Transcripts For CSPAN3 Hearing On Voting Rights Election Administration 20240713

Ordered. Were here today to examine the state of Voting Rights and Election Administration in america. The right to vote is sacred. As members of congress, we take our responsibility to protect access to the ballot very seriously. This subcommittee and our committee as a whole is charged with overseeing the administration of federal elections. This country has a long history of failing to ensure equal and unencumbered access to the ballot for all her citizens. While states and localities have a significant role in carrying out elections, congress cannot abdicate its critical responsibility to ensure every eligible american can access the ballot box, cast a ballot free from discrimination and suppression, and has a steadfast faith in our democratic process that their ballot will be counted as cast. Since the beginning of the 116th congress, this subcommittee has been Holding Field hearings across the country, convening forums to hear from voting and election advocates, experts, community leaders, lit gators, and voters about the state of Voting Rights and Election Administration in their communities. We have been listening closely and collecting testimony and evidence regarding the wide range of methods of Voter Suppression and discrimination being deployed across the nation. Throughout our hearings in brownsville, texas, atlanta, georgia, Standing Rock sioux reservation, north dakota, hal fax, North Carolina, cleveland, ohio, ft. Lauderdale, florida, birmingham, alabama, and phoenix, arizona, the subcommittee has heard testimony on barriers new and old. We have heard testimony about how polling place closures, consolidations, and movements cause confusion for voters and lead to long lines and wait times that are unacceptable for the integrity of our democracy. How restrictions and cut backs to early voting disenfranchises voters, especially those with limited Transportation Options or inflexible work hours. Strict voter i. D. Requirements that can be overly burdensome on the poor and minority voters and create a modern day poll tax. Discriminatory voter purge practices can disproportionately impact otherwise eligible minority voters. Denying the right to vote to nearly 6 million formerly incarcerated individuals fundamentally undermines our democracy and continues to deny citizens their constitutional right. How native American Communities have faced more than 200 years of discrimination, disenfranchisement and Voter Suppression, which continues to this day and is exacerbated when tribes are not consulted when states and the federal government craft voting laws. The lack of adequate access to properly translated materials and language assistance at the polls disenfranchises protected voters, and how litigation under section two of the Voting Rights act remains a critical tool for protecting the franchise but is not an adequate remedy to enforce such a fundamental right. Todays hearing will expand upon these issues providing us with a National Scope and stories from states the subcommittee has yet to visit. We will hear from experts, advocates, litigators and lead who are have worked for years to ensure every american can exercise his or her right to vote. Your testimony will help guide us as this Committee Seeks to understand what needs to be done to safeguard our elections and guarantee access to the ballot box. Nearly six years after the Supreme Court decided Shelby County v. Holder, were doing this work because discrimination still exists. It is our duty as elected members of congress to uphold and defend the constitution and protect the rights of the voter. Chief Justice Roberts himself said voting discrimination still exists. No one doubts that. It is Critical Congress continuously examine the state of voting in america and build a true contemporaneous record of ongoing discrimination and barriers to voting. That is why were here today. America is great because of her ability to repair her faults. It is time for us to set the right example as a democracy and encourage people to vote rather than continuing to erect barriers that seek to suppress the vote and the voices of our communities. There is much work to be done. I will now yield to the Ranking Member, mr. Davis, of illinois for your opening statement. Thank you, madam chair. The committee on House Administration has the extremely important task to conduct oversight of federal elections. Throughout the committees existence, republicans and democrats have worked across the aisle to create significant election policy that widely impacted this nation, including legislation to eliminate the poll tax, legislation to create easier access to members of the military and their families when voting overseas, and the help america vote act of 2002, a landmark piece of legislation that took substantial steps to remedy the problem seen during the 2000 president ial election. The subcommittee on elections was created for the primary purpose to be an extension of House Administration to enhance the committees oversight capabilities of federal elections. Chairwoman fudge has been leading our subcommittee with the intention to investigate Voting Rights issues in order to create a new formula that will reauthorize section five of the Voting Rights act. Ive been proud to travel to a few of the stops that this election subcommittee has participated in throughout the nation, and its been an educational experience each and every time and a great opportunity for, i think, everyone to see how we here on this side of the dais can Work Together to get things done. So thank you, madam chair for your willingness to talk about these issues, not just here in washington, d. C. The Voting Rights act enacted in 1965 for the purpose of removing racialbased restrictions on voting has historically been a bipartisan effort. This legislation was most recently authorized under a republican president and republican congress. In 2013, the Supreme Court determined section four to be unconstitutional in Shelby County v. Holder. While the court did not weigh in on whether there still is an extraordinary problem, the Supreme Court did hold that what made sense at one time may have lost its relevance. They noted that nearly 50 years later, things have changed dramatically. Vra primarily remains under jurisdiction of the house Judiciary Committee, but the House Administration committee has an obligation to review how elections are administers and recognize if any issues should elevate from a state to a federal level, which is what we all hope to do here today. This subcommittee, as i said, has held seven field hearings and one listening session across the country in an effort to reveal widespread voter discrimination. Though the subcommittee has yet to find a single citizen who wanted to vote but wasnt able to, we still have a duty to the American People to protect and defend everyones right to vote. As ive said many times since coming into my role as a Ranking Member of the House Admin Committee and the lone member of the election subcommittee on our side of the aisle, the greatest threat to our election system is partisanship in the administering of elections. If theres clear evidence 06 intentional, widespread voter diskr discrimination, congress should take steps to remedy that in a bipartisan manner. We must commit to diligently review the facts and numbers carefully, as well as hear from all relevant stakeholders. We should take time to examine the Voter Registration trends and the voter turnout trends. Its essential that Congress Make wellinformed decisions and understand our role in assisting states while not overpowering them. Voting is a fundamental right for every single american citizen and protecting that right is a responsibility that i and everyone i serve with on my side of the aisle and the other side of the aisle take very seriously. Today im here to listen and learn more from our witnesses about Voting Rights and Election Administration. I look forward to hearing from all of you who have agreed to share their testimony with all of us this morning, and thank you, madam chair. I yield back. Thank you. I thank my Ranking Member friend for participating and understanding our goal as a congress is to get to the truth. So i appreciate that. I thank you. Now i will introduce our panel, but as i prepare to do that, let me just give you some housekeeping. Each of you will be recognized for five minutes. I will remind our witnesses that their entire written statements will be made part of the record and that the record will remain open for at least five days for additional materials to be submitted. The lighting system, which you have in front of you l tell you how much time you have remaining. You will have five minutes. Yellow means you have one minute left. Red means please wrap up your statement. Our first panel, we will hear from kristen clark, welcome. President and executive director of the committee for civil rights under law. They seek to promote fair housing and community development, economic justice, Voting Rights, equal educational opportunity, criminal justice, Judicial Diversity and more. Ms. Clark previously served as the head of the Civil Rights Bureau for the new York State Attorney Generals Office and has spent several years at the naacp Legal Defense and Educational Fund and worked as the u. S. Department of justice in the civil rights division. Welcome. Dell hall is the director of the aclus Voting Rights project and supervises the aclus Voting Rights litigation anded a vo can i si work nationwide. He has active cases in over a dozen states throughout the country and is also an adjunct professor of law at nyu school of law. Prior to joining the aclu, he was assistant counsel at the naacp Legal Defense fund and associate at freid, frank, harris, shriver, and jacobson, llp, and a judicial law clerk. Thank you, sir. Welcome. Duel ross serves as senior counsel at the naacp Legal Defense and Educational Fund. In that capacity, mr. Ross uses litigation, public education, and other Advocacy Strategies to ensure that black people have equal access to the political process and to educational opportunities. Among his ongoing cases, mr. Ross is lead counsel in greater birmingham ministries versus merrill, an ongoing Voting Rights act lawsuit that challenges alabamas racially discriminatory voter i. D. Law. He was a member of the trial team that has coauthored the ap appellate to the texas unconstitutional voe t unconstitutional photo i. D. Law. He is also an adjunct professor at the university of Pennsylvania Law School where he teaches a course on the Voting Rights act. Welcome, all. We have been joined by the chair of the committee, the whole committee. Would you like to make well, thank you very much. This committee is charged with overseeing the administration of federal elections, and in recognition of that responsibility, we established the subcommittee on elections. This subcommittee has been led by really its outstanding chairwoman, marsha fudge. Theyve held eight hearings throughout the country, giving voice to many not generally heard in washington, d. C. Too Many Americans view themselves as shut out of our representative system, and others cant participate because of Election Administration procedures that fail to consider how americans live and work in the 21st century. Some of these barriers to participation make it harder for certain populations, including communities of color and other underrepresented groups to vote. This is especially the case after the Supreme Court got core provisions of the Voting Rights act in Shelby County versus holder. We know now that foreign agents, specifically the russians, attempted to interfere in american elections in 2016. As we discussed yesterday in the full committee hearing, no single group has been targeted more with disinformation than africanamericans. That is a Voter Suppression tactic. So we do know that for years the house has failed to adequately protect the right to vote. The house allowed discriminatory, suppressive laws to be enacted throughout the country. Laws so discriminatory they targeted africanamericans, and this is from a court case, with surgical precision. The work of the subcommittee on elections is critical to achieving the principle that every american has the right to vote, the right free from discrimination, and from administrative barriers so cumbersome that they actually suppress the vote. We know its time for congress to act to ensure equal access to the ballot for every american. I look forward to the testimony today, and once again, i just want to thank the chairwoman and the others on the election subcommittee who worked so very hard to gather information throughout the United States for their outstanding work that serves our country so well. With that, i yield back. Thank you, and thank you for your support. We could not have made these field hearings work without you. So we appreciate it. Ms. Clark, you are now recognized for five minutes. Chairwoman fudge, Ranking Member davis, and members of the subcommittee on elections, my name is kristen clark, and i serve as the president and executive director of the Lawyers Committee for civil rights under law. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on issues that are consequential to the fate of american democracy. The Lawyers Committee for civil rights under law has been at the forefront of our nations battle for equal rights since it was created in 1963 at the request of president kennedy to enlist the private bar in the fight to combat Racial Discrimination. Our work to safeguard Voting Rights and to fight Voter Suppression has been central to this mission. The Lawyers Committee has been a leader in many of the core Voting Rights cases over the last several decades and stands at the forefront of current efforts to ensure that our laws safeguard, not restrict, access to the franchise. The Lawyers Committee also leads election protection, the nations largest and longest running nonpartisan Voter Protection program. In Shelby County v. Holder, chief Justice Roberts noted things have changed dramatically since passage of the Voting Rights act, and, quote, blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare, end quote. Our experience and the record shows this proclamation was not true in 2013 and remains untrue today. Modern day Voter Suppression efforts are proliferating. Moreover, the shelby decision opened the floodgates to discrimination and Voter Suppression. No doubt our nation is currently in a period of retrenchment concerning access to the franchise. Since shelby, the Lawyers Committee has been involved in 41 cases related to discriminatory voting practices or policies that have had an adverse effect on the rights of africanamericans and other minority voters. These instances are summarized in my written testimony. 24 of these actions were filed since january 20th of 2017. Sadly, doj has filed no such cases during this time frame. While weve achieved substantial success in about threequarters of these 24 cases, this is just the tip of the iceberg of potential Voting Rights violations that could be challenged by doj, where there actively enforcing the law in a restored section five. Without the prof lactic protections of section five and given that parts of our country are becoming more racially diverse, weve seen Voter Suppression efforts intensify. Examples of the ways in which officials are working to undermine minority Voting Rights are outlined in my testimony and include barriers to Voter Registration, draconian requirements imposed on groups that are working to register people to vote, purge programs, restrictive mandatory photo i. D. Laws, polling place closures, polling places moved to hostile locations like police departments, ineffective language assistance, long lines at polling sites due to staffing or machine issues, mass rejection of absentee ballots, Faulty Technology that risks votes not properly counted, and systems subject to hacking, cuts on early voting opportunities, vote dilution, and gerrymandered maps. Casebycase litigation is simply not enough to counter the magnitude of this threat. Justice ginsburg found that requiring private individuals in civil Rights Groups to litigate every threat to Voting Rights was ineffective and extremely expensive. Like battling the hydra, the multiheaded monster in greek mythology. These cases are costly, time intensive, long, and protracted, and for every case we file, americans have to wait months and sometimes years for a resolution to protect their right to vote. This is not sustainable. Even when courts strike a discriminatory law or practice, officials often resort to a slightly different practice, thrusting communities into a game of whackamole. Theres no better example of this than georgia, where officials resurrect discriminatory practices repeatedly. In the postshelby era, local and state officials act with impunity when it comes to suppressing the rights of minority voters. Along with officials, we sued georgia three times to stop its exact match practice in Voter Registration. The record makes clear that Congress Must restore the full protections of the Voting Rights act. I urge this committee and this congress to carefully study the record amassed during the extensive hearings and field work and to fulfill the promise of our constitution and restore protections needed to ensure that africanamericans, latinos, and other people of color enjoy equal voice in our democracy. Thank you. Thank you. Chairwoman fudge, Ranking Member davis, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. I am the director of the aclu Voting Rights project. My testimony today will focus on restrictions on voting based on false or exaggerated assertions about noncitizens registering to vote. Time and again, such claims have evaporated under minimal scrutiny. Take kansas. In 2011, kansas passed a law requiring Voter Registration amly cants to submit a citizenship document, like a birth certificate or passport. It sounds innocuous, but the effects were devastating. More than 30,000 Voter Registration applicants were denied, about 12 of all applications during that period. One was our client, donna, who did not possess a copy of her birth certificate and couldnt afford one. Another was our client wayne fish, who was born on a decommissioned air force base in illinois and spent two years searching for his birth certificate. Two others were our clients tad stricker and t. J. Boynton, who showed their birth certificates at the dmv, which then failed to forward them along with their Voter Registration applications. All four were disenfranchised in the 2014 midterms. We challenged the law, and at trial then kansas stek tear of state claimed there were more than 18,000 noncitizens registered to vote in kansas. But his own Expert Witness at the trial estimated that of the 30,000 people whose registration applications were blocked under the law, more than 99 were actually United States citizens. The court found that the number of noncitizens on the list was, in fact, statistically indistinguishable from zero. It took four separate lawsuits to block this law, which we did in 2018, but in his zeal to defend it, he engaged in a disturbing pattern of evasion and lawlessness. He was sanctioned for concealing relevant documents. Kansas taxpayers paid a 1,000 fine for that. The court found that he willfully disobeyed a preliminary injunction. And the court found a, quote, pattern of flaunting disclosure and discovery rules and ordered him to take six hours of continuing legal education. Theres a similar story in texas. In january, Texas Attorney general ken paxton tweeted in capital letters, voter fraud alert, claiming that almost 100,000 registrants in texas were noncitizens. But that was false. Within a week, it came out that many of these voters were naturalized citizens who had already confirmed their citizenship. In Harris County alone, this translated to about 60 of 30,000 voters flagged there. As to the remaining 