the voters. There is no guarantee somebody will not go in and vote for the wrong person. A total electronic ``hoo-ha'' machine is not going to prevent somebody who goes in to vote for candidate A from casting a mistaken ballot for candidate B. There is no constitutional right to say that one cannot make a mistake, but with a punchcard you can hold it up and look at it. Certainly, after what we saw in Florida, I would imagine people could look up to see if there is a hanging chad or if there are two holes punched next to each, then that person can say they over voted or if there is no hole punched they can say they missed it. The Ford-Carter Commission reviewed error rates of the 40 most populous voting jurisdictions in the country. Twenty-six of those jurisdictions had an error rate below the national average. Nine of them were punchcard counties. St. Louis County, King County, Orange County, CA, all had error rates less than 1 percent. Clark County, NV, home of Las Vegas, Sacramento County, Santa Clara County, San Bernardino County and San Diego County all used punchcard and had an error rate less than 2 percent. In fact, punchcards are much better represented than electronic machines. Only three of those jurisdictions that fell below the national average used electronic machines. To conclude that punchcards are out of date and therefore responsible for the high error rates we saw in Palm Beach County is simply wrong. In Florida, there were 15 other counties that used punchcards and had a lower error rate than Palm Beach County. The problem is not punchcards. The problem was in the voting booth with the voters in Palm Beach County. Whatever the issue, whatever the reason, whatever the problem, the people of Palm Beach, their elected officials, had the opportunity to review the problem and correct it. There are a number of ways they could do it. If they want to use money that is available to buy a checking machine, they can do that. If they want to put up signs and tell the people, look at the ballot, we are going to put lines on the ballot that show which are color coded so each office has a color code, they can do that. The fact that they need to do that in Palm Beach County, or in Cook County, IL, is not a reason why the dollars that are going to improve the voting system in our State or any other State should be required to get some kind of fancy machine that they do not have or buy equipment that they do not need. The performance of voting machines is affected by many factors that go beyond the equipment. Some of that is the skill and training of poll workers. Mistakes made by the individual voters do occur. Some voters choose not to cast a ballot. I have pointed out in my discussions that one time when I ran, my opponent and I, in a large suburban county, received less votes than an uncontested candidate for Congress received. Now, were those under votes? I regret to say that I cannot claim they were under votes. I think maybe the voters chose to say they did not want either one of us. That is one of the choices that voters make. There are some administrators I have talked to who say that dollar for dollar you can get more and better results in assuring voters really cast the vote they want to cast with voter education and poll worker training. Machines do not solve all human problems. We are going to make machines available for those who have conditions that require special needs. We are going to provide assistance to those States and those areas where they think they need to use a different kind of machine. The punchcards serve specific local needs. With a punchcard machine, each voter needs a blank punchcard. With an optical scan, they need a separate ballot. With this bill, we expand the language requirements of new voters in very large jurisdictions with many offers and propositions. It may be to provide the punchcard makes more sense than other technologies. Why should they not be able to use it? I believe that we are on the right track by providing assistance. Where local jurisdictions find they have problems, where they do not feel a need or for some reason or another punchcards do not work, we are providing some money and they ought to step up to the plate and put in some of their own money and get something they think would work. I strongly object to saying we are in this bill going to mandate that everybody uses a certain kind of machine or has a certain kind of check and balance. We have already gotten into the business of local elections on a grand scale and, frankly, I do not think most of us who have had experience in elections want to see the Federal Government take over the function totally. We are making money available for those jurisdictions and those States which think they ought to have a different system. I reserve the remainder of my time, and I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Reserving the right to object, I will not object.