[House Hearing, 116 Congress] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] VOTING RIGHTS AND ELECTION ADMINISTRATION IN AMERICA ======================================================================= HEARING before the SUBCOMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION ---------- OCTOBER 17, 2019 ---------- Printed for the use of the Committee on House Administration [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Available on the Internet: https://govinfo.gov/committee/house-administration ______ U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 38-145 WASHINGTON: 2019 C O N T E N T S ---------- OCTOBER 17, 2019 Page Voting Rights and Election Administration in America............. 1 OPENING STATEMENTS Chairwoman Marcia L. Fudge....................................... 1 Prepared statement of Chairwoman Fudge....................... 4 Hon. Rodney Davis, Ranking Member................................ 6 Prepared statement of Ranking Member Davis................... 8 Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren........................................... 11 Prepared statement Chairperson Lofgren....................... 12 WITNESSES Kristen Clarke, President and Executive Director, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law........................... 13 Prepared statement of Ms. Clarke............................. 15 Dale Ho, Director, Voting Rights Project......................... 28 Prepared statement of Mr. Ho................................. 30 Deuel Ross, Senior Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense Fund............. 47 Prepared statement of Mr. Ross............................... 49 Hon. Catherine E. Lhamon, Chair, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. 66 Prepared statement of Hon. Lhamon............................ 69 Brenda Wright, Senior Advisor for Legal Strategies, Demos........ 76 Prepared statement of Ms. Wright............................. 78 Michael Waldman, President, Brennan Center for Justice........... 89 Prepared statement of Mr. Waldman............................ 91 Elena Nunez, Director of State Operations and Ballot Measure Strategies, Common Cause....................................... 101 Prepared statement of Ms. Nunez.............................. 103 Hannah Fried, Director, All Voting Is Local...................... 120 Prepared statement of Ms. Fried.............................. 123 Virginia Kase, Chief Executive Officer, League of Women Voters... 138 Prepared statement of Ms. Kase............................... 140 Barbara Arnwine, National Co-Chair, National Commission for Voter Justice........................................................ 144 Prepared statement of Ms. Arnwine............................ 146 Denise Lieberman, Senior Attorney and Program Director, Power and Democracy, Advancement Project................................. 150 Prepared statement of Ms. Lieberman.......................... 152 John C. Yang, President and Executive Director, Asian Americans Advancing Justice.............................................. 164 Prepared statement of Mr. Yang............................... 167 Arturo Vargas, Chief Executive Officer, NALEO Educational Fund... 182 Prepared statement of Mr. Vargas............................. 184 Thomas Saenz, President and General Counsel, MALDEF.............. 201 Prepared statement of Mr. Saenz.............................. 203 Michelle Bishop, Voting Rights Specialist, National Disability Rights Network................................................. 208 Prepared statement of Ms. Bishop............................. 210 SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD Brennan Center for Justice, Purges: A Growing Threat to the Right to Vote........................................................ 222 Brennan Center for Justice, Voter Purge Rates Remain High, Analysis Finds August 1, 2019.................................. 255 Leadership Conference Education Fund, Democracy Diverted: Polling Place Closures and the Right to Vote September 2019............ 261 NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Analysis of Barriers to Voting in the 2018 Midterm Elections........................... 343 Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., Founder and President, Rainbow PUSH Coalition, statement...................................... 383 Rhode Island Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Advisory Memorandum on Voting Rights Briefing.......... 388 North Dakota Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Concern for Potential voter Suppression October 26, 2018........................................................... 394 Alaska Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Alaska Native Voting Rights.................................... 396 Louisiana Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Barriers to Voting in Louisiana........................ 464 Illinois Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Civil Rights and Voting in Illinois.................... 503 California Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Voting Integrity in California......................... 712 Kansas Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Voting Rights and the Kansas Secure and Fair Elections Act..... 771 New Hampshire Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Voting Rights in New Hampshire......................... 848 Indiana Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Voting Rights in Indiana............................... 877 Texas Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Voting Rights in Texas......................................... 893 Transformative Justice Coalition, 61 Forms of Voter Suppression.. 916 Racial Equity Anchors Collaborative, We Vote, We Count: The Need for Congressional Action to Secure the Right to Vote for All Citizens....................................................... 920 VOTING RIGHTS AND ELECTION ADMINISTRATION IN AMERICA ---------- THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2019 House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Elections, Committee on House Administration, Washington, DC. The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in Room 1310, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Marcia L. Fudge [chair of the Subcommittee] presiding. Present: Representatives Fudge, Aguilar, Davis of Illinois, and Lofgren. Staff Present: Sean Jones, Legislative Clerk; David Tucker, Senior Counsel and Parliamentarian; Sarah Nasta, Elections Counsel; Peter Whippy, Communications Director; Veleter Mazyck, Chief of Staff, Office of Representative Fudge; Evan Dorner, Office of Representative Aguilar; Courtney Parella, Minority Communications Director; Cole Felder, Minority General Counsel; Jesse Roberts, Minority Counsel; Jen Daulby, Minority Staff Director; Tim Monahan, Minority Oversight Director; and Carson Steelman, Minority Professional Staff. Chairwoman Fudge. If our witnesses could come to the table, please. Good morning. The Subcommittee on Elections of the Committee of House Administration will come to order. I would like to thank the Members of the Committee as well as our witnesses and those in the audience for being here today. I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and that any written statements be made part of the record. Hearing no objection, so ordered. We are here today to examine the state of voting rights and election administration in America. The right to vote is sacred, and 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. And 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, litigators, 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; Halifax, 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 cutbacks to early voting disenfranchises voters, especially those with limited transportation options or inflexible work hours; strict voter ID 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 2 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. Today's 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 leaders who 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 6 years after the Supreme Court decided Shelby County v. Holder, we are doing this work because voter suppression and 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 we are 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. [The statement of Chairwoman Fudge follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Mr. Davis of Illinois. Thank you, Madam Chairperson. The Committee on House Administration has the extremely important task to conduct oversight of Federal elections. Throughout the Committee's 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 problems seen during the 2000 Presidential election. The Subcommittee on Elections was created for the primary purpose to be an extension of House Administration to enhance the Committee's oversight capabilities of Federal elections and how these elections are administered. 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 5 of the Voting Rights Act. And I have been proud to travel to a few of the stops that this Election Subcommittee has participated in throughout the Nation, and it has 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 Chairwoman, for your diligence, and thank you 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 racial-based restrictions on voting, has historically been a bipartisan effort. This legislation was most recently authorized under a Republican President and a Republican Congress. In 2013, the Supreme Court determined Section 4 of the VRA to be unconstitutional, in Shelby County v. Holder. Chief Justice Roberts said the Voting Rights Act of 1965 employed extraordinary measures to address an extraordinary problem. 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 the jurisdiction of the House Judiciary Committee, but the House Administration Committee has an obligation to review how elections are administered and recognize if any issue 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--as Madam Chairwoman has said and I alluded to, 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 was unable to cast a vote, we still have a duty to the American people to protect and defend everyone's right to vote. As I have said many times since coming into my role as the Ranking Member of the House Administration 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 there is clear evidence of intentional widespread voter discrimination, Congress should take steps to remedy that in a bipartisan manner. We must commit to diligently review the facts and the 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. It is essential that Congress make well-informed 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, I am 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 Chairwoman. I yield back. [The statement of Mr. Davis of Illinois follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. I thank my friend, the Ranking Member, for participating and really understanding that our goal as a Congress is to get to the truth. So I appreciate that and I thank you. Now I will introduce our panel, but as I prepare to do that, let me go through some housekeeping matters. Each of you will be recognized for 5 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 will 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 Clarke-- welcome--is President and Executive Director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The Lawyers' Committee seeks to promote fair housing and community development, economic justice, voting rights, equal educational opportunity, criminal justice reform--criminal justice, judicial diversity and more. Ms. Clarke previously served as the head of the Civil Rights Bureau for the New York State Attorney General's Office, and has spent several years at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and worked at the U.S. Department of Justice in the Civil Rights Division. Welcome. Dale Ho is the Director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project and supervise--it is one of them days. It is been a tough day. Dale Ho is the Director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project and supervisors--this is because it is written wrong--and supervised the ACLU's voting rights litigation and advocacy work nationwide. Mr. Ho 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, Dale was Assistant Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, an associate at--Fried? Mr. Ho. Fried. Chairwoman Fudge [continuing]. Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver, & Jacobson, LLP, and a judicial law clerk. Thank you, sir. Welcome. Deuel Ross--did I get it right? Mr. Ross. Deuel. Chairwoman Fudge. Deuel? Mr. Ross. Yes. Chairwoman Fudge. Deuel 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 v. Merrill, an ongoing Voting Rights Act lawsuit that challenges Alabama's racially discriminatory voter ID law. He was a member of the trial team that has coauthored the appellate briefs in Veasey v. Perry, the successful challenge to Texas' unconstitutional voter ID law. Mr. Ross is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School where he teaches a seminar course on the Voting Rights Act. Welcome all. And we have been joined by the Chairperson of the Committee, the whole Committee, Ms. Lofgren. The Chairperson. Well, thank you very much. You know, 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 its outstanding Chairwoman, Marcia Fudge. They have held eight hearings throughout the country, giving voice to many not generally heard in Washington, D.C., and convening this hearing today. You know, too many Americans view themselves as shut out of our representative system, and others can't 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. And this is especially the case after the Supreme Court gutted core provisions of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder. Additionally, we know now that foreign agents, specifically the Russians, attempted to interfere in American elections in 2016. And as we discussed yesterday in the full Committee hearing, no single group has been targeted more with disinformation than African Americans. 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 African Americans--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 it is 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 have worked so very hard to gather information throughout the United States for their outstanding work that serves our country so well. And with that, I yield back. [The statement of Chairperson Lofgren follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. And thank you for your support, Madam Chairperson. We could not have made these field hearings work without you. So we appreciate it. Ms. Clarke, you are now recognized for 5 minutes. STATEMENTS OF KRISTEN CLARKE, PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, LAWYERS' COMMITTEE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS UNDER LAW; DALE HO, DIRECTOR, VOTING RIGHTS PROJECT; AND DEUEL ROSS, SENIOR COUNSEL, NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE FUND STATEMENT OF KRISTEN CLARKE Ms. Clarke. Chairwoman Fudge, Ranking Member Davis, and Members of the Subcommittee on Elections, my name is Kristen Clarke, 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 Nation's 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 Nation's largest and longest running, nonpartisan voter protection program. In Shelby County v. Holder, Chief Justice Roberts observed that ``things have changed dramatically,'' in the South since passage of the Voting Rights Act, and that ``blatantly discriminatory evasions of Federal decrees are rare.'' Our experience and the record shows that 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. There is 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 relating to discriminatory voting practices or policies that have had an adverse effect on the rights of African Americans and other minority voters. These instances are summarized in my written testimony. Twenty-four of these actions were filed since January 20, 2017. Sadly, DOJ has filed no such cases during this timeframe. While we have achieved substantial success in about three- quarters of these 24 cases, this is just the tip of the iceberg of potential voting rights violations that could be challenged by DOJ, were they actively enforcing the law in a restored Section 5. Without the prophylactic protections of Section 5, and given that parts of our country are becoming more racially diverse, we have 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 ID laws; polling place closures, polling places moved to hostile locations like police departments; ineffective language assistance for LEP voters; 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 racially gerrymandered maps. Case-by-case litigation is simply not enough to counter the magnitude of this threat. Writing for the dissent in Shelby, Justice Ginsburg observed that Congress passed the Voting Rights Act because requiring private individuals and 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 that 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 whack-a-mole. There is no better example of this than Georgia, where officials resurrect discriminatory practices repeatedly. In the post-Shelby 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 African Americans, Latinos, and other people of color enjoy equal voice in our democracy. Thank you. [The statement of Ms. Clarke follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. Mr. Ho, you are now recognized for 5 minutes. STATEMENT OF DALE HO Mr. Ho. Chairwoman Fudge, Ranking Member Davis, and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Dale Ho, and 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 applicants to submit a citizenship document, like a birth certificate or a passport. It sounds innocuous, but the effects were devastating. Over three years, more than 30,000 voter registration applicants were denied, about 12 percent of all applications during that period. One was our client Donna Bucci, who did not possess a copy of her birth certificate and couldn't 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 actually 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 Secretary of State Kris Kobach claimed that 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 percent 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, Kobach