National counsel to the romney for president campaigns and i wont get into it, but he has had a profound effect in our electoral system. You changed america, not in a way that i liked but amazing with what you did. And we would ask each of our witnesses to limit their statements to five minutes and additional statements. Without objection, additional remarks, without objection, will be read into the record. Senator schumer, senator roberts, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity testifying today with my cochair. We discussed in advance how we would organize it so im going to open with some general considerations identified in the report that we asked our readers to keep in mind as we laid out our recommendations and the best practices we identified. And then im going to illustrate the approach we took by talking about the signature issue, the issue most associated with the commission and that is the problem of long lines at the polls. There are a number of other issues that ben will cover that we addressed in six major recommendations along with as i said, highlighted best practices. But let me say first that the commission was structured and its membership was selected on the theory that Election Administration is a topic of Public Administration and needs to be treated as such and that the voters ought to be considered very much as we would consider any other recipients of services provided, that is to say, elsewhere in their lives, americans think a good bit about Customer Service and how Customer Service is rendered to them in their roles as consumers and other walks of life and our view was and the president s intention was the Commission Consider the voter as entitled to that level of Customer Service, providing the service in the voting process that we all believe as the drivers of our democracy the voters deserve. So this theme of Public Administration was essential to our work. One illustration of the importance to the commission and the approach the commission took in this thoughtabout Public Administration and this emphasis on Public Administration is our reliance on data. Our view was we ought to look at Election Administration as thoroughly as possible through the lens as the best possible information, social science and research that was available. And we were very fortunate that some of the witnesses who came before the commission were able to fashion fresh data for purposes of their testimony that the commission could rely upon and that included an extraordinary survey of several thousand state and local Election Administrators conducted by the states political scientists and survey Research Experts and we gleaned very significant information about some of the issues we addressed from that survey. Overall throughout the report, the effort was to look very closely at the evidence, how the electoral system was performing. And in that connection, one of the recommendations that we make is that we need in this country much more collection and analysis of data to enable us to pinpoint the strength and weaknesses in the performance of our electoral process. Beyond that, there was a few other and i will go through them, considerations that we discussed at the outset of our report. Does one size fit all . We have many different jurisdictions. Some believe that you cannot generalize all reforms across jurisdictional lines and to some extent that is true, there are enough common features across the United States that one size in many respects can fit all in many of these recommendations and the recommendations we have made, we have made on the basis that they truly fit all. Issue of resources. Election Administration Costs money. And too often we heard from administrators that Budget Priorities are such, the fiscal pressures on the states and local jurisdictions are such that too often the needs of Election Administrators, the fiscal needs, are shuffled to the bottom of the deck. We dont make specific recommendations, that was not our charge, but it was important to note that we cannot have elections without money. Thirdly, the technology challenge, and i leave it to ben to discuss in greater details but one warning bell that we rang here was the impending crisis in Voting Technology. Enforcement of existing law. Its very important that even though we dont make legislative recommendations, for us to call attention to problems in compliance with existing federal statutes that were enacted to protect certain voters, minority, disabled voters and voters among our overseas and military population. Some of these statutes had significant effect, but there are some gaps in compliance, compliance with the americans with disability act, compliance with the Voting Rights act and the provisions that protect language minorities and performance of public assistance agencies under the National Voter registration act in supporting the registration process. So those are fundamental points that we make. And let me say a point about lines. There are many factors that feed into lines. We tried to analyze what those factors might be. They raise a whole host of issues that each can be i individually addressed and the problem with lines can be substantially resolved. And we also, and this is something we call attention to, publicizing online tools on our web site and to be hosted on the Voting Technology web site that administrators can use immediately and improve upon to allocate resources within the polling place and plan for long lines and address them. This is a report but also a project and our work begins now to work with you, the congress, state legislative leaders, community leaders, Election Administrators around the country to see their effective implementation. Thank you, mr. Chairman for having us here today. Its been a pleasure to work with bob on this. It is fair to say