[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
PROTECTING AMERICA'S DEMOCRACY: ENSURING EVERY VOTE COUNTS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
AUGUST 28, 2020
__________
Serial No. 116-82
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
43-955 PDF WASHINGTON : 2021
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi, Chairman
Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas Mike Rogers, Alabama
James R. Langevin, Rhode Island Peter T. King, New York
Cedric L. Richmond, Louisiana Michael T. McCaul, Texas
Donald M. Payne, Jr., New Jersey John Katko, New York
Kathleen M. Rice, New York Mark Walker, North Carolina
J. Luis Correa, California Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Xochitl Torres Small, New Mexico Debbie Lesko, Arizona
Max Rose, New York Mark Green, Tennessee
Lauren Underwood, Illinois John Joyce, Pennsylvania
Elissa Slotkin, Michigan Dan Crenshaw, Texas
Emanuel Cleaver, Missouri Michael Guest, Mississippi
Al Green, Texas Dan Bishop, North Carolina
Yvette D. Clarke, New York Jefferson Van Drew, New Jersey
Dina Titus, Nevada Mike Garcia, California
Bonnie Watson Coleman, New Jersey
Nanette Diaz Barragan, California
Val Butler Demings, Florida
Hope Goins, Staff Director
Chris Vieson, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Statements
The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Mississippi, and Chairman, Committee on
Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 1
Prepared Statement............................................. 2
The Honorable Mike Rogers, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Alabama, and Ranking Member, Committee on Homeland
Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 3
Prepared Statement............................................. 5
Witnesses
Ms. Jocelyn Benson, Secretary of State, State of Michigan:
Oral Statement................................................. 8
Prepared Statement............................................. 9
Mr. Mark Dimondstein, President, American Postal Workers Union,
AFL-CIO:
Oral Statement................................................. 11
Prepared Statement............................................. 13
Ms. Tammy Patrick, Senior Advisor, Elections, Democracy Fund:
Oral Statement................................................. 14
Prepared Statement............................................. 15
Mr. Michael Adams, Secretary of State, Commonwealth of Kentucky:
Oral Statement................................................. 21
Prepared Statement............................................. 23
PROTECTING AMERICA'S DEMOCRACY: ENSURING EVERY VOTE COUNTS
----------
Friday, August 28, 2020
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 12:08 p.m., via
Webex, Hon. Bennie G. Thompson (Chairman of the committee)
presiding.
Present: Representatives Thompson, Richmond, Payne, Rice,
Correa, Torres Small, Rose, Underwood, Slotkin, Cleaver,
Clarke, Titus, Watson Coleman, Barragan, Demings, Rogers,
Katko, Lesko, Joyce, Bishop, and Garcia.
Chairman Thompson. The Committee on Homeland Security will
come to order. Without objection, the Chair is authorized to
declare the committee in recess at any point.
Good afternoon. Before I begin today, I want to extend my
deepest sympathies to those who have been affected by the
California wildfires and Hurricane Laura. Hurricane Katrina
devastated the Gulf Coast 15 years ago this week. The storm
caused terrific damage and upended people's lives, but through
perseverance, hard work, and unyielding oversight of the
Federal disaster response apparatus, we built back better.
As the residents of communities affected by Hurricane Laura
assess the damage to their homes, they can rest assured that
the committee will hold the Federal Emergency Management Agency
and its Federal partners accountable by making sure they
provide the help communities need to get back on their feet.
A key lesson from Hurricane Katrina is that the initial
response was hampered by the inept leadership of an
inexperienced, unqualified Presidential campaign donor who had
been appointed to head FEMA, the Nation's emergency manager.
The hurricane served as an important reminder that Federal
agencies should be led by experienced people committed to the
mission, especially in times of crisis.
Today, the country is in crisis once again, and inept
leadership is stalling the Nation's response. A global pandemic
has crippled the Nation since March, dramatically changing how
Americans live and work and keeping hundreds of thousands of
children out of school. Hurricanes continue to batter coastal
communities and wildfires are ravaging the West Coast. In the
midst of all of this, a Presidential election is rapidly
approaching.
During this time of crisis, Americans are depending on the
Postal Service to deliver life-saving prescriptions, essential
goods and, importantly, the election ballots. The President,
however, is waging an attack on the Postal Service to serve his
own political interests. For instance, the President has told
the public that vote by mail is rigged, illegal, or fraudulent,
over 100 times since March, undeterred by the fact that he has
been contradicted by DHS and the intelligence community.
The administration has refused to provide funding to the
Postal Service's needs to ensure it can continue to deliver for
this Nation over the long term. The President has openly
acknowledged that he is depriving the Postal Service of
additional funding because he is concerned that expanding
voting opportunities will hurt reelection chances.
To make matters worse, the Postal Service is now being led
by a Presidential campaign donor who does not even know how
much it costs to mail a postcard. The Postmaster General
implemented sweeping operational changes, and the Postal
Service's own internal documents even confirm these changes
have slowed mail service across this country this summer. These
changes could slow the delivery of ballots during the fall
elections just as millions of Americans are choosing to vote by
mail for the first time to avoid possible exposure to COVID-19.
Although the Postmaster General has since paused his
restructuring plan, he has refused to roll back changes that
have already been implemented. It is time for the Postmaster
General to demonstrate to the American people that he is
committed to the mission and fit for the challenges ahead and
that the Postal Service will do whatever it takes to get
election mail delivered on time. We cannot afford to have
another heck-of-a-job moment.
More than that, the President must stop peddling
disinformation that could suppress voter participation and
undermine confidence in election results. It sets a bad tone.
Just yesterday, Michigan's secretary of state, who is
testifying before us today, alerted voters to a racially-
charged robocall using lies to discourage minority voters from
voting by mail. This must stop. We cannot allow disinformation
to divide Americans and destroy our democracy.
At the same time, people who prefer to vote in person must
have the opportunity to do so safely and securely. That means,
among other things, there must be enough polling places that
are easily accessible to all voters, particularly low-income
voters who are less able to travel long distances to polling
places. No one should be disenfranchised because it is too hard
to get to a polling place or because the line is too long.
Before I close, I want to note that the House passed the
HEROES Act in May and the Delivering for America Act last week.
Both are essential to our elections this November, and I urge
the Senate to act on them.