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the measure that is before us. I have had the pleasure of coming to this Chamber on several occasions to talk about it as we prepared to move forward. I think it is vitally important that we have taken up this extremely important measure so early in this session. It is not the first bill to be considered, but it is probably the first new one to be considered after the others that have carried over. I offer my very special thanks to the distinguished Senator from Connecticut and the Senator from Kentucky for the great work and effort they have put in on this legislation. We have also worked with the Senator from New York, Mr. Schumer, and the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Torricelli, because we are all concerned about assuring that we safeguard the most important right that a citizen in a democracy such as ours has; and that is the right to select the leadership, the right to select those who represent them. Today, together, we are in the process of delivering on the promise that for all Americans we want to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat. I think that is what the American people want: Every American citizen--appropriate age, appropriate qualifications, properly registered--ought to be able to cast a ballot without difficulty. They also ought to be able to do that only once. That is the other part. We should, and we will in this bill, make it very hard for people to cheat. We know that every fraudulent vote cast dilutes the rights of those who cast lawful ballots. The Missouri Court of Appeals, on election day in November 2000, was presented with a case where an order was entered in St. Louis City Circuit Court to keep the polls open. The court of appeals was very clear. They expressed what higher courts in this land have expressed previously; that is, if you permit people to vote more than once, to vote in the name of a dead person, a nonexistent person, or even a dog, as we have talked about previously in this Chamber, you are diluting and, thus, devaluing the vote of those who cast their vote legally, who have a right to vote, who have a right to have their voice counted, and counted once. I think we have accomplished this goal. We have worked long and hard. As we know, there has already been one amendment offered that has been acceptable to both sides to improve this bill. So we are not saying that this has dealt with every area. I know there will be several other questions and concerns raised. But I think we have a very good foundation which will move the process forward. I am not a member of the Rules Committee, nor prior to the year 2000 did I consider myself an expert on election reform. I first saw the corrosive effects of potential fraud in the 1972 election, when I was running for Governor of Missouri. My opponent engineered an effort to keep the polls open late in St. Louis. We thought we were doing well, but they kept voting in the city of St. Louis, which runs about 70 percent or more Democratic. We were concerned. The polls stayed open until, as I recall, late in the evening. It finally appeared that there had been enough of a margin in the votes that rolled up out in the State that there were not, even laughably, enough votes in St. Louis to turn it around. So they finally shut it down. I was elected. I went on to say we were going to clean up the State of Missouri. When I had the power to appoint the election board, as I did in the city of St. Louis, the county of St. Louis, Kansas City, Jackson County--I appointed good, solid Republicans for the Republican positions, and I took the nominations of Democratic members of the Missouri General Assembly to appoint good, solid Democrats. One of the best protections we have in the voting process is to have good, solid Republicans and good, solid Democrats watching each other, making sure that neither side cheats. That is important. I am pleased to say that during the 8 years I served as Governor, I thought Missouri ran elections pretty well. Let's fast forward 28 years: Same State, same city, same play called from the same vote fraud playbook. I saw firsthand an effort to influence an election illegally. On election day, we heard, in advance, there was going to be a lawsuit filed, as reports circulated throughout the day that they expected there would be voting ``irregularities.'' And sure enough, they went into court. It was the Gore-Lieberman team that went into court in St. Louis. Fourteen minutes later they filed an almost identical suit in the city of Kansas City, again an overwhelmingly Democratic area. The suit was thrown out in Kansas City. In St. Louis, they entered an order keeping the polls open. Surprisingly enough, they had recorded messages from Rev. Jesse Jackson being played on the radio saying you can vote until 10 or you can vote down at the election board until midnight. It seems they planned this in advance. The contention they took to the judge was that the Democratically appointed election board in the city of St. Louis was conspiring to prevent the overwhelmingly Democratic voters of St. Louis from voting for the Democratic ticket and therefore they needed to keep the polls open so they could continue to vote. If you are going to cheat in an election, you don't go into an area where you have an overwhelming number of your votes and have your people conspire to keep your voters from voting for your candidates. Nevertheless, they introduced the measure, and it was ultimately--very shortly, fortunately--overturned by the Missouri Court of Appeals. This was truly extraordinary. But, frankly, it underscored for me the fact that vote fraud is not merely something to be studied in the history books. You have all heard that joke in various parts of the country--I have used it in some areas in Missouri--I am so committed to politics, when I die I want to be buried in a certain county or even in a certain State because I want to be able to continue voting from the grave. That is a joke that, unfortunately, was alive and well in St. Louis. Here is what happened. The day before the 2000 election, there was a prediction that there would be so much confusion on election day that a lawsuit would be necessary to keep the polls open. This candidate for office said: If it requires keeping the polls open a little longer, we are going to get a court order to do it. Sure enough, as predicted, on election day there was much confusion, some of it from people bussed in. A lawsuit was