12,000, an audit of 150 names chosen at random yielded no noncitizens. Civil rights organizations including the aclu and texas civil rights project sued to stop texas from purging these voters. They found texas, quote, created a mess, which exemplified the power of the government to strike fear and intimidate the least powerful among us. The case was settled with texas taxpayers on the hook for 450,000 in costs and attorneys fees. Texas secretary of state departed from office in disgrace. There are similar stories of inaccurate purges in florida, iowa, and virginia detailed in my written testimony. But the administration now seems intent on repeating these mistakes. In a case that i argued in the Supreme Court earlier this year, the court blocked the administrations effort to add a Citizenship Question to the 2020 census, finding the administrations publicly stated purpose of Voting Rights act enforce thement was, quote, contrived. Indeed, the first person to suggest adding a Citizenship Question to the census was known as the michelangelo of gerrymandering. In other words, the administrations actual purpose was not to protect Voting Rights but the opposite. To dilute the political influence of communities of color. Despite the courts ruling, the administration is still planning to produce citizenship data to facilitate gerrymandering. The Census Bureau is now asking states for drivers license records that include citizenship data. Leaving aside the illicit discriminatory purpose, there are serious questions about the accuracy of such data as demonstrated by the experiences in texas, kansas, and other states described in my written testimony. In some, widespread claims climbs about widespread noncitizen registration have been used to justify restrictions that have prevented tens of thousands of americans from voting, have often proved to be grossly exaggerated or downright false, and have undermined the publics confidence in our elections. That is the opposite of Election Integrity. Thank you. I look forward to answering any questions that you might have. Thank you. Mr. Ross, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you. Good morning, chair fudge, Ranking Member davis, and the committee. Im a senior counsel at the naacp Legal Defense fund, or ldf. Thank you for the opportunity to testify about Voting Rights in the United States today. Since its founding in 1940 but thor good marshall, weve led the fight for africanamericans and others. However, its gotten much more difficult since 2013 when the u. S. Supreme court decided Shelby County versus holder. Attorneys argued Shelby County in the Supreme Court in defense of section five of the Voting Rights act. As you know, section five required covered states or jurisdictions with history of discrimination to seek preclearance from the u. S. Department of justice or a d. C. Federal court before implementing changes related to voting. The states had the burden of proving that a change was was nondiscriminatory. The Supreme Court, however, held that congress had not sufficiently justified the coverage formula when it reauthorized the Voting Rights act in 2006. By ending preclearance, however, the Supreme Court let states with a consistent record of voting discrimination act without scrutiny. The results have been predictable and devastating. Within hours of the decision, texas revived its previously blocked photo id law. Within months, new york declined to hold elections to fill 12 legislative vacancies, denying representation to 800,000 voters of color in new york city. Of course, ldf and others have continued to use the u. S. Constitution and section two of the Voting Rights action, which apply nationwide to challenge discriminatory voting changes. But section two in the constitution places the burden on voters to prove the changes are discriminatory. For example, in 2014 ldf won a case in which fayette county, georgia, tried to change its method of election from singlemember districts to atlarge voting after a black commissioner died and they needed to hold special elections. Section two was able to block that change. In 2018, ldf convinced the United States 11th circuit to block gardendale, alabama, to secede from the Jefferson County school board. This would have transferred black voters from the county board in which those black voters had representation to the gardendale city council, to where they had no representation. On the eve of the 2018 election, ldf represented black College Students in prairie view, texas, placed with a long history of discrimination, where the county tried to cut on campus early voting. Officials responded to ldfs lawsuit by adding weekend and evening hours. In florida, Voting Rights for people with felonies were restored in 2018 by a ballot referendum, but earlier this year, the Florida Legislature responded by essentially imposing a poll tax, requiring voters who have otherwise served their sentence to pay all fines and fees before they can register to vote. Last week, ldf, the aclu, and others presented evidence to try and stop this change before the 2019 elections. And in a pending challenge to alabamas photo i. D. Law, ldf has demonstrated discrimination is not a thing of the past. A prominent state senator who supported the voter i. D. Laws for years stated black voters in alabama were four times more likely to have their provisional ballots rejected because they lacked photo i. D. All of these changes would have been subjected to section five. Ldf has also continued to use section two of the Voting Rights act to challenge atlarge elections. For example, in 2017, a federal court ruled that louisiana had intentionally discriminated when it maintained atlarge elections. Unfortunately, this litigation, even when successful, is slow and can cost millions of dollars. On average t takes two to five years for a Voting Rights act case to be completed. For example, in texas in 2016, the fifth Circuit Court of appeals found that texas photo id id law violated section two, but during the three years of litigation, hundreds of elected officials were voted into office, and for the 500,000 voters who lacked i. D. , that win came too late. Ldf has tried to work to address these discriminatory changes before they happen, but often we have been stymied by the costs and time it takes to litigate these matters. Given the myriad issues, Congress Must act. First, through bills like the Voting Rights advancement act or the Voting Rights amendment act. Congress should restore preclearance. Congress should also strengthen section two by making it easier for plaintiffs to block discriminatory voting changes before an election. As we prepare for the 2020 elections, we need to fix our democracy and should not be up for a debate. Its critical that Congress Make voting easier, not harder. Its time for bipartisan unity. Its time to act. Thank you. Thank you. And i thank you all for your testimony. We will now begin questioning. Each member of the panel will have five minutes. Im going to kind of try to hold them to that if we can. We have a couple more panels. So i would now yield to chairwoman. Thank you very much. When chief Justice Roberts wrote the shelby decision striking down the Voting Rights act, he said, and this is a quote, voting discrimination still exists. No one doubts that. End quote. Though, clearly, the record is ample that discrimination continues to occur across the United States, and a compelling case has been made why we need to revitalize the Voting Rights act. I appreciate the testimony youve given today along those lines. That is a critical solution. Having said that, there are some states that were never covered under preclearance, some that bailed out, so im wondering, in addition to the Voting Rights act, which we are committed to, are there other changes for laws that the congress should enact to alleviate the continued effects of Racial Discrimination . Thank you for that question. I will observe there are some states like tennessee and kentucky that just barely escape coverage under section five, where we are seeing extensive Voter Suppression efforts today. One stark example arises out of tennessee, where after groups on the ground made extraordinary efforts to reach almost 90,000 not yet registered people, state lawmakers put a new law on the book that imposes draconian, burdensome, and costly requirements, including criminal penalties on groups that are working to register people to vote. No doubt this is a textbook example of Voter Suppression and the kind of tactic that would be blocked if we had a section five review process that applied to the state of tennessee. As chairperson fudge indicated, we should follow the truth. It is my firm belief that congress should respond to the record that you amass, indicating where the problems lie and apply a remedy thats responsive to those issues. Chairwoman, i thank you for that question. There are elements of hr1 that i think would be very positive in terms of protecting Voting Rights. I want to focus on one. Thats the provision of hr1 that provides for election day registration. About 20 states have election day registration, including the Ranking Members home state of illinois and your home state of california. The states that have election day registration tend to have turnout thats about 5 to 10 higher than the states that dont. Its the single reform that has the broadest consensus among political scientists that it facilitates participation, particularly among young people, mobile voters who have moved recently, africanamericans, historically disadvantaged groups. Weve heard a little bit about purges, erroneous removals of voters from the rolls. Election day registration can be a valuable safety net main maki sure any voters purged erroneously do get to participate on election day. Thank you for that. I know my time is also up, but it also helps if the russians hijack the registration roles. Its actually protection against that kind of cyber mischief that with sameday registration, we would prevent them from ruining our elections. A final comment. Thank you, chairwoman. In addition to the other versions of hr1, ldf supports early voting in federal elections. Obviously it offers the opportunity to cut down on some of the Election Administration issues that weve seen, like long lines, voters have to wait three or four hours in order to vote. If voters have multiple days on which to vote and ample opportunity to do so, then those kinds of issues will be cut down. I also wanted to briefly comment on a state that was not covered by section five, which is arkansas. The aclu, ldf, and others were involved in litigation there for a voter i. D. Law, which was successful initially, only for the state to turn around and pass a new photo i. D. Law shortly after. The function is that the court of appeals in particular is elected in such a way that keeps black voters from having an opportunity to elect thank you very much. I see my time is expired. Thank you very much. Ranking member davis, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you to our witnesses. I appreciated your testimony. Ill start with you. Do you agree that accurate voter rolls are a critical part of our administration and required by the nvra . Of course i do. Part of maintaining accurate rolls is making sure voters are not purged inaccurately. What are the best practices for maintaining roll hygiene . I think 19 states in recent years have adopt an automatic form of Voter Registration, which ensures that when voters move, for example, their registrations are automatically updated with the state. Its a way, i think, of both facilitating participation and also making sure that there isnt socalled deadwo wood on e rolls of voters who have moved, but their Registration Information remains out of date. So give me an example of a couple states that have done that. So youre saying once they move, its automatically updated and youre fine with that versus other practices that exist in states like ohio, for example, where we did one of our hearings . Yes, i think its much better when a voter updates their information with the state, whether its with the dmv or a social Service Agency or Something Like that. To automatically update their registration in accordance with that address change rather than relying on a kind of archaic system of sending the voter a card and asking them to write their new information on it or treating the failure to return a piece of what looks like junk mail to a lot of people as evidence of the fact that theyve moved or are no longer eligible. So i think i mentioned, i believe, 19 states have adopted some form of automatic registration. This includes states like oregon, alaska i dont have the complete list, but the National Conference of state legislatures maintains a very comprehensive and up to date list of practices like that. Okay. Whats the aclus interaction with the Election Assistance Commission been . Trying to address the Ballot Access concerns that you raise in your testimony . In my role at the aclu, my primary job is to oversee litigation. I dont have myself you have not filed a lawsuit against, right . My one interaction has been litigation against the eac over and i detail this in my written testimony over a unilateral and what the d. C. Circuit found unlawful move by former executive director to add documentary proof of citizenship instructions to the federal Voter Registration. So youre not aware of any aclu interaction to try and work with the eac to ensure we address some of your concerns . Im not, but i think the appropriate person in my office to talk to would be a member of our washington legislative office. Im happy to follow up with them. Please do. I appreciate it. Ms. Clark, you mentioned long lines at polling places, ineffective language assistance, and Faulty Technology as types of current Voter Suppression. In your opinion, can we leverage 21st Century Technology to address these concerns . We absolutely can, and i do think that better machines that are not hackable, that provide a paper trail, an audit system so we can ensure Public Confidence to voters when they cast their ballots, that the ballot is indeed being handled and the vote is being cast with a person they wanted is incredibly important. Georgia is probably exhibit a when it comes to the work that must be done to update our Voting Machines and voting technology. In a lawsuit that we brought with the coalition for good governance, we got a federal court to, for the very first time in our countrys history, overturn and reject the entire state system. Georgia is working right now to put in place new machines, new technology. We think this will produce Better Outcomes for voters in the state of georgia Going Forward. Great. Mr. Ross, it was great talking with you before the hearing. Im proud to represent what many consider to be the birthplace of the naacp in springfield, illinois. We have great opportunities to highlight some of the artifacts from the 1908 race riots that are being uncovered and the archaeology is happening right now. So i look forward to working with the naacp in the future to get those on display. Its an Important Message to send in the land of lincoln. One of the areas under the committees jurisdiction that most concerns me is the ability of those with disabilities to vote. With your experience in the election arena, what can we do as congress to help facilitate a better voting experience for the disabled . So ill say that, you know, ldfs work is not primarily in the disability rights arena, but we have done we have a prepared to vote program, which is focused on election day assistance for voters. One of the things we often see are issues like access to the polls for handicapped voters or issues with access for voters who may have be undereducated or have disabilities like blindness and things like that. So i think one of the Things Congress can and should do is to offer more funding for local jurisdictions, for updated Voting Machines, for training of poll workers so that they can address these kind of access issues and allow for people who want to vote to be able to do so. Great. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you. Mr. Aguilar, youre recognized for five minutes. Thank you, madam chair. I appreciate the panel and their testimony. Ms. Clark, ill start with you. In your testimony, i want to make sure i understood that. How many section two lawsuits has the Current Administration filed . Zero. How much weve been in a couple of these hearings around the country. Our colleague mr. Butterfield always does a good job. Since hes not here, i will ask his question. How much does a section two lawsuit typically cost, and what are the resources . And if you could chime in here, too, mr. Ross. What are the resources that go into filing a section two lawsuit . Thank you for that question. These lawsuits can run in the ballpark of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Studies have shown that Voting Rights cases are among the most complex cases that are heard by federal courts. Often these cases require that civil Rights Groups like ours retain experts to conduct extensive demographic analyses, produce maps, and so forth. This is not a Sustainable Way to deal with the crisis of Voter Suppression and widespread rampant voting discrimination that we face in our country. These cases are not just costly, but they are long and protracted and can take several years to bring to final resolution, meaning that voters on the ground are literally experiencing and living the effects of having a discriminatory law, a practice on the books in their community each and every single day. I started off my career in the justice department, enforcing the Voting Rights act. Section five was a part of that work. It is a preemptive strike to discrimination. It means that officials in texas and georgia and all the places that weve been talking about today would never have been allowed to put these discriminatory tactics on the books if we had section five in place. I think the work that this committee is doing is critical to the fate of american democracy, and i hope it yields to a place where we can have section five restored and its prophylactic protections back on the books. Mr. Ross . Sure, so just to follow up on what ms. Clark said, one of the things that have been found is that Voting Rights cases take up the six most judicial resources in terms of cases. So its not only money and time of the parties who are litigating it but also the federal courts. One of the reports that i cite in my written testimony that ldf created shows not only the cost for the plaintiffs but also the cost for these jurisdictions to litigate section two cases and then lose them. This is a cost to taxpayers, to both black and white voters for these discriminatory changes and jurisdictions being, for lack of a better word, hard headed and not recognizing they have violated federal law. Also, it will take, as i said in my testimony, somewhere between three and five years for these litigations to obviously be resolved, and for states like alabama and texas and other places that enact discriminatory photo i. D. Laws or other barriers that affect hundreds of thousands of voters, these people have to wait years and years for any kind of relief to finally happen. Its important that we think about the cost of not having section five, of nothing having an administrative process thats less costly, less burdensome, and protects voters beforehand. If you want to respond to that, ill let you, but i did want to ask you if the loss of a proactive federal protections has made it more difficult to track changes to voting laws that could have discriminatory impact and how we categorize and track them in the future, but if you also want to chime in on the cost for section two. Sure. Thank you for those questions. Section two cases are quite expensive. I detailed in written testimony to the Judiciary Committee earlier this year one case in North Carolina, which cost i think around 5 million to litigate over a threeyear period. That testimony also described ten aclu section two cases, which were ultimately successful in the sense that we either got a ruling in our favor or a settlement for our clients. While those cases were pending, a total of 350 local, state, and federal officials were elected under laws that were later determined to be discriminatory. So weve lost a lot without the preclearance regime in place. I think about half of successful section two cases nationally since Shelby County were brought at the local level were changes to voting laws are much more difficult to keep track of and i think underscores precisely what weve lost. Thank you so much. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you. Let me just wrap up. Im from ohio, which you know, which i do believe should be a preclearance state. For the last four or five elections, actually, the rules have changed every single election. Either the number of days that are allowed for early vote, what you need to bring to vote. I live in a county of more than a Million People. We have one early voting site, one. So the state would say we want uniformity. We want all 88 counties to be exactly the same. But we have counties that have 5,000 people, and we have counties that have over a Million People. Uniformity is not really fairness or equity. So i think ohio should be in that number. I also think that as we sit here as members, we have to have a desire to do the right thing. In ohio for the first time, weve been able to work with our secretary of state, who by the way is a republican, because he believes that everyone should have the right to vote. So instead of purging 230,000 people, which is what he thought he was required to do, he decided were going to crosscheck with the dmv. Were going to let the legal women voters look at the list. Were going to let the naacp look at the list. Within weeks, automatically 40,000 had been removed from that number. And the number continues to grow. So it can be done if we want to do the right thing. And i would just ask my colleagues that the next time we open up a congress and start to read the constitution, lets just be clear thats something we want to follow. When we disenfranchise people who have paid their debt to society, weve violated the constitution. It says every citizen, every american. We dont take away your citizenship when we incarcerate you, especially when you have paid your debt. So i want to thank you all for the work that you do. We need more people doing this kind of work and raising awareness of what is happening in our communities because there are many people like some of my colleagues who do not believe that anything is wrong with our system. They believe its okay to have these strict voter i. D. Laws. I would suggest to them when they come up with examples like, well, you know, you have to have a certain i. D. To get on a plane or you have to have one to get a movie. Those are not rights. Voting is a right. So we a right. Voting is a right. We need to be encouraging people to vote and not try to discourage them. I thank you so much for your testimony today, and i just appreciate your being here. Thank you so much. And we would our next panel. We will call our next panel. Thank you very, very much. Thank you very much. Weve got a lot going on this morning so people are all over the place. The Ranking Member has an ag hearing. The chairwoman has a science hearing. Im actually supposed to be at another one, as well. So people will come and go. Forgive us for that. Welcome. Lets see what weve got today. For our second panel, we have katherine layman is the chair of the u. S. Commission on civil rights. President obama appointed mislayman to a sixyear term on the commission on december 16, 2016, and the commission unanimously confirmed the designation of mislayman to chair the commission on december 28, 2016. Mislayman also serves on the cabinet of California Governor Gavin Newsom where shes been Legal Affairs secretary since january 2019, and has served as an assistant secretary for civil rights at the u. S. Department of education until 2017. Welcome. Michael waldman is at nyu school of law, a nonpartisan institute that focuses on democracy and justice. The Brennan Center is a leading National Voice on Voting Rights, money and politics, criminal Justice Reform and constitutional law. Mr. Waldman, a constitutional lawyer and writer who is an expert on the presidency and american democracy, has led the center since 2005. Mr. Waldman was director of speech writing for president bill clinton from 1995 through 1999, serving as an assistant to the president. Welcome, sir. Brenda wright is the Senior Adviser for the legal strategies at d most. Miss wright has led many progressive and legal policy initiatives with Campaign Finance reform and redistricting with democracy and Electoral Reform issues and is a nationally known expert in these areas. Miss wright has argued two cases before the Supreme Court on Campaign Finance and Voting Rights and has written extensively on democracy and Voting Rights issues. Welcome. Miss nunez okay. Elena nunez serves as director of state operations and ballot measure strategies at common cause. Miss nunes joined common cause in 2006, managing a successful drive to win voter approval for the states ethics laws which limits the influence of lobbying money and state politics. She previously was Campaign Manager for amendment 27, common cause a statewide finance reform initiative. I thank you all and the same will apply. You will all be recognized for five minutes. The light will turn green when you begin and it will turn yellow when you have one minute yet and red when it is time for you to wrap up. You are recognized for five minutes. Thank you. Chair fudge, Ranking Member davis, members, thank you very much for inviting me to testify this morning. I chair the United States commission on civil rights, and i come before you today to speak about the commissions comment work, evaluating voter access and Voting Rights as described in our report released in september 2018 tighted tled an assessment of Voting Rights. Research and investigations and memoranda from 13 of the commissions, the state Advisory Committees who analyze voting discrimination in alabama, alaska, arizona, california, illinois, indiana, kansas, louisiana, maine, new hampshire, ohio, rhode island and texas. This report documents Current Conditions evidencing ongoing discrimination in voting. On every measure the commission evaluated, the information the commission received underscores the discrimination in voting persists. Our report found that the time we issued the report at least 23 states have enacted newly restrictive statewide voter laws since the Shelby County decision in 2013. These statewide voter laws range from strict voter identification laws to Voter Registration barriers such as requiring documentary proof of citizenship and allowing challenges of voters on the roles and unfairly purging voters from roles, to cut, to early voting to moving and eliminating polling places. The proposalses are bleak, leading to unanimous Commission Findings that, for example, join the time period studied race discrimination in voting endures today. Likewise, voter access issues and voter discrimination continue today for voters with disab disabilities and englishproficient voters. In the absence of the preclearance provisions of section 5 of the Voting Rights act, voters in jurisdictions with hong long histories of discrimination histories faced measures that could not be stopped prior to elections because of the cost, complexiticomplexity of the statutory tools. As a result, the Commission Recommends that congress should amend to restore or expand protections against voter discrimination that are more streamlined an the provision of the act. This new coverage provision should take into account the reality that one voting discrimination tends to recur in certain parts of the country and, two, voting discrimination may arise in jurisdictions that did not have extensive histories of discrimination. Her testimony in voters and experts on several states i will focus my attention on the Advisory Committees found in other states. Here are some examples of what voters experienced raising concerns based on race and disability status. With respect to strict voter identification laws in kansas, our Advisory Committee received testimony from a native American Voter who reported being denied the right of her tribal i. D. As acceptable identification even though tribal i. D. Is acceptable under state law. She testified that she was so flustered when denied that right, she did not ask for a provisional ballot and did not vet that day. Our committee found, quote, certain racial and ethnic minorities may be disproportionately susceptible to a false hit in crosscheck which is a program widely used to identify voters who may be registered in more than one state. With respect to scarce and difficult access polling places, our louisiana Advisory Committee received testimony that demonstrated that the racial makeup of an area is a predictor of a number of polling locations in the area and that there are fewer polling provisions in the area if it has more black residents. In one notable instance in alaska, a polling place was moved away from a village and native alaskan voters could only access their polling place by plane. With respect with polling locations for voters with disablts. In new hampshire, 100 of voters with disabilities were unable to vote privately and independently in municipal elections in 2013 because none of the polling places had set up an accessible Voting System. With respect to voter intimidation, an illinois or county clerk reported that in illinois, Police Officers have harassed voters and asked people for voting permits which dont exist and testified that before 60 and 70 offduty chicago Police Officers were at the polls with residents who were predominantly latino and it took between four and five officers to clear Police Officers from the polling place. These distressing data and information regarding ongoing voter discrimination to improve our voting protection to ensure that ours is a real democracy. On this difficult day of congressman Elijah Cummings passing i want to remind us all about about what he said about voting. On my mothers dying bed, her last words was do not let them take our vote away from us. She had fought and seen people harmed, beaten trying to vote. Talk about inalienable rights. Voting is crucial and i dont give a damn how you look at it. There are efforts to stop people from voting. Thats not right. This is not russia. This is the United States of america. Rest in peace, congressman cummings. Thank you very much. Miss wright, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, chairwoman fudge and Ranking Member davis for the opportunity to testify today. Its a privilege to be testifying before this subcommittee at a time when it is doing such important work at this critical moment in our democracy, and i believe its fitting in these times to start out with a big picture reflection on the history of the right to vote in america because of the light it sheds on what is needed to make that right real given the threats it is facing today. One starting point to notice is when people recount the story of the evolution of the right to vote in the United States you often hear a narrative of how it has enjoyed just a stead expansion from exclusion to inclusion since our nations founding. So the narrative starts how the right to vote initially was reserved only to white men who owned property and then it went on to include formerly enslavement of the 14th amendment and the 19th amendment that gave women the right to vote and it gained crucial protections with Racial Discrimination and the 26th amendment, et cetera. And so the narrative that you hear suggests that here we are, weve finally reached the point where everyone can register and vote. Now all of those advances have been critically important, and im not dismissive of them at all, but i think that the work that this committee has done over the past many months shows us that that is not a correct picture of our history. Instead, as many advocates have lifted up the right to vote in america has always been contested. It has achieved gains and it has suffered setbacks. Progress has been met with pushback and each generation has had to fight and struggle to achieve or expand or defend the right to vote. Each generation has had to do that in its own way and under its own circumstances. Now, that leads us to today. As weve already heard through the Witnesses Today and as you have heard in your previous hearings, the right to vote today is under attack, and it is under attack in numerous ways, and to avoid repeating what has already been said i would like to focus on an issue ever enforcement of an existing law that we do have which has been seriously neglected by the Current Department of justice and that is the Voter Registration act of 1993. That act requires states to provide Voter Registration through public assistance agencies when people are applying for benefits and it requires states to provide Voter Registration when people engage in drivers license transactions. Dmos has spent a number of years now investigating the extent to which states are complying with those laws, and we have found in state after state that through neglect, through bad administration, those opportunities for Voter Registration have often been neglected. We have worked in over 20 states and they are red states and blue states. Its not just concentrated in one region of the country. One of our first cases was in ohio, and we have worked over the years to work cooperatively with the states and litigate against them to raise the level of compliance with those very important Voter Registration opportunities. One of the things that really concerns us is that under the Current Department of justice there have been no Enforcement Actions to enforce either section 5 or section 7 of the of the national Voter Registration act and thats a big thats a big problem. We cant cover the entire country on our own. I want to also focus on one group of u. S. Citizens that remain locked out of the vote at some point of their lives across the entire United States and that is people with felony convictions. This is a stain on our democracy and it formally disenfranchises 5 million americans that are denied the right to vote because of criminal convictions and because the system disproportionately targets arrests and sentences and locks up people of color. Communities of color are represented among disenfranchised americans far beyond the representation of the population. For example, a National Survey on drug use reported that africanamericans and whites used drugs at similar rates and the rates for africanamericans for drug charges are six times that of whites. So to achieve the goal of full enfranchisement central to democracy we must reform the current laws that disenfranchised persons with felony convictions and such laws are not required by the u. S. Constitution and theyve not been the law forever. In fath, in maine, vermont and most of europe, all people who are incarcerated can vote. There is simply nothing inevitable vote stripping and certainly the practice in some states permanently disenfranchising people even years after theyve completed their sentences is indefensible. I want to just touch on one other issue in the time remaining because the issue of criminal disenfranchisement is compounded by the prisonbased gerrymandering. Prisonbased gerrymandering because the United States census counts them as members of the prison where they are incarcerated rather than the residents of their home and because prisons are located far away from the Home Community of incarcerated person, counting them in that matter awards disproportionate representation to rural or semirural communities containing prisons at the expense of representation for the incarcerated persons. Thank you very much. Thank you for allowing me to testify here. Mr. Waldman, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, madam chair, and members thank you, madam chair and members of the committee for this important hearing for these important series of hearings. The thing we all share and the premise that we all share is the vote is the heart of the american democracy. It is sacred and as we know, we have had to fight for this right for over two century, to expand it, to make it real, to ensure that it is something that all americans can truly share. We are now one year out from this very pivotal election and its plain that the systems of democracy and electoral system is under tremendous stress at this moment. As has been described, 25 states in the last decade have enacted new laws to make it harder to vote for the First Time Since the jim crow era, and those laws have hit hardest communities of color, young people, old people, poor people. Voter suppression, unfortunately, remains real and remains a threat to our ideals and so the question for all of us and for this committee and this congress is what can we do to ensure that the 2020 election will be free and fair and secure and Going Forward, what can we do to modernize and improve our election systems so that they truly represent all americans. Our belief strongly is the best way to attack democrat see is to strpthen democracy. Weve looked at the landscape of the current election. I want to identify three particular challenge e three particular threats among many to be concerned about. The first is the prospect of abusive voter purges. Weve heard some things about that today. We all care about having accurate and complete voter roles. 17 Million People were removed from the voter roles over the last twoyear period we studied, and the rate of purging was far higher in the states that had previously been covered by section 5 of the Voting Rights act than in the rest of the country and that has remained true over two election cycles. That is a concerning and a frankly, suspicious fact that should make us be troubled that these removals are not merely a hygiene, but something more pernicious than that. The second concern that you have is election security, something members of both parties worked on this year. We all know that in 2016 russia attacked our democracy as director coats testified the lights are blinking red for not only russia, but other potential hostile actors trying to take advantage of the holes and risks in our system. There has been progress. In 2016, 20 of people voted on machines without paperbackup records. By 2020 there is a good chance that in at least the hotly contested states in the president ial election that number could be down to zero, but more must be done. And the third considerable threat that i want to point to is following like my colleague has said, the denial of the right to vote to many, many people especially in the state of florida who have had their right to vote restored by amendment 4 to the florida constitution which passed in a strong bipartisan vote with 64 of the vote and is now being we would argue, attempted to be gutted by the Florida Legislature. And there is legislation and litigation to redress that that we are a part of. Going forward, what reforms would make a big difference . First of all, we agree that its vital to restore, reauthorize and modernize the Voting Rights act so that it can fully and once again protect the Voting Rights of all americans and those who face Racial Discrimination. Second, we strongly support hr1 which is the most significant and sweeping democracy reform legislation since 1965. That would include automatic Voter Registration which has been described as a transfo transformative reform which would add tens of millions to the roles and make it more secure and finally election security. We applaud the house of represent i was for its recent move to authorize 600 million to help states meet this threat. Were encouraged that the senate seems to be coming along at a lower level. We encourage the house to stand firm in congress and negotiations both with the proper amount of funding and also to make sure that the money is used for the purpose its designed for. Bottom line on all of this is the public really cares about this. Theres great hunger for this. In the 2014 election, it was the lowest voter turnout in 72 years and in the last Midterm Election last year it was the highest voter turnout since 1914. Ballot measures passed all over the country for democracy reform. Its a Democracy Movement from all over the country, all political views. The people are out there and we encourage congress to continue to play your role in making this a reality for our country. Thank you. Thank you. Miss nunez, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, chairwoman fudge for inviting me to testify before the house elections subcommittee today. Excuse me. Thank you to chairwoman fudge, Ranking Member davis and all members of the committee for holding this critically important hearing. My name is elena nunes. We are a national nonpartisan Watchdog Organization with 1. 