[The statement of Chairman Thompson follows:]
Statement of Chairman Bennie G. Thompson
August 28, 2020
Before I begin today, I want to extend my deepest sympathies to
those who have been affected by the California wildfires and Hurricane
Laura. Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast 15 years ago this
week. The storm caused horrific damage and upended people's lives. But
through perseverance, hard work, and unyielding oversight of the
Federal disaster response apparatus, we built back better.
As the residents of communities affected by Hurricane Laura assess
the damage to their homes, they can rest assured that this committee
will hold the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its Federal
partners accountable by making sure they provide the help communities
need to get back on their feet. A key lesson from Hurricane Katrina is
that the initial response was hampered by the inept leadership of an
inexperienced, unqualified Presidential campaign donor who had been
appointed to head FEMA, the Nation's emergency manager. The Hurricane
served as an important reminder that Federal agencies should be led by
experienced people--committed to the mission--especially in times of
crisis.
Today, the country is in crisis once again, and inept leadership is
stalling the Nation's response.
A global pandemic has crippled the Nation since March, dramatically
changing how Americans live and work and keeping hundreds of thousands
of children out of school. Hurricanes continue to batter coastal
communities and wildfires are ravaging the West Coast. In the midst of
all this, a Presidential election is rapidly approaching.
During this time of crisis, Americans are depending on the Postal
Service to deliver life-saving prescriptions, essential goods, and
importantly, their election ballots. The President, however, is waging
an attack on the Postal Service to serve his own political interests.
For instance, the President has told the public that vote by mail is
rigged, illegal, or fraudulent over 100 times since March, undeterred
by the fact that he has been contradicted by DHS and the intelligence
community.
The administration has refused to provide funding the Postal
Service needs to ensure it can continue to deliver for this Nation over
the long term. The President has openly acknowledged that he is
depriving the Postal Service of additional funding because he is
concerned that expanding voting opportunities will hurt his re-election
chances. To make matters worse, the Postal Service is now being led by
a Presidential campaign donor who does not even know how much it costs
to mail a postcard.
The Postmaster General implemented sweeping operational changes,
and the Postal Service's own internal documents confirm these changes
have slowed mail service across the country this summer. These changes
could slow the delivery of ballots during this fall's election--just as
millions of Americans are choosing to vote by mail for the first time
to avoid possible exposure to COVID-19.
Although the Postmaster General has since paused his restructuring
plan, he has refused to roll back changes that have already been
implemented. It is time for the Postmaster General to demonstrate to
the American public that he is committed to the mission and fit for the
challenges ahead--and that the Postal Service will do whatever it takes
to get election mail delivered on time We cannot afford to have another
``heck of a job'' moment. More than that, the President must stop
peddling disinformation that could suppress voter participation and
undermine confidence in election results. It sets a bad tone.
Just yesterday, Michigan's Secretary of State--who is testifying
before us today--alerted voters to a racially charged robocall using
lies to discourage minority voters from voting by mail. This must stop.
We cannot allow disinformation to divide Americans and destroy our
democracy. At the same time, people who prefer to vote in person must
have the opportunity to do so safely and securely.
That means, among other things, there must be enough polling places
that are easily accessible to all voters, particularly low-income
voters who are less able to travel long distances to polling locations.
No one should be disenfranchised because it is too hard to get to a
polling place or because the line is too long.
Before I close, I want to note that the House passed the HEROES Act
in May and the Delivering for America Act last week. Both are essential
to our elections this November, and I urge the Senate to act on them.
Chairman Thompson. With that, I recognize the gentleman
from Alabama, Ranking Member Rogers, for any opening statement
he may have.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can you hear me?
Chairman Thompson. Yes, I can hear you.
Mr. Rogers. Great.
First, I want to congratulate Representative Mike Garcia on
his election to Congress and his appointment to the Committee
on Homeland Security. Prior to Congress, Representative Garcia
graduated from the Naval Academy, flew over 30 combat missions
during Operation Iraqi Freedom and was a successful businessman
in the private sector. His experiences and wealth of knowledge
will surely benefit the committee.
Thank you for your continued service to our Nation, Mr.
Garcia.
Mr. Chairman, I admit I am disappointed that we are holding
this hearing today. Lately, this committee has had a tendency
to hold hearings outside of our jurisdiction, and today is no
exception. We have no oversight or legislative role over the
United States Postal Service. The committee of jurisdiction
held a hearing on this topic earlier this week. The House
already rushed through legislation over the weekend, which
leaves me wondering what we are doing here today.
We have already held 5 election security hearings delving
into issues in our jurisdiction, such as protecting election
infrastructure through foreign interference and cybersecurity
threats. But based on today's testimony, we won't be talking
about actual election security.
It is clear the only reason we are having this hearing is
to further the Democrats' crazy postal conspiracy. Despite what
the Democrats say, the Postmaster General is not conspiring
with the President to suppress the vote. Actions taken to
retire sorting machines and reallocate collection boxes were
put in place long ago before the current Postmaster General
took over. In fact, under the Obama administration, over 12,000
collection boxes were removed and more than 80 mail facilities
were closed.
One of the Democrats' favorite games these days is to
oppose anything that happens under President Trump, even when
President Obama did the same thing. The facts are the Postal
Service--the Post Office is more than capable of delivering
ballots to voters and returning them to election officials in a
timely manner. The problem isn't with the Post Office; it is
with the States.
As the Post Office explained in 3 separate letters to State
election officials this year, setting unrealistic deadlines for
ballot requests and submissions could result in ballots not
being delivered in time to be counted.
You can blame the Post Office all you want, but when States
like New York mail out over 30,000 ballots the day before the
election, not even Superman could deliver them on time.
The fact is there is no perfect way to vote. Each method
poses risks for fraud, manipulation, or error; but vote by mail
is the least secure method of voting that we have. Vote by mail
requires election officials to send ballots to every voter,
regardless of whether the voter requested one.
This is a tremendous administrative undertaking, especially
for States trying to implement the system before November. It
took Washington State nearly 10 years to fully implement the
system. One of the biggest challenges is ensuring voting rolls
are up to date before the ballots are mailed out. If they are
not, live ballots will be sent to individuals who may not be
eligible to vote or may even not be alive, for that matter.
This is a real problem.
Los Angeles was recently ordered by a court to remove 1.5
million inactive voters from their rolls. Once a vote-by-mail
ballot leaves the election officials, nothing is done to ensure
it is received by the right voter, and that is only exacerbated
when States allow ballots to be returned to unmonitored drop
boxes. With no way to ensure the chain of custody, drop boxes
only encourage election fraud and illegal ballot harvesting.