filed to keep the polls open late. This is where it really gets interesting. The plaintiff in the case was a man named Robert D. Odom. His lawyer claimed that Robert D. Odom could not vote because of the long lines and feared his client would be unable to vote unless the polls were kept open late. But what we discovered was that Mr. Robert D. Odom's real problem was not that he faced long lines at the polling place. That was not his problem. The main reason that Robert D. Odom was unable to vote had to do with the fact that he had been dead for a year and a half. Long after the court case was thrown out, when confronted with the uncomfortable fact of the death of Robert D. Odom, Mr. Odom's attorney admitted the mistake, one he never bothered to share with the presiding judge or the court to correct the record. The plaintiff seeking relief, according to that lawyer, wasn't Robert D. Odom. The attorney claimed it was actually Mr. Robert M. Odom, also known in local political circles as Mark Odim, a political operative for a candidate Lacy Clay, who was successful as Democratic candidate for Congress in that election. The plaintiff's identity only raised more troubling questions. The more we dug, the more we found. In the case of Mark Odom, the Congressman today, we found, despite his plea to the courts for relief from the lines that were too long at the local polling places, the evidence showed that Mr. Odom had in fact already voted earlier that day. The evidence is his own signature on a signature card retrieved from his own polling place. Certainly we hope he was not trying to vote a second time. What we witnessed in St. Louis was a premeditated effort to keep the polls open late in St. Louis, an overwhelmingly Democratically controlled city, because an aide to a Democratic candidate for Congress feared he would be unable to vote even though he had already voted that day. It sounds incredible, but that is the record. It is right there in the record, and we have the court transcript and the documents to prove it. The judge approved the scheme. The polls were kept open late, until the effort was overturned in the evening. The effort to keep the polls open late in St. Louis was not the only ``irregularity'' we saw on election day. Elsewhere in town, a panel of city judges was rubber-stamping court orders to allow unregistered people to vote. The Missouri Constitution says you have to be registered. So they went in, and the secretary of state's office reviewed the applications filed by 1,233 St. Louis city and county residents who were allowed to vote, even though they were not registered to do so. Here are some of the reasons given to judges for people who failed to register before the deadline passed and were the bases for circuit judges in St. Louis ordering them to be allowed to vote: I want a Dem President. I did not know it was required. I was a felon. I was released on November 1999, and I didn't know that I had to register again to vote. Parenthetically, you are not permitted to vote if you are a convicted felon unless you have been pardoned. I was late registering due to me were going through a mental disorder. Do you know what the city judges did? They rubber-stamped these requests, even though they failed to meet the clear standards under State law for court orders to vote. Only 35 of the 1,268 court orders to vote met the legal standard set by Missouri law. All of the evidence gathered by Missouri's Secretary of State indicates it was no accident that hundreds, if not thousands, of unregistered people showed up in front of judges willing to rubber- stamp these requests. No accident, indeed. The evidence indicates that there was a premeditated effort to organize the delivery of these illegal voters to the polls, where they would be welcomed by judges all too willing to disregard the law and grant them illegal court orders. That wasn't the extent of it. The investigation of the secretary of state turned up some truly amazing things: 62 Federal felons voted in that election, along with 52 State felons, people who are not legally entitled to vote; 68 people voted twice; 14 dead people cast votes--I have heard of people with an undying commitment to politics, but that is carrying it a little too far--79 people registered to vacant lots in the city of St. Louis voted in the election; 45 of the city's election judges were not registered to vote as they are required to do in order lawfully to hold the position of election judge; the discovery of 250 addresses that are not identified as apartments from which 8 or more individuals are registered to vote. A random sampling of 54 of these locations indicates that 14 of them might have been used as drop sites for multiple false voter registrations. All this is only what we know from the press and the public reports. There may be more. There is an ongoing Federal investigation. We don't know what the results of that will be. We can't say. Frankly, we had a very active and alert press corps that began to dig out some of these things and helped bring to the attention of the secretary of state and others what was going on. Sadly, this vote fraud was not a one-time occurrence in November of 2000. The specter of vote fraud returned to St. Louis as the flowers in the spring. Just before the daffodils were coming up, probably the crocuses, we saw suspect voter mail-in registrations to vote. On the very last day to register to vote before the mayoral primary, someone dropped off 3,000 voter registration cards, most for purported would-be voters in the third and fifth wards north of St. Louis, on 2 specific streets, most written with identical handwriting. And as it turns out, almost every single one of them was