we are both proud of the work of our commission. We were charged with making recommendations to the state and local officials who actually put on our elections to remove barriers to dualy qualified citizens being able to cast their votes easily. Elections can be conflict between republicans and democrats but a subject where republicans and democrats can agree on the basic principle and on Commonsense Solutions to make the voting experience better. Bob and i were fortunate to work with eight other commissioners in a talented Research Director from whom we learned a tremendous amount. We were reached to reach bipartisan and unanimous agreement on best practices. We found that the basic principles on which republicans and democrats agree is that every legally registered voter has the right to be able to cast his or her ballot easily and without impediments. As to the details of voting, bob and i had history. We have been on the opposite side of many partisan battles over the years and will be again as we go to the path of the elections. Among those battles have been a lot of recounts. All those recounts were instructed to this exercise, because they provide an unparalleled view of how the system works. Well both tell you there are problems with our system of voting. The commission presented a unique opportunity for us to address some of those topics to both republicans and democrats. And which we need to do something about. That is not a partisan issue. It is trying to get right something that very much needs to be gotten right. In fact, its so important to get it right, that it deserves doing even if it doesnt satisfy everything to one party or another, believes need to be fought in this area. As for fixing these problems, the commission recognized elections are administered by approximately 8,000 different jurisdictions largely using volunteers who dont receive much training. Achievinging uniformity in our elections has proven challenging. Let me turn to a few big picture issues that jurisdictions face. The state of our voting equipment and technology is an impending crisis. The machines being used in virtually every jurisdiction purchased 10 years ago with funds after the florida recount will no longer be functional within the next 10 years. Voting equipment has not kept up with technological advances in our daily lives. The current equipment is expensive and unsatisfactory to virtually every Elections Official with whom the commission spoke. That is due to a federal certification process that is broken and must be reformed. This is a subject to which few are paying attention and will not end well on its current path. One of the issues we heard about consistently was having adequate physical facilities for polling places. In most communities, those facilities were schools. But officials in an increasing number of jurisdictions cite safety concerns as a reason for not making schools available for voting. Adequate facilities to vote and safety for our children cannot be competing interests. The commission called attention to the problem and to recommend security concerns be addressed by making election day an inservice day for students and teachers. Bob already talked about long lines. Let me touch on some of the other subjects that the commission specific recommendations and best practices to the state and local officials. Early voting was one. Our Commission Charge was to make it easier for eligible voters to vote. A majority of states with both democratic and republican state officials leading the way now have early voting and told us that early voting is here to stay and increasingly demanded by voters. The details of the number of days and hours will vary by state, county and locality and the decisions are best made there. Whether to help ensure that only dualy qualified voters vote were to facilitate more people to vote easily, the Commission Found agreement and support across the political spectrum for more accurate voter lists. We make two recommendations in that regard. One is the adoption and use of more online registration to support the voter web site and secondly, we recommend that all states join two existing two programs, the interstate voter cross check or kansas project and election registration and information center. Both allow states to share data in ways that will make their lists more accurate on their own initiative. The report touches on a number of subjects that are summarized in my testimony. Military and overseas voting, dissabled policies and law that require accessible polling, a group that is growing larger with the baby boom generation, recommendations that entail state and local voting officials meeting with members of the disabled community and those with Language Proficiency issues to work out solutions for local polling areas. And data and testing. There should be testing of our machines after each election to see how well they performed and share information among jurisdictions. And there should be more uniform collection of data, because as our political scientist friends led by our Research Director at Stanford University told us, more data leads to better solutions. With that, thank you again for having us and i know bob and i would be happy to answer questions. Thank you both for your report and excellent testimony. Ill start off. The report recommends that states adopt online voting registration, reform that improves accuracy and saves money. 