engaged in a disturbing pattern of evasion and lawlessness. He was sanctioned for concealing relevant documents. Kansas taxpayers paid a thousand dollar fine for that. The court found that he willfully disobeyed a preliminary injunction, and Kansas taxpayers paid approximately $26,000 for that. And the court found a, quote, pattern of flaunting disclosure and discovery rules, and ordered him to take 6 hours of continuing legal education. There is 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 percent of 30,000 voters flagged there. And as to the remaining 12,000, an audit of 150 names chosen at random yielded no noncitizens. Civil rights organizations, including MALDEF, the ACLU, and the Texas Civil Rights Project, sued to stop Texas from purging these voters. The court found that Texas ``created [a] mess,'' which ``exemplifie[d] 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 attorney fees. Texas' Secretary of State David Whitley 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 administration's effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, finding that the administration's publicly stated purpose of Voting Rights Act enforcement was, quote, contrived. Indeed, the first person to suggest adding a citizenship question to the Census was the recently deceased Thomas Hofeller, known as the ``Michelangelo of gerrymandering,'' who conceived of it as the first step in a gerrymandering scheme that would be, in his words, ``advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic Whites.'' In other words, the Administration's actual purpose was not to protect voting rights, but the opposite, to dilute the political influence of communities of color. Despite the Court's ruling, the Administration is still planning to produce citizenship data to facilitate gerrymandering. The Census Bureau is now asking States for driver's license records that include citizenship data. Now, 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, claims 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 public's confidence in our elections. That is the opposite of election integrity. Thank you. I look forward to answering any questions that you might have. [The statement of Mr. Ho follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. Mr. Ross, you are recognized for five minutes. STATEMENT OF DEUEL ROSS Mr. Ross. Thank you. Good morning, Chairwoman Fudge, Ranking Member Davis, and the Committee. My name is Deuel Ross. I am 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 by Thurgood Marshall, LDF has led the fight to protect and advance the voting rights for Black Americans and others. LDF's efforts, however, have gotten much more difficult since 2013 when the U.S. Supreme Court decided Shelby County v. Holder. LDF attorneys argued Shelby County in the Supreme Court in defense of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. As you know, Section 5 required covered States or jurisdictions with histories of discrimination to seek preclearance from the U.S. Department of Justice or a D.C. Federal court before implementing change related to voting. The States had the burden of proving that a change 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 any scrutiny. The results have been predictable and devastating. Within hours of the decision, Texas revived its previously blocked photo ID law. Within days, Alabama announced that it would enforce an unprecleared 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 2 of the Voting Rights Act which apply nationwide to challenge discriminatory voting changes, but Section 2 in the Constitution placed the burden on voters to prove that 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 single-member districts to at-large voting after a black commissioner died and they needed to hold special elections. Section 2 was able to block that change. In 2018, LDF convinced the 11th Circuit to block the largely white city of Gardendale, Alabama's intentionally discriminatory attempt to secede from the more racially diverse Jefferson County School Board. The secession would have transferred black voters from the county board, in which those black voters had representation, to the Gardendale City Council in which Black voters had no representation. On the eve of the 2018 election, LDF represented black college students in Prairie View, Texas, a place with a long history of discrimination, where the county tried to cut on- campus early voting. Counting officials responded to LDF's lawsuit by adding weekend and evening hours. In Florida, voting rights for people with felonies were restored in 2018 by a ballot referendum but later--earlier this year, excuse me, 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 at a hearing to try to stop this change before the 2019 elections. And in a pending challenge to Alabama's photo ID law, LDF has demonstrated that discrimination is not a thing of the past. A prominent State senator who supported the voter ID law for 10 years stated that his purpose was to undermine the black power structure in Alabama, and other supporters have been caught on tape calling black voters aborigines and plotting their efforts to suppress the black vote. Black voters in Alabama were four times more likely to have their provisional ballots rejected because they lacked photo ID. All these changes would have been subjected to Section 5. LDF has also continued to use Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to challenge at-large elections. For example, in 2017, a Federal court ruled that Louisiana had intentionally discriminated when it maintained at-large elections in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. Unfortunately, this Voting Rights Act litigation, even when successful, is slow and can cost millions of dollars. On average, it takes 2 to 5 years for a Voting Rights Act case to be completed. For example, in Texas, in 2016, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals found that Texas' photo ID law violated Section 2, but during the 3 years of litigation, hundreds of elected officials were voted into office, and for the 500,000 voters who lacked ID, 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 cost and time that 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 2 of the Voting Rights Act 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 it should not be up for debate. It is critical that Congress make voting easier, not harder. It is time for bipartisan unity. It is time to act. Thank you. [The statement of Mr. Ross follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. And I thank you all for your testimony. We will now begin questioning. Each member of the panel will have five minutes. I am 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 Chairperson Lofgren for your five minutes. You are recognized for five minutes. The Chairperson. Well, thank you very much, Chairwoman Fudge. You know, 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.'' So, 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. And I appreciate the testimony you have 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 I am wondering, in addition to the Voting Rights Act, which we are committed to, are there other changes or laws that the Congress should enact to alleviate the continued effects of racial discrimination? Ms. Clarke. Thank you for that question. I will observe that there are some States, like Tennessee and Kentucky, that just barely escape coverage under Section 5, 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 5 review process that applied to the State of Tennessee. As Chairwoman Fudge indicated, we should follow the truth. And it is my firm belief that Congress should respond to the record that you amassed, indicating where the problems lie, and apply a remedy that is responsive to those issues. Mr. Ho. Chairperson Lofgren, I thank you for that question. There are elements of H.R. 1 that I think would be very positive in terms of protecting voting rights. And I just want to focus on one, that is the provision of H.R. 1 that provides for election day registration. About 20 States have election day registration, including the Ranking Member's home State of Illinois and your home State of California. The States that have election day registration tend to have turnout that is about 5 to 10 percentage points higher than the States that don't. It is the single reform that there is a--has the broadest consensus among political scientists that it facilitates participation, particularly among young people, mobile voters who have moved recently, African Americans, historically disadvantaged groups. We have heard a little bit about purges, erroneous removals of voters from the rolls. Election Day registration can be a valuable safety net in making sure that any voters who are purged erroneously do end up getting to participate on Election Day. The Chairperson. Thank you for that. I know my time is almost up, but it also helps if the Russians hijack the registration rolls. It is actually protection against that kind of cyber mischief, that with same- day registration, we would prevent them from ruining our elections, but--the final comment. Mr. Ross. Thank you, Madam Chairperson. In addition to the other provisions of H.R. 1, LDF supports early voting in Federal elections. Obviously, it offers the opportunity to cut down on some of the election administration issues that we have seen, like long lines, voters having 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 5, which is Arkansas which is the ACLU and LDF and others were involved in litigation there to challenge a photo ID law, which was successful initially, only for the State to turn around and pass a new photo ID law shortly thereafter. LDF is currently in court now challenging the way in which the Court of Appeals of Arkansas and the Arkansas Supreme Court are elected, and 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 a candidate of their choice. The Chairperson. Thank you very much. I see my time has expired, Madam Chairwoman. Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you very much. Ranking Member Davis, you are recognized for five minutes. Mr. Davis of Illinois. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And thanks again to our witnesses. I appreciate the opportunity and I appreciated your testimony. I will start with you, Mr. Ho. Do you agree that accurate voter rolls are a critical part of our election administration and required by the NVRA? Mr. Ho. Of course, I do. And part of maintaining accurate rolls, I think, is making sure that voters are not purged inaccurately. Mr. Davis of Illinois. What are the best practices, then, for maintaining timely voter roll hygiene? Mr. Ho. Well, I think about 19 States in recent years have adopted a form of automatic voter registration, which ensures that when voters move, for example, their registrations are automatically updated with the State. It is a way, I think, of both facilitating participation and also making sure that there isn't so-called dead wood on the rolls of voters who have moved but their registration information remains out of date. Mr. Davis of Illinois. So give me an example of a couple of States that have done that and that you support. So you are saying once they move, it is automatically updated, and you are fine with that, versus other practices that exist in States like Ohio, for example, where we did one of our hearings? Mr. Ho. Yes. I think it is much better when a voter updates their information with the State, whether it is 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 they have 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 don't have the complete list, but the National Conference of State Legislatures maintains a very comprehensive and up-to-date list of practices like that. Mr. Davis of Illinois. Okay. What has the ACLU's interaction with the Election Assistance Commission been in trying to address the ballot access concerns that you raise in your testimony? Mr. Ho. In my role at the ACLU, my primary job is to oversee our litigation. So I don't have, myself, direct contact with the EAC. Mr. Davis of Illinois. You haven't sued the EAC? Mr. Ho. I am sorry? Mr. Davis of Illinois. You have not filed a lawsuit against the EAC, right? Mr. Ho. Well, I was about to say, 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 Brian Newby to add documentary proof of citizenship instructions to the Federal voter registration form. Mr. Davis of Illinois. So you are not aware of any ACLU interaction to try and work with EAC to ensure that we address some of your concerns? Mr. Ho. I am not, but I think the appropriate person in my office to talk to would be a member of our Washington legislative office, and I am happy to follow up with them to see---- Mr. Davis of Illinois. Please do. Please do. Mr. Ho [continuing]. What contacts there have been. Mr. Davis of Illinois. I appreciate it. Ms. Clarke, 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? Ms. Clarke. We absolutely can. And I do think that better machines that are not hackable, that provide a paper trail, audit system, so that 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 for the person that 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 country's history, overturn and reject the entire State system. Georgia is working right now to put in place new machines, new technology, and we do think that this will produce better outcomes for voters in the State of Georgia going forward. Mr. Davis of Illinois. Great. Mr. Ross, it was great talking with you before the hearing. I am proud to represent what many consider to be the birthplace of the NAACP in Springfield, Illinois. We have got 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. It is an important message to send in the land of Lincoln. But one of the areas under the Committee's 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? Mr. Ross. So I will say that, you know, LDF's 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, and one of the things that we often see are issues like access to the polls for handicapped voters or issues with access for voters who may be undereducated or have disabilities like blindness and things like that. And so I think one of the things that 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 kinds of access issues, and, you know, allow for people who want to vote to be able to do so. Mr. Davis of Illinois. Great. Thank you. I yield back. Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. Mr. Aguilar, you are recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. Aguilar. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I appreciate the panel and their testimony. Ms. Clarke, I will start with you. In your testimony, I want to make sure I understood this, how many Section 2 lawsuits has the current administration filed? Ms. Clarke. Zero. Mr. Aguilar. We have been in a couple of these hearings around the country, and our colleague, Mr. Butterfield, always does a very good job, and since he is not here, I will ask his question. How much does a Section 2 lawsuit typically cost, and what are the resources? And if you could chime in here too afterwards, Mr. Ross, what are the resources that go into filing a Section 2 lawsuit? Ms. Clarke. 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 or 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 5 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 we have been talking about today would never have been allowed to put these discriminatory tactics on the books if we had Section 5 in place. I think the work that this Committee is doing is critical to the fate of American democracy, and I hope that it yields to a place where we can have Section 5 restored and its prophylactic protections back on the books. Mr. Aguilar. Mr. Ross. Mr. Ross. Sure. So just to follow up on what Ms. Clarke said, is that one of the things that have been found is that voting rights cases take up the sixth most judicial resources in terms of cases. So it is not only money and time of the parties who are litigating it, but also the Federal courts. One of the reports that I cite too 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 2 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 in not recognizing that they have violated Federal law. Also, it will take, as I said in my testimony, somewhere between 3 and 5 years for these litigations to obviously be resolved. And for States like Alabama and Texas and other places that enact discriminatory photo ID 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. And it is important that we think about the costs of not having Section 5, of not having an administrative process that is less costly, less burdensome, and protects voters beforehand. Mr. Aguilar. Mr. Ho, if you want to respond to that, I will let you, but I did want to ask you if the loss of proactive Federal protections has made it more difficult to track changes to voting laws that could have a discriminatory impact and so-- and how we categorize and track them in the future. But if you also want to chime in on the cost for Section 2. Mr. Ho. Sure. Thank you for those questions. Section 2 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 3-year period. That testimony also described 10 ACLU Section 2 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 we have lost a lot without the preclearance regime in place. I think about half of successful Section 2 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 we have lost. Mr. Aguilar. Thank you so much. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. Let me just wrap up. I am from Ohio 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 that 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, we have 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. And so instead of purging 230,000 people, which is what he thought he was required to do, he decided we are going to cross-check with the DMV. We are going to let the League of Women Voters look at the list. We are 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 we start to read the Constitution, let's just be clear that that is something that we want to follow. When we disenfranchise people who have paid their debt to society, we have violated the Constitution. It says every citizen, every American. We don't take away a citizenship when we incarcerate you, and 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, that believe it is okay to have these strict voter ID laws. And I would suggest to them when they come up with examples like, well, you know, you have to have a certain ID to get on a plane or you have to have one to get a movie, those are not rights. Voting is a right. And so we need to be encouraging people to vote and not trying to discourage them. So 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 are going to call our next panel. Thank you very, very much. Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you very much. We have a lot going on this morning, so people are all over the place. The Ranking Member has an Agriculture hearing. The Chairperson has a Science hearing. I am actually supposed to be in another one as well. So people will come and go. So forgive us for that. Welcome. For our second panel, we have--Catherine Lhamon is the Chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. President Obama appointed Ms. Lhamon to a 6-year term on the Commission on December 15, 2016, and the Commission unanimously confirmed the President's designation of Ms. Lhamon to chair the Commission on December 28, 2016. Ms. Lhamon also serves in the cabinet of California Governor Gavin Newsom, where she has 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 President of the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law, a nonpartisan law and policy institute that focuses on improving systems of democracy and justice. The Brennan Center is a leading national voice on voting rights, money in 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 Speechwriting for President Bill Clinton from 1995 through 1999, serving as an Assistant to the President. Welcome, sir. Brenda Wright is the Senior Advisor for the Legal Strategies at Demos. Ms. Wright has led many progressive legal and policy initiatives on voting rights, campaign finance reform, redistricting, election administration, and other democracy and electoral reform issues and is a nationally known expert in these areas. Ms. 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. Elena Nunez serves as Director of State Operations and Ballot Measure Strategies at Common Cause. Ms. Nunez joined Common Cause in 2006, managing a successful drive to win voter approval for the State's ethics law which limits the influence of lobbying money in State politics. She previously was campaign manager for Amendment 27, Common Cause's successful 2002 statewide campaign finance reform initiative. I thank you all. And the same will apply. You will all be recognized for 5 minutes. The light will turn green when you begin. It will turn yellow whether you have 1 minute left and red when it is time for you to wrap up. You are recognized for 5 minutes. STATEMENTS OF THE HONORABLE CATHERINE E. LHAMON, CHAIR, U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS; BRENDA WRIGHT, SENIOR ADVISOR FOR LEGAL STRATEGIES, DEMOS; MICHAEL WALDMAN, PRESIDENT, BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE; AND ELENA NUNEZ, DIRECTOR OF STATE OPERATIONS AND BALLOT MEASURE STRATEGIES, COMMON CAUSE STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CATHERINE E. LHAMON Ms. Lhamon. Thank you. Chairwoman 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 Commission's current work evaluating voter access and voting rights, as described in our report, released in September 2018, titled ``An Assessment of Minority Voting Rights Access in the United States.'' Drawing from Commission research and investigations and memoranda from 13 of the Commission's State advisory committees who analyzed 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 that discrimination in voting persists. Our report found that, at 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, allowing challenges of voters on the rolls, and unfairly purging voters from rolls, to cuts to early voting, to moving or eliminating polling places. The conclusions the report draws are bleak, leading to unanimous Commission findings that, for example, during the time period studied, race discrimination in voting endures today. Likewise, voter access issues and discrimination continue today for voters with disabilities and limited English proficient voters. Following the Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County, in the absence of the preclearance provisions of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, voters in jurisdictions with long histories of voting discrimination have faced discriminatory voting measures that could not be stopped prior to elections because of the cost, complexity, and time limitations of the remaining statutory tools. As a result, the Commission recommends that Congress should amend the Voting Rights Act to restore and/or expand protections against voting discrimination that are more streamlined and efficient than existing provisions of the act. This new coverage provision should take into account the reality that, one, voting discrimination tends recur in certain parts of the country; and, two, voting discrimination may arise in jurisdictions that do not have extensive histories of discrimination. Because this committee has visited and heard testimony from voters and experts in several States, I will focus my attention on issues of voter access that the Commission and our advisory committees found in other States. Here are just some examples of what voters experienced, raising concerns of discrimination 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 to use her Tribal ID as acceptable identification when voting, even though Tribal ID is acceptable under State law. She testified she was so flustered when she was denied that right that she did not ask for a provisional ballot and she did not vote that day. With respect to inappropriate purging, our Indiana advisory committee found, quote, certain racial and ethic 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-to-access polling places, our Louisiana advisory committee received testimony that demonstrated that the racial makeup of an area is a predictor of the number of polling locations in that area and that there are fewer polling locations per voter in a geographical area if it has more black residents. In one notable instance in Alaska, a polling place was moved away from a village, and, thereafter, Native Alaskan voters could only access their polling place by plane. With respect to inaccessible polling locations for voters with disabilities, in New Hampshire, 100 percent 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, in Illinois, a county clerk reported that in Cicero, Illinois, police officers have harassed voters and asked people for voting permits, which don't exist, and testified that between 60 and 70 off-duty Chicago police officers were armed and present at the polls, intimidating Cicero residents, who were predominantly Latino, and it took the county clerk's office between four and five hours to clear the police officers from the polling place. These distressing data and information regarding ongoing voter discrimination form a basis for our call to Congress to improve our voting protections to ensure that ours is a real democracy. On this difficult day of Congressman Elijah Cummings' passing, I want to close by reminding us all of what he has said about voting. Quote, ``On my mother's dying bed, 92 years old, former sharecropper, her last words were, `Do not let them take our votes away from us.' She had fought and seen people harmed, beaten, trying to vote. Talk about inalienable rights. Voting is crucial. And I don't give a damn how you look at it; there are efforts to stop people from voting. That is not right. This is not Russia. This is the United States of America.'' Rest in peace, Congressman Cummings. [The statement of Ms. Lhamon follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you very much. Ms. Wright, you are recognized for 5 minutes. STATEMENT OF BRENDA WRIGHT Ms. Wright. Thank you, Chairwoman Fudge and Ranking Member Davis, for the opportunity to testify today. It is 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 it is 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 today, given the threats it is facing today. One starting point to notice is that, 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 basically just a steady expansion, from exclusion to inclusion, since our Nation's founding. So the narrative starts with how the right to vote initially was reserved only to white men who owned property, and then it went on to include formerly enslaved men through the 15th Amendment; then the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote; then the Voting Rights Act that gave crucial protections against racial discrimination; then 18-year-olds through the 26th Amendment, et cetera. And so the narrative that you hear suggests that we have finally reached the point where everyone can register and vote. Now, all of those advances have been critically important, and I am 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 and historians 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 we have 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 of enforcement of an existing law that we do have which has been seriously neglected by the current Department of Justice, and that is the National 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 driver's license transactions. Demos 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. It is not just concentrated in one region of the country. One of our first cases was in Ohio. And we have worked, over the years, both cooperatively with States and in litigating against them, to raise up 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 National Voter Registration Act. And that is a big problem. We can't cover the entire country on our own. I want to also focus on one group of U.S. citizens that remains formally locked out of the vote at some point in their lives across almost the entire United States, and that is people with felony convictions. This is a stain on our democracy, and it formally disenfranchises more than 5 million Americans who are denied the right to vote because of criminal convictions. And because our criminal legal system disproportionately targets, arrests, sentences, and locks up people of color, communities of color are represented among disenfranchised Americans far beyond their representation in the population. For example, a national survey on drug use reported that African-Americans and whites use drugs at similar rates but the imprisonment rate of African-Americans for drug charges is almost six times that of whites. So to achieve the goal of a full enfranchisement that is central to democracy, we must reform our current laws that disenfranchise persons with felony convictions. Such laws are not required by the U.S. Constitution, and they have not been the law forever. In fact, in Maine and Vermont and in many other countries, including most of Europe, all people who are incarcerated can vote. There is simply nothing inevitable about vote stripping. And, certainly, the practice in some States of permanently disenfranchising people even years after they have 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 practice of prison-based gerrymandering. Prison-based gerrymandering happens because the United States Census counts incarcerated persons as residents of the prison where they are incarcerated rather than as residents of their home community. And because prisons are often located far away from the home community of incarcerated persons, counting them in that manner awards disproportionate representation to rural or semi-rural communities containing prisons at the expense of representation for the home communities of incarcerated persons. Chairwoman Fudge. Thank---- Ms. Wright. Thank you. Sorry to go over my time just a little bit. Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you very much. Ms. Wright. Thank you for allowing me to testify here. [The statement of Ms. Wright follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairwoman Fudge. Mr. Waldman, you are recognized for five minutes. STATEMENT OF MICHAEL WALDMAN Mr. Waldman. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and Members of the Subcommittee, for this important hearing--for this important series of hearings. The thing we all share, the premise we all share, is that the vote is the heart of American democracy. In so many ways, the right to vote is sacred. And, as we know, we have had to fight for this right for over two centuries--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 it is plain that the systems of democracy and our 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 real 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 they truly represent all Americans? Our belief, strongly, is that the best way to respond to attacks on democracy is to strengthen democracy. As we have looked--and I describe this in our testimony from the Brennan Center for Justice--as we have looked at the landscape of the current election, I want to identify three particular challenges, three particular threats, among many, to be concerned about. The first is the prospect of abusive voter purges. And we have heard some things about that today. We all care about having accurate and complete voter rolls. Seventeen million people were removed from the voter rolls over the last two-year 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 hygiene but something more pernicious than that. The second concern that we have relates to election security, something that Members of Congress of both parties have 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 percent of people voted on machines without paper backup records. By 2020, there is a good chance that, in at least the hotly contested States in the Presidential 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 on what 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 percent of the vote, and which now is being, we would argue, gutted--attempting to be gutted by the Florida legislature. And there is litigation to redress that that we are part of. Going forward, what reforms would make a big difference? Well, first of all, we agree that it is 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 H.R. 1, which we believe is the most significant and sweeping democracy reform legislation since 1965. That would include automatic voter registration, which has been described as a transformative reform that would add tens of millions to the rolls and make lists more accurate and secure. And, finally, election security. We applaud the House of Representatives for its recent move to authorize $600 million to help States meet this threat. We are encouraged that the Senate seems to be coming along, at a lower level. We encourage the House to stand firm in conference and in negotiations both at the proper amount of funding but also to make sure that the money is actually used for the purpose it is designed for. The bottom line on all of this is, the public really cares about this. There is a 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. It is 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. [The statement of Mr. Waldman follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. Ms. Nunez, you are recognized for 5 minutes. STATEMENT OF ELENA NUNEZ Ms. Nunez. Thank you, Chairwoman Fudge, for inviting me to testify before the House Administration Committee Elections Subcommittee today. And thank you to Chairwoman Fudge, Ranking Member Davis, and all Members of the Subcommittee for holding this critically important hearing. My name is Elena Nunez, and I am the Director of State Operations and Ballot Measure Strategies for Common Cause. 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 grassroots organizing. We fight to reduce the influence of big money in politics, enhance voting rights for all eligible Americans, 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 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 a Republican President. However, as you have heard from many of the witnesses today, in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's Shelby County decision, voting rights have become an increasingly politicized issue. You have heard about many of the attacks on the right to vote through voter purges, polling place closures, and restrictive forms of voter ID, so I am going to 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 stations or having a law enforcement presence at other polling sites, which can have a chilling impact on voters. In 2016, Macon, Georgia, election officials tried to move a voting precinct to a police station in a largely African- American community. And throughout the country, in advance of the 2016 and 2018 elections, rumors circulated online and via fliers that Immigration and Customs Enforcement would be patrolling voting 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, automated social media accounts, likely connected to the Internet Research Agency, some of which were targeting African-American and Latino voters, falsely claimed that voters could vote from home for Hillary Clinton. Increasingly, election administration practices around signature processes are a growing concern for voter suppression. Signature mismatch laws can significantly affect voters with disabilities, women who get married or divorced, seniors, and people for whom English is a second language, among others. The often arbitrary application of the law can lead to bias by election officials, nearly all of whom are not handwriting experts, because in most cases there are not uniform standards, and all too often there are 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 voters of color were more likely to have their ballots rejected and they were less likely to cure those problems. We believe that voters are best able to participate when they have convenient options to cast their ballots. Efforts to reduce options, namely by reducing opportunities for early voting, is another form of suppression that we have seen in North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin, among other States. In North Carolina in 2013, the legislature cut a week of early voting, a move that was eventually overturned by a court because the change targeted African-Americans with ``surgical precision.'' In addition to reducing the number of days of early voting, we are seeing a trend towards eliminating or reducing options during evenings and weekends, times that are often most convenient for working people. These changes have a disproportionately discriminatory impact, as African-American voters tend to use early voting more than white voters do. While long lines are often viewed as a sign of high voter interest, there can also be an indication of voter suppression when the lines are an inevitable result of poor planning or inadequate resources. Machine failures due to aging voting equipment and delays in checking in voters due to poor voter rolls 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 wait in line for multiple hours to cast a ballot. Vote suppressors, recognizing this dynamic, can starve localities for resources so that the actual in-person voting process takes longer than 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 counted accurately. Many States, through litigation, ballot measures, and State legislative efforts, are fighting voter suppression and expanding voter access. To make sure that voters throughout the country can have quality access, Federal action is needed by adopting the For the People Act, H.R. 1; the SHIELD Act, including the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act; and the Voting Rights Advancement Act. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today, and I look forward to answering your questions. [The statement of Ms. Nunez follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you very much. Thank you all. We will now the begin with our questioning, and I will recognize Mr. Aguilar for five minutes. Mr. Aguilar. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Ms. Lhamon, I will start with you, but, also, as the Californian up here, thank you for your service. Ms. Lhamon. Thank you. Mr. Aguilar. The Legal Affairs Secretary is no small position in California. So I will be sure to talk to you about San Bernardino County and any judicial vacancies in another platform. Ms. Lhamon. I look forward to that conversation. Mr. Aguilar. You know, but this is for the entire panel. In this chamber, even just yesterday, the Ranking Member talked extensively about ballot harvesting. And so, Ms. Lhamon, can you talk a little bit about what the California experience has taught us, the barriers that individuals have, you know, specifically the kind of robust vote-by-mail system that we see? But this is becoming hyper-political. And some of my colleagues across the aisle are conflating voter fraud with legitimate exercising of our electoral process. And they have 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 people's ballots. It is just becoming hyper-political. So can you talk a little bit about ballot harvesting? And is there evidence? Was there any testimony given to you and your Commission supporting claims of widespread voter fraud that a lot of my colleagues have used, obviously, to pass increased voter suppression laws? Ms. Lhamon. 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 vanishingly 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 exist. And so it is duplicative and also harmful to initiate strict voter ID, among other kinds of requirements, in the name of combating voter fraud. But, also, the existence of voter fraud, as I mentioned, essentially does not exist. And the testimony, both that we at the Commission received and also that our State advisory committees received across the many States that investigated this question, just don't find the existence of voter fraud at all. And that extends, as I mentioned, from bipartisan research. So The Heritage Foundation, the Republican National Committee, a number of conservative-leaning as well as nonpartisan organizations have researched this question and consistently and persistently find that voter fraud essentially does not exist in this country. Mr. Aguilar. Any others on the panel? Ms. Nunez, then Mr. Waldman. Ms. Nunez. Thank you. I think one thing that is important to keep in mind when we talk about ballot harvesting, as it is known, is that the system works when we give voters options to cast ballots, and that also means giving them options on how they return them. So I think, in terms of past practices, you want to give voters multiple options. And for some voters, that may be giving their ballot to another person. I think, specifically, though, there is some 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 there is a whole set of factors as to why that is 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 don't allow voters to choose how to return their ballots, we are not giving them the opportunity to take advantage of that expanded access that can come through a mail ballot or absentee ballot system. Mr. Aguilar. And as this panel heard testimony in Arizona, the definition of family in Native American culture might be very different---- Ms. Nunez. Precisely. Mr. Aguilar [continuing]. Than we might know. Mr. Waldman. Mr. Waldman. First, in terms of the broad claim, the illusory claim, of widespread voter fraud, the Brennan Center's research has shown that, in terms of in-person 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. About one out of three Americans now votes before election day. This is, in a sense, 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 what has been going on. There is no evidence of an actual---- Mr. Aguilar. And that is election fraud, and that is illegal already. Mr. Waldman. And it is done to voters, not by voters. Mr. Aguilar. Yeah. Mr. Waldman. There is no evidence that people helping collect ballots has actually caused impropriety. And we ought to be looking for ways to deal with actual risks to the system rather than things that are less real. Mr. Aguilar. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Ms. Wright, maybe 10 seconds? Ms. Wright. Sure. I mean, I would just mention that a lot of harm has been done in the name of combating voter fraud. And one of the best examples is that the first victims of the Indiana voter ID law that was put into place was a group of a dozen nuns, residing at a convent, who showed up at the polls, the place they had always voted. They didn't have driver's licenses, they didn't have passports, and they had to be turned away, even though the poll worker was one of the nuns who lived with them and knew each one of them personally. But they didn't have the right ID, so they couldn't vote. We should really avoid doing harm in the name of protecting against nonexistent voter fraud. Mr. Aguilar. Thank you, Ms. Wright. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. Ranking Member Davis, you are recognized for five minutes. Mr. Davis of Illinois. Thank you. And I appreciate the discussion on ballot harvesting. We had an interesting discussion yesterday on ballot harvesting. I just find it odd that we have a State where it is still illegal; somebody going to jail. We had a special election. I have a chain-of-custody concerns. 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 I think the process can easily be manipulated. That is what we saw in North Carolina. And, frankly, until it was legal in California, you know, somebody there may have gone to jail for the same thing. We may have actually been able to investigate whether the fraud existed a little better. I am interested in finding that RNC study you talked about. I haven't seen it, but we will call--my team will call over, but I would love to get with you afterwards, Ms. Lhamon. And thank you all for your testimony. Look, we all want to make sure that everybody has a chance to vote. We all want to make sure that the processes are in place to give every single citizen in this country who is eligible to vote the right to cast that ballot. I am in Illinois. Obviously, we have many provisions that I am supportive of. Same-day registration, that allows folks in my area to actually have every opportunity to cast that vote. But we also can't take away what we have already seen happening. Mr. Waldman said in his opening testimony, we saw tremendous increase in midterm voting in 2018. Great. Great. Let's not sidestep that success. Let's build on it. Let's work together and say, this is great, it is working. Ms. Wright, you mentioned--well, I will come back to you. I have a couple of questions real quick for Ms. Lhamon. Ms. Lhamon, I don't have Native American Tribes in my district, but I know you mentioned them in your opening testimony. For my knowledge, how many Native American Tribes are there in the United States? Ms. Lhamon. I don't have that number off the top of my head, but it is a not-small number. Mr. Davis of Illinois. Okay. You know, you said you have heard from Native Americans across this country about their difficulties in casting votes. What has the overall trend been for Native American turnout across the country over the past few election cycles? Ms. Lhamon. It continues to fall below the 50-percent threshold that was the basis for enacting the Voting Rights Act in the first place, looking at turnout. So very, very serious concerns in particular for Native American voters. Mr. Davis of Illinois. So they didn't follow the same trend from 2014 to 2018 in the midterms? Ms. Lhamon. They may have been up, but it is well below the 50-percent threshold. So the concern is that Native Americans in this country continue to have very, very difficult challenges for voting. Their polling places have been reduced. The Native IDs, as I mentioned, are not always accepted, even though they ought to be accepted. There are considerations of vote by mail---- Mr. Davis of Illinois. I was at one of our field hearings in North Dakota, in Standing Rock Reservation. Great people. Great opportunity to hear about a process that doesn't exist in my home State of Illinois. They actually have no registration process in North Dakota. I mean, you walk in and prove you have an address in North Dakota, same day, boom, you are there. Ms. Lhamon. That is singular in the United States. Mr. Davis of Illinois. Yeah. And then, all of a sudden, even with no registration, they were allowing the Native American Tribal leaders to verify anybody with just a letter from the Tribe as somebody who lived there to go vote. So you are saying there are still more things that we need to do, right? Ms. Lhamon. We have substantial challenge with respect to Native American voters in North Dakota, among other States---- Mr. Davis of Illinois. And I also heard in North Dakota that the turnout was substantially higher. I mean, there is improvement. Ms. Lhamon. And improvement is wonderful and ought to be celebrated. My only point is that it is below 50 percent and that that is 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 turnout for voters. And that is, in itself, a concern. Mr. Davis of Illinois. Okay. Well, then what other processes would you recommend to increase voter turnout in Native American areas and other areas? Ms. Lhamon. Well, certainly with respect to Native Americans, we want to make sure that there are accessible polling places, that people have clarity, including in Native languages, about how to vote and what is involved in voting. The Alaska State advisory committee for the Commission heard astonishing testimony about failure of translated materials, failure of people available to---- Mr. Davis of Illinois. Newer technology, 21st-century technology can be helpful. Ms. Lhamon. It would be helpful. And, also, there are particular challenges in places like Alaska, where there are 23 different languages---- Mr. Davis of Illinois. Absolutely. Ms. Lhamon [continuing]. In which materials need to be translated. Mr. Davis of Illinois. I apologize. I do have one more question for Ms. Wright. And I want to get to you. You mentioned prison in the Census counts, how they may unfairly give an advantage to rural areas if the prisoners are counted, and it may adversely affect the home areas of those prisoners. Were you saying that assuming that most would come from more urban areas? Ms. Wright. No. The vote dilution comes in when population is counted as if it were---- Mr. Davis of Illinois. As it is---- Ms. Wright [continuing]. Rather than at the prison. Mr. Davis of Illinois. So the population is counted, and the Census---- Ms. Wright. Right. Mr. Davis of Illinois [continuing]. Is used, the data is used for the area---- Ms. Wright. Instead of in their home communities. And---- Mr. Davis of Illinois. Okay. So would that same application be valid for colleges and universities, where rural students go to urban areas? Ms. Wright. Well---- Mr. Davis of Illinois. Does that unfairly punish the rural areas? Ms. Wright. But in colleges and universities, students do have the right to register and vote in those communities if they---- Mr. Davis of Illinois. They didn't commit---- Ms. Wright [continuing]. Intend to stay there. Mr. Davis of Illinois [continuing]. A crime that put them in prison. Ms. Wright. Yes, but the point is, 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 don't 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 doesn't match up, and it creates all kinds of inequities. Mr. Davis of Illinois. Well, I appreciate your logic, and I just don't necessarily know if I agree with it. But thank you for your time. And thank you all. I yield back. Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you very much. Let me just say a few things, as we were talking about Native Americans. First off, I think it is illegal for us to even hold them to State standards. Their treaties are with the Federal Government, and they should only be held to the standard that the Federal Government has and not to what the States have. That is number one. Number two, I think it is important that we understand that in 2018 their numbers were up because the Tribal leaders had to go and get new IDs 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 percent, they were not going to go and buy IDs. They would not have voted had not resources come from either the Tribal leaders or others in their community to help them get a new ID, an ID that had to put an address on it. They have never had an address in all these years. They have used post office boxes. But, all of a sudden, we are going to make it more difficult, because now they have to have an actual address to go and vote. I am just trying to figure out--maybe you can help me--why is it that they don't want us to vote? Can somebody answer that question for me? Just answer it. Anybody. Why are they making this difficult? I mean, why do we not have bipartisan support anymore? Just somebody help me figure it out. Because, I mean, is it just because of the way I look, or what is it? Please. Mr. Davis of Illinois. Madam Chairwoman, are you insinuating that I don't want you to vote? Republicans? Chairwoman Fudge. First, let me just say, I am asking the question of the panel. And, secondly, I am not asking anything. I am just asking the question, why has it become so difficult for people of color, for Native Americans, for young people--I mean, you want to equate people in prison to kids in college. That is insane. Mr. Davis of Illinois. Actually---- Chairwoman Fudge. The question---- Mr. Davis of Illinois. Will the gentlelady yield? Chairwoman Fudge. I am reclaiming my time. Mr. Davis of Illinois. Will the gentlelady yield? Chairwoman Fudge. No, I am reclaiming my time. I will not yield. The question is to the panel. Ms. Lhamon. The increases in impediments to the right to vote are extraordinarily distressing. And I think that the reasons can be many, but the reality is that the right to vote is a core component of democracy. And we, as a country, should do better, can be better, ought to be better than we are right now in terms of placing those impediments. Chairwoman Fudge. So what is the purpose of placing those impediments? That is what I am trying to get to. What is it in somebody's psyche that believes that, all of a sudden, in the last 10 or 12 years, that voting has gone so off the rails that we have to change things we have been doing for hundreds of years? There was no problem before; why is there a problem now? I just don't understand it. Mr. Waldman. Mr. Waldman. 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 we are seeing a backlash, and we are seeing laws enacted that make it harder for communities of color, immigrant communities, and others to vote. Happily and fortunately, in the past and in many ways even now, there is still bipartisan and left/right support for these things. The last time the Voting Rights Act was before this Congress, it passed the Senate 98-to-nothing. So many of these measures we are describing as significant reforms have been enacted with bipartisan support. In the State of Illinois, automatic voter registration passed unanimously and was signed into law by Governor Rauner, a Republican Governor of Illinois. And 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 was a direct remnant of the Jim Crow era. So there 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. Chairwoman Fudge. I guess I am just trying to make a point that this same thing--it seems to have just taken on a life of its own. Nobody knows where it started; nobody knows why it started. We know that it has always been an issue. Voting has been an issue in this country for a very, very long time. But I would say this: I can trace my family back at least six generations in this country. I am as American as anybody in this room. I do not believe that people like me, who have helped build this Nation, who have never done anything to hurt this country, should be made to go through all kinds of hoops to be able to do what the Constitution gives us the right to do. All these people who say they believe in the Constitution, they can't possibly, because it says that we all have a right-- an unfettered, unabridged right to vote. It doesn't say you have to have a certain kind of ID. It doesn't say that if you have been to prison you can't vote. You are still citizens of this Nation. And so, for to us start to put all of these roadblocks in the way, I can't figure it out. You can't figure it out. So it is like this has a life of its own. But I would suggest to you this: that the more we try to erode the rights of people in this country--it is not going to stop at voting. It is going to get worse. And if we really are patriots and believe in what the Constitution says and believe in this great Nation, then we need to make it easier to vote. We want to go out here and talk about every other country and what they don't do. I bet you, any other democracy in this world doesn't do what we do. We should make it a holiday. We should make a vote on Saturday, maybe. We should give people time off to vote. But, no, we still vote on an agrarian calendar day that doesn't even make any sense to do today. So I am going to ask each of you, if you would, tell me one thing you want to us do to make it easier for people to vote in this country. We will start with you, Ms. Lhamon. Ms. Lhamon. I certainly believe automatic voter registration is enormously helpful. And allowing people to be able to vote on the day of an election would be extraordinarily helpful. So if I had to pick one thing, that would be it. Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. And, Ms. Wright, I agree with you, by the way. If we continue to count prisoners where they are, when they leave and come home, the resources that come from that Census count are going to stay in those places where they no longer are. And the people who have to take care of them, whether it be through Second Chance, whether it be through some other kind of diversion programs, whatever it may be, we don't have the resources in our community. Your one point? Ms. Wright. There are so many things that need to be done. It is very hard to pick one. It is certainly vital to restore some version of the preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act that were struck down in 2013, because that really did unleash the floodgates, as we have seen. And that has been an enormous weakening of the right to vote. Chairwoman Fudge. Mr. Waldman. Mr. Waldman. In addition to what has been mentioned, a national guarantee of effective early voting and election day registration to make it possible for as many people in our modern, mobile, and overworked age to vote. Chairwoman Fudge. Ms. Nunez. Ms. Nunez. All of the above. I think it is important to make sure it is convenient to both register and vote. So same-day registration and automatic voter registration are key to having accurate rolls. And then we need to make sure people can cast ballots in a way that makes sense, whether that is early, at home, or in a polling location on election day. Chairwoman Fudge. I thank you all so very, very--did you want to make a comment, Mr. Davis? Mr. Davis of Illinois. 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 Subcommittee and, in turn, the House Administration Committee moves forward. I appreciate the discussion on Census activities. You know, the discussion that the Chair and I had here momentarily when I asked her to yield--at the time, she didn't. Thank you for doing it now. Please don't 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 that is 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 we are having these hearings to talk about the need to get more folks to vote. That is what needs to happen. But let's also make sure that, every single election, every vote is counted and every vote gets to the ballot box. I yield back. Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. And just to be clear, your discussion about college students that have a choice--people in prison do not. And for the Ranking Member to say, ``Well, they didn't commit a crime''--it had nothing to do with whether they are both counted in the same place or not. It just really didn't. Mr. Davis of Illinois. It is about fairness when it comes to the Census. If they are going to be counted in one part of the country--if they are 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 the resources that we all, in a bipartisan way, agree to fund in every part of America. Let's--if we want to talk about the Census---- Chairwoman Fudge. Mr. Davis. Mr. Davis of Illinois [continuing]. We can talk about it, but---- Chairwoman Fudge. Mr. Davis, those people, many of them, vote at home in the first place. Mr. Davis of Illinois. As somebody who represents four public universities, I can tell you, a lot of them don't. Chairwoman Fudge. But they have a choice. Ms. Wright, did you want to say something? Ms. Wright. Well, with your indulgence, I guess I would just like to say that the issue of prison gerrymandering is clearly an injustice, but in terms of the importance of the issues, if I could name one other issue, it would simply be the re-enfranchisement 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. Chairwoman Fudge. 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. [Recess.] Chairwoman Fudge. Good morning. We want to welcome our third panel. The Ranking Member is going have to leave us briefly but is planning to return. So thank you all so much for being here. Ms. Hannah Fried is the Director of All Voting Is Local, a collaborative housed at The Leadership Conference Education Fund in conjunction with the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, the American Constitution Society, the Campaign Legal Center, and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Ms. Fried has run voter protection efforts for two Presidential campaigns and spent several years in Federal Government services at the Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency. Welcome. I know I am not doing this in order, but Ms. Barbara Arnwine--how are you?--is the National co-Chair of the National Commission for Voter Justice. Ms. Arnwine is also the President and Founder of the Transformative Justice Coalition and served as head of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law from February of 1989 through June of 2015. Ms. Arnwine is renowned for her contributions on critical justice issues including passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1991 and the 2006 reauthorizational provisions of the Voting Rights Act. Welcome. Denise Lieberman is the Director of Advancement Project's Power and Democracy Program and a senior attorney. Ms. Lieberman works to identify and remove systemic barriers to voting. A seasoned constitutional and civil rights lawyer, Ms. Lieberman works on the ground in Missouri, in addition to advancing broad voter protection initiatives nationwide, engaging in political analysis, lobbying, legal advocacy, litigation, and community-building to advance electoral reform, including spearheading a nationwide advocacy effort to combat repressive voting legislation this past year. Welcome. Ms. Kase serves as the 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, an organization at the forefront of 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 1 minute left, you will see the yellow light. And when you see the red light, please prepare to wrap up. Ms. Fried, you are recognized for 5 minutes. STATEMENTS OF HANNAH FRIED, DIRECTOR, ALL VOTING IS LOCAL; VIRGINIA KASE, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS; BARBARA ARNWINE, NATIONAL CO-CHAIR, NATIONAL COMMISSION FOR VOTER JUSTICE; AND DENISE LIEBERMAN, SENIOR ATTORNEY AND PROGRAM DIRECTOR, POWER AND DEMOCRACY, ADVANCEMENT PROJECT STATEMENT OF HANNAH FRIED Ms. Fried. Thank you, Chairwoman Fudge and Members of the Subcommittee. I am Hannah Fried. I am the Campaign Director for All Voting Is Local, a collaborative campaign of The Leadership Conference Education Fund. We fight to eliminate discriminatory barriers to voting before they happen. Since 2018, we have 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 1 million voters from casting a ballot. These problems disproportionately harm voters of color, young people, low-income Americans, and voters with disabilities. 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 reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act in 2006. Both passed with strong bipartisan support and a robust record. Despite this, in 2013, five Supreme Court Justices gutted the critical protections of the Voting Rights Act Section 5 preclearance system. 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 percent and faced insurmountable obstacles. State officials purged voters from the rolls, sometimes simply for not voting. From 2010 to 2018, Georgia's Secretary of State, now-Governor Brian Kemp purged more than 1.4 million voters. Worse still, some States are more committed to purges than to ensuring an accurate list maintenance process. In 2018, Georgia's ``exact match'' law put into question the registration status of 50,000 voters over minor inconsistencies in their registration records. Just recently, Ohio's Secretary of State admitted their purge system was rife with errors. Just shy of half a million Ohioans, many of them African-American and low-income voters, will be purged this year under this flawed system. In 2018, voters faced large-scale polling place changes. The Leadership Conference Education Fund's ``Democracy Diverted'' report found that, in former Section 5 States, there were 1,173 fewer polling places in 2018 than in 2014, despite last November's record turnout. Maricopa County, Arizona, 31 percent Latino, closed 171 polling locations after 2012, the most of any county studied in the report. Widespread polling place changes lead to the overuse of provisional ballots. Our campaign's analysis of 717 former Section 5 counties found that voters in counties with more polling place closures are more likely to be asked to cast a provisional ballot. HAVA contemplated that provisional ballots would be used as a failsafe, but they are less likely to be counted than a regular ballot. Their overuse is the canary in the coal mine, signaling systemic problems that result in voters not knowing where or how to vote. Our campaign's analysis of provisional ballot usage has found strong connections to race. In Pennsylvania, voters in Philadelphia County, 41 percent African-American, are five times as likely to get a provisional ballot than voters in Allegheny, 12.7 percent black, or Berks, 4 percent black. In 2018, African-American students faced unique barriers to voting. At Ohio's two HBCUs, voters cast a disproportionate number of provisional ballots and were twice as likely to have their ballots rejected than voters countywide. In Florida in 2018, Florida A&M University, the State's sole public HBCU, 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. An analysis by All Voting Is Local of our States found that voters in mostly white communities are less likely to have their mail-in ballots rejected than voters living in communities of color. In Arizona, just over 1 percent of Native American voters are on the State's permanent early voting list, compared to approximately 80 percent of non-Native-American voters. In 2018, strict photo ID laws targeted African-American voters with almost surgical precision, as the Fourth Circuit in 2016 wrote of North Carolina's law. Last fall, our campaign helped hundreds of Wisconsin voters through the arduous process of complying with that State's strict photo ID law, a law that has been found to deter from voting more than 20 percent of African-American registered voters compared to 8.3 percent of white registrants. 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 colors. Any wrongfully disenfranchised voter is one too many. Congress must restore and expand safeguards of the right to vote, ensuring that every eligible American, regardless of race, income, age, or ability, can make their voice heard. Thank you. [The statement of Ms. Fried follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you very much. Ms. Kase, please, five minutes. STATEMENT OF VIRGINIA KASE Ms. Kase. Chairwoman Fudge, Ranking Member Davis, and Members of the Subcommittee, my name is Virginia Kase, 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 voting rights and election administration in America, an issue of paramount importance to our organization. The League of Women Voters is nonpartisan, founded nearly 100 years ago in 1920 by women who understood the importance of securing voting rights for women. The League is active in all 50 States as well as the District of Columbia, with 764 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 from legislators of all political parties, in 2013 the Supreme Court overturned key provisions of the VRA in the case of Shelby County v. Holder. Since that decision, politicians across the country have passed unnecessarily restrictive legislation and adopted practices that discriminate against and disenfranchise voters of color and minorities whose first language is not English, making it harder for them to register and much more difficult to vote. These restrictive legislative initiatives included 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 preregistration and same-day registration in North Carolina. Essentially, the Shelby decision weakened the Voting Rights Act as a mechanism to fight discrimination 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 early voting hours that limit participation; massive voter purges with no effective notice that cause registration barriers on election day; and inadequate numbers of machines in areas where early voting showed a clear influx in voter participation. And because these issues repeatedly show up in areas with large minority populations, in States like Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas, it is unlikely that this scheme was incidental or unintentional but, instead, expressly targeted the growing population of the new American majority, including minorities, youth, and income- sensitive individuals. 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 preclearance of certain changes to voting 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 that 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 redistricting 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 in place to protect voters from all backgrounds, it is left to organizations like the League of Women Voters and other nonprofit voting rights group to inform and protect voters affected by 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 that prevent barriers in the democracy our forefathers designed 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 that prevent participation. As we have for nearly 100 years, the League looks forward to working across the aisle to determine the points of consensus for any and all voting rights legislation considered before Congress. We look forward to working with elected leaders to protect and uphold their responsibility of ensuring voters have the unobstructed ability to exercise their right to vote. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify on the importance of restoring the Voting Rights Act, and I look forward to taking questions and continuing to work with you all on this important issue. [The statement of Ms. Kase follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you very much. Ms. Arnwine, you are recognized for five minutes. STATEMENT OF BARBARA ARNWINE Ms. Arnwine. Thank you, Chairwoman Fudge, Ranking Member Davis, and Members of the Subcommittee. 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. My name is Barbara Arnwine. I have already been introduced. I am here representing the National Commission for Voter Justice, which was conceived by Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. He is represented here today by Reverend Todd Yeary of Baltimore. And I want to make sure that we get this into the record, that this Commission was formed in July 2017 to respond to the myriad voter suppression measures in the post-Shelby v. Holder era. Also, many will recall President Donald Trump's manifold assertions, post-election, of pervasive voter fraud and his subsequent creation of the now-defunct Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. We felt there was an urgent need instead to counteract his dangerous and erroneous narrative and instead provide a truthful account of the urgent need for the protection of our democracy from the insidious threat of the modern era of voter suppression. I created the Map of Shame in 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 erected a formidable and substantial regimen of disenfranchising barriers to the ballot box and to the ability to have the votes counted for millions of eligible but vulnerable voters. Since its launch in January 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 June of 2018 from Professor Donald Jones of the University of Miami was that when the only real proper way to look at this era that we are in is understanding that when it comes to voting rights, America is facing a second civil war. That is how extreme this period is. This reality of an active war against the rights of American citizens to exercise the right to vote and have their votes counted is supported 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 Senate Select Committee on Intelligence investigation report. We also have created a new tool and document that is called the 61 Forms of Voter Suppression. And 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 it is 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 they are 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 v. 