fraudulent. The brazenness of that vote fraud is stunning. One of the fraudulent voter registration cards belonged to what was purported to be a reregistration of the late city alderman, Alberto ``Red'' Villa. It might have been about the 10th anniversary of his death--certainly, a theologically significant date, but not significant in terms of qualifying for registration. There was a registration card belonging to the deceased mother of another city alderman also found among the 3,000 dropped off on the last day of voter registration. Yes, even in this day and age, just because you die is not grounds to disqualify you from voting in St. Louis, because everybody knows how you would have voted if you had been there. Now, it seems that in some places nobody gets stirred up by vote fraud during general elections between Democrats and Republicans. But watch out if it happens during a Democratic primary for mayor because that is real jobs and patronage at stake. After the shocking attempts to steal the mayoral primary race in St. Louis, the local press reported that the FBI had subpoenaed all of the records at the city election board for both the general election and the mayoral primary. While we await the results of that Federal investigation, it has already provided quite an education. Some days, I feel as if my staff and I are in a graduate program at the St. Louis school of election fraud. The more we dug into the issue, the more we were able to see the size of the problem in St. Louis. We found, for example, that the number of registered voters in the city of St. Louis threatens to outnumber the voting-age population. A total of 247,135 St. Louis residents, dead, alive, or even canine, are listed as registered voters, compared to the city's voting-age population of 258,532. That translates to a whopping 96 percent registration rate. Were that they were all legitimate registrations, that would be a tremendous mark of civic involvement and participation in St. Louis. But I am from Missouri; you have to show me that those were all one person, one registration, one vote. Lest you think I am only talking about St. Louis, according to the Associated Press, there are 18 municipalities in Allegheny County, PA, with more registered voters than voting-age adults. Upper St. Clair has 15,361 registered voters, but, unfortunately, they only have 14,369 residents of voting age. Back to St. Louis. About one-quarter of registered voters in that city are on the inactive voter list, meaning that the U.S. Postal Service has failed to verify that 70,000 people are actually still living at the addresses from which they registered, or even whether they are still alive. But it gets worse. More than 23,000 people registered to vote in the city of St. Louis are also registered somewhere else in the State. That means 1 out of 10 St. Louis City voters are double registered. We saw some who were triple registered. Some were even quadruple registered. In a review of the voter registrations, we found five Missouri voters registered at four different places in the State--certainly among our most active civic volunteers, with four different voting locations. Of course, there is my favorite case of Ritzy Mekler, a loyal St. Louis registered voter, and loyal mixed-breed canine. Yes, a dog is registered to vote in St. Louis. I have respect for the dearly departed such as Red Villa, and I like dogs, but I really don't think either one of them ought to be able to vote. About the only thing we have not seen in St. Louis is the actual election of a dog or a dead person to political office. Voting canines is not only a St. Louis problem. There was also the case of Cocoa Fernandez in West Palm Beach, FL. Cocoa's owner registered the dog to shed light on the ``failings in our voter registration system.'' Some of these cases are humorous. Others are deadly serious. For example, a Saudi man detained by Federal authorities in Denver, CO, for questioning about the September 11 terrorist attacks was found to have registered to vote at the local department of motor vehicles even though he was not a citizen. Worse yet, the records show that he actually voted in last year's Presidential election. In Greensboro, NC, a Pakistani citizen with links to two of the September 11 hijackers was indicted by a Federal grand jury for having illegally registered to vote. It is really quite sad that in the 21st century, in the world's greatest democracy, we still tolerate woefully tangled and fouled up voter registration systems that all but invite vote fraud. I have recounted in the last few minutes some of the stories that formed my education in vote fraud. So while many wanted to talk about Florida after the last election, I wanted to make sure we learned additional lessons from vote fraud in St. Louis and elsewhere. This is not merely a local story. The root cause of what is so terribly wrong with St. Louis elections lies in the Federal law. More specifically, it lies within the loopholes in the Federal law. For example, Federal law actually makes it very difficult for cities such as St. Louis to maintain accurate voter registration lists. It blocks States from authenticating mail-in registration cards--the first line of defense in preventing vote fraud. In order to prevent this kind of election scandal from occurring again in St. Louis or elsewhere, I knew we had to fight to close the election law loopholes. I had to share with my Senate colleagues what I had learned. So I testified before the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. That brought me to tell my story of the St. Louis problems to Chris Dodd, chairman of the Rules Committee. I told him how important the topic of election reform was to me. I told