2 million supporters and 30 state organizations throughout the country. For nearly 50 years, common cause has been Holding Power accountable through lobbying, litigation and grass the roots organizing. We fight to reduce the influence of big money and politics, enhance Voting Rights for all eligible americans and strengthen ethics laws to make government more responsive and stop gerrymandering. We were founded by republican john gardner at a time when republicans and democrats came together to work on the pressing issues of the day. During the 1970s, common cause worked with many members of congress. Democrats and republicans alike to help pass major democracy reforms that sought to correct some of the most egregious abuses of power including the federal Election Campaign act and the ethics in government act. Similarly, each of the five times the Voting Rights act has been reauthorized it had strong bipartisan support before being signed into law by the republican president. However, as youve heard from many of the Witnesses Today in the aftermath of the Supreme Courts Shelby County decision, Voting Rights have become an increasingly politicized issue. Youve heard about many of the attacks on the right to vote by polling place closures and restrictive forms of voter i. D. And ill focus my testimony on some of the more subtle forms of Voter Suppression that can keep people from being able to participate. One tactic that we are seeing in increasing numbers is the placement of polling sites at Police Stationers on having a Law Enforcement presence at other polling sites which can have a chilling impact on voters. In 2016, macon, george a Election Officials tried to move a voting precinct to a Police Station in a largely Africanamerican Community and throughout country in advance of the 2016 and 2018 elections, rumors circulated online and via flyers that immigration and Customs Enforcement would be patrolling voter locations. We are also seeing a growing trend of Voter Suppression through misinformation. Voters may be given misinformation about registration requirements, polling locations or ballot deadlines. In 2016, automatic automated social media accounts likely connected to the Internet Research agency, some of which were targeting africanamerican and latino voters, falsely claimed that voters could vote from home for hillary clinton. Increasingly, Election Administration practices among signature processes are a growing concern for suppression. It can significantly affect voters with disability, women who get married or divorced and seniors who have english as a second language. It can lead to bias by Election Officials, mostly those who are not hand writhe experts and theyre not uniform standards and theyre not adequate provisions to cure a signature if there is a question. In florida in 2018, most of the roughly 10,000 votes not counted because of voter error were thrown out because of signature mismatches. One study found that young voters and voerts of color were more likely to have their ballots rejected and they were less likely to cure those problems. We believe that voters were best able to participate when they have Convenient Options to cast their ballots. Efforts to reduce options by reducing early voting is another form of suppression that weve seen in iowa, wisconsin among other states. In North Carolina in 2013 the legislature cut a week of early voting, a move that was overturned by a court because the change targeted africanamericans with, quote, surgical precision. In addition to reducing the number of days of early vote, were seeing a trend towards eliminating or reducing options during evenings and weekends, times that are often most convenient for working people. These have a disproportionately impact, as they tend to use early voting more than white voters do. While long lines is a sign of high voter interest. It could be an indication of Voter Suppression when the lines are an inevitable result of poor planning and inadequate resource. Machine failures due to aging equipment and delays due to poor voter roles can create backups that have a ripple effect. The u. S. Has not made election day a National Holiday or mandated paid time off to work so many eligible voters cannot take unpaid leave to leave for work for multiple hours to cast a ballot. They can starve localities for resources so the actual inperson voting process takes longer than the americans are able to spend. Our goal should be a system where all eligible voters can cast ballots without barriers and have confidence that their votes are countsed accurately. Many states through ballot measures and efforts are fighting Voter Suppression and expanding voter access. To make sure that voters throughout the country could have quality access, federal action is needed by adopting the for the shield act and voter intimidation prevention act. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today and i look forward to answering your questions. Thank you very much. Thank you all. We will now begin with our questioning, and i will recognize mr. Aguilar for five minutes. Thank you, madam chair. Mislayman, ill start with you, but also, as a californian up here, thank you for your service and the Legal Affairs secretary is no small position in california. So ill be sure to talk to you about San Bernardino county and any judicial vacancies on another platform. I look forward to that conversation. This is for the entire panel. In this chamber, even just yesterday the Ranking Member talked extensively about ballot harvesting and so mislayman, can you talk about, and the barriers that individuals have and specifically the kind of robust, and the vote by mail system that we see, but this is becoming hyperpolitical, and some of my colleagues across the aisle are conflating voter fraud with legitimate exercising of our electoral process and theyve blamed losses, congressional losses on this, basically telling folks that thousands of ballots just kind of show up. The inference being that individuals are just grabbing other peoples ballots. You know, i mean, its just becoming hyperpolitical. So can you talk a little bit about ballot harvesting and is there evidence, was there testimony given to you in your commission supporting claims of widespread voter fraud that a lot of my colleagues have used to pass increased Voter Suppression laws . Not only was there no evidence given to the commission about widespread voter fraud. The data and the research that is bipartisan reflect that voter fraud is rare in this country. So the concerns about that type of vote misuse both have existing criminal penalties in the Voting Rights act for voting twice, and state and federal penalties for the kinds of voter fraud that already exists and so it is dupe lilicative and harmf for the voter iment d. Requirements in the name of combatting voter fraud and also the existence of voter fraud, as i mentioned, essentially does not exist and the testimony that both we and the commission received and the state advisory received across the many states that investigated this question just dont find the existence of voter fraud at all. And that extends, as bipartisan research and the committee. A number of conservative leaning and nonpartisan organizations have researched this question and persistently find that voter fraud does not exist in the country. Any others on the panel . Miss nunez and mr. Waldman . Thank you. I think one thing thats important to keep in mind when we talk about ballot harvesting as its known, the system votes when we give voters options to cast ballots and that is for options for how we return them. In terms of best practices you want to give voters options and that may mean giving their ballot to another person. I think, specifically, though, there is good input from the native American Rights Fund specifically about how for native voters being able to have someone else return their ballot for them is critically important, and theres a whole set of factors as to why thats the case having to do with the distance from polling locations for voters who are living on a native reservation, but the upshot is that if we dont allow voters to choose how to return their ballots theyre not taking advantage of the expanded access with the mail ballot. The definition of family in native American Culture might be very different than precisely. Than we might know. Mr. Waldman . First, in terms of the broad claim, the illusory claim of widespread voter fraud, the inperson voter impersonation you are more likely to be struck by lightning than to commit voter fraud in the United States, and that is just an established fact. The real issue here is we want to make it easier for people to vote. One out of three americans votes before election day and this is a matter of consumer choice. People need this kind of convenience. It is already illegal everywhere to fill out an absentee ballot for someone, and we have seen where there have been problems that that has been whats been going on. Thats Election Fraud and thats illegal already. Its done to voters and not by voters. Yeah. Theres no evidence that people helping collect ballots has caused improp are prop from righty and we need to deal with recs rather thaeng things are real maybe just, a lot has done when combatting voter fraud and one of the best examples are the indiana voter i. D. Law that was put into place was a group of dozen nuns who reside at a content who showed up at the polls, the place they voted. They didnt have drivers licenses. They didnt have passports and they had to be turned away even though the poll worker was one of the nuns and lived with them and knew each one personally, but they didnt have the right i. D. So they couldnt vote. We should avoid doing harm in the name of protecting against nonexistent voter fraud. Thank you, ms. Wright. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you. Ranking member davis, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you. And i appreciate the discussion on ballot harvesting. We had an interesting discussion yesterday on ballot harvesting. I find it odd that we have a state where its still illegal. Somebody going to jail. We had a special election. I have chain of custody concern, and i think all of us, we want to make sure that every ballot is cast and every ballot is counted correctly. We ought to all be concerned about chain of custody issues and the process can easily be manipulated and thats what we saw in North Carolina and frankly, until it was legal in california, somebody there may have gone to jail for the same thing. We may actually have been able to investigate whether it existed better. I havent seen it, but call my team call over, and i would love to get with you after ward and kru all for your testimony. We all want to show that the process are in place to give every citizen in this country who is eligible to vote to cast that ballot. Im from illinois, there are provisions im supportive of. Sameday registration ask thnd allows folks in my area to have the opportunity to cast that vote, but we also cant take away what weve seen happening. Mr. Waldman said in his opening testimony, we saw tremendous increase in midterm voting in 2018. Great great lets not sidestep that success. Lets build on it and Work Together and say this is great. Its working. Ms. Wright, you mentioned welcome back to you. I have a couple of questions real quick for ms. Layman. Ms. Layman, i dont have native american tribes in my district and i know you mentioned them in your opening statement. From your knowledge, how many nate of american tribes are there in the United States . I dont have that number in the United States, its not a small number. Youve heard about their difficulties in casting votes and what has the overall trend been for native american turnout across the country over the past few election cycles . It continues to fall below the 50 threshold that was the basis voting right act in the first place and very, very serious concerns in particular for native American Voters. So they did not follow the same trend from 2014 to 2018 in the midterms. They may have been up, but its well below the 50 threshold. The concern is that nate of americans in this country continue to have very, very difficult challenge for voting and their polling places have been reduced and theyre not always accepted and even though they ought to be accepted and there are considerations to vote by mail. I was at one of the field hearings in north dakota and star rock reservation, and great a process that we dont have, and you walk in proving you have an address, that is singular in the United States. All of a sudden, even no registration, they were allowing the nativeamerican tribal leaders as someone to go in there to vote upon youre saying we still a lot. I heard that north dakota the turnout was substantially higher. There was improvement. It ought to be celebrated and my only point is that it is below 50 and thats a very serious concern. We ought to be celebrating increased turnout wherever it exists and we also ought to be recognizing that across the board in this country we have very, very low turnaround for voters and that is in and of itself a concern. Okay. Well, then what other processes would you recommend to increase voter turnout in native american areas and other areas . Certainly in native american areas we want to make certain that there are polling places that people have including native languages including how to vote and that alaska, state advisory for the commission heard astonishing testimony about failure of translated materials and failure of people available to newer technology, and 21st Century Technology would be helpful. It would be helpful and there are particular challenges in places where there are 23 different languages and the materials need to be translated. I apologize. I do have one more question for ms. Wright, and i want to get to you. You mentioned the prison and census accounts, and how they unfairly give an advantage to rural areas where the prisoners are counted and it may adversely affect the home areas of those prisoners. Were you assuming that most would come from more urban areas . No. The vote dilution comes in when population is counted as if it were as if it had been in prison. The population is counted and the census, the data is used instead of in their Home Communities. Okay. Would that same application be valid for colleges and universities . Rural student goes to urban areas. Does that unfairly punish rural areas. In colleges and universities students do have the right to register and vote in those communities if they they didnt commit a crime that put them in prison. Yes, but the point is when you look at when you look at the logic of how this system works, take maine and vermont, for example. When incarcerated people in maine and vermont cast their ballots they dont cast them in the prison community. They cast them absentee from their Home Communities and yet the Census Bureau is counting them as residents of the prison and that just doesnt match up and it creates all kinds of inequities. I appreciate your logic and i just dont necessarily know if i agree with it. Thank you for your time and thank you all. Thank you very much. Let me just say a few things as we were talking about native americans. First up, its illegal to hold them to state standards and they should only be held to the standards that the federal have and not the states, thats number one. In 2018 their numbers were up because the tribal leaders had to go and get new i. D. S for all of the people on their particular reservations. When you look at the fact that on some reservations in this country, the Unemployment Rate is above 60 . They were not going go and buy i. D. S. They would not have voted had not resource come from either the tribal leaders or others in their community to help them get a new i. D. , an i. D. They had to put an address. Theyve never had an address in all these years. They used post office boxes and all of a sudden well make it more difficult because now they have to have an actual address so they can vote. Why is it that they dont want us to vote . Can somebody answer that question for me . Just answer it. Anybody. Why are they making this difficult . Why do we not have bipartisan support anymore . Just somebody help me figure it out. Is it because of the way i look or please. Madam chair, you insinuating that i dont want you to vote . First, let me say im asking the question of the panel, and secondly, im not asking anything. Im just asking the question, why has it become so difficult for people of color, native americans and young people. You want to equate people in prison to kids in college. That is insane. Actually, im reclaiming my time. The gentle lady im reclaiming my time. I will not yield. The question is for the panel. The increases in impediments to vote are distressing and the reasons can be many, but the reality is that the right to vote is a corecomm bonent of democracy and we as a country should do better, can be better than we are right now in terms of placing those impediments. What is the purpose of those impediments, thats what im talking about. What is it in someones psyche that believes that all of a sudden in the last ten or 20 years that voting has gone so off the rails that we have to do something that weve done for hundreds of years. There was no problem before. Why is there a problem now . I just dont understand it. Mr. Walden . I think when you look at the whole history of the country it has, unfortunately, but inevitably required a fight to expand and maintain the right to vote and the right to participate. As the country is changing demographically, once again, were seeing a backlash and were seeing laws enacted that make it harder for communities of color and immigrant communities and others to vote. Happily and fortunately, in the past and in many ways, even now there is still bipartisan and leftright support for these things. The last time the Voting Rights act was before this congress it passed the senate 980. So many of these measures were describing as significant reforms have been enacted with bipartisan support. In the state of illinois, it passed unanimously and was signed into law by governor rauner, a republican governor of illinois. In florida, a massive bipartisan majority voted to restore the right to vote to 1. 