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 regimen that exists is not enough. So 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, the 61 Forms of Voter Suppression, and, of course, I would like to expand my remarks. Thank you so much. [The statement of Ms. Arnwine follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. With no objection, so ordered. Thank you very much. Ms. Lieberman, you are now recognized for five minutes. STATEMENT OF DENISE LIEBERMAN Ms. Lieberman. Thank you, Chairwoman Fudge and Members of this Subcommittee, for holding this important hearing today on voting rights and election administration. My name is Denise Lieberman. I am the Director of Power & Democracy at Advancement Project National Office. Advancement Project is a national racial justice organization that works in deep partnership with grassroots organizations to develop community-based solutions that are 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 who are fighting battles for racial justice and the right to vote. And the need is great. We are faced today with the greatest battle for the solvency of our democracy since the post-Reconstruction era. I am particularly gratified, Chairwoman Fudge, that this Subcommittee has chosen to have a people's panel, because our fight to protect the right to vote and the need for Congress to take definitive action to secure the right to vote for all citizens lies in the lived experiences of the people for whom protection is most needed and the people whose voices are most often silenced. Because at the end of the day, the right to vote is about self-determination, the right of people to make decisions about their own lives and their own destinies. It is about dignity. It is society's structural mechanism that says you count, literally. And so when the right to vote is denied or abridged, it says you don't count. And so this is a very, very personal matter. As much as it is policy, as it is legal, and we need to understand all of these statistics, it is deeply rooted in the basic human dignity of all people. And we also know that any remedial actions that 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. So Advancement Project has been pleased to work in collaboration with other members of the Racial Equity Anchor Collaborative to support this Subcommittee's field hearings that you have held over the last eight months, documenting the state of voting rights in jurisdictions around the country. The Anchor Collaborative members, which include Advancement Project, Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum, Demos, Faith in Action, the NAACP, National Conference of American Indians, the National Urban League, Race Forward, and UnidosUS, 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 this Committee's field hearings, the Anchor Collaborative partners embarked on a robust grassroots effort to lift up the voices of everyday voters of color and their experiences. So to complement the field hearings, we conducted a series of people's 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 their voting experiences. We held hearings in States like 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 or language assistance at the polls, being denied disability assistance at the polls, having to restore their registration 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 in 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 era, voters of color across the country are confronted with renewed barriers to casting a ballot. We have 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 testimonies from African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islanders, Hispanics, and Native Americans, whose firsthand accounts provide a glimpse into the inner workings of actual access to the ballot around the States, 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. And so we know that the Shelby decision emboldened attacks on the right to vote, not just in the former preclearance States, but around the country, designed to curtail the growing political power of voters of color as they emerge into the new American majority. And so we thank you today, 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. [The statement of Ms. Lieberman follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. Thank you all so much. Mr. Aguilar, you are recognized for five minutes. Mr. Aguilar. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you to the panelists. Ms. Lieberman, I will start with you, and then we can work our way across, because you spoke about barriers in your new report. Can you talk to me about some of the most common barriers? You know, we have taken testimony, and we have gone around the country and we have 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. Ms. Lieberman. Absolutely. And 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. We have seen a rise in discriminatory voter registration procedures, onerous processes for being able to register to vote, and 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. We just heard, for example, last week in Louisiana during early voting, from voters who, despite having gone to numerous government agencies in the wake of last year's passage of Act 636, which restored voting for people with felony convictions who have been out for five years, were still not able to cast a ballot, despite having jumped through numerous hoops and hurdles. Those hoops and hurdles were pervasive throughout the processes that voters described, through polling place closures and changes, to having to drive numerous hours. Witnesses in Alabama testified to the closure of over 30 DMV locations in disproportionately African American and poor counties after that State enacted a voter ID law, causing people to have to drive sometimes up to four hours to get to a process. 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 percent 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 State's ID law. So what we found is that they are pervasive throughout the voting process. Mr. Aguilar. Ms. Arnwine. Ms. Arnwine. Yes. We found that the populations that we looked at were--sorry again--the populations we looked at were African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans, low-income voters, voters with disabilities, student voters, formerly incarcerated persons, 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 the voter suppression. And 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 that is how many there really are. There are so many more. But most former--but most of the ones that you have 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 community's ability to respond. And it is problematic because it is widespread, and there is many States where there is no activity going on to 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 jurisdictions created by the failure to provide adequate election equipment and staffing, racial gerrymandering, cuts to early voting---- Chairwoman Fudge. Ms. Arnwine, I am going to have to cut you off. Ms. Arnwine. Yes, okay. But I just want to--he asked me. Chairwoman Fudge. If you want the other two to quickly answer, we can---- Ms. Arnwine. Yes. Mr. Aguilar. If you could. Ms. Arnwine. Sorry. Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. Ms. Arnwine. Yes. Ms. Kase. 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 re-enfranchised after being incarcerated, there are additional attacks on that by requiring them, for example, in Florida, to pay fines, a restitution, in order to be able to do that. So every single time you see that we try to overcome these barriers, there are new ones that are put in people's places. Recently, we had a Supreme Court decision, Russo v. Common Cause. The League of Women Voters was part of that case. And we now are very concerned that we are going to see partisan--I mean, racial gerrymandering disguised as partisan gerrymandering, because there has basically been a green light for that. We have seen broken down election equipment. The League is on duty every election day. We are looking in every congressional district, looking at--seeing what is happening on the ground. We had six-hour 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 they are supposed to be doing to enfranchise voters. Senior citizens, rural communities, minorities, and youth all having difficulties accessing IDs. Third-party voter registration criminalization, like what recently happened in Tennessee, that we were able to fight back and combat once again. And so it is just these constant, constant attacks that communities are facing, and we, organizations like ours, are being responsible for addressing these. Mr. Aguilar. Thank you, Ms. Kase. Ms. Fried, I am so sorry. Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. And just, by the way, did you know that the director of the League of Women Voters was on the purge list in Ohio? Ms. Kase. Yes, I did. And we have had many situations like this. One of the oldest voting rights organizations in the country, and we are not immune. Chairwoman Fudge. Ms. Fried, if you want to answer very, very quickly, I will let you. Ms. Fried. I will. Thank you. What I would like to highlight from what my fellow panelists have said is that the problems that American voters are facing are not singular; they are stacking. A voter who has a problem getting a voter ID, then get to the polling--has to drive miles to get to their polling place, then there is a line at the voting location; these problems are not singular in their origin. And our solutions, our response to them, needs to be across the spectrum. There need to be both Federal statutory protections as well as State administrative protections, laws and practices that expand access to the ballot, particularly in communities of color. Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. Thank you. Let me just--just for a moment, just pretend that I am Chief Justice Roberts, and I would just like for 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. We are going to start at your end, Ms. Fried. Ms. Fried. Thank you. In between 2013 and 2018, there were almost 1,700 polling places that closed in former section 5 jurisdictions. The Leadership Conference released just earlier this fall a report discussing these changes. Seventy-five percent 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. Our ability to vote, the ability particularly of communities of color to vote, is, frankly, miraculous in light of the barriers that 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 aren't 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 can't understand fully the impact on communities of color of these changes. It is absolutely vital that preclearance be restored. Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. Ms. Kase. Ms. Kase. If you were Chief Justice Roberts, I would say that we have three bodies of government for a reason. And the Supreme Court's job is to serve as a representative of the American people. And when we see people's rights being violated time and time again--and 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. And it means removing barriers for each citizen to exercise that right. But I would say that there are already remedies that you all have in place that have been proposed. And one of the ones that we are really in favor of is the formula under Representative Sewell, which is statewide having 15 or more violations over the past 25 years, at least one of which was committed by the State itself. In political subdivision, three or more violations during a calendar year. Voting violations, voting violations of the 14th or 15th violations. I mean, you have all of this information yourself, so I don't want to waste too many people's time, because there is just too much to read off. But the formula is here, and we support these formulas, and we think that Congress must act. You must act now, because we are coming into very serious elections this coming year. Chairwoman Fudge. I will just ask you this question. Most of what you are talking about really goes back to the original, you know, 14 or so jurisdictions. But 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 can't prove that they should still be held to the same standard of preclearance. But I think that the situation is worse and it is bigger. So what do we do to include those new jurisdictions? Ms. Kase. We need to, first of all, do a better job of tracking what is happening so that we can ensure that it is a living and breathing process, meaning that it doesn't end after a certain amount of time; that on an annual basis, we are able to look at where there have been violations and ensure that those protections are in place where we are seeing them happening. And yes, you are right, it has expanded. It hasn't gotten better. It has, in fact, gotten worse. In 2013--since 2013, we have seen that time and time again. Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. Ms. Arnwine. Ms. Arnwine. 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 States and among the States when it comes to voter accessibility and voter fairness. What we know at this point, in this eight years that have occurred since 2011, is that the 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 to not have to be subjected to that voter denial before they are able to have their votes counted properly. That what you also have in the--you have told this Congress to come up with a new set of coverage formula, and that coverage formula is designed to look at those violations that are the most extreme, that deny the most voters their rights to participate. Since your directive to Congress, we have held hearings, we have compiled and looked at reports of what is 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, we have to come up with some additional new standards, that we just can't look at voter turnout anymore, we can't look at some of the old original casting back standards. That instead, that what we need to look at now is to make sure that there are 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 we have done our job and that you should uphold our new legislation. Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you very much. Ms. Lieberman. Ms. Lieberman. Chief Justice Roberts, I agree with everything my fellow panelists have said, and, you know, the writing is on the wall here. I mean, in the first year after the Shelby decision came down, 73 percent of the previously covered jurisdictions introduced restrictive voting laws. New restrictive voting laws have been introduced in 25 States since 2010, right? And we have seen, through the stories of individuals, that Shelby has emboldened, not just the former preclearance States, but States around the country, to continue to make voting harder, more confusing, more onerous, and more burdensome. But not only that, not only did Shelby open the door to discriminatory practices that would have been halted at the outset under preclearance, but it has also made it more difficult to challenge those laws, unduly placing the burden on already underrepresented voters of color and their advocates. So since Shelby, without the law's stopgaps, the evidentiary burdens and the costs associated with these challenges has fallen even more heavily on the very impacted communities that these laws are designed to protect, to challenge denials of their fundamental right to vote. And so it is very clear that that is simply not tenable. It is not working. Congress has the opportunity right now before it, with H.R. 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 they are not discriminatory. Chairwoman Fudge. Well, I think you all can represent me anytime. I thank you all so much for being here, and I thank you for your testimony. Thank you so much. Ms. Arnwine. Thank you very much. Chairwoman Fudge. The other panel I don't think has arrived yet, right? Okay. They are on their way over. Thank you all again very, very much. [Recess.] Chairwoman Fudge. I hope you all didn't run, but I am glad you are here so we can get started. Mr. Yang. Well, thank you for waiting. Chairwoman Fudge. Absolutely. And since you are our last panel, we just know that you all are going to bring it, so we can just wrap this up and close up strong. Let me just introduce our panelists we have. John Yang, is the president and Executive Director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice. At Advancing Justice, Mr. Yang leads the organization's efforts to fight for civil rights and empower Asian Americans to create more just America for all through public policy advocacy, education, and litigation. His extensive legal 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. Mr. Vargas is the Chief Executive Officer of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials, a membership organization of Latino policymakers and their supporters, governed by a 35-member board of directors. Mr. Vargas also serves as CEO of NALEO Educational Fund, an affiliated national nonprofit organization that strengthens American democracy by promoting the full participation of Latinos in civic life. Mr. Saenz is the President and General Counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, better known as MALDEF, where he leads the civil rights organization's offices in pursuing litigation, policy advocacy, and community education to promote the civil rights of Latinos living in the United States. Mr. Saenz rejoined MALDEF in August 2009, after spending 4 years as counsel to the Mayor of Los Angeles. Mr. Saenz previously spent 12 years at MALDEF, practicing civil rights law. Welcome, sir. And last but not least, Michelle Bishop is the disability advocacy specialist for voting rights at the National Disability Rights 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 assistance to NDRN's nationwide network 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 election administration. I thank you all for being here. And as you know, the lighting system, as you have probably just seen it, 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 you will see the red light on, which is going to indicate that you need to try to wrap up your testimony. Mr. Yang, you are recognized for five minutes. STATEMENTS OF JOHN C. YANG, PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ASIAN AMERICANS ADVANCING JUSTICE; ARTURO VARGAS, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, NALEO EDUCATIONAL FUND; THOMAS SAENZ, PRESIDENT AND GENERAL COUNSEL, MALDEF; AND MICHELLE BISHOP, VOTING RIGHTS SPECIALIST, NATIONAL DISABILITY RIGHTS NETWORK STATEMENT OF JOHN C. YANG Mr. Yang. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Chairwoman Fudge. And 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 to promote a fair and just society for all Americans, Representative Cummings was certainly a champion for so many of our issues, and his loss is going to be a loss, obviously not just for this Congress, but for the entire Nation. Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. Mr. Yang. I really appreciate having--inviting us to testify here today on language access and the importance of this to Asian Americans in particular. While the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been--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 it is 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 Decennial Census and the 2010 Decennial Census, the Asian American community has grown by 46 percent. Today, we represent about 22.6 million in the United States, which is a little bit over 6 percent 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. It is also important to note that Asian Americans are not monolithic. Certainly, there are numerous Asian Americans in urban centers throughout the country, but our fastest growing populations are in Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina, and Georgia. And so the needs of Asian Americans oftentimes are very diverse. With respect to language access, we represent over a hundred different languages from 60 different Asian ethnicities. So ensuring that Asian Americans have information in the language that they understand best is always a challenge. And, unfortunately, language minority voters are often denied much of the needed federally required assistance at the public level and face numerous barriers at the polls. 