Reply #31: Flashback: Blackwell, Oxley election "reform"

[ntwkgirl]

CONGRESSMAN PAT TIBERI’S CAPITOL NOTEBOOK

For the week of October 20, 2002

WASHINGTON-Remember hanging chads? How about butterfly ballots? They became part of the national vocabulary during the long process of sorting out the votes in Florida after the 2000 presidential election.
Hopefully, those terms will return to obscurity following passage of legislation meant to overhaul our elections system. After months of work toward a compromise on the issue between the House and Senate, final passage came earlier this month.
Among the key provisions of the Help America Vote Act are:
· More than $3.7 billion in direct aid to states in order to immediately upgrade and improve the administration process of federal elections, including the training of poll workers and increased voter education material;
· Creation of an Election Assistance Commission that will issue voluntary guidelines for voting systems, in addition to certifying and testing the systems;
· Anti-fraud provisions, whereby first-time voters must provide proof of identity and states are required to maintain accurate voter registration records;
· Provisional balloting measures, whereby voters who do not initially appear on a registration list are offered the opportunity to vote;
· Improved voting access for the disabled, including more than $100 million in physical access grants;
· Improved ballot access for military and overseas voters;
· Criminal penalties for voting fraud.
States and localities can use money from this bill to finance the replacement of punch-card voting machines (that gave rise to Florida’s hanging chads) with modern electronic voting systems. Some 69 counties in Ohio still use punch-card machines, and the state stands to gain as much as $150 million that could be used for their replacement. Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, who oversees voting in Ohio, says the money could allow the new machines to be installed in time for the 2004 presidential election. When the upgrade is complete, our elections process will be “more reliable, more accurate and more voter-friendly,” according to Blackwell.
Much of the credit for this legislation goes to my Ohio colleague Bob Ney. He was the sponsor of the original election reform measure, then led the negotiations with the Senate that resulted in the final legislation that the President will sign into law. As Bob put it recently, this legislation “will restore the trust and confidence of the American people in our democratic process. Never again should our country have to suffer through the problems that became apparent during our last election.”
Over the last two years, we’ve heard a lot about the clout of the Ohio congressional delegation, and this new law is just the latest example. John Boehner led the fight to enact landmark education reform legislation, then Mike Oxley was at the forefront of securities reform efforts, and now Bob Ney has spearheaded the election reform bill. If there is another state delegation that has accomplished as much, I have yet to see it.