4 million florida residents who had their right denied because of a past felony conviction which is a direct run of the jim crow era. So it is still deep in the soul of the country a belief in the right to vote and we all encourage all of you and all of us to work to modernize the system so some of these fights can be in the past and not in the present. I guess im just trying to make the fact that it seems to have taken on a life of its own. Nobody knows where it started and nobody knows why it started. Weve known voting has been an issue in this country for a very, very long time, but i will say this. I can trace my family at least six generations in this country. Im as american as anybody in this room. I do not believe that people like me who have helped build this nation, who have never committed who have never done anything to hurt this country should be made to go through all kinds of hoops to do what the constitution gives us a right to do. All of these people who say they believe in the constitution, they cant possibly because it says that we all have a right, an unfettered, and unabridged right to vote. It didnt say you have to have a certain kind of idea and it didnt say if youve been to prison you cant vote. To put roadblocks in a way i cant figure it out and you cant figure it out and its like this life of its own, but i would suggest to you this, that the more that we try to erode the rights of people in this country, its not going to stop at voting. Its going to get worse and we are patriots and believe in what the constitution says and believe in this great nation that we need make it easier to vote. We want to talk about every other country and what they dont do. I bet you any other democracy in this world doesnt do what we do. We should make it a holiday. We should mackke a vote on saturday, maybe, we should give people to vote, but no. We vote on an agrarian calendar that doesnt make sense today. Tell me what you want us to do to make it easier for people to vote in this country. I certainly believe automatic Voter Registration is enormously helpful in allowing people to be able to vote on the day of an election would be extraordinarily helpful. I agree. If we continue to count prisoners where they are, when they leave and come home the resources that come from the census count will stay in the places where they no longer are and the people who have to take care of them whether it be through Second Chance and whether it be through some other kind of diversion programs, whatever it may be, that we dont have the resources in our community. Your one point . There are so many things that need to be done and it is very hard to pick one. Its certainly vital to restore some version of the preclearance provision of the Voting Rights act that were struck down in 2013 because that really did unleash the floodgates as weve seen, and that has been an enormous weakening of the right to vote. Mr. Walden . In addition to whats been mentioned, a national guarantee of effective, early voting and electionday registration to make it possible for as many people in our modern, mobile and overworked age to vote. Miss nunez . All of the above. I think its important to make sure its convenient to both registered and vote. Sameday registration are key to accurate roles and that people can cast ballots whether its early, at home or in a polling location on election day. I thank you all. Did you want to mach a comment, mr. Thank you all very much. I appreciate the opportunity to hear from you. Your suggestions, we look forward to continuing to work with you as this Sub Committee and in turn the House Administration moves forward. I appreciate the discussion on census activities, you know, the discussion the chair and i had here momentarily when i asked her to yield at the time she didnt, thank you for doing it now. Please dont insinuate that my discussion on census activities and fairness in Rural America when it comes to other folks who may be counted in areas that they may not live in permanently and the resources in Rural America are just as important as anywhere else. So thats my discussion and i apologize if i thought you insinuated that there was anything other than that, but my discussion was simply on the census track, and i am glad that were having these hearings to talk about the need to get more folks to vote. Thats what needs to happen, but lets also make sure that every single election, every vote is counted and every vote gets to the ballot box. I yield back. Thank you. Just to be clear, your discussion about College Students that have a choice, people in prison do not. For the Ranking Member to say well, they didnt commit a crime. It had nothing to do with whether they are both counted in the same place or not. It just really did not. Its about fairness when it comes to the census. If theyre going to be counted in one part of the country, if were going to be counted in Rural America for whatever resource purpose there is, the same resources when College Graduates go back to their communities where they live to take advantage of the resources that are offered in workforce investment programs are just as important as resources that we all in a bipartisan way agree to fund in every part of america. Lets mr. Davis, we can those people, many of them vote at home in the first place. As someone who represents forpublic universities i can tell you a lot of them dont. But they have a choice. Ms. Wright with your indulgence, the issue of prison gerrymandering is clearly an injustice, but in terms of the importance of the issues, if i can name one other issue it would simply be the reenfranchisement of people who have lost the right to vote because of criminal conviction. That in itself is the core of the problem and prison gerrymandering is one aspect of it. It is unconstitutional is what it is. Thank you all so very, very much for being here. I thank this panel and we will ask the next panel to please come to the table. Thank you. Good morning, and we want to welcome the third panel. The Ranking Member will have to leave us briefly, but is planning to return. Thank you all so much for being here. Ms. Fried is a collaborative house at the Leadership Conference Education Fund in conjunction with the American Civil Liberties foundation ask the American Constitution Society and the Campaign Legal center and the Lawyers Committee for civil rights under law. Miss freed has run Voter Protection for two president ial campaigns and spent several years in federal Government Services at the department of justice and the Environmental Protection agency. Welcome. I know im not doing this in order, but miss barbara ardwan is national cochair of the National Commission for voter justice. She is also the president and founder of the Transformative Justice Coalition and served as head of the commit for civil rights under law for february of 89 through june of 2015. She is renowned for her contributions for critical justice issues with the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1991 and the 2006 and the provisions of the Voting Rights act. Welcome. Denise lieberman is with advancement power and Democracy Program and senior attorney. She works to identify and remove systemic barriers to voting. A seasonal constitutional and civil rights lawyer, miss lieberman engaging in political analysis and legal advocacy, to advance Electoral Reform includi including spearheading a nationwide effort to combat repressive voting this past year. Welcome. Miss casey, serves as a chief executive officer of the league of women voters of the United States where she is leading the organization through a period of Rapid Transformation and growth focused on building power by engaging in advocacy, legislation, litigation and organizing efforts centered around issues of Voting Rights and democracy reform. Prior to joining the league in 2018 she served as coo of casa, at the immigrant Rights Movement representing nearly 100,000 members. As you know, you will see a lighting system in front of you. When you begin, the light will turn green. When you have one minute left you will see the yellow light and when you see the red light please prepare to wrap up. Miss fried, you are recognized for five minutes. Chairperson fudge, i am hannah fried, a Collaborative Campaign of the Leadership Conference Education Fund. We fight to eliminate discriminatory barriers to voting before they happen. Since 2018, we worked in arizona, florida, ohio, pennsylvania and wisconsin. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. Our election system is broken. In 2016, problems at the polls prevented voters. In the past two Decades Congress has recognized the need for strong, federal protections for the right to vote passing the help america vote act in 2002 and reauthorizingreauthorizing rights act in 2006. Both passed with strong bipartisan support and a robust record. In 2018 five Supreme Court justices gutted the critical protections of the Voting Rights act. Since the shelby case, states and localities across the country have erected barriers to voting without critical safeguards. Federal protections for voting are as vital today as they have been for the past century. The 2018 elections were lauded for record turnout but eligible americans voted at a rate of less than 50 . State officials purged voters from the rolls sometimes simply for not voting. From 2010 to 2018 georgia secretary of state now Governor Brian Kemp purged more than 1. 4 million voters. Some states are more committed to purges than to ensuring an accurate list maintenance process. In 2018 georgias exact match law put into question the administrati registration status of 50,000 voters. Just recently ohio secretary of state admitted their purge system was rife with errors. Many voters will be purged this year under this flawed system. In 2018 voters faced large scale polling place charges. In former section five states there were 1,173 fewer polling places in 2018 than in 2014 despite last novembers record turnout. Mare c mar our campaigns analysis of 717 former section five counties found that voters in those places are more likely to be asked to count a provisional ballot. They are less likely to be counted than a regular ballot. Their overuse is the canary in the colal mine. In pennsylvania voters in philadelphia county, 41 africanamerican, are five times as likely to get a provisional ballot than voters in allegheny 12 black or burkes 4 black. At hbcus voters were twice as likely to have their ballots rejected. Florida a and m university was the only major public campus without an early vote site. In 2018 voters of color were more likely to have problems voting by mail. Voters in mostly White Communities are less likely to have their mailin ballots rejected than voters in communities of color. In arizona just 1 of native American Voters are on the states permanent early voting list. In 2018 strict photo id laws targeted africanAmerican Voters with almost surgical precision as the Fourth Circuit in 2016 wrote of North Carolinas law. Last fall our campaign helped hundreds of voters through the arduous process of complying with that states strict photo id law. Election Administration Practices can and should be used to expand access to the ballot for all eligible americans. Too often they instead become a barrier to voting, disenfranchising millions of eligible americans, particularly voters of color. Any wrongfully disenfranchised voter is one too many. Congress must restore safeguards to the right to vote ensuring that every eligible american can make their voice heard. Thank you. Thank you very much. Ms. Case, please. Five minutes. Chairman fudge, Ranking Member davis and members of the subcommittee, my name is virginia case and i serve as the chief executive officer at the league of women voters of the United States. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on this issue of paramount importance to our organization. The league of women voters is nonpartisan, founded nearly 100 years ago in 1920 by women who understand the importance of securing Voting Rights for women. The league is active in all 50 states as well as the district of columbia with 746 local affiliates in every Congressional District in our country. In 1965 the Voting Rights act outlawed Racial Discrimination in voting and established procedures to protect equal access to the vote for everyone. Despite a long history of support, in 2013 the Supreme Court overturned key provisions of the vra. Since that decision, politicians across the country have passed unnecessarily retistrictive legislation and adopted practices that make it harder for them to register and much more difficult to vote. These restrictive legislative initiatives include efforts to implement photo id requirements in states like texas, wisconsin, missouri and pennsylvania. The league pushed back against efforts to roll back early voting hours in ohio and we pushed back against efforts to roll back and eliminate pro voter reforms like same day registration in North Carolina. The shelby decision weakened the Voting Rights act by striking down important preclearance and oversight provisions. These suppressive laws have a major impact on our elections. Excessive long lines in urban areas where minorities reside. Consolidation of polling sites with little or no notice. Reduction in voting hours that limit participation, mass i have vo massive voter purges and inadequate numbers of machines in voting areas that showed a clear influx. These show up in areas with large minority populations in states like florida, michigan, ohio and texas. It was unlikely that this scheme was incidental or unintentional. In effect these suppressive laws shut out millions of the new american majority and denied citizens the protection of their right to vote. With these minority targeted voting barriers road tested, the 116th congress has a momentous opportunity to restore Voting Rights in this country. The opportunity to strengthen the Voting Rights act by creating a new formula that would trigger preclearances of certain changes to certain laws and administrative practices is needed now more than ever. And the creation of a National Notification process that lets all voters know when changes to election processes may occur ensures voters are informed prior to them showing up to the polls on election day. If Congress Fails to act immediately, this will be the first redirecting cycle to occur without a fully functioning Voting Rights act and will allow states to push through unjustifiable changes to their laws that will have a direct impact on voters for a decade. Without continued oversight and safeguards, it is left to organizations like the league of women voters and other nonprofit Voting Rights groups to inform and protect voters of these policies and practices. But that should not be the sole role of the league and our partners. It is the responsibility of government to create and enforce laws to foster an open, transparent government powered by the people for the people, all of the people. It is the duty of government to protect the rights of voters and to encourage participation in our political system not create barriers to participation. The league looks forward to working across the aisle to determine the consensus. We look forward to working with leaders to ensure voters have the unon instructed ability to have their exercise to vote. Thank you and i look forward to taking questions. Thank you very much. Thank you, chairman. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on this important topic. I want to dedicate my remarks, of course, to the memory of congressman Elijah Cummings. I am here representing the National Commission for voter justice, which was conceived by reverend jesse jackson. Also many will recall that president Donald Trumps manifold assertions post election of pervasive voter fraud and his subsequent creation of the now defunct committee on Election Integrity we wanted to provide a truthful account of the urgent need of protection of our democracy from the insidious threat of the modern era of Voter Suppression. I created the map of shame in pri april of 2011, which was the First National tool to expose and educate the American Public about the rise of contemporary Voter Suppression measures. Since i released the map of shame, there has been a regimen of the ability to have the votes counted for millions of eligible but vulnerable voters. Since its launch in january of 2018, the commission has held a series of hearings compiled over 14 state reports looking at Voting Rights and has engaged in many Voter Education and other efforts. One thing that we heard in 2018 from professor donald jones from the university of miami was that the only proper way to look at this era were in is understanding that when it comes to Voting Rights, america is facing a second civil war. Thats how extreme this period is. This reality of an act of war against the rights of american citizens to have their votes counted is supporting by mounting evidence. When we consider the myriad of Voter Suppression laws passed in the states, the multitude of Voting Rights cases filed in the state and federal courts, the numerous reports documenting actions by the states which have impaired the rights of citizens to vote and have their vote counted and the continuing negative cases from the Supreme Court and the new insidious threat of russian use of social media as documented by the select Senate Commission investigation report. We also have created a new tool and document that is called the 61 forms of Voter Suppression. Let me be very clear that a year ago this was less than 30, that the creativity, the insidiousness, the rapid expansion of Voter Suppression measures is that extreme and its growing. If i were to do this today, i would probably add four more. That just shows you how creative these states are being and how persistent theyre being in pursuing this. Our major findings of our hearings have been already expressed by some of the testimony, but i just want to make clear one point. I mean, there are two really critical things that we need to appreciate today. One is that when shelby versus holder was decided, we were only 18 months into the regimen of modern Voter Suppression. We are now eight years deep into this regimen. And the congress now knows a lot more than the Supreme Court knew back in 2013. So you have substantially more evidence about the impact of the absence of a preclearance mechanism. The second thing i want to make clear is that nothing in the world can substitute for preclearance to prevent Racial Discrimination and that in this era of massive Voter Suppression, that this clumsy and ineffective regiment that exists is not enough. We want to commend the congress, we want to commend you for this hearing. We have things we would like to move into the record. The testimony of reverend jesse jackson. So ordered. Thank you very much. Ms. Lieberman, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, chairman fudge and members of this committee for holding this important hearing today on Voting Rights and Election Administration. My name is denise lieberman. Im the director of power and democracy anded advancement project office, a Racial Justice organization that works with grassroots organizations to develop Community Based solutions inspired by the tactics that produced the earlier landmark civil rights victories. We are proud to stand behind our many partners. On the ground in the states we are fighting battles for Racial Justice and the right to vote. The need is great. We are fated tod efaced with th battle for solvesolvency. The need to secure the vote lies in the lived experiences of the people for whom protection is most needed and the people whose voices are most often silences. At the end of the day the right to vote is about selfdetermination, the right of people to make decisions about their own lives and their own destinies. It is about dignity. Its societys structural mechanism that says you count literally. So when the right to vote is denied or abridged, it says you dont count. So this is a very, very personal matter as much as it is policy, it is legal and we need to understand all of these statistics. It is deeply rooted in the basic Human Dignity of all people. We also know that any remedial actions this body takes are going to need to be justified in legal challenges based on the record of the lived experiences of the people who these measures impact most. Advancement project has been pleased to work in collaboration with other members of the Racial Equity anchor collaborative to support this subcommittees field hearings that youve held over the last eight