him that election reform without protections against vote fraud could not earn my support. He listened, and we talked a great deal and agreed on a formula that we believed could attract bipartisan support. We agreed to write a bill, along with Senator McConnell particularly, and others, to make it easier to vote and much harder to cheat. I think we have done that. I thank Senator Dodd and Senator McConnell for listening to the concerns of Missourians who were outraged by what we saw in the November 2000 elections in St. Louis. We worked closely together for several months to close loopholes while taking every precaution to protect the rights of legal voters. That is what I think we have done. One of the most important things we did was to agree to make it easier to vote and tougher to cheat. We ought to have statewide registration systems to eliminate the patchwork overlapping of county and city voter registration lists that have resulted in the kinds of multiple registrations and the kind of confusion that certainly bedevils some legitimate voters in St. Louis and elsewhere. No longer are we going to see people registered in four, five different places in any State. We need to find out where they are living and legally registered, and get the others off the rolls so those who are entitled to vote can vote and those who are not entitled to cannot. Registration cards will now require prospective voters to declare under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens--a very simple but very important affirmation. And individuals who register by mail will be required to provide identification when they vote the first time. Mr. President, will this stop all vote fraud in St. Louis and all American cities? Of course not. But these changes in Federal law will put power back into State and local law enforcement officials so that they can clean up their rolls. These are commonsense measures that will strengthen safeguards that protect the ballot box. To any of my colleagues who question the need to strengthen safeguards, just look at what happened in St. Louis. Why is it acceptable to require a photo ID to board an airplane, buy cigarettes, or alcohol, but to not require some kind of identification to carry out the most important of all of our civic responsibilities? We have a responsibility to ensure that all legally cast votes are counted and an equal responsibility to ensure that legally cast votes are not diluted, downgraded, or nullified by illegal votes. We must strengthen confidence in our voting system. People must know that their votes are actually going to be counted and not discounted. In the wake of the St. Louis vote fraud scandal, the Missouri Court of Appeals for the Eastern District issued its ruling on the lawsuit to keep the polls open late in St. Louis. As I mentioned earlier, the court's opinion accurately characterized the task now before the Senate, each of us. I quote: (C)ommendable zeal to protect voting rights must be tempered by the corresponding duty to protect the integrity of the voting process . . . (E)qual vigilance is required to ensure that only those entitled to vote are allowed to cast a ballot. Otherwise, the rights of those lawfully entitled to vote are inevitably diluted. That is what we are about today. We are here to see that everybody has an opportunity to vote. We need to clean up the underbrush. The distinguished Senator from Connecticut has taken a very strong position to ensure that those with special needs are accommodated, and this is landmark legislation to ensure that those who need special assistance or equipment can vote and can participate fully in our system. Clearly, the steps that we are taking to regularize the registration system are going to go a long way to empower local election officials and State election officials to ensure that everybody who is entitled to vote has a chance to vote but to vote only once. I look forward to working with my colleagues on the other important measures that will be brought before this body. I thank my colleagues who have worked so long and hard on crafting the bill that is before us, and I trust that we will wind up presenting, not only from this body but from conference with the House, a measure that will go to the President that will be signed into law to ensure that it is easier to vote and tougher to cheat. I thank the Chair. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues from Georgia and from Texas for presenting some very cogent arguments as to why we need to keep working on this stimulus bill. I am disappointed by the sounds I am hearing that it is going to be pulled. We need stimulus in this economy, and we have already adopted an amendment that I proposed, on an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote, to allow small businesses to write off immediately their investments. As I have said, I have two more amendments, frankly, in addition, that are pending at the desk that I think my colleagues, if given an opportunity to vote on them, would vote for overwhelmingly. First is a measure that addresses the tax benefits for the armed services members who served in the operations in Somalia. I don't think there would be many on this floor who would not vote for it if they had a chance. It provides that those who served during peacekeeping efforts in Somalia should receive the same tax benefits in the same manner as if such services were performed in a combat zone. As we fight the global reach of the terrorist networks, we are asking our men and women in uniform to perform at the very highest levels and at an unprecedented operational tempo. This amendment I filed would allow the men and women who served within the hostile fire zone in Somalia