a recent piece of legislation Kerry co-sponsored.
DECEPTIVE PRACTICES AND VOTER INTIMIDATION PREVENTION -- (Senate - November 10, 2005)
GPO's PDF
--- Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I proudly join as a cosponsor of Senator Obama's Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act of 2005. This important legislation will protect voters from the deceptive practices that aimed to keep them from the polls on election day.
Free and fair elections are the foundation of our democracy--a democracy built on the unassailable principle that every single American should have an equal say in their government. No American should ever approach their polling place in fear. No American should ever worry that they will somehow be penalized for exercising their fundamental right to vote . No American should ever be tricked into thinking they do not have the right to vote .
The Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevent Act takes great strides towards ensuring that no American will ever be denied the right to vote . It both criminalizes deceptive practices and provides affected individuals with a private right of action. It prevents the negative effects of deceptive practices by ensuring voters get accurate election information. It also requires the Attorney General to report allegations of deceptive practices, the actions taken to correct them, and any prosecutions resulting from those allegations.
We have worked hard to bring fair and free elections to people around the word-including the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. We must do everything in our power to ensure that our own elections are at least as fair and as free.
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?dbname=2005_record&page=S12679&position=allS.1975
Title: A bill to prohibit deceptive practices in Federal elections.
Sponsor: Sen Obama, Barack (introduced 11/8/2005) Cosponsors (4)
Related Bills: H.R.4463
Latest Major Action: 11/8/2005 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Rules and Administration.
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COSPONSORS(4), ALPHABETICAL : (Sort: by date)
Sen Clinton, Hillary Rodham - 12/12/2005
Sen Feingold, Russell D. - 12/12/2005
Sen Kerry, John F. - 11/10/2005
Sen Leahy, Patrick J. - 12/12/2005
And the legal action Kerry took:
Today, Kerry-Edwards filed a document in support of that statement. Most significant, Kerry-Edwards also filed today a separate document in support of our motion for hearing with two critical attachments: 1) a declaration from Kerry-Edwards attorney Don McTigue regarding a survey he conducted of Kerry-Edwards county recount coordinators; 2) a summary chart of the results of that survey (which highlight the inconsistent standards applied during the recount).
http://forum.truthout.org/blog/story/2005/2/24/183243/756They were thrown out by the courts, by partisan players, but if there was solid evidence not even partisanship would have been able to refute the case. As Conyers report stated:
Whether the cumulative effect of these legal violations would have altered the actual outcome is not known at this time. However, we do know that there are many serious and intentional violations which violate Ohio’s own law, that the Secretary of State has done everything in his power to avoid accounting for such violations, and it is incumbent on Congress to protect the integrity of its own laws by recognizing the seriousness of these legal violations.
B. Need for Further Congressional Hearings
It is also clear the U.S. Congress needs to conduct additional and more vigorous hearings into the irregularities in the Ohio presidential election and around the country.While we have conducted our own Democratic hearings and investigation, we have been handicapped by the fact that key participants in the election, such as Secretary of State Blackwell, have refused to cooperate in our hearings or respond to Mr. Conyers questions. While GAO officials are prepared to move forward with a wide ranging analysis of systemic problems in the 2004 elections, they are not planning to conduct the kind of specific investigation needed to get to the bottom of the range of problems evident in Ohio.
As a result, it appears that the only means of obtaining his cooperation in any congressional investigation is under the threat of subpoena, which only the Majority may require.http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/issues/issues/election.html 
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