Senate Passes Bipartisan Election Reform
Thu Apr 11, 2:04 PM ET
By Thomas Ferraro
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan bill on Thursday designed to avoid a repeat of the disputed 2000 White House contest by implementing one of the biggest overhauls of the nation's election system. The vote was 99-1.
The $3.5 billion measure would upgrade voting equipment and registration procedures by 2004, and implement by 2006 new national election standards, such as permitting people to check ballots and correct errors before their votes are counted.
The bill would also establish a federal agency to serve as an information clearinghouse, administer new election requirements and a grant program and establish an acceptable error rate for voting machines.
In addition, the measure would allow people whose registration is challenged at polls to cast provisional ballots that would be counted if registration is later confirmed.
The legislation must now be reconciled with a similar $2.6 billion measure passed last year by the U.S. House of Representatives so final legislation can be sent to President Bush (news - web sites) to sign into law.
The lone no vote was cast by Sen. Conrad Burns, a Montana Republican.
"My hope is that we can expedite our negotiations with the House and bring back a bill that can be sent to the president shortly," said Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat.
In the wake of the contested 2002 presidential election, won narrowly by Bush, Democratic and Republican leaders on both sides of Capitol Hill made passage of election reform a top legislative priority.
Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a chief Republican sponsor of the bill, said, "This is a step forward for our democracy."
Repeating what had become a refrain for many Senate backers, McConnell said the measure "will make it easier to vote and harder to cheat."
Yet the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (news - web sites) and other rights groups were concerned about an anti-fraud provision and expressed hope it could fixed in the House-Senate conference.
The provision, which delayed Senate passage until a compromise was recently agreed to, would require first-time voters who register by mail to produce a drivers' license or other identification -- such as a pay check or utility bill.
As amended, such voters could also provide their drivers' license number or the last four digits of their Social Security (news - web sites) number.
Yet critics said even the revised requirements could have a chilling and discriminatory impact on some voters and preferred they merely provide a verifiable signature.
Daschle said he was open to making improvements in conference, but added, "We know that we are not going to resolve the matter to everyone's satisfaction."
The main thrust of the legislation is to help states replace antiquated voting equipment, such as the punch-card voting machine, which was at the center of the controversy in 2002 in Florida, the state whose electoral votes gave Bush the presidency.
"Just because we have the oldest democracy in the world we don't have to have the oldest equipment," said Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat.
The House passed its version on Dec. 12, 2001 -- the first anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) ruling that effectively decided the election in favor of Bush by denying Democrat Al Gore (news - web sites) a hand count of thousands of disputed Florida ballots.
Former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, co-chairmen of a reform commission, said the legislation would provide the most meaningful improvements in voting safeguards since the civil rights laws of the 1960s,