to file for the same tax breaks afforded to military forces who serve in a combat zone. Anybody who has seen the movie ``Blackhawk Down,'' based on the real world conflict in Somalia, will understand that our forces who served in that conflict were in a combat zone. The Pentagon criterion for hostile fire pay requires the duty is ``event based, payable to members certified that have been subject to a hostile fire. . . .'' Former SSG Kenneth Chatman, from Oran, MO, served the Army for 16 years as an avionics electronics repair technician. He served in Somalia from August of 1993 to January of 1994 with the 101st Airborne Division, air assault. The only tax exemption soldiers in Somalia got was when they transited to some other zone. In his case, he flew over Egypt and got a tax-free month. That is unjust. I believe anybody who appreciates the battle that our military are taking on against terrorism will understand that the sacrifices made by our forces require that we give these brave men and women the same tax breaks that others under direct fire receive. The second amendment I have is truly a stimulus measure. It is designed to increase the amount of venture capital available to small business. The Small Business Administration Small Business Investment Company Program--the SBIC Program--has a significant role in providing venture capital to small businesses seeking investments in the range of $500,000 to $3 million. Small Business Investment Companies are Government-licensed, Government-regulated, privately managed, venture capital firms created to invest only in original debt or equity securities of U.S. small businesses that meet size standards set by law. In the current economic environment, the SBIC Program represents an increasingly important source of capital for small enterprises--small enterprises that are struggling to get back on their feet, to grow now in the face of this economic recession we have been in for well over a year. They need to have funding. While debenture SBICs qualify for SBA- guaranteed borrowed capital, the Government guarantee forces a number of potential investors--namely, pension funds--to avoid investing in SBICs because they would be subject to tax liability for unrelated business tax income--UBTI. Thus, they don't put their money in it. As a result, 60 percent of the private capital potentially available to invest for these SBICs to create jobs, put men and women to work, create wealth in the community, is ``off limits.'' My amendment would correct that problem by excluding Government- guaranteed capital borrowed by debenture SBICs from debt for purposes of the UBTI rules. When we are looking at the need to diversify pension funds, this gives those who hold pension funds who seek retirement security an opportunity to use Government-guaranteed funds for investment in small businesses in a professionally managed small business investment company the opportunity to put their retirement funds to work and create jobs in their community, create growth and opportunity for men and women who need those jobs now. I hope and expect, once again, that if this targeted small business stimulus incentive were put up on this floor for a vote, it would be overwhelmingly adopted and we would see jobs and growth of small business. I urge the leader, the Senator from South Dakota, to give us an opportunity to continue to work on this very important package, which has some good things in it and, if we had the chance to work on it, would have more good things in it. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the privilege of the floor be granted to Tom Stapleton, a fellow on my staff, for the pendency of this bill.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Madam President, I gather there are no more people seeking to speak on this amendment. Rather than wait, we can vote. But first, I thank my colleague from Oklahoma, Senator Nickles, a real champion of making the economy grow by putting people back to work, and Senator Collins has been one of our great allies. Anytime I have a small business provision, she wants to be a champion of it because she knows small businesses are driving the Maine economy, as well as in the rest of the country. We are prepared to yield back all time on this side. I ask for the yeas and nays on this amendment.

Mr. BOND. Madam President, seeing no one ready to speak from the other side, I will yield myself such time as I may consume. I urge my colleagues who want to speak on the amendment to hurry up and get down here. We have lots of work to do, and we are going to be able to finish debate on this amendment fairly expeditiously. Anybody who wants to say anything about it, we invite them to come. As my colleague and strong ally, the Senator from Maine, has said, this amendment is very important to help small businesses in their recovery. We know the entire economy took a severe hit on September 11, on top of a recession that has really taken its toll on many small businesses. How we get out of this recession is to encourage small businesses to lead us out. Small businesses are the dynamic engine that drives the economy. They provide 75 percent of all new jobs. They are the ones that grow when the rest of the economy is stagnant. There is no better vehicle than a stimulus package to include a provision to encourage small businesses to purchase more equipment. This amendment provides a direct stimulus to that small business sector by allowing them to write off new equipment purchases immediately. If you have ever run a small business, as I have, you know the thought of having to set up a depreciation schedule for a tractor or a piece of equipment and figure out how to depreciate it over several