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 their identification, whether they are a citizen or whether they belong at the polls. I will be relatively brief and just offer some recommendations with respect to what can be done to help with respect to language assistance. With respect to language assistance, one of the things that we can do is to make sure that translated materials are available, accessible, and effective in conducting a comprehensive review of election materials to make sure that they really identify materials that go to the needed communities, that we use certified translators, that we use certified translation vendors to ensure that those translations are community oriented and using community-based organizations as well to ensure that they speak in a language--not only in a legal language that is appropriate, but in a community-based language and culture that is appropriate. With respect to the actual polls and taking protections that are necessary, one of the things also is making sure that you have assistance under section 208 of the Voting Rights Act to ensure that people are allowed the assister of their choice. Now, election officials should provide bilingual poll workers with separate training on language assistance, some of which should be done in their covered languages. But regardless of whether jurisdictions are covered under section 203, every poll worker should be trained to understand the needs of a language minority voter. How the poll worker can best assist that voter and having maybe role-playing exercises to ensure that, not only English-speaking poll workers, as well as language poll workers, can really provide the assistance that they need. They know how to handle situations as they arise. Certainly, the Election Assistance Commission can provide a role in that, providing perhaps a funding infrastructure that would allow for assistance, allow for best practices, to provide some of these exercises that I have described. Certainly, jurisdictions have also, on a voluntary basis, provided language assistance, provided translated materials. We have seen that in Fairfax County, where even though technically it was not covered by Section 203, Fairfax County decided to offer language assistance to both a Korean-speaking population that fell short of section 203 coverage, as well as providing it to a Vietnamese-speaking population. These are the types of things that can be done on a voluntary basis, but certainly are very, very effective for our community. Language barriers certainly remain for the Asian American community, and it is a fast-growing community. It is a community that is going to be transitioning to U.S.-born Asian Americans in a relatively short matter of time, that will also translate into more voters, people that want to be engaged in the electoral process. 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. [The statement of Mr. Yang follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. Mr. Vargas, you are recognized for 5 minutes. STATEMENT OF ARTURO VARGAS Mr. Vargas. Thank you, Chairwoman Fudge, Representative Aguilar. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today, and we join in mourning the passing of Representative Elijah Cummings. This organization recognizes that in spite of the guarantees that all Americans must have the same right to vote, our Nation has not yet attained the goal of full and equal participation in our democracy. In the past and the present, policies have been adopted that disenfranchise Latino and other underrepresented voters, sometimes on the basis of their linguistic abilities. Linguistic accessibility has long been, and remains, a fundamentally important grantor of Latino voters' equal access to the ballot. A substantial number of Latinos eligible to vote are not yet fully fluent in English, and their ability to cast an informed, successful vote depends on their access to understandable materials and to persons providing assistance with whom they can communicate. According to 2018 ACS one-year data, nearly 22 million adult U.S. citizens speak Spanish, and approximately 6.3 million of them are not fluent in English. Americans who are not yet fluent in English register and vote at lower rates because of the legacy of many decades of intentional efforts to exclude voters on the basis of their linguistic ability or perceived national origin, as well as ongoing negligence in administering language assistance and inattention to discouraging effects of some election administration procedures. Although millions of potential Latino voters enjoy the presumed access to multilingual election information and materials and to Spanish-speaking poll workers, many are still indisputably underserved. Just during the 2018 election cycle, reports to the Election Protection coalition hotline, including our hotline, the VE-Y-VOTA hotline, which receives calls from voters in English and Spanish, included incidences of Spanish- speaking voters in jurisdictions with large speaking populations, including in Southern California, that they were not able to request or choose Spanish language ballots. And significant number of our callers had unmet need for live language assistance in locations, including Warren County, New Jersey, and Prince William County, Virginia. Many jurisdictions have implemented sweeping and error- fraught methods of identifying potentially ineligible voters among those registered, which disproportionately inhibit language minority voters' participation in elections. For example, since 2010, a number of States have compared voter registration lists to information in other State and Federal databases that are not designed or useful for voting purposes and have erroneously singled out voters who are mostly naturalized citizens for purging or extraordinary demands for documentation. The nationwide trend of polling place closures and realignments also threaten language minority voters' participation. To combat these trends, Members of Congress should mandate the use of inclusive, administrative practices in Federal elections and incentivize election administrators to take proactive steps to better serve language minority voters. Best practices to ensure election accessibility for which Congress could provide--by which Congress could provide financial support, include regular consultation with community institutions and leaders who represent language minority communities. And I will add, this has been a very effective practice in the past for those of us who provide naturalization assistance services. We used to have a very healthy partnership with the USCIS, and troubleshoot with them on how to better meet the needs of legal permanent residents applying for U.S. citizenship. The same concept could be applied to working with local leaders in identifying best practices for making sure voting is accessible to all. There should be regular training for all employees on the importance and contours of measures to ensure linguistic accessibility and adaptation of administrative practices to account for and avoid disparate negative impact on language minority voters. Given the countervailing influence of an administration that is inclined to reduce or neglect language accessibility mandates, organization and congressional advocates of accessibility must be prepared to defend the basic necessity and utility of providing language assistance for our elections. As the number of Americans with diverse national origins and linguistic abilities grow, our effectiveness in engaging those citizens as active voters will increasingly determine the health of our democracy and the credibility of our government as a product of a truly representative political process. Thank you. [The statement of Mr. Vargas follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. Mr. Saenz, you are recognized for 5 minutes. STATEMENT OF THOMAS SAENZ Mr. Saenz. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the Subcommittee. As president and general counsel of MALDEF, I lead a set of lawyers across the country who are regularly confronting barriers to access for Latino voters. Those barriers both occur at the polling place and in structures, including election structures, that prevent the Latino vote from having the effect that it would have. But today, I want to focus on a looming new challenge to the Latino community that seems to target naturalized citizen voters, and that grows out of this administration's campaign that puts `Americans first or' citizens first, though that framework seems to leave out naturalized citizens. We first saw this in the attempt to add a citizenship question to Census 2020. In doing so, the administration was clearly seeking to trigger a massive undercount of the Latino community, and the first effect of that massive undercount would be on voting rights. It would have resulted in underrepresentation of the Latino community, both in reapportionment, redistributing the seats in the House of Representatives among the States, and within each State in redistricting congressional seats, as well as State legislative and local legislative seats as well. As we know, the Supreme Court, in an improbable victory, prevented the citizenship question from going on Census 2020, but the administration's 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 re-add a citizenship question to Census 2020. In that executive order, the President directed the Commerce Department to seek administrative records from both Federal and State sources to try to put together a database of citizenship around the country. We have now learned, through recent media reports, that one of the main mechanisms they will use to attempt to identify citizens is DMV records from around the country. The problem is, as we recently saw in a case litigated by MALDEF and others in Texas, is that DMV databases with respect to citizenship are notoriously inaccurate. The fact is that someone who goes to the DMV before becoming a citizen has no obligation or even any reason to report back to the DMV once they have naturalized and become a citizen. They would not have any occasion to go back to the DMV until they need to renew a driver's license, for example. We saw this in Texas where Texas attempted to purge voters from the voter rolls, county by county, by directing registrars to use faulty DMV data to send notices to those who were not citizens when they went to the DMV and tell them that they were effectively being accused of being ineligible voters. Fortunately, the litigation prevented that from going forward. But we now see that the administration is using the same faulty databases to create a database of citizens with the intent that that then be used where a State or locality might choose to test the constitutional limits of one person, one vote, and might choose to equalize population among districts based on something other than total population. Clearly, that use of faulty citizenship data would have a tremendous impact on the voting rights of Latinos, and it raises many concerns. Accompanying those concerns are the ongoing rhetoric that comes from this administration that seems to target every Latino person and every immigrant in the country, regardless of whether that immigrant has naturalized or not. We are concerned that this ongoing rhetoric, including the invasions of privacy in using and accessing these inaccurate DMV records, could result in further voting rights challenges. We are concerned that it could result in unwarranted challenges to someone's eligibility to vote by vigilantes who listen to the rhetoric of this administration, from the White House and beyond, and decide that they are going to challenge particular voters, namely, Latino voters, or voters who don't speak English, or voters who appear to them to meet Donald Trump's definition of who is not an ``American.'' We see this looming threat to voting rights as potentially having application as early as next year, and we are concerned that it is a short step from the rhetoric that we hear today, to rhetoric that challenges the legal requirement of providing language assistance, bilingual assistance, materials in languages other than English, to voters. So we are concerned that as early as next year's election, we will see inappropriate challenges and diminution in providing those required materials. We will see challenges to the legitimacy, eligibility of voters who are naturalized but do not yet speak English, and these are access barriers that are new, and they are created entirely by the campaign that we see on a daily basis from the Trump Administration. We think that this is a looming danger of voting rights concern that this Committee--that this Subcommittee should take up and address. Thank you. [The statement of Mr. Saenz follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. Ms. Bishop, you are recognized for five minutes. STATEMENT OF MICHELLE BISHOP Ms. Bishop. Chairwoman Fudge, Ranking Member Davis, Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. And may I also thank Congressman Cummings, thank you so much for your service to this country, and rest in peace, sir. My name is Michelle Bishop, and I am the voting rights specialist for the National Disability Rights Network. NDRN is the nonprofit membership organization for the federally mandated Protection and Advocacy, or P&A network. According to the Census Bureau, up to 56.7 million Americans live with a disability, totaling approximately 19 percent of the noninstitutionalized U.S. population. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Pew Research Center believe that number is actually closer to 25 percent, or one in four Americans. Further, Rutgers University projected 35.4 million eligible voters with disabilities, or one-sixth of the total American electorate in 2016, and we are politically active. Pew reports that people with disabilities are more likely to pay attention to Presidential elections and to believe that the results matter. Despite all of this, America's electoral system has a long history of excluding people with disabilities. Let's start with the obvious: polling places. The U.S. Government Accountability Office found in 2000 that only 16 percent of polling places had an accessible path of travel, 27 percent in 2008, and 40 percent in 2016. Forty percent being the all-time high means that less than half of polling places were accessible during the 2016 election. As polling places are very slowly becoming more accessible, the voting stations within them are actually becoming less so. In 2008, 54 percent of voting booths were accessible. In 2016, only 35 percent. Architectural access and voting station access combined, only 17 percent of polling places were found to be fully accessible. America's polling places are inexcusably, woefully, and unjustly out of compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. As if this weren't enough, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights recently found that 13 States closed an overwhelming 1,688 polling places in just 6 years, and uncovered an alarming trend: falsely blaming polling closures on the ADA. Jurisdictions offered lack of ADA compliance as a pretext for closures, despite their admitted lack of understanding of the ADA, failure to provide ADA surveys of the polling places in question, and grossly inflated cost estimates for updating polling places. Disability rights advocates and the Department of Justice do not advocate for the closure of inaccessible polling places. Rather, we allow for temporary, same-day modifications, curbside voting as a stopgap measure, and other low-cost best practices. In a forthcoming report, NDRN examines the issue of polling place closures, ADA compliance, and DOJ enforcement in more depth. Our report finds that voting jurisdictions that settled with the DOJ in the last several years are overwhelmingly not closing their polling places. Alternatively, jurisdictions that closed or attempted to close significant percentage of their polling places typically were not investigated by the DOJ, could not provide accessibility surveys, and could not provide any evidence of coordination with their State's P&A or other disability advocacy organizations. The ADA and DOJ's enforcement of it are undeniably being used as a smoke screen for voter suppression. These barriers have real consequences. Despite the size of the disability community and our demonstrated investment in elections, people with disabilities continue to vote at a lower rate than our nondisabled peers. In 2018, that difference in turnout was around 4.7 percent, 6 percent in 2016, and 5.7 percent in 2012, small percentages that actually equal several million voters. Immediately preceding passage of the Help America Vote Act, the gap in voter participation was actually closer to 20 percent. The data shows a clear narrowing of the voter participation gap since HAVA's passage made voting drastically more accessible for people with disabilities. To protect the right to vote for all Americans, Congress must first and foremost pass the Voting Rights Advancement Act. A fully restored Voting Rights Act would prevent questionable polling place closures that threaten access to the vote heading into the 2020 Presidential election. Additionally, congressional funding is sorely needed to ensure that elections officials can continually acquire, maintain, and improve their polling locations and equipment. The territorial government and P&A of the Northern Mariana Islands, as well as the Native American Disability Law Center, a P&A, also need HAVA funding to ensure access to the vote for Pacific Islanders and Native Americans with disabilities. Extending funding to the only two P&As excluded from HAVA is a simple and no-cost legislative fix. Finally, each of the patchwork of Federal laws that ensures America's electoral system are accessible to all eligible voters must be enforced to their full capacity. America's democracy is only as strong as its ability to hear the voices of all Americans. Thank you. [The statement of Ms. Bishop follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Aguilar, you are recognized for five minutes. Mr. Aguilar. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Yang, if I could start with you, and then kind of work our way down to Mr. Vargas and Mr. Saenz as well. And then, Ms. Bishop, I have something, a separate question for you. You know, we talked about language assistance, and obviously there are best practices that seem pretty reasonable, you know, ballots in multiple languages. What are some other things that we can do? You mentioned poll worker training. What are some other ideas that we can do within 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? Mr. Yang. Well, I think poll worker training, if I could expand on that a little bit, it is really developing training modules, because sort of sometimes when people think of poll worker training, they are thinking about making sure that they have translators or people that speak multiple languages that are serving as poll workers, and that is certainly one component of it. But the other component is just making sure that people that speak English that are working there, that still can recognize a situation as it develops and know how to handle it. For example, if I am accompanying my mother to a polling station, then the fact that my mother doesn't speak English well, that poll worker has to understand that I am there to help and that that is within her right as a voter. And, unfortunately, there are a lot of poll workers, not through-- and I am going to be generous here--not through any intent to discriminate, but do not understand the laws well enough. And so it is really having an infrastructure that has that learning--those learning modules in place. Some of it is also, again, very, very simple. I am going to think about low-hanging fruit, is just having translations in trifolds that are sitting on counters that sort of make people feel comfortable, that say, oh, I can have an assister of my choice here. Oh, there are translated ballots, or there are translated materials available. People, citizens, especially new immigrants, oftentimes do not understand their rights. And so just making them comfortable with the process. Certainly, for my organization and speaking, I think, for all immigrants, 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 people feel like they are equal citizens in democracy. Mr. Aguilar. Thank you. Mr. Vargas. Mr. Vargas. Congressman, the fact is that there are many jurisdictions that get it right, and they have been providing language assistance to voters for years. And what we are concerned about is those places around the country that are newly being required to provide language assistance for the first time, and there is no need to really re-create the wheel if they can adopt best practices from other jurisdictions. And that is, I think, something that Congress could incentivize. You know, how could a manual of best practices be provided to other jurisdictions who for the first time are being required to provide language assistance. So they don't repeat the same mistakes that have been committed before, and they provide the best access to voters who are newly covered under section 203. Mr. Aguilar. Thank you. Mr. Saenz. 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 we need to find a way to anticipate, which is not difficult, where the expansion will occur and begin working with those jurisdictions to connect them with successful jurisdictions in their own State or where they may be the first in a State, with those in other States. I also think there is a broader effort about really educating the public about folks' rights, so that they understand that this is not illegitimate. You don't then have vigilante volunteers or others who would add their views that nothing like non-English assistance should be being provided. So I think there is a broader education effort that should start with where we know the next set of jurisdictions to be covered will be. Mr. Aguilar. Thank you, Mr. Saenz. Ms. Bishop, I wanted to talk a little bit about, in your testimony, you talked about the Help America Vote Act and the participation gap among those voters with and without disabilities. You know, how has HAVA helped close the gap? You mentioned it was closer to 20 percent and then went down to, oh, below five. Can you talk a little bit about that? Ms. Bishop. Absolutely. Prior to the Help America Vote Act, we were doing even less to make America's elections accessible to all--in fact, profoundly little. I am sure all of us in the room remember voting on punch card systems. 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. Many American voters with disabilities voted privately and independently for the very first time after HAVA was passed. And that includes Americans who began voting when they were 18 and weren't able to vote with privacy and independence until they were in their 60s and 70s, who spent their entire lives having to have somebody else mark their ballot for them because that ballot was not accessible. In itself, the privacy and independence of your ballot should be a right. It is also a security feature of our elections, that I can trust--because I marked my ballot independently--that it has been marked in the way that I intend, rather than having to take a leap of faith as a voter who, potentially, is blind having to ask someone else to mark a ballot that I will never be able to see and know that someone marked the ballot the way that I intended. And so it was a longstanding failure, I believe, of our electoral process, that we were not providing accessibility of the ballot to voters with disabilities. Accessibility of polling places itself is a new issue. The Americans with Disabilities Act is the gold standard in making sure that polling places are accessible. It did not become law until 1990. There is one law that predates that that was passed in the early 1980s, the Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act, but that still was the early 1980s. Prior to that, we were doing virtually nothing to make sure that the electoral process was accessible to Americans with disabilities. So HAVA represents an enormous leap forward in making sure that everyone is able to cast their ballots, and we absolutely believe that is a major factor in closing that gap, absolutely. If your electoral process is not accessible to you, that is sending a message that you are not welcome and that your vote does not matter. Mr. Aguilar. Thank you. Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. Ms. Bishop, let me just--I don't even know where to begin. I mean, we know the law. We know ADA exists. We know HAVA exists. What is their rationale for not complying with the law? This is what I am trying to figure out. Ms. Bishop. There are many. There are many reasons. We hear very often--I work a lot with State and local elections officials, as do the organizations that are in our network, the P&As. We hear very often that it is difficult to find polling places that are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. They are not entirely wrong about that. Compliance with the ADA overall is lacking. There are not that many locations that are fully compliant. And they also have to be willing to serve as a polling place, which is voluntary. We hear that often. We hear that finding polling places that are suitably located, as well, and a large enough number of them. We also get accounts of poll workers who are not adequately trained and ready to interact with voters with disabilities when they come into the polling place. So they are not necessarily aware of all of the accommodations they are required to provide. There is a widespread failure in the United States to really fully understand all the provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act--in particular, how they apply to elections. I consider it primarily an enforcement issue. And that is why we believe the Voting Rights Advancement Act is so important. The Department of Justice and organizations like the P&As have to be able to go out and push for that enforcement and that compliance with the ADA without the threat that the response will be to close large numbers of polling places. We don't make polling places accessible by closing them. We make them accessible by making them accessible. But without the protections of preclearance in the Voting Rights Act, our job becomes extensively more difficult. Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. And to any of the gentlemen: I listened to each of you say that education and education of poll workers, et cetera, was extremely important. Who do you believe is responsible for that education and that outreach? Mr. Vargas. Well, clearly, the election officials at the local level are responsible for that. And they should be held accountable to make sure that they provide that education for all the poll workers they employ. We also know that many of them are challenged in finding enough poll workers with the language ability necessary to meet the needs in local communities. So I think one of the areas where Congress could be helpful is to provide more incentives, to provide--to identify and help local elections officials recruit and train poll workers with the language abilities needed to help the voters in their jurisdictions. Chairwoman Fudge. So, now, let me just ask this question, since you are the CEO of NALEO. Do you all not, at points, just recommend to the local boards of elections, ``We have these people who are willing to serve on election day or whatever to get trained; these are people who can accommodate the issues that we have''? Do you make those recommendations and they just don't accept them, or how does that work? Mr. Vargas. We certainly do. And we also try to identify other strategies to expand the number of people who are eligible to be a poll worker. And, remember, for some folks, they have to give up a day of work. Chairwoman Fudge. Sure. Mr. Vargas. And that is not something that people are able to do, many times, if they are working folks, to give up a full day's work and not get compensated by their employers. Which is one of the reasons why we supported legislation in California to allow high school students to be able to work as poll workers. Even though they, themselves, may not have the right to vote yet, they did have the skill sets in order to help people through the voting process. So there are other incentives and strategies that can be employed to do that. Chairwoman Fudge. Mr. Saenz, let me go back to this discussion about naturalized citizens. A citizen is a citizen. So what is it about our process that would single out someone that is a naturalized citizen? Mr. Saenz. So, because naturalized citizens are, of course, immigrants themselves, they have families that include folks who are still immigrants. They may still feel that they have vulnerabilities that they had as immigrants. So, when you are confronted with rhetoric, as we see daily from the Trump Administration, that seems to discourage participation of immigrants in all elements of governance, there is no way that naturalized citizens are naturally immune from that. So there is a deterrent effect. Chairwoman Fudge. So you said they don't go at all. They don't even get to the point where they get to the polls. Mr. Saenz. In some cases, they would be deterred. They would have fears about their families. In other cases, they would be concerned that they, themselves, might be challenged, particularly if they are a citizen but a citizen who needs language assistance and language assistance in some way at the polling place. But there is also, of course, this danger of accessing inaccurate data. Even though it is going to be used in aggregate, it still means that a naturalized citizen is aware that the Federal Government is seeking information from their State DMV that may inaccurately identify them as still a noncitizen. That, too, can have a deterrent effect, or it can encourage others, who may be led by the rhetoric, to challenge that person's participation in elections. So it all stems from practices and rhetoric from the administration that is not seeking accurate data, particularly with respect to naturalized citizens, that is invading privacy, that is raising those kinds of concerns, and that is diminishing the citizenship, if you will, of those who are not native-born citizens of this country. Mr. Yang. If I could add just very briefly to that, I think that is exactly right. With respect to the Asian-American community, about two- thirds of our community are immigrants, and over 90 percent, 92 percent of the Asian community are immigrants or children of immigrants. So, although, obviously, our community is naturalizing at a very quick, fast rate, the traditional trajectory is that there are going to be noncitizens within each of those households. So what Tom is saying is exactly right. It is within that household these fears that are being raised about what it means to be a noncitizen. And we are not even talking about undocumented immigrants here. We are talking about legal, permanent residents that have every right to be here. For their children that may be of voting age, there are certain fears that are invoked about how much they want to put their family that includes all sorts of different types of immigrants into that public eye. Chairwoman Fudge. So what do you think that we can do to combat that? Mr. Saenz. Well, I think there has to be a counter- rhetoric, if you will, that can come from the Congress that can also help elected officials who want to make sure that there is widespread knowledge that everyone, including naturalized citizens, has every right to vote. By the same token, I think that this Subcommittee should seriously look at whether there should be limits on the accessing of data known to be inaccurate to determine citizenship population, which is what is ongoing right now with the Commerce Department. Now, MALDEF, together with Asian Americans Advancing Justice 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 are citizens and where our citizens are in the country. Chairwoman Fudge. You are challenging under what kind of an action? Mr. Saenz. So we have filed in Federal court in Maryland, challenging the Executive Order that involves accessing these administrative records under a number of claims, including the Administrative Procedure Act, but also including constitutional claims, that the same unconstitutional racial discriminatory intent that motivated the addition of the citizenship question, or the attempted addition of the citizenship question, is behind this effort as well. Chairwoman Fudge. Okay. Mr. Aguilar, do you have anything else you want to---- Mr. Aguilar. No, I am good. Chairwoman Fudge. Okay. The last thing I want to ask you--and if you could just do it quickly--is, if there is one thing that you think we can have an effect on or one thing you want us to do, from this Committee's perspective, that will make the situation better that you are experiencing, what would that one thing be? Why don't we start with Ms. Bishop. Ms. Bishop. Just one? Chairwoman Fudge. Just one. Your number one. Mr. Aguilar. Not all of our witnesses have answered the question with just one, so just---- Chairwoman Fudge. Your number one. Ms. Bishop. 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. States need funding to upgrade their equipment, to upgrade their polling locations. The P&A network needs additional funding to do the work that we do to push them forward. But I think we also--one of the things I have not yet mentioned today is research and development funding to support better solutions. I mentioned earlier that, for the first time, many Americans with disabilities were able to vote privately and independently because of the Help America Vote Act. All of the voting systems we are using today could be both more accessible and more secure. We need effective research and development to develop better solutions that will solve both of those problems. Elections equipment is not a big-money industry if you work in tech. If Congress is able to support those efforts, I do believe that we could develop voting solutions that are both more accessible and more secure, going forward. Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. Mr. Saenz. Mr. Saenz. I would cite what I just said, which is looking into this accessing of State databases that are known to be inaccurate. Because even accessing the data, as we saw with the short-lived election fraud task force, can have chilling effects on voters. Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. Mr. Vargas. Mr. Vargas. I would say a fully seated, staffed, and funded Election Assistance Commission. Mr. Yang. I would ditto all of that. And I guess I can't overstate promoting best practices and, through that, education and transparency. It is those best practices, making sure that the State, especially all of you, have connections to local and State elected officials, local State representatives, make sure they understand this. And holding them accountable. Now, obviously, there--what I mean by ``holding them accountable,'' it doesn't necessarily mean, sort of, through the elected representative, but making sure that they understand the consequences of this. Because, again, what we are here trying to do is represent the American people. Chairwoman Fudge. Thank you. And I thank you all. This has been a very interesting day, just to understand the myriad of things that are happening across this country that make it more difficult for people to vote. I thank you for the work you do. I thank you for taking the time to come to testify today. And I hope that you will continue to fight the good fight. Because, obviously, there are certain things we can do and certain things we cannot. But I appreciate your sharing with us what you are seeing on a daily basis, and it gives us some idea of what we can do as we look at legislation going forward. Again, I thank you all so much for being here. And, without objection, this Subcommittee stands adjourned. [Whereupon, at 1:27 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]