months documenting the state of Voting Rights in jurisdictions around the country. The anchor collaborative members which included a vancement project, asian and Pacific Islander American Health forum, the naacp, National Conferencen league are all dedicated to advancing a Voting System that is free, fair and accessible to all people regardless of race, ethnicity, ability or language proficiency. In addition to helping identify leaders on the ground to testify at these field hearings, partners embarked on a grassroots effort to liftd up the voices of everyday voters and their experiences. We conduct a series of peoples hearings in select states to gather firsthand accounts of Voter Suppression and through the creation of a website we vote we count where voters across the country can share voting experiences. We held hearings in alabama, North Carolina, ohio, north dakota, south dakota, georgia, florida and texas and heard from voters firsthand. Witnesses there attested to among other things having to wait in long lines to cast ballots, being denied bilingual ballots, having to restore their Administration Status after an illegal purge, undertaking onerous barriers to restoring their Voting Rights after a criminal conviction, having to stand up to last minute changes to polling locations and hours of operation, rampant misinformation and voter intimidation. The reports also capture the impact of voter id laws, cuts to early voting, the increasingly scarce polling places and ever changing locations which present significant burdens for those without easy access to transportation or inflexible work schedules. And the results were clear. Since the loss of federal oversight in the post shelby area, voters of color across the country are confronted with renewed barriers to casting a ballot. Weve documented these reports in a soon to be released report called we vote we count the need for congressional action to secure the right to vote for all citizens which includes teammates from africanamericans, Asian Americans, native hawaiian Pacific Islanders, hispanics and native americans whose firsthand accounts provide a glimpse to t the inner workings and compel this body to take action to restore the preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights act. What we saw around the country is that voters have lost confidence in the wake of the shelby decision in the ability of the department of justice to fairly secure their right to vote. So we know that the shelby decision emboldened attacks on the right to vote around the country, dedesisigned to curtaie voting power of voters of color as they emerge into the new american majority. So we thank you, congresswoman fudge and members of this committee, for holding this hearing. Please heed the words of these voters across the country and take action to secure federal protection for the right to vote. Thank you. Thank you, thank you all so much. Mr. Aguilar, youre recognized for five minutes. Thank you, madam share. Ms. Lieberman ill start with you and we can work our way down. Can you talk to me about some of the most common barriers . Weve taken testimony and gone around the country and seen quite a few. Talk to us about what your research tells you are the barriers that you often find, but also specifically if the panel can talk a little bit about vulnerable and emerging populations and the types of barriers that those constituencies face. Absolutely. What we saw was that voters were reporting difficulties at every step of the process from registering to vote to casting a ballot to having those ballots counted. Weve seen onerous processes for being able to register to vote, particularly onerous processes for people who are attempting to restore their rights to vote either after an illegal purge or after having their rights suspended due to a felony conviction. Last week in louisiana we heard from voters who despite having gone to numerous Government Agencies in the wake of last years passage of act 636 which restored voting for people with felony convictions out five years restored their Voting Rights. The hoops and hurdles from polling place changes to having to drive numerous hours. Witnesses in alabama testified to the close your of over 30 dmv places causing people to have to drive up to four hours. I could go on and on. But these populations are significantly impaired. In north dakota a witness testified to in a county that has a 36 poverty rate the barriers of people having to drive numerous hours just to get all the underlying documents to get the ids in order to vote under that states id law. So what we found is that theyre per vasie pervasive throughout the voting process. We found that the populations we looked at were africanamerican, latinos, native americans, Asian Americans, low income voters, voters with doisabilities, student voters, formerly incarcerated voters, newly naturalized citizens, voters displaced by natural disasters and homeless voters. These are some of the most vulnerable voters and they are really bearing the brunt of Voter Suppression. By our calculation millions of voters have been denied or blocked from voting who come from those categories, not to mention those who are lgbtqia and may have changed their identity name or sexual identity. We found that of the measures, the 61 forms captures a lot of these measures, because thats how many there really are. There are so many more, but most of the ones that youve already heard some of them such as our witnesses talked about targeted poll closures, exact match requirements for registration and for counting absentee ballots, the refusal to place polling sites on student campuses, which is now a big fight again in texas, but that was a huge issue in florida and coming out of our hearing, there was a lawsuit filed that challenged the refusal to put polling places on student campuses in florida for early voting and they won it and they were able to have those polling sites in 2018. We also heard about voter caging, especially in michigan and in many other states, texas, alabama. Voter purging, that was one of our first hearings that we really start realizing up front. By the third hearing, we knew that voter purging was a huge problem in our country. And i still think that realistically the ability to intercept and fight voter purging has been one of the weakest parts of our communitys ability to respond. It is problematic and widespread in many states where theres no activity going onto stop it. Onerous voter id, failure to follow state procedures like we saw in South Carolina where they failed to follow their own procedures as to staffing of polling places, resulting in literally some of the longest lines in, you know, targeted minority neighborhoods. We also saw abuses of provisional balloting, disparate impact between white and people of color jurisdiction with election equipment and staffing, racial gerrymandering, cuts to early voting. Im going to have to cut you off. He asked me. If you want the other two to quickly answer. Yes. Sorry. Thank you. So i will go quickly. Just a few examples in addition to the ones that have been cited. For example, when we see people who have finally become reenfranchised after being incarcerated, there are additional attacks on that by requiring people in florida to pay fines in order to do that. Every single time we overcome these barriers, there are new ones put in place. We had a Supreme Court decision, the league of women voters was part of that case and we now are very concerned that we are going to racial gerrymanderi inin ini disguised as partisan gerrymandering. The league is on duty every election day. We are looking in every Congressional District, seeing what is happening on the ground. We had sixhour lines in georgia because of broken down voter equipment. And we are doing Rapid Response. It should not be the responsibility of Nonprofit Organizations like ours to have to do Rapid Response because the government is not doing what theyre supposed to be doing to enfranchise voters. Senior citizens, rule communities, minorities and youth, all having difficulties accessing ids. Third party voter discrimination like what recently happened in tennessee that we were able to fight back and combat once again. Its just these constant, constant attacks that communities are facing. And organizations like ours are being responsible for addressing these. Thank you. Just by the way, did you know that the director of the league of women voters was on the purge list in ohio . Yes, i did. Weve had many situations like this. One of the oldest Voting Rights organizations in the country. Were not immune. If you want to answer very, very quickly, ill let you. I will. Thank you. What id like to highlight from what my fellow panelists have said is that the problems that American Voters are facing are not singular, theyre stacking. A voter who has a problem getting a voter id has to drive miles to get to their polling place, then theres a line at the voting location. Our solutions in response to them needs to be across the spectrum. There need to be both federal and statutory protections as well as state and administrative protections, laws and practices that expand access to the ballot particularly in communities of color. Thank you. Let me just for a moment just pretend that im Justice Roberts and id just like you to make the case as to why we should fully reinstate the Voting Rights act and what you think the preclearance formula should look like if you have any idea. Between 2013 and 2018, there were almost 1700 polling places that closed in former section 5 jurisdictions. The Leadership Conference released just earlier this fall a report discussing these changes. 75 of those happened between 2014 and 2018 despite the increase in turnout in 2018. Voter suppression is pervasive. Voters in this country face extraordinary barriers to the ballot. The ability to vote, the ability particularly of communities of color to vote is frankly miraculous in light of the barriers they face. This is especially true in former section 5 areas, poll closures, voter id laws, a lack of access to early vote, particularly in communities of color, restrictive hours of early vote, these problems are widespread and they are pervasive and we arent seeing the kinds of improvements to them that we need to be. What preclearance allowed us to do was to understand not only that changes are happening, but the impact that they have. Without preclearance, we cant understand fully the impact on communities of color of these changes. Its absolutely vital that preclearance be restored. Thank you. Ms. Case. If you were Justice Roberts, i would say that we have three bodies of government for a reason and that the Supreme Courts job is to serve as a representative of the American People. And when we see peoples rights being violated time and time again in the most fundamental right that we have as citizens of this country is our right to vote, to have our voice heard, that the Supreme Court has a responsibility to protect that right so that every citizen is considered equal. We talk about equal under law. We should be equal in the ballot box. It means removing barriers for each citizen to exercise that right. I would say there are already remedies that you all have in place that have been proposed. One of the ones we really are in favor of is the formula under representative sewell. Voting violations of the 14th or 15th violations, you have all of this information yourself so i dont want to waste too many peoples time because there is too much to read. But the formula is here and we support these formulas. We think Congress Must act now because we are coming into very serious election this is coming year. Id ask you this question. Most of what you are talking about really goes back to the original 14 or so jurisdictions. What about states like ohio that was not covered under preclearance . What about states like pennsylvania and wisconsin . One of the things that the Supreme Court was concerned about is that they were determined to say that that is such an old record and the data is so old that we cant prove they should still be held to the same standard of preclearance. But i think the situation is worse and bigger. What do we do to include those new jurisdictions . We need to first of all do a better job of tracking what is happening so we can ensure that it is a living and breathing process, meaning that it doesnt end after a certain amount of time, that on an annual basis we need to look at where there have been violations and ensure those protections are in place where we are seeing them happening. Youre right, its expanded and gotten worse. Since 2013 weve seen that time and time again. Yes. Chief Justice Roberts, may it please the court . First in the shelby decision, you spoke very powerfully about the fact that we all recognize that there still exists discrimination in voting and you felt that congress had not, quote, done its job. Since then, congress has been very keen looking at what are in fact the modern day conditions that exist between the dates and among the states when it comes to voter kpaexability and voter fairness. What we know at this point in this eight years that are occurred since 2011 is that states that were previously covered by preclearance have in fact had some of the worst records for not only poll closures but for purges that literally millions of voters have been affected by that, that those voters deserve the coverage and the protection of our laws of our country, should not have to be subjected to that voter denial before theyre able to have their votes counted properly, that when you also have told this congress to come up with a new set of coverage formula. That coverage formula is designed to look at those violations that are the most extreme that denied the most voters their rights to participate. Since your directive to congress, we have held hearings, we have compiled and looked at reports of whats happening in the states. We are able to come up with a formula that captures for preclearance the states that are engaging in the worst activities, but at the same time we also have recognized that in this modern era weve got to come up with some additional new standards that we just cant look at voter turnout anymore, we cant look at some of the old original standards. Instead what we need to look at now is to make sure theres better notice provisions, to make sure that on a National Scale as you were concerned that states are able to be held accountable. We believe that we have done our job and you should uphold our new legislation. Thank you very much. Ms. Lieberman. Justice roberts, i agree with everything my fellow panelists have said. You know, the writing is on the wall here. In the first year after the shelby decision came down, 73 of the previously covered jurisdictions introduced restrictive voting laws. New restrictive voting laws have been introduced in 25 states since 2010 and weve seen the stories of individuals that shelby has emboldened not just the former preclearance states but states around the country to make voting harder, more confusing, more onerous and more burdensome. Not only did shelby open the door to discriminatory practices, unduly placing the burden on already underrepresentatiunde underrepresented voters of color and their advocates. The burdens and the costs associated with these challenges has fallen even more heavily on the impacted communities that these laws are designed to protect to challenge denials of their fundamental right to vote. So its very clear that that is simply not tenable. Its not working. Congress has the opportunity right now before it with hr 4 to implement federal voting protections to place the burden where it should be, on the backs of the Government Agencies that are seeking to implement new restrictive voting changes to show that theyre not discriminatory. You all can represent me any time. I thank you all so much for being here and i thank you for your testimony. Thank you so much. The other panel, i dont think has arrived yet. Theyre on their way over. Thank you all again very, very much. Good morning, everyone. Today is a very sad day for all of us as we all awaken to the sad news of the passing of our dear friend, revered and respected colleague mr. Chairman Elijah Cummings of maryland. My brother in baltimore. He was in the congress elijah was considered a north star. He was a leader of towering character and integrity. He lived the american dream. His own familys parents were sharecroppers. He was fspoke with unsurpassed clarity and moral integrity when he spoke on the floor. I had the just coincidental opportunity to speak at breakfast with someone who served with him in the state legislature in maryland. He said when Elijah Cummings would stand up in the state legislature, in the house of delegates as its called there, the room would fall silent because Everyone Wants to hear what elijah has to say. That is, of course, what was the case in congress in his committee and in the country. He used to always say our children are our living messengers to a future we will never see. So he wanted to be sure that that future was going to be better for them and that they would bring with them our values. In that regard in terms of a better future, im so proud that this morning in the hearing they were having on hr 3 lowering the cost of prescription drugs that he was suggesting to name the bill for Elijah Cummings. So appropriate because elijah was a fighter for lowering the cost of prescription drugs, reaching across the aisle to do so. He always sought to reach across the aisle and treat all colleagues with respect and even had dialogue with the president for a while on this subject. So it would be very appropriate that hr 3 would now be Elijah Cummings low drug costs now legislation, whatever the formal title will be. Its very sad, very sad for all of us. Weve all lost a friend. Im devastated by the lost. Ive con invade tveyeddolences f our caucus to maya. Were back now after our district work period where p members all over the country were part of the drum beat for hr 3. Our first was to lower the cost of prescription drugs. They presented hr 3, heard feedback and we are benefitting it with two more this week, one in energy and commerce, the other in education and labor. The hearing in ways and mean this is week and then the markup next week. Then well be well on our way to reconciling different versions and bringing something to the floor. I think its really important to note that since the break toward the end of the break we did catch the congressional budget offices cbo score of 345 billion in savings just in the Medicare Part d part of the bill. Other savings, 158 billion in savings for family households, 46 billion in rebates and the rest. The savings are considerable and the congress will decide how some of it will be reinvested into innovation at the National Institutes of health, perhaps in Community Health Centers Across the country and expanded benefits for medicare, visual, hearing, dental. Perhaps committees will hear back from them and just trying to lower the cost to the community. Bobby scotts committee is marking up this bill, but as many of you know earlier in the week we announced his College Affordability act and were very proud of the response from the members on that and that will be making college less expensive. Were still at work on the u. S. mexico canada trade agreement and making progress every day on our path to yes, but were not there yet. As soon as we can get assurances from the administration and from the everyone involved that there will be enforceability of some of the provisions of the legislation that it will really be an improvement on the current nafta. Im optimistic about that. Im still hoping that and this came up we were focused on the Health Care Cost bill and bigger paychecks by building the infrastructure of america, cleaner government, that was our agenda in the campaign. One of our priorities in this session has been to reduce the risk of gun violence in our