years is a daunting task. If you are a small business person, you don't want to have to have an accounting department. It is usually you and the frog in your pocket who are running the business. If you are an individual proprietor or even if you have several employees, you don't want to go through the time and expense of hiring somebody to set up a depreciation schedule. So direct expenses would allow small businesses to avoid the complexity of depreciation rules as well as the unrealistic recovery period for most assets. For example, under current law, if you buy a computer, it has to be depreciated over 5 years. People who are very active users of computers tell me that the useful life is 2 to 3 years at best. Something new and something better has come out, but you are still depreciating the old equipment. You haven't been able to write it off on your taxes. This amendment has several important advantages, especially in light of the current economic conditions. By allowing more equipment purchased to be deducted currently, right now, the year they are put in service, it will provide much-needed capital for small business. With that freed up capital, a business can invest in new equipment which will benefit the small enterprise, but in turn it will stimulate other industries that are producing and selling the equipment they are going to put in service. Moreover, new equipment will contribute to continued productivity growth in the business community which Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan has repeatedly stressed is essential to the long-term vitality and health of our economy. That is what allows us to hire more people and pay better wages--to increase productivity. A healthy and growing business keeps its employees working, and we hope it will lead to new employees being added to the payroll. Finally, the amendment will simplify the tax law for countless small businesses. Greater expensing means less equipment subject to onerous depreciation. Under this amendment, a business would be able to claim the full $40,000 in expensing if it purchased and put in service no more than $325,000 of property during the year. That is to make sure it applies primarily to small business. In short, this amendment's equipment expensing changes are a win-win for small business consumers, employees of small businesses, equipment manufacturers, and our national economy. Some have contended that maybe we ought to think about this only for 1 year. We need to give small businesses not only an initial boost, but we need to keep the support coming to sustain the recovery. If we use the last recession of 1991 as an example, it took 21 months before the unemployment rates started to drop consistently. That is nearly 2 years for small businesses and others to hire the people back who were laid off in the recession. Small businesses represent 99 percent of all employers. They provide about 75 percent of the net new jobs. And with people unemployed, we need to get those producers of the new jobs, the small businesses, into business. Based on this unemployment data, limiting the amendment or any other small business stimulus to 1 year would not suffice. We need to keep the small business stimulus going for at least 2 years to ensure the recovery in the small business sector and the jobs market is sustained. Madam President, I ask my colleagues to support the amendment and urge them, if they want to support the amendment Senator Collins and many other Senators and I have supported, to come to the Chamber. If they have arguments against it, we will be interested in hearing those as well. I yield such time as he may require to the distinguished minority whip.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I understood they would object. Senator Collins and I do wish to have this amendment included at the appropriate time. I ask the managers, as they work out the schedule, to put this amendment in the queue at the first available opportunity.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I planned on rising to ask to set this amendment aside so I might offer an amendment. I understand there is to be an objection on the other side, so I want to take these moments to tantalize my colleagues with the thought of the tremendously important amendment that I will, at some time, offer. Frankly, it follows very closely along the lines of the amendment that the Senator from Oregon has offered and the Senator from Virginia has just so eloquently explained. Basically, if we are going to get the economy moving again, it is very important that we get small business moving. I do not know about my colleagues, but I can tell you in my State there are a very significant number of small businesses that have been very directly hurt and very heavily impacted by the events of September 11 and the follow-on necessary reaction to shut down on terrorism. We need to get support for small business. I have, in the past, worked with the chairman of the Small Business Committee, Senator Kerry, to provide assistance for loans. We hope that will be included in this bill. But the bill I am talking about would raise the expensing limits for small business. This is extremely important because right now, even under the Daschle amendment, if there is a 30-percent bonus, you still have to depreciate the rest of the equipment over 5 years. If you are buying a computer, in 5 years there is going to be something totally different. You need to be able, as a small business, to purchase equipment and write it off. Why do we say it is for small business? Because we would raise the threshold. But the threshold would still be $325,000 worth of assets put into place during the year. So only the smallest