We should also worry about the staggering number of ballots
rejected by vote-by-mail elections. In California this year,
over 100,000 vote-by-mail ballots were rejected. The Washington
Post reports that 534,731 ballots were disqualified in 23
States in the 2020 primary season. NPR reports that 558,000
ballots were rejected in 30 States. All of these were vote-by-
mail ballots, where everyone worried about making sure that
every vote counts. It should scare you.
It should also scare you that many States have procedures
in place that enable ballots to be returned well after election
day. In New York, it took 6 weeks to certify the primary
election results for 2 of our colleagues. In California, it
currently takes over a month to certify election results.
How long will it take States to certify results this
November? How long will Americans wait to know who their
President will be because of vote-by-mail issues? CISA has
noted that delayed election results present a prime opportunity
to spread disinformation and undermine public confidence in the
election.
If Democrats truly want to ensure every vote counts and
protect the integrity of our election process, they should end
this ridiculous postal conspiracy. They should work with us to
encourage States to put in place realistic deadlines for mail-
in voting, pass laws to prohibit ballot harvesting, and
implement procedures to certify election results quickly and
accurately.
Mr. Chairman, it is important that one message leaves this
committee today, and that is, every eligible American has the
right to vote and responsibly to do so this November.
With that, I thank you and yield back.
[The statement of Ranking Member Rogers follows:]
Statement of Ranking Member Mike Rogers
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I first want to congratulate Representative Mike Garcia on his
election to Congress and his appointment to the Committee on Homeland
Security.
Prior to Congress, Representative Garcia graduated from the Naval
Academy, flew over 30 combat missions during Operation Iraqi Freedom,
and was a successful businessman in the private sector.
His experiences and wealth of knowledge will surely benefit this
committee. Thank you for your continued service to our Nation.
Mr. Chairman, I am disappointed that we are holding this hearing
today.
This committee has a tendency to hold hearings outside of our
jurisdiction, and today is no exception. We have no oversight or
legislative role over the United States Postal Service. The committee
of jurisdiction held a hearing on this topic earlier this week. The
House already rushed through legislation over the weekend, which leaves
me wondering what we're doing here today.
We've already held 5 election security hearings delving into issues
in our jurisdiction, such as protecting election infrastructure from
foreign interference and cybersecurity threats. But based on today's
testimony, we won't be talking about actual election security.
It's clear the only reason we're having this hearing is to further
the Democrat's crazy postal conspiracy.
Despite what the Democrats say, the Postmaster General is not
conspiring with the President to suppress the vote.
Actions taken to retire sorting machines and reallocate collection
boxes were put in place long before the current Postmaster General took
over.
In fact, under the Obama administration, over 12,000 collection
boxes were removed and more than 80 mail facilities were closed.
One of the Democrats favorite games these days is to oppose
anything that happens under President Trump, even when President Obama
did the same thing.
The facts are that the Post Office is more than capable of
delivering ballots to voters and returning them to election officials
in a timely manner.
The problem isn't with the Post Office. It's with the States.
As the Post Office explained in 3 separate letters to State
election officials this year, setting unrealistic deadlines for ballot
requests and submissions could result in ballots not being delivered in
time to be counted.
You can blame the Post Office all you want, but when States like
New York mail out over 30,000 ballots the day before an election, not
even Superman could deliver them on time.
The fact is there is no perfect way to vote. Each method poses risk
for fraud, manipulation, or error.
But vote by mail has to be the least secure method we have of
voting.
Vote by mail requires election officials to send ballots to every
voter, regardless of whether the voter requested one.
This is a tremendous administrative undertaking, especially for
States trying to implement this system before November. It took
Washington State, nearly 10 years to fully implement its system.
One of the biggest challenges is ensuring voting rolls are up-to-
date before any ballots are sent. If they're not, live ballots will be
sent to individuals who may not be eligible to vote, or may not even be
alive for that matter.
This is a real problem.
Los Angeles was recently ordered by a court to remove 1.5 million
inactive voters from their rolls.
Once a vote-by-mail ballot leaves the election officials, nothing
is done to ensure it's received by the right voter. And that is only
exacerbated when States allow ballots to be returned in unmonitored
drop boxes.
With no way to ensure chain of custody, drop boxes only encourage
election fraud and illegal ballot harvesting.
We should also worry about the staggering number of ballots
rejected in vote-by-mail elections.
In California this year, over 100,000 vote-by-mail ballots were
rejected.
The Washington Post reports that ``534,731 ballots were
disqualified in 23 States in the 2020 primary season.''
NPR reports that ``558,032 ballots that were rejected in 30
States.''
All of these were vote-by-mail ballots.
For everyone worried about making sure that every vote counts, this
should scare you.
It should also scare you that many States have procedures in place
that enable ballots to be returned well after election day.
In New York, it took 6 weeks to certify the primary election
results for 2 of our colleagues. In California, it currently takes over
a month to certify election results.
How long will it take States to certify the results this November?
How long will Americans have to wait to know who their President will
be because of vote-by-mail issues?
CISA has noted that delayed election results present a prime
opportunity to spread disinformation and undermine public confidence in
the election.
If Democrats truly want to ensure every vote counts and protect the
integrity of our election process, they should end this ridiculous
postal conspiracy.
They should work with us to encourage States to----
put in place realistic deadlines for mail-in voting;
pass laws to prohibit ballot harvesting; and
implement procedures to certify election results quickly and
accurately.
Mr. Chairman, it's important that one message leaves this committee
today.
And that is: Every eligible American has the right to vote and a
responsibility to do so this November.
I yield back.
Chairman Thompson. I thank the Ranking Member.
I will remind you that the committee will operate according
to the guidelines laid out by the Chairman and Ranking Member
in our July 8 colloquy.
I now welcome our panel of witnesses. First, I would like
to welcome Ms. Jocelyn Benson, who is Michigan's 43rd secretary
of state.
Now, if Ms. Slotkin is on this meeting call----
Ms. Slotkin. I am here, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Thompson [continuing]. I would like to recognize
the gentlelady from Michigan for the introduction.
Ms. Slotkin. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have the real pleasure of introducing my friend and
fierce champion for Michigan's voters, Michigan secretary of
state, Jocelyn Benson. Secretary Benson was sworn in as our
43rd secretary of state in January 2019, and she has really
worked tirelessly since then to protect Michiganders' right to
vote and the integrity of our elections.