country. Its now been 232 days since we sent our Bipartisan Legislation to the senate. Every day about 100 people die from gun violence, nearly half of them children and up to the age of teenagers. My colleague wilson in florida during the break gave me a bracelet made from the bullet and the orange color of gun violence prevention. Were not going away until we get legislation passed to reduce gun violence in our country. As you know, this has been a week of some issues that relate to our foreign engagement. I was very proud of the work on the floor of congress to associate ourselves with the democratic aspirations of the young people of hong kong. Ive been working with now three generations of hong kong Democratic Leaders just for the chinese regime to obey the basic law under which hong kong was to exist, one country, two systems, living under the basic law which made certain guarantees that are not being lived up to. Congress came through this week, spoke very clearly in a bipartisan way about our support for that. As you know, yesterday on the floor 354 members voted in a bipartisan way to oppose the president s dangerous decision with regard to syria. By 21 republicans voted to oppose the president s actions. The legislation would have called for turkey to use restraint for us to help our friends to be a trustworthy ally to kurds, especially in humanitarian needs now that theyre being bombed by the turks. It also calls for the president to show a clear plan for how americans will be protected from isis which has been further unleashed. Green light to the turks, actions taken that are renege on our handshake with the kurds and now we need to have a plan to deal with what happens with isis. As you know, that was the subject of conversation yesterday at the white house. I also pointed out to the president i had concerns that all roads seem to lead to putin. The russians had been trying to get a foothold in the middle east for a very long time unsuccessfully and now the president has given them an opportunity with the kurds reaching out to them for support in syria. Russians were the beneficiaries of any withholding of assistance or encouragement to the ukraine. Again, putin benefits. The russians benefitted, putin did when the president placed some doubt about our commitment to nato right from the start of the administration. All roads lead to putin. The president said the reason i brought the troops out of syria is i promised in the campaign to bring the troops home. My question to him is, is saudi arabia home . Why are our troops going to saudi arabia if they promised to bring them home. He said saudi arabia is paying for it. Really, were pulling troops in harms way for saudi arabia . It just didnt add up. What it did do was cause a meltdown on the part of the president. We can wrap this up and close up strong. Let me just introduce our panelist. We have john yang is the president and executive director of Asian Americans advancing justice. Mr. Yang leads the organizations efforts to fight for civil rights and empower Asian Americans to create a more just america for all through Public Policy advocacy, education and litigation. His background enables advancing justice to address systemic policies, programs and legislative attempts to discriminate against and marginalize Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other minority communities. Arturo vargas, the chief executive officer of the National Association of latino elected officials, a Membership Organization of latino policy makers and their supporters governed by a 35member board of directors. Mr. Vargas also served as ceo of the Educational Fund an affiliated Nonprofit Organization that strengthens american democracy by promoting the full participation of latinos in civic life. Mr. Signs is the president and generally counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund where he leads the Civil Rights Organizations offices in pursuing litigation, policy advocacy and Community Education to promote the civil rights of latinos living in the United States. Mr. Signs rejoined in august 2009 after spending four years as counsel to the mayor of los angeles. Mr. Signs previously spent 12 years practicing civil rights law. Welcome, sir. Last but not least, Michelle Bishop is a disability advocacy specialist for Voting Rights at the National Disability rights Voting Network where she is responsible for coordinating Voting Rights initiatives in every u. S. State, district and territory as well as providing training and technical assi assistance regarding Voting Rights and access for voters with disabilities under the help america vote act. Ms. Bishop also works in coalition with the Civil Rights Community in washington, d. C. To ensure strong federal policy regarding Voting Rights and administration. I thank you all for being here. As you know, the lighting system, when you begin speaking the green light will come on. You will have five minutes. At one minute remaining you will see the yellow light come on and then youll see the red light come on which is indicating you need to wrap up your testimony. Mr. Lange. Thank you very much. Let me first start by offering my condolences for the loss of representative cummings. As a Civil Rights Organization that seeks to advance the civil and human rights of Asian Americans and promote a fair and just society for all americans, representative cummings was certainly a champion for so many of our issues. His loss is a loss for the entire nation. Really appreciate inviting us to testify here today on Language Access and the importance of this for Asian Americans in particular. While the Voting Rights act of 1965 helps to ensure Language Access and assistance to Asian Americans, it is only one piece of the puzzle that we need to look at when making sure that Asian Americans are represented. I think its important to start off by recognizing the Asian American community. The Asian American community is the Fastest Growing community in the United States. Between the 2000 census and the 2010 census the Asian American community has grown by 46 . We represent about 22. 6 million in the United States which is a little bit over 6 of the american population. With respect to voting we have also increased dramatically in numbers over the years. Between the 2012 election and the 2016 election, we have increased by over 1 million voters. Its also important to note that Asian Americans are not monolithic. There are numerous Asian Americans in urban centers around the country, but our Fastest Growing populations are in nevada, arizona, North Carolina and georgia. So the needs of Asian Americans often times are very diverse. With respect to Language Access, we represent over 100 different languages from 60 different asian ethnicities. Ensuring Asian Americans have the language they understand best is a challenge. Asian American Voters are often denied the needed federal assistance and face numerous barriers. First, problems can arise when poll workers do not fully understand Voting Rights laws. Poll workers have oftentimes unfortunately been hostile to people that are not similar to their own backgrounds or have Language Access issues. Asian American Voters are certainly not immune from those issues. When you look at some of the experiences that asian American Voters have had oftentimes they are challenged with respect to the identification, and whether they are a citizen or whether they belong at the polls. I will be relatively brief, and offer some recommendations with respect to what can be done to help with respect to the language assistance and with respect to the language assistance, one of the things that we can do is to make sure that translated materials are available, and so what is effective and to conducting a comprehensive review of the comprehensive review of the materials to identify the materials that go to the needed communities, and that we use certified translators and certified translation vendors to make sure they are communityorient and using the communitybased organizations as well to speak in a language and not only in a legal language that is appropriate, but in the communi communitybased language and culture that is appropriate. With respect to the polls and taking protections that are necessary, one of the things is also making sure that you have assistance under section 208 of the Voting Rights act to make sure that people are allowed the sister of their choice. And now, the Election Officials should provide the bilingual poll workers with separate training on the language assistance and some of which should be done in the covered languages, and regardless of whether the jurisdictions are covered under section 203 and every poll worker should be trained to understand the needs of the language minority voter and how the poll worker can be best assist that voter and having maybe role playing exercises to ensure that not only in the English Speaking poll worker as language poll workers who can handle the situations as they arise. Certainly, the elections of the assistant commission can provide a role in that and funding infrastructure that would allow for the assistance and the best practices to provide some of the exercises that i have described. Certainly, there are jurisdictions that have also on a voluntary basis provided the translated officials and seen nit Fairfax County and though it was not covered by section 203 Fairfax County decided to offer assistance to the koreanspeaking population as well as to the vietnamesespeaking population, and these are the things that can be done on the volunteer basis and effective for our community. The language barriers remain for the Asian Community, and it is a fastgrowing community and a community that is going to be transitioning to, u. S. Born Asian Americans in relatively short matter of time, and that is also going to translate into more voter and people who want to be engaged in the electoral process, and so i would ask this committee to consider all of the different ways in which that language assistance can be provided. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Vargas, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, chair fudge, and representative aguilar, and thank you for opportunity to be here today and we join in the mourning of the passing of representative Elijah Cummings. This organization recognizes that despite the guarantees that all americans must have the right to vote, our nation has not fulfilled the goal of equal and full participation in the democracy. There are policies that disenfranchise latino and other underrepresented voters sometimes on the basis of their linguistic abilities. Linguistic accessibility is and remains a fundamental grantor of the latinos equal access to the ballot. A substantial number of latinos eligible to vote are not yet fluent in english and the ability to cast an informed successful vote depends upon their access to the understandable materials and to persons providing the assistance for whom they can communicate and according to 2018, acs, nearly 20 million adult citizens speak spanish and approximately 6. 3 million of them are not fluent in english, and those who are not fluent in english register in lower rates because of the legacy of different decades of the intentional efforts to exclude the voters in the basis of the linguistic ability to National Origin and ongoing negligence and administering the language assistance and ined a tensiatte some of the Administration Election procedures. Though many do enjoy full access to the ballots and spanish speakers, many are under served. And looking at the hotlines and including our hotline which receives calls from voters in english and spanish, including incidents of spanishspeaking voters in jurisdictions with largespeaking populations including in Southern California that they were not able to request or choose the Spanish Language ballots and significant number of our colors had unmet need for live language assistance for occasions in the warren county, new jersey and Prince William county, virginia. Many of the jurs disdictions ha implemented methods of identifying eligible voters among those participating and those voters participating in the elections. For example, since 2010, a number of states have compared the Voter Registration lists to other state and federal databases that are not designed or useful for the voting purposes and erroneously singled out voters who are mostly naturalized citizens for purging demands. And a polling place close sures and realignments and threatening the language minority voters participation. To combat the trends the members of congress should mandate the inclusive and administrative practices in the federal elections and incentivize the administrators to proactive serve the language minority voters and the best practices to election accessibility for which congress could provide for which congress could provide Financial Support and consult regular community and other representational leaders with minority leaders, and i would add this is an Effective Practice in the past for those who provide the naturalization service, and we used to have a Healthy Partnership and troubleshoot with them on the ability to better meet the needs of the residents for u. S. Citizenship, and the same concept could be for identifying the best practices and the voting could be accessible do all. And there should be regular training on all of the importance and the contours of the measures to have linguistic accessibility, and to account for and avoid the disparate language impact on the minority voters. Given the counter vailing influence of the administration that is inclined to reduce or negligent Language Accessibility mandates. Organization and congressional advocates of the accessibility must be prepared to defend the basic necessity and utility of providing the language assistance for the elections. As the number of americans with the diverse origins grows, the effectiveness of engaging those citizens as active voters will be increasingly going determine the health of the democracy and the credibility of our government as a product of truly representative political proc s process. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Signs, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, madam chair and members of the subcommittee. As president and general counsel of maldef, i help to remove bayba barriers to prevent the latino vote that they would otherwise have. I want to look at the part that is targeting naturalized voters and that is growing out of this administrations campaign that puts quote, unquote Americans First or the quote, unquote citizens first though that framework seems to leave out naturalized citizens, and we first saw it in the attempt to add a Citizenship Question to the census 2020 and the administration was seeking to trigger a massive undercount of the Latino Community and the first would be on Voting Rights and resulting in underrepresentation of the Latino Community in both reapportionment in the seats of the house of representatives and the states and in the states of to congressional seats and local legislative seats as well. As we know, the Supreme Court in an improbable victory prevented the citizenship from going on census 2020, but the administrations Campaign Continues to impact and prevent naturalized latino voters from participating. One example of this is in the executive order that accompanied the decision by the administration to give up attempting to readd a Citizenship Question to ten sus 2020. In that executive order the president directed the Commerce Department to seek administrative records from both the federal and the state sources to try to put together a database of citizenship around the country. We have now learned through the recent media reports that one of the main mechanisms that they will use to attempt to identify citizens is dmv records from around the country. The problem is as we have recently seen in the case litigated by maldef and others around texas is that the dmv in respect to citizenship is notoriously inaccurate. The fact is that somebody who goes to the dmv before becoming a citizen has no obligation or any reason to report back to the dmv once they have naturalized and become a citizen, and they have no occasion to go back to the dmv until they need to renew a drivers license for example. We saw it in texas where texas attempted to purge the voters from the voter rolls county by county and directing the registrars to use faulty dmv data to those who were not citizens when they went to the dmv to tell them they were in effect being accused of being ineligible voters. And that is not Going Forward but we see that administration is creating the same faulty databases with the attempt to use that in a state or locality might test the constitutional limits of one person, one vot and might choose to have districts based on something other than total population and the use of the faulty citizenship data would have a tremendous effect on the Voting Rights of latinos and many others. Accompanying is the ongoing rhetoric coming from this administration that seems to target every latino and immigrant in the country whether they are naturalized or not, and we are concerned that this on going rhetoric including the invasion of privacy in these dmv voter rolls is going to have resulted in unwarranted challenges to somebodys ineligibility to vote by vigilantes who listen to the rhetoric of the white house and beyond and decide they are going to challenge particular voters and namely latino voters or those who dont speak english or those who appear to meet Donald Trumps definition of who is or is not a quote, unquote american. We see this as having imp implications as early as next year. We are looking at the rhetoric to the legal requirement to provide language assistants and materials in languages other than english to voters. So we are concerned that next year we will see more chals and diminution to providing the required materials and challenges to the legitimacy and the eligibility of the naturalized citizens who are not yet speaking english, and that is new, and that is on the campaign that we are seeing on a daily basis. And we believe this is a looming danger from the community that the subcommittee should take up and address. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Bishop, you are recognized for five members. Thank you, madam chairman and members. And also may i thank congressman cummings for the service to the country and may you rest in peace, sir. Im Michelle Bishop, and we are the nonprofit Member Organization for the federally mandated protection and advocacy or pna network. According to the en is sus bureau up to 56. 7 million americans live with a disability, and totaling approximately 19 of the noninstitutionalized u. S. Population. The centers for Disease Control and prevention, and the Pew Research Center believe the number is closer to 25 or 1 in 4 americans. Rutgers university projected 35. 