19 states have done it, so that means 31 have not. Why what is the barrier to the other states doing it and is there anything we can do to overcome those barriers . We are not seeing barrier so much. Sometimes it takes a while for the discussion to take place within the state and ultimately decisions to be reached in favor of online registration. We are optimistic that is one of the developments. A key flukes of the technology into the electoral process that is going to move across the country. And one of our goals in keeping with the project is to go out and as we have been invited to do and make the case wherever we can and whenever that case can be made, whether by federal legislative leaders, state legislative leaders, Voting Rights groups, community leaders, that case does need to be made. Is there an upfront cost . There is an upfront cost. How much is it . Significant . It is not significant and overtime, states that have adopted online registration, it is a net savings. We have a lot of instances in our government where an upfront cost is recouped but because of budgets, people dont want to make the expenditures in year one and year two. That is not a barrier in your eyes . No. Second, the report states that electronic poll books have the potential to solve electionday issues that Election Officials want this technology. Can you discuss how electronic poll books make a difference and what is delaying the adoption of that one . Much easier how to describe how it makes a difference than to describe why its been a problem. The information that can be put on an electronic poll book takes care of a lot of the old paper thats in a polling place. You can call up much more information, including signature verification and photo i. D. s and can cut down on the traditional line problems that have plagued some jurisdictions on election day. So they are a lowcost, simple solution to putting a lot of paper in one place where poll workers can access it easily. Their implementation . This goes into what we have fallen into with technology. Part of the problem is that Certification Program for new Ballot Systems is kind of broken and new systems are having a great deal of difficulty coming online. Because the certification process now takes so long and is virtually impossible to get through, some of these solutions are medicalsome for industry to put them in place. Next, delaware is highlighted in your report as a National Leader in implementing the National Voter registration act. Delaware seems to seamlessly transfer from Motor Vehicles to the election rolls. Can you explain why it is better than what most other states do and again, why arent more states doing it . Delaware, in particular, because of our concern about the inconsistent performance of departments of Motor Vehicles across the country in implementing their responsibility under the motorvoter act, this is a significant issue. One of our Commission Commissioners has really called attention to this as a major, major shortfall in compliance with federal law and we are calling attention to the fact, that a, there is no reason why these d. M. V. S Performance cannot be improved and models like delaware to which states can look, really illustrate how it can be done and what a difference it makes. There really needs to be major consistent attention to the fact that this is a serious, serious problem in the operation of current federal statutes, that is to say compliance with those statutes. My time has expired. Senator roberts. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to talk about the long line problem. And we often hear about long lines are the result of some kind of a real plan of some sort that certain areas are being targeted and the lines are a result of a deliberate effort to disenfranchise certain groups. My question is, did you find any evidence of that . Second, are these lines resulting from management problems or deliberate schemes to disenfranchise people . Almost we saw is that exclusively turn the microphone towards you. That this was a management issue, that there are any number of solutions that we put forward in the report to deal with the specific problems of long lines. We held extensive hearings with the jurisdictions in the jurisdictions where long lines had occurred and we found that there are the problems are all identifiable and solveable and no plots of conspiracies that caused the lines. We spent time in florida and what we found in the polling places where there were long lines in those counties, that occurred in less than 1 of the polling places in that particular county. That would suggest resource allocation issue and way to look at management techniques and facilities to be able to improve that. And one of the things that bob mentioned in his testimony was the providing of online tools for precinct officials to be able to gauge the flow over the course of the day and allocate the equipment they have within a ounty. Testing, one, two, three. Your report argues in favor of expanding early voting. Do you think the states who have adopted that inaudible] sound system is not working] working] tem is not several issues come up with regards to the campaign and the voters who voted 45 days early have no chance to factor that in with regards to the election day eriod. There are two points i would make about the early voting and the issue you raised about whether or not it cuts off the opportunity for citizens. The first is that without seeking out to be the amount of early voting a state may provide , those actively resist the notion that they all need to be funneled through on one day from 7 00 a. M. Until 8 00 p. M. The traditional election day model has not only broken down from the standpoint of administrators, but less feasible and runs up against the grain of voter expectation, that they should be cramped into this one day to vote and creates a whole host of problems. The second point i would make, senator, is that the studies show that the voters who vote early who are the voters who are the most settled on their choice. They have made up their minds, whether you call them the most partisan or idealogically committed but one way or the other, they are most likely to be least moved over the remain