She is a Marshall Scholar and graduate of Harvard Law, an
expert on civil rights law and election law specifically.
Secretary Benson served as the dean of the Wayne State
University Law School in Detroit where she was appointed at the
age of 36, the youngest woman in history to lead a top 100
accredited law school.
Secretary Benson has spent her career working to protect
voting rights and election integrity. This dates back to her
work advocating for the passage of Help America Vote Act. She
was an investigative journalist and worked with the NAACP Legal
Defense Fund.
She is also the cofounder of the Military Spouses of
Michigan, a network dedicated to providing support and services
for military spouses and their children. Secretary Benson is
intimately familiar with this because she is a military spouse
herself and something that I hope that she'll address today. In
2012, when her husband was serving in Afghanistan, he had his
own absentee ballot returned undeliverable.
So I am thrilled that Secretary Benson is here to share her
expertise and her experience overseeing Michigan's elections
with the committee and look forward to her testimony.
Thanks so much.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much.
We also have Mark Dimondstein, who has been the president
of the American Postal Workers Union since 2013. APW represents
more than 200,000 Postal Service employees and about 1,500
employees in the private-sector mail industry.
Next, we will hear from Ms. Tammy Patrick, a senior advisor
to the elections program at Democracy Fund. There she leads an
effort to foster voter-centric election systems and provide
election officials with the tools and knowledge they need to
best serve their voters.
Finally, we will have Michael Adams, the 77th secretary of
state from the State of Kentucky. I appreciate you joining us
today.
Without objection, the witnesses' full statements will be
inserted in the record.
I now ask each witness to summarize his or her statement
for 5 minutes, beginning with Secretary Benson.
STATEMENT OF JOCELYN BENSON, SECRETARY OF STATE, STATE OF
MICHIGAN
Ms. Benson. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Congresswoman
Slotkin, for your very kind introduction.
Chairman Thompson and Members of the Committee on Homeland
Security, thank you for inviting me here today.
Democracy is a team sport, and every single one of us here
can agree that we want this fall election to be successful. We
want to vote, and we want our votes to be fully and equally
accessible to every voter. We want the system to be secure and
protected against any threats, foreign and domestic, and we
want every citizen to have full faith that the election results
are a complete and accurate reflection of the will of the
people.
The coronavirus pandemic, along with what seems to be near-
constant and escalating rhetoric and misinformation about our
elections, has brought historic pressures on our ability in the
States to meet this goal. In fact, just yesterday, as was
mentioned, my office had to correct an unconscionable attempt
to suppress voting through a robocall targeting voters in the
city of Detroit that falsely threatened that voting by mail
would put voters' personal information at risk with creditors,
law enforcement, and health agencies.
But meet the challenge ahead of us we must, and there are
solutions to ensure that we can. I am here today to talk about
those solutions and to emphasize that your partnership and the
partnership of the U.S. Postal Service is an important part of
ensuring that success.
Now, earlier this month, we held a State-wide primary in
Michigan, which serves the blueprint for running safe, secure,
accessible elections in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. We
learned that first it is very clear that even in the midst of a
global pandemic, people want to vote. More than 2.5 million
Michigan citizens voted in our August primary, and that is the
highest turnout that we have ever had for an August primary in
our State.
Next, citizens need to have a clear, reliable, and safe
option to vote early, whether in person or by mail. In
Michigan, more than 1.6 million citizens voted prior to
election day. Now, importantly, this amount surpassed our
State's previous record of nearly 1.3 million voters voting by
mail or prior to election day which was set in the 2016 general
election. This dramatic increase underscores the importance of
expanding absentee and early voting options to all citizens and
ensuring they know exactly how to exercise those options.
Finally, voters must have the choice to vote in person on
election day without risking their health. Throughout our
State, traditional polling places remained open for our August
primary. We did no consolidations, and this will similarly be
the case for November 3. Each precinct was staffed by many of
the new election workers we recruited and trained State-wide,
which to date has recruited close to 10,000 new election
workers. Our polling places were clean, calm, accessible, and
sanitized repeatedly throughout the day. Lines were short or
nonexistent. Social distancing guidelines eliminated the
possibility of crowding, and election workers made good use of
the PPE and cleaning supplies that were bought with Federal
CARES Act funds and provided to every local jurisdiction in our
State.
So our primary success demonstrated that proactive, data-
driven planning, and collaboration at the State and local
levels, supported by Federal resources, can result in
successful elections this year. This is a good sign for
November.
However, the emerging challenges in efficient postal
delivery with the United States Postal Service have created
enormous uncertainties for citizens in our State who seek to
utilize an otherwise safe, secure, and reliable method to vote
absentee.
In Michigan, we are going to do our part as partners in
this effort. For example, earlier this year, we prioritized
coordination and communication with our State Postal Service
leadership. This led to numerous operational improvements for
us and for them, a true partnership. For example, we redesigned
our ballot envelopes to better move through the system as
quickly as possible and reduce errors. We are also placing
close to 1,000 secure monitored ballot drop boxes with clear
procedures and protections in place regarding chain of custody
of ballots throughout the State for voters to utilize to return
their ballots.
But at a time when record number of citizens want to vote
and want to vote by mail, nothing can truly replace the full
utility of a functioning Postal Service. So we hope the Federal
Government prioritizes fixing these issues or we face
potentially significant challenges come November.
Again, you know, to us, this is--we are all in this
together. Democracy is a team sport, and what our data and what
our experience in Michigan shows, that if we can put
partisanship aside and just work together to succeed in holding
elections that are secure, accessible, and on schedule, if we
fight back against misinformation and speak the truth to our
voters, it is possible, it is doable to run these elections
securely and safely in November. Our voters, of course, should
demand no less from all of us.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Benson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jocelyn Benson
August 28, 2020
Thank you, Chairman Thompson, and thank you Members of the
Committee on Homeland Security for inviting me here to speak today.
Democracy is a team sport. Every single one of us here today can
agree that we want this fall's election to be successful. We want the
vote to be fully and equally accessible to every voter, we want the
system to be secure and protected against any threats, foreign or
domestic, and we want every citizen to have full faith that the
election results are a complete and accurate reflection of the will of
the people.