4 million eligibility voters with disabilities or 1 6 of the american electorate in 2016 and we are politically active. Pew reports that people with disabilities are more likely to Pay Attention to president ial elections and believe that the results matter. Despite all of this, americas electoral system has a long history of excluding the people with disabilities. Start with the obvious, the polling places. The u. S. Government Accountability Office found in 2000 that only 16 of polling places had an accessible path of travel, and 27 in 2008, and 40 in 2016, and 40 being the alltime high, and means that less than half of the polling places were accessible in the 2016 election. As polling places are very slowly becoming more accessible, the voting stations within them are actually becoming less, so and in 2008, 54 of the voting booths were accessible, and in 2016, only 35 . Architectural access and the voting station access combined only 17 of polling places were found to be fully accessible. Americas polling places are inexcuse bli, woefully and unjustly out of compliance with the americans with disabilities act. As if this werent enough, the Leadership Conference on the civil and human rights recently found that 13 states closed an overwhelming 1,688 polling places in just six years. And uncovering an alarming trend. Falsely blaming the polling closures on the ada. Jurisdictions offered lack of ada compliance as a pretext for the closures and despite their admitted lack of understanding of the ada and failure to provide ada surveys of the polling places in question, and grossly inflating cost estimates for updating the polling places, Disability Advocates and department of justice do not advocate for the closure of inaccessible polling place, but rather allow for the temporary same day modifications, and curbside voting as a stopgap practices and other lowcost practices. And ndr is looking at ada compliance and doj enforcement in depth. We found that the districts that settled with the doj are overwhelmingly not closing the polling places, and alternatively, the jurisdictions that closed or at emted to close the majority of the to polling places were not investigated by the doj and they could not provide the accessibility surveys and they could not provide any evidence of the coordination with the states pna or the other disability advocacy agents. The doj is undeniably being used as a smoke screen for Voter Suppression. The barriers have real consequences. Despite the size of the Disability Community and demonstrated investment in the demonstrated elections the people with disabilities continue to vote at a lower rate than the nondisabled peers. In 2018, the difference of the turnout was 4. 7 , and 6 in 2016 and 5. 7 in 2012. Small percentages that actually equal several million voters. Immediately preceding the help america vote act, the gap in Voter Participation was closer to 20 , and the data shows a clear narrowing of the Voter Participation gap and since how this passage made the voting drastically accessible for the people with disabilities. To protect the right to vote for all americans, Congress Must first and foremost pass the Voting Rights advancement act. And fully restored voting act to head into the 2020 president ial election and additionally congressional funding is needed for districts to acquire, and maintain their polling equipment. And the territorial government of the marianna islands and the disability law center, pna, need a funding to ensure voting for the Pacific Islanders and the native americans with disabilities. And excludeing from pava is a simple and nocost legislative fix. Finally, each of the patchwork of the electoral laws to ensure that all systems are eligible for eligible voters must be to their full capacity. America is only as strong as hearing the voices of all americans. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Aguilar, you are recognized for five minutes. Mr. Yang, if i could start to you and work down to mr. Vargas and ms. Signs and ms. Bishop, i have a separate question for you. You know, we talked about language assistance and obviously, there is best practices that seem pretty reasonable, you know, more balanced and multiple languages and other things that we can do and you mentioned the poll worker training, and what are the other ideas that we can do with the language assistance frame that we could invest in and support in order to make a difference and ensure that people have access to the ballot . Well, i think that the poll worker training, and if i could expand on that a little bit, it is developing the training modules, and sort of when the people think of the poll worker training, they are thinking of making sure they have translators or the people who can speak several languages are available, and that is one component, but it is making sure that the people who are speaking english there can still recognize a situation as it develops and know how the handle it. If for example if i am accompanying my mother to a polling station, then the fact that my mother does not speak english well, the poll worker has to understand that i am there to help and it is within her rights as a voter. Unfortunately, there are a lot of poll workers and not i will be generous here not through the intent to discriminate, but they do not understand the laws well enough. So it is really having an infrastructure that has that learning, and those learning modules in place. Some of it is, again, very, very similar. Im going think of lowhanging fruit as having translations in tryfold trifolds that are sitting on the counters to make people understand that i can have a person of my choice for assistance and translators are available, and some new immigrants do not understand their rights and making them comfortable with the process. Certainly from our organization, and speaking i think for all immigrants a just as you are no less of a citizen, because you have a disability, you are no less of a citizen, because english is not your first language and so our job is to find ways to make sure that the people feel like equal citizens in the democracy. Thank you. Mr. Fergus . The fact is that many sites get it right. They have been providing Voter Assistance for years, but we are concerned about the people around the country newly required to provide the language assistance for the first time and there is no need to really recreate the will if they can adopt the best practices from the other jurisdiction, and that is something that the congress can incentivize, and how could a manual of best practices be provided to other jurisdictions who for the first time are required to bring up language assistance, and so they dont repeat the same mistakes that have been committed before and they provide the best access for voters that are newly covered under section 203. And like mr. Vargas, i would focus on the fact that the jurisdictions that are covered by section 203 are regularly expanding, and i think that we need to find a way to anticipate which is not difficult where the expansion will occur and begin working with the jurisdictions to connect them with the successful jurisdictions in their own state or first in the state with those and other states, and i also think that there is a broader effort of really educating the public about folks rights so that they understand that what is legitimate and not other lidge l vigilante volunteers who are making a separate effort, and so we need to help those new areas. And you wanted to talk about the participation gap for those with and without disabilities and how has hava helped to close the gap that was closer to 20 , and then went down to, well, below 5 , and can you talk a little bit about that . Absolutely. Prior to the Health America vote act, we were doing even less to make americas elections accessible to all, and in fact, profoundly little. I am sure all of us in the room remember voting on the punchcard systems, and those are not only difficult for the average american to line up properly and use, but virtually impossible for people with certain types of disabilities and many American Voters with disabilities voted privately and independently for the very first time after hava was pass and this is including the americans who began voting when they were 18 and not able to vote with the privacy and independence until they were in the 60s and 70s and spent their entire lives to have someone else mark the ballot for them, because the ballot was not accessible. In itself, the independence and privacy of your ballot is a secure of the ballot is marked in the way i trust, and rather than a leap of faith as a voter who is blind and asking somebody to mark a ballot that i will never be able to see and know that someone marked the ballot the way i intended. So it was a longstanding failure, i believe, of our electoral process that we were not providing the accessibility of the ballot to the voters with disabilities. The voting place itself, and the americans with disabilities act is the gold standard. It was not law until 1990. There is one law predating that in 1980s the Voting Accessibility act for the elderly and handicapped act but that was still the 1980s and prior. And prior to that, virtually nothing to make sure that the voting process was accessible to those with disabilities. So hava is an enormous leap forward to ensure that everybody is casting the ballots and we believe it is a major factor in closing that gap. And if your electoral voting place is not accessible, you are sent the message that you are not welcome and your vote does not matter. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Bishop, let me just i dont even know where to begin. I mean, we know the law. We know ada exists. We know that hava exists, and what is the rational for not complying with the law is what i am trying to figure out. There are many. There are many reasons. We hear very often, and i work a lot with the state and the local Election Officials as do the organizations in the network, the pnas that we hear often that it is difficult to find the polling places that are compliant with the american with disabilities act, and they are not entirely wrong, because compliance with the ada is lacking and not that many locations that are compliant and they have to be willing to serve as polling place which is voluntary, and we hear that often, and we hear that polls places that are suitably located as well and a large number of them, and we also get a count of the poll workers who are not adequately trained and ready to interact with the voters with disabilities when they come into the polling place, and so they are not necessarily aware of all of the accommodations that they are required to provide. So, there is a widespread failure in the United States to really fully understand the appreciation of the americans can disabilities act and how they apply to the elections. I consider it primarily the enforcement issue, and that is why the Voting Rights advancement act is so important. The organizations like the pnas have to be able to go out to push for that enforcement and that compliance with the ada and without the threat that the response is going to be to close large numbers of polling places. We dont make the polling places accessible by closing them, and we make them accessible by making them accessible, but without the protections of the preclearance of the voter rights act, our job is ostensibly more difficult. Thank you. To each of the gentlemen, i hear you saying the education of the poll workers is extremely impornlgi importa important, and who do you believe is responsible for that education and outreach . Clearly the Election Officials are held at a local level and should be held accountable for the education of the poll workers they employ, and we know that many of them were challenged at finding enough poll workers with the language ability necessary to meet the needs in the local communities. So, i think that one of the areas for where congress could be helpful is to provide more incentives and to provide, and to identify and help local Elections Officials recruit and train workers with the languages needed to help the voters in the jurisdictions. And now, let me ask this question, because you are the ceo of naleo, and do you not recommend that we have people who are willing to serve on election day or to be train and these are the people who are going to take any more recommendations and you dont accept them or how does that work . We certainly do, and we are going to try to identify other strategies of how to expand the number of people to be eligible for a poll worker, and for some folks, they have to give up a day of work, and this is not something that people are able to do or folks who can give up a full days work and not be compensated for the employers which is one of the reasons that we supported the legislation in california to allow High School Students to be able to work as poll workers, and even though they themselves do not have the right to vote yet, they did have the skillsets in order to help people through the voting process. So there is other incentives and strategies that can be employed to do that. Let me go back to discussion about naturalized citizens, mr. Signs. A citizen is a is a citizen. So what about our process would single out someone who is a naturalized citizen . Because the naturalized citizens are immigrants themselves and they have families that include folks who are still immigrants. They may still feel that they have vulnerabilities that they have had as immigrants. So when you are confronted with the rhetoric as we see daily from the Trump Administration that seems to discourage participation of immigrants in all elements of governance, no way that naturalized citizens are immune from that. So you are saying they are not going at all, they dont get to the point to get to the polls . Some cases deterred and fears about their families and in other cases they are concerned they themselves are going to be challenged particularly if they are a citizen, but a citizen who needs language assistance and language assistance in some place at the polling place, but there is a danger of accessing inaccurate data even though it is going to be used in the aggregate, it means that the naturalized citizen is aware that the federal government is seeking information from the state dmv that may inaccurately identify them as a noncitizen and that can be a deterrent effect or encourage others who may be led by the rhetoric to challenge that persons participation in elections. And so it all stems from the practice, and the rhetoric of the administration that is not seeking accurate data particularly with respect to naturalized citizens and that it is diminishing the citizenship, if you will, of those who are not nativeborn citizens of this country. If i could add briefly to that with respect to the Asian American community, 2 3 of the community is immigrants and the Asian Community is about 80 immigrants or children of immigrants and so we are naturalizing at a fast rate, the trajectory is noncitizens within each of the households, and so what thomas is saying is exactly right, within the households the fears that are being raised about what it means to be a noncitizen, and we are not even talking about the undocumented immigrants here, but legalized permanent residents who have a right to be here and for their children who are of voting age, there are fears of how much they want to put their family that includes all sorts of the different immigrants into the public eye. So what do you think that we can do to combat that . Well, there has to be a counter rhetoric if you will that can come from the congress that can also help citizens that they have a right to vote, and also limits on the data known to be inaccurate to determine citizenship population which is what is ongoing right now with Commerce Department. Now, maldev with the Asian Americans for advancement and others have challenged that effort in court, but there also needs to be additional efforts to prevent accessing private data that is knowingly inaccurate and attempting to somehow say that is an indication of who the citizens are in the country. So you are challenging under what kind of action. So we have filed in federal court in maryland challenging the executive order that involves accessing the administrative records under a number of claims of the administrative procedural act and the constitutional claims that the same nonconstitutional attempt to that motivated the Citizenship Question or the attempt of the Citizenship Question is behind this effort as well. Mr. Aguilar, you have anything else . Okay. The last thing, and if you could do it quickly, if there is one thing that you think that we could have an effect on, or one thing from this committees perspective to make the situation fwhaert you are experiencing, what is that one thing going to be . Lets start with ms. Bishop. Just one. Just one. You are number one. Not all of the witnesses have answered the question of just one, so. You are number one. I am trying to choose amongst so many things. I think that one of the most important things that congress can do to support making elections fully accessible to all is to provide funding. The states need funding to upgrade their equipment and polling position, and the Network Needs the additional funding that we need to push them forward, but we also one of the things that i have not yet mentioned today is research and Development Funding to support the Better Solutions. I mentioned that for the first time Many Americans for the people with disabilities were able to vote independently because of the american vote act and all systems could be more secure, and we need to develop Better Solutions that will solve both of those problems. The elections equipment is not a big money industry if you are working in tech. If congress is able to support those efforts, i believe we can develop Voting Solutions that are more accessible and secure Going Forward. Thank you. Mr. Signs . I would cite what i said looking into the accessing of the state databases that are known to be inaccurate and even accessing the data as we saw with the shortlived Election Fraud task force can have a Chilling Effect on the voters. Thank you. Mr. Vargas . A fully seated and staffed and funding elections assistance commission. I would ditto all of that and i guess i cannot overstate promoting the best practices and through that education and transparency. Those best practices making sure that the state, and especially all of you have connections to the local, state elected officials and local and state representatives make sure they understand this, and holding them accountable. What i mean by holding them accountable does not necessarily mean sort of through the process of the elected representatives, but making sure they understand the consequences of this, because what we are trying to do here is to represent the American People. Thank you. I thank you all. This has been a very interesting day. Just to understand the myriad of things happening across the country that make it difficult for the people to vote. I thank you for doing the work and coming here to testify and i hope that you continue to fight the good fight. Obviously, there are certain things that we can do and cannot, and i appreciate your sharing with us what you are seeing on a daily basis and it is giving us some idea of what we can do as we are looking at the legislation Going Forward. Again, i thank you all so much for being here. Without objection, this subcommittee stands adjourned. Cspan and ipsos have released a survey on voting elections. The poll shows that 1 3 of the americans believe that in person voter fraud is a problem, and just as many disagree. Republicans at 44 are more likely to believe it is an issue than are the democrats and independents. But it does not reach a majority among any of the groups. Half of americans believe that the voter discrimination is still a problem in the United States while 1 4 disagree. There is nearly a 50point gap between the republicans and the democrats on that question. 24 of republicans and 72 of democrats agree that voter discrimination is still an issue. You can read the full results of the poll at cspan. Org. Cspans campaign 2020 coverage continues. Live tonight at 8 00 p. M. On cspan, President Trump is going to hold a keep America Great rally in the American Airlines center in dallas. On friday at 6 00 p. M. , live on cspan, Elizabeth Warren holds a town hall in norfolk, virginia. Live saturday at 1 00 p. M. Eastern, senator bernies rally at a bernies back rally in new york city. You can watch cspan any time on cspan. Org or on the free cspan radio app. Flags at the u. S. Capitol are flying at halfstaff today for maryland congressman Elijah Cummings who died early this morning in baltimore. He was first elected in congress in 1996, and he served as chair of the congressional black caucus, and congressman cummings shared the House Oversight committee and his colleague hogan said that he leaves behind an incredible lega