businesses that are struggling to get back on their feet, that seek to grow by buying equipment, would be able to take advantage of this expensing. Expensing means, in this instance, if it is up to $40,000, you write it off. You do not have to set up a depreciation schedule. You do not have to hire accountants. You do not have to have all that folderol that you go through for depreciation. For the smallest businesses, the ones we hear from the most--at least the ones I hear from back home--they are really the smallest ones which have several employees. They are busy providing a product or a service. They do not have time to go out and hire an accountant and set up depreciation schedules. So this amendment says--the amendment that at some point I will offer--that small businesses will be able to expense up to $40,000 a year, which is an increase from $24,000, and it would increase the phaseout threshold to $325,000 of assets put in play in the year from the current $200,000 limitation. This is similar to but $5,000 more generous than the centrist proposal. Frankly, the centrist proposal had $35,000. This is a $40,000 limit. I think that is a reasonable figure. I think this would encourage the small businesses to put capital to work to buy the equipment they need. With the freed up capital, the business can invest in equipment. The small enterprise will stimulate other enterprises. The more they can reduce their taxes by making the purchase of the equipment, the more employees they will be able to keep working. Chairman Greenspan has indicated again in his testimony today that small businesses expanding and growing is a vitally important part of the long-term vitality of our economy. Small businesses, we know, represent about 99 percent of all employers. They employ 51 percent of the private-sector workforce. They provide about 75 percent of the net new jobs. They contribute 51 percent of the private-sector output. And they represent 96 percent of all exporters of goods. Size is the only small aspect of small business. It really is a dynamic force in our economy. As the distinguished Senator from Virginia was discussing, this would allow the smallest businesses to buy a computer or other information technology equipment for up to $40,000 and write it off immediately and not have to go through the 5- year depreciation system. My colleague from Nevada is in the Chamber. I ask if I can gain unanimous consent to set the underlying amendment aside or if he wishes me to offer it later.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank the floor manager and the majority whip. I appreciate very much their consideration of it. I will offer this to the floor manager to introduce at the appropriate time. I thank the Chair.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Connecticut for attempting to be a floor manager, and I apologize to my colleague from New Jersey. I make a brief statement joining with my good friend from Connecticut and my friend from Kentucky in commending to this body the election reform bill. It was not just hours but weeks, and perhaps months, we worked on this. His dedication to getting a good election reform bill through means we will have something good with which to work. There should be a lot of interest in this body because every single Member got here through the process of politics. This measure, that will be brought up, we hope very shortly, should ensure that everybody in America is treated fairly in the election process. And that has no greater champion than my friend from Connecticut. As he indicated, I was interested in assuring that we prevent fraud. For those who may not have read it, I commend to them an article by George Will in the Washington Post today headlined, ``A Long Election Day in Missouri.'' He outlines the case far better than I would on the floor. I just ask my colleagues to read it and see why part of the election reform proposal goes to combating fraud. As Mr. Will points out, our Secretary of State, Matt Blunt, reviewed a small sample of ballots. . . . among 1,384 ballots illegally cast [in St. Louis] were 62 by felons, 79 by people registered at vacant lots, 68 by people who voted twice and 14 [votes] cast in the name of dead people. The only thing we missed out on in that go-around was in the past we have had dogs registered in St. Louis. As far as we could tell, no dogs voted in the last election. I had an opportunity to address a leadership group in St. Louis--a very large group of people--during the recess. I told them the purpose of the Dodd-McConnell bill was to make sure that every American citizen, and, frankly, for Missourians, every Missouri citizen, who was a human adult American citizen entitled to vote had an opportunity to vote--once. I think everybody in St. Louis understands that. I think everybody around the country will. We are going to have a very interesting discussion when we get onto this bill. We have spent a lot of time crafting it. I do not doubt that people will have new ideas they will bring to the floor. It should be a very interesting debate, but it is something that goes to the heart, the very heart of our form of government. Everybody who is a U.S. citizen who is duly registered and entitled to vote in his or her State ought to have the opportunity to vote, but only to vote once. If we can pass this bill and combine it with the bill the House has passed, I hope we will see a much improved voting system in the United States for the 2002 election. I thank my colleague from Connecticut. I look forward to working with him and I, again with my apologies to my friend from New Jersey, yield the floor. We look forward to getting on with it, to pursue the vitally needed election reform.