Between a global pandemic and what seems near constant and
escalating rhetoric and misinformation about our elections, 2020 has
brought historic pressures on our ability to meet this goal. But meet
this goal we must, and solutions are there to ensure that we do. I am
here today to talk about those solutions, and to emphasize that your
partnership--and the partnership of the entire Federal Government--is
an important part of ensuring that success.
running a successful election during a pandemic: lessons learned from
michigan's august primary
Earlier this month we held a State-wide primary in Michigan which
served as a blueprint for running safe, secure, accessible elections
during the COVID-19 pandemic while also highlighting critical needs
that, if addressed, can put every State on a path toward successful
November elections.
First, it's clear that even in the midst of a global pandemic,
citizens want to vote. More than 2.5 million Michigan citizens voted in
our August primary, which--despite the absence of any contested State-
wide or other high-profile races--was more people than ever before in
any August primary in our State's history.
Next, citizens need to have a clear, reliable, and safe option to
vote early--whether in person or by mail. In Michigan, record numbers
of citizens chose to vote prior to election day, with more than 1.6
million citizens requesting their ballots early and returning them
either through the mail or in person at their clerk's office prior to
election day. Importantly, this amount surpassed our State's previous
record of nearly 1.3 million set in the 2016 general election. The
dramatic increase underscores the importance of expanding of absentee
and early voting options to all citizens, and ensuring they know about
how to exercise those options.
In May, my decision to send every registered voter a paper
application to request to have their ballot mailed to them prior to
election day, along with the launch of a secure on-line portal for
citizens to request to receive their ballots through the mail, were
critical to educating voters about how to vote safely and remotely
during a pandemic. Once received voters could return ballots through
the mail, at one of our new secure drop boxes across the State, or in-
person with their local clerk. While this drew inaccurate and
inappropriate criticism from the President, at less than a dollar per
voter, it was an extremely cost-effective way to inform voters of their
right and ability to vote safely during the pandemic, and had the
secondary benefit of serving as a State-wide mailing to improve the
accuracy of our voter rolls. We are now sending reminder postcards to
active voters who have still not applied to vote absentee, and have
implemented a State-wide system to enable every voter to track their
ballot to give them the confidence that it was received on time. The
time-tested security provision in place of signature verification will
continue to ensure we protect the system against any attempts of fraud.
I must note, however, that mail-voting fraud is exceedingly rare.
According the Heritage Foundation's own database on average in each
State it occurs only once every 6 years. As millions of ballots are
cast by mail every election cycle, this means that the incidence of
mail-voting fraud is infinitesimal. There is simply no evidence
suggesting that it will be any different this year.
Finally, voters also need to be able to have the choice to vote in
person on election day without risking their health. Throughout our
State traditional polling places remained open for our August primary,
staffed by many of the new election workers we recruited and trained
through our State-wide Democracy MVP program--which to date has
recruited close to 10,000 new election workers. The locations were
clean, calm, accessible, and sanitized repeatedly throughout the day.
Lines were short or nonexistent, social distancing guidelines
eliminated the possibility of crowding, and election workers made good
use of the personal protective equipment and cleaning supplies bought
with Federal CARES Act funds and provided to every jurisdiction by the
State. Importantly, we even had election workers on standby to be able
to account for no-shows or last-minute cancellations and provide new
volunteers to ensure every jurisdiction was staffed.
Our primary election demonstrated that proactive, data-driven
planning and tireless work by State and local election officials,
supported by Federal resources, results in elections that are safe,
secure, accessible, and on schedule. This is a good sign for November,
and our experiences this year have also underscored needed adjustments
that must take place at the local, State, and National level in the
next 3 months to fully prepare for every contingency.
running a successful election during a pandemic: the plan for november
We've now experienced first-hand why we must enact State policies
that are in place in at least 18 other States, but not in Michigan,
that allow clerks to begin the processing of absentee ballots prior to
election day. Election workers should begin election day counting
ballots instead of unnecessarily spending hours opening envelopes and
preparing ballots for tabulators. This enables more efficient reporting
of election results and avoids unnecessary human error.
Our experience also underscores the critical need of recruiting and
training a large number of new election workers to deploy in November.
Partnerships with local businesses, large employers, and sports teams,
coupled with an aggressive State-wide recruiting effort, enabled us to
fill vacancies leading up to and on election day itself, ensuring
sufficient personnel to open precincts and staff absent-voter-ballot
counting boards.
Earlier this year, we prioritized coordination and communication
with our State Postal Service leadership. This led to numerous
operational improvements on both sides, a true partnership. For
example, our Bureau of Elections redesigned our ballot envelopes to
better align with USPS standards. This enables ballots to go as quickly
as possible through USPS systems, and has reduced the incidence of
ballots going undelivered and being returned to voters. The new design
also more clearly shows where voters must sign the envelope--a critical
security measure of absentee voting--reducing the potential for voter
error leading to ballot rejection.
Now, the emerging challenges in efficient postal delivery with the
United States Postal Service, exacerbated by a recent reduction in
overtime allowances and other changes, have created enormous
uncertainties for citizens seeking to utilize an otherwise safe,
secure, and reliable method to vote absentee. Like other States,
Michigan has invested significant time and resources into adjusting its
election infrastructure because it believes, and continues to believe,
these changes will strengthen its partnership with the Postal Service
in improving the voting experience for all Michiganders. It is critical
that this partnership continue.
In Michigan we're planning for every contingency, including
purchasing and placing close to 1,000 secure ballot drop boxes
throughout the State for voters to utilize. We are also pushing for
policies to ensure valid ballots postmarked by election day and
received within a reasonable time will still count, ensuring that
voters are not penalized for failures in Federal leadership. (Notably,
in our August primary, at least 6,400 mailed ballots were received in
the days following election day and therefore were unable to be
counted. We anticipate this number could at least double if changes are
not made prior to November). At this point nothing can truly replace
the utility of a fully functioning Postal Service. The Federal
Government must prioritize fixing these issues or face a potentially
significant election crisis come November.
In fact, every need for November can be met with Federal investment
and support. The Federal CARES Act funding was an important down
payment on preparing our democracy for November that every State in the
country has embraced and utilized. But it wasn't enough. Congress needs
to act swiftly, not only to fully fund our Postal Service, but to
provide needed additional funds to States as we continue to prepare for
record breaking voter turnout this November.
Again, democracy is a team sport. If we work together we can
succeed in holding elections this fall that are secure, on schedule,
and an accurate reflection of the will of the people. It's possible,
it's doable, and our voters should demand no less from their
government.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much for your testimony.
I now recognize Mr. Dimondstein to summarize his statement
for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MARK DIMONDSTEIN, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN POSTAL
WORKERS UNION, AFL-CIO
Mr. Dimondstein. Good afternoon, Chairman Thompson, Ranking
Member Rogers, and Members of the committee. My name is Mark
Dimondstein, and I am the president of the American Postal
Workers Union. Our union represents about 200,000 of the
630,000 dedicated postal employees who work to serve every
community in the country each day. I thank you for the
opportunity to share our perspective in the role of the public
Postal Service in ensuring that every vote counts.
In this challenging time of the pandemic, our very right to
vote depends on millions of people. Our access to the ballot
box will depend on vote by mail. Yet there has been a two-prong
assault on absentee/vote-by-mail voting, and they are one and
the same.
First is the unfounded argument that the service does not
have the capacity to deliver mail-in ballots during this
election season. Postal workers are up to the task, and the
Postal Service has ample resources to safely and securely
accept and deliver every mail ballot it receives, provided the
States who run the elections do their very challenging jobs and
extra challenging during this pandemic.
Postal workers have proudly facilitated mail-in voting
since the Civil War. We also know that the increase of mail
ballots expected can be easily handled even if all 150 million
voters in the country receive and return their ballots by mail.
On a daily basis, postal workers collect, sort, and deliver
almost 500 million pieces of mail. During a typical holiday
season, we handle as many as 3 billion, with a B, cards and
letters in a week. National mailings like the recent CDC
coronavirus guidelines are routinely processed and delivered
without concern.
Second is the charge that vote by mail is fraudulent. Vote
by mail has proven to be an incredibly safe and secure method
of voting. More than 5 States conduct their elections entirely
by mail. Since 2000, more than 250 million votes have been cast
by mail. In Oregon's 19 years of conducting all-mail elections,
more than a hundred million votes have been cast by mail with
only 15 cases of voter fraud, less than 1 per year.
Claims that vote by mail is rife with fraud are not only
simply false, they are also an offense to postal workers who
take our oath of office and our commitment to preserve the
sanctity of the mail seriously. It is in our DNA to treat the
mail like it is our own, and handling election mail properly is
even more of a sacred obligation with postal workers.
While we have certainly had our differences in his short
tenure with the Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, last week, he
did commit to investing resources to ensure vote by mail's
success and has thus rejected the voter suppression tactics of
some of the vote by mail's most vocal critics,
Our union will hold the Postmaster General to his words.
We, along with the other postal unions, will participate in a
joint task force with management to ensure our members'
expertise is central to the Postal Service's plans for ensuring
that every ballot we receive is delivered safely, securely, and
in a timely manner.
In recent weeks, much attention has been shone on the
Postmaster General's policies, which have slowed down the mail.
Our union has been amongst the most vocal critics of these
changes. Just this week, we led hundreds of demonstrations
across the country, demanding that the PMG's service cuts and
delay causing policies be reversed and that Congress pass the
emergency COVID-related funding request made by the bipartisan
Postal Board of Governors.
We will continue to press, on a nonpartisan basis, the
Postal Service and Congress to ensure that the country receives
the quality and speedy service it deserves and not just during
the election season and not just for the vitally important
ballots of election mail.
But with respect specifically to mail-in voting, our
message to the many millions of voters who will rely on the
Postal Service this year to access the ballot box is simple:
Request your ballot early and return it quickly. We have the
capacity and the commitment to get your ballot where it
belongs. If voters find themselves short of the time frames it
takes to get the ballot returned through the mail, many States
have the important option of dropping the mail ballot at secure
election drop boxes.
With that, I thank you for the opportunity to share postal
workers' commitments to the democratic process with you, and I
look forward to any questions at the appropriate time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dimondstein follows:]
Prepared Statement of Mark Dimondstein
August 28, 2020
Good afternoon Chairman Thompson, Ranking Member Rogers, and
Members of the committee. My name is Mark Dimondstein, and I am the
president of the American Postal Workers Union. Our union represents
200,000 of the 630,000 dedicated postal workers who work to serve every
community in the country each day. Thank you for the opportunity to
share our union's perspective.
In this challenging time of the pandemic, our very right to vote,
to access to the ballot box, will depend on vote by mail.
Yet, there has been a two-pronged assault on absentee voting, i.e.
vote by mail.
First is the unfounded argument that the Service does not have the
capacity to deliver mail-in ballots during this election season. Postal
workers are up to the task and the Postal Service has ample resources
to safely and securely accept and deliver every mail ballot it
receives, provided the States who run the elections do their job.
Postal workers have proudly facilitated mail-in voting since the
Civil War. We also know that the increase of mail ballots expected can
be easily handled, even if all 150 million voters in the country
receive and return their ballot by mail. On a daily basis, postal
workers collect, sort, and deliver nearly 500 million pieces of mail.
During a typical holiday season, we handle as many as 3 billion cards
and letters in a week. National mailings, like the recent CDC
coronavirus guidelines, are routinely processed and delivered without
concern.
Second is the charge that vote by mail is fraudulent. Vote by mail
has proven to be an incredibly safe and secure method of voting. More
than 5 States conduct their elections entirely by mail. Since 2000,
more than 250 million votes have been cast by mail. In Oregon's 19
years conducting all-mail elections, more than 100 million votes have
been cast with only 15 cases of voter fraud, less than 1 per year.
Claims that vote by mail is rife with fraud are not only simply
false, they're also an offense to the postal workers who take our oath
of office and our commitment to preserve the sanctity of the mail
seriously. It's in our DNA to treat the mail like it's our own, and
handling election mail properly is even more of a sacred obligation to
postal workers.
While we have certainly had our differences in his short tenure,
the Postmaster General last week committed to investing resources to
ensure vote by mail's success and has thus rejected the voter
suppression tactics of some of vote by mail's most vocal critics.
Our union will hold the Postmaster General to his words. We, along
with the other postal unions, will participate in a joint task force
with management to ensure our members' expertise is central to the
Postal Service's plans for ensuring that every ballot we receive is
delivered safely, securely, and in a timely manner.
In recent weeks, much attention has been shone on the Postmaster
General's policies which have slowed down the mail. Our union has been
among the most vocal critics of these changes. Just this week, we led
hundreds of demonstrations across the country, demanding that the PMG's
service cuts and delay-causing policies be reversed and that Congress
pass the emergency COVID-related funding request made by the bipartisan
Postal Board of Governors.
We will continue to press the Postal Service and Congress to ensure
that the country receives the quality and speedy service it deserves
and not just during this election season and not just for vitally
important election mail.
But with respect to mail-in-voting in particular, our message to
the many millions of voters who will rely on the Postal Service this
year to access the ballot box is simple: Request your ballot early and
return it quickly. We have the capacity and the commitment to get your
ballot where it belongs. If voters find themselves short of the time
frames it takes to get a ballot returned through the mail, many States
have the important option of dropping the mail ballot at secure
election drop boxes.
I thank you for the opportunity to share postal workers'
commitments to the democratic process with you, and I look forward to
your questions.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much for your testimony.
I now recognize Ms. Patrick to summarize her statement for
5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF TAMMY PATRICK, SENIOR ADVISOR, ELECTIONS,
DEMOCRACY FUND
Ms. Patrick. Thank you, Honorable Chairman Thompson,
Ranking Member Rogers, and Members of the committee for asking
me here today to share with you how election officials have
been preparing for the upcoming election, the challenges they
are facing, and concerns that some of them have over what is
happening under the new leadership at the United States Postal
Service.
I got into the field of election administration in Arizona
almost 20 years ago because I was concerned with what I saw,
with what I was hearing. Voters were being told that machines
were being hacked, votes flipped, the system was rigged, that
fraud was rampant. I was concerned because I saw turnout
dwindling, apathy growing, and our democracy slowly slipping
away.
In this moment, 4 basic necessities of our democratic
process are in need of attention: Funding, acquisition of
sufficient polling places, hiring of capable staff and poll
workers, and reliable postal delivery, all of which supports
secure and resilient elections.
We do not fund our elections properly. A recent study by
Auburn University of election center members found that the
elections department budgets of their members averaged .54
percent of their county's budget. These are some of the best-
resourced offices in the country, and they are barely one-half
of 1 percent of the county budget.
Episodic Federal funding does not sufficiently bridge the
gap nor stabilize election administration to allow for planned
considerations of improvements and modernization. Infusion of
Federal funding far too often happens late in the election
cycle, thus limiting its effectiveness.
Although attention has shifted focus to carrying out an
election in a global pandemic, foreign adversaries have not
gone away. We must continue to invest in election security
infrastructure, resources, and capacity to build on the
progresses made since 2016.
I started my career supervising the recruitment and
training of 8,000 poll workers each Federal election in
Maricopa County. The county hired hundreds of temporary staff
as warehouse personnel, delivery drivers, voter registration
clerks, processors of provisional ballots, and many of those
positions, just like the poll workers, were retirees. We filled
the halls of our tabulation facility with card tables of
processing boards to ensure that every eligible ballot was
authenticated, processed, counted, and it was never done by
election night.
In 2020, those tables will need to be further apart. In
2020, many of those workers will decline to serve. In 2020, we
also are not out in the community providing voters with
information as we would in a normal election year. Instead, we
are more reliant upon social media platforms and reaching
voters on-line. This reliance increases the opportunity for
misinformation to prevail, to spread, to sow chaos, and to cast
doubt on the very legitimacy of our election.
Since the Civil War, as we heard, ballots have been
entrusted to mail carriers for safe delivery. Over the past 10
years, we have made great strides in fostering a collaborative
relationship between election officials and the Postal Service.
And for tens of millions of American voters, their ballot is
handed to them, not by a poll worker, but by their postal
carrier, and we have seen USPS embrace their role in what I
often referred to as delivering democracy. It isn't just
another envelope. It is someone's ballot. It is someone's vote.
So we have established protocols, the tracking of election
mail throughout the process, the sweeping of plants for ballots
and increasing frequency as election day draws near, with
nightly all-clears, verifying that all ballots have been
processed and are on their way to their final destination. But
some of these efforts require overtime and some require late
trips, both of which have been called into question lately.
Although the Postmaster General made statements in an
effort to clarify the situation in his recent testimony, there
is still some confusion amongst postal employees, election
officials and, most importantly, voters. Some will say that it
is only delayed by 1 day, but in many States, 1 day is a day
too late for the ballot to count.
We know that every election there are interruptions of
service: Hurricanes, fires, tornadoes, floods. Indeed, 9/11 was
an election day in New York City. But we are in a global
pandemic and do not know where the next hot spot will be nor
when it will hit. Our democracy depends on people, and people
can get sick.
Ballots mail out to voters in less than a month. Military
and overseas voters' ballots will go out in every State in the
Nation on September 19. We don't have much time. The runway is
running out.
The American public is tired, frustrated, grieving the loss
of more than 180,000 souls. For voters who opt to vote in
person, they need to be provided with safe options that do not
cause them to have to choose between their health and ability
to participate. They need to be assured that, in this moment,
it is safe and secure to vote by mail if that is what they
choose. In this moment, their voting booth may very well be
their kitchen table, their ballot box, their mailbox. In this
moment, they need to be reminded that their voices will be
heard and their votes counted.
I look forward to answering any questions you might have,
and thank you again for the opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Patrick follows:]
Prepared Statement of Tammy Patrick
August 28, 2020
salutation
Thank you Honorable Chairman Thompson, Ranking Member Rogers, and
Members of the committee for asking me here today to share with you how
election officials have been preparing for the upcoming election, the
challenges they are facing, and the concerns some of them have with
what has been happening under the new leadership at the United States
Postal Service.
As a bit of background, I was a local official in Maricopa County,
Arizona for over a decade and served as a commissioner on President
Obama's Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA). I
serve as a liaison between the National Association of Election
Officials (Election Center) and USPS as a member of the Postal
Service's Mailers Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC), and for years
have worked with the National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST) on various risk assessments, election common data formats, the
Voluntary Voting Systems Guidelines (VVSG), and most recently
cybersecurity frameworks.
After the PCEA's work was completed I moved from Arizona to work in
Washington, DC at the Bipartisan Policy Center where I penned the New
Reality in Voting by Mail in 2016. Since 2017, I have served as a
senior advisor to the elections team at Democracy Fund, an independent
foundation working to defend American democracy and challenge it to be
more open and just. I am also an adjunct professor at the Humphrey
School of Public Administration at the University of Minnesota.
introduction
We do not properly fund our elections. A recent study by Auburn
University of Election Center members found that the election
department budget of their members averaged .54 percent of their
counties' budgets. These are some of the best-resourced offices in the
country and they are barely one-half of 1 percent of their counties'
budget. Many jurisdictions were advised earlier in the year to submit
budgets with cuts of 10-20 percent due to loss tax revenues in their
jurisdictions. Offices have seen salary reductions and furloughs in a
time when we have additional workloads and responsibilities.
Episodic Federal funding does not sufficiently bridge the gap nor
stabilize election administration to allow for planned considerations
of improvements and modernizations. Infusion of funding far too often
happens late in the election cycle, thus limiting its effectiveness.
Philanthropy has played a key role in the last decade. Pew's Voting
Initiatives brought us programs like the Electronic Registration
Information Center (ERIC) now an independent consortium of States, the
Voting Information Project (VIP) that gathers official data from the
States and aids in its distribution to hundreds of websites now housed
at Democracy Works, and the Election Performance Index (EPI) now housed
at MIT's Election Data Science Lab (MEDSL). These efforts have helped
shape our understanding of election administration and improved policy
decisions based on facts and data.
Five years ago Democracy Fund stepped into the void created when
Pew left the space. Since 2016 we have funded some of the most
successful efforts responding to the security threats to our
elections--some of them recently picked up by the Election Assistance
Commission (EAC) such as the Center for Internet Security's Non-Voting
Election Technology Verification program to provide guidance similar to
the VVSG for the tertiary technology not contemplated in the Help
America Vote Act (HAVA) and training programs for election officials
created by the Center for Technology in Civic Life (CTCL) on
cybersecurity. CTCL recently expanded their training offerings to
include a module on combating election misinformation and communicating
trusted election information, an on-going concern for election
officials. The Belfer Center's Defending Digital Democracy Program has
offered Tabletop Exercises that have been touted as one of the most
effective efforts to prepare election officials.
In this moment, when the country is dealing with a global pandemic
during a Presidential Election Cycle, business and commerce are also
assisting. Anheuser-Busch has launched a Nation-wide effort to supply
hand sanitizer to election officials, facilities are opening their
doors as polling locations, and businesses are offering employees time
off to work the polls. Yet, all of these deficiencies remain
problematic in far too many jurisdictions.
In this moment the basic necessities of our democratic process are
in need of attention: Acquisition of sufficient polling places, hiring
of capable staff and poll workers, reliable postal delivery, and a
secure and resilient electoral process. It is also important to note
that even as National attention has shifted focus to carrying out an
election in the midst of a global pandemic, foreign adversaries have
not gone away. We must continue to invest in election security
infrastructure, resources, and capacity and build on the progress made
since 2016.
in-person activities: voting & election administration
Election officials all across the country are having difficulty
securing polling locations for the upcoming election. I have spoken to
election officials who, in the best-case scenario are missing about a
fourth of their facilities, and in the worst-case all of their
locations have denied them access. Houses of worship have said ``If we
can't have our services, we can't be a polling location''. Schools have
said ``If we can't teach the children safely, then it isn't safe to be
a polling location either''. Many officials have told me that even when
they can secure a facility many of them are now requiring a post-
election day deep cleaning as a prerequisite, and local election
officials are hard pressed for the resources as most of the CARE Act
funding was expended in the conduction of the primary elections earlier
this year.
Given the Center for Decease Control (CDC) social distancing
recommendations some facilities are no longer satisfactory. A growing
trend is the use of large polling locations such as arenas and
colosseums--many with ample parking and sufficient air circulation to
keep voters safe. More curbside-voting and drive-thru, contact-free
offerings will be available to voters. We saw some of this in the
primary season and it is anticipated that these practices will most
likely expand and spread given the on-going growth of the numbers of
positive infections and subsequent deaths.
Having a polling location is just the first challenge in a global
pandemic, staffing the locations is the second. Traditionally our polls
have been staffed by the very individuals who are the most vulnerable
to COVID-19. Although every State will offer in-person voting solutions
for the November election, they may look differently: New location, new
staff, different procedures. Because we will see an increase in poll
workers working for the first time, training and support materials will
be critical to ensure that policies and procedures are understood and
followed.
I started my career in poll worker recruitment. I had a staff of a
dozen or so temporary workers who hired around 8,000 workers to staff
the 1,142 precincts. The county hired hundreds of workers as field
rovers, warehouse personnel and delivery drivers of polling location
materials, central boardworkers processing vote by mail applications,
and provisional ballots. Many of those positions, just like poll worker
positions, were filled by retirees. We filled the halls of our
tabulation facility with card tables of processing boards to ensure
that every eligible ballot was authenticated, processed, and counted.
In 2020 those tables will need to be further apart.
In 2020 many of those workers will decline to serve.
In 2020 we have seen election officials test positive, spend weeks
in the hospital, have their offices quarantined, and even the loss of
life for a few. We do not know where the next hotspot will be or where
it will hit. We know that election officials working from home and
``dialing it in'' have to take additional steps to secure their
connections, to secure their networks.
In 2020 we do not have Supervisors of Elections in Florida out
registering voters at the local festival, we do not have County
Auditors in Iowa at the county fair providing voter information, we do
not have political parties, candidates, third-party organizations in
front of the library providing voters with information on when and
where to vote as we would in a normal Presidential election cycle.
Instead we are more reliant upon social media platforms and reaching
voters on-line. This reliance increases the opportunity for mis- and
disinformation to prevail, to spread, to sow chaos, and to cast doubt
on the legitimacy of our election.
For this reason, as the General Election nears, it will be critical
to ensure that advocates, journalists, and others' growing interest in
discussing election security does not inadvertently dampen voter trust
and enthusiasm. If framed correctly, growing attention to election
security issues can help create momentum to address security gaps and
secure Federal election security funding. Employing the wrong messages,
however, can lead voters to lose faith in elections. To understand how
election security messages resonate with voters within a rapidly-
evolving election security landscape Democracy Fund commissioned
research in 2018 resulting in a report titled ``How to Talk about
Threats to Elections in Ways that Won't Dampen People's Desire to
Vote'' from the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life at the Moody
College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin. This
research revealed that focusing exclusively on election security
threats decreases trust, while pairing threats and solutions (or
efforts to defend elections), informs the public without decreasing
trust. Specifically, reporting on threats to elections alone heightens
negative emotions: Reporting on election issues increases anxiety and
anger and makes people feel less enthusiastic about politics. In
contrast, coverage featuring threats and efforts to address them leads
to less negative emotions and an increased sense that elections can be
protected.
action items
Congress
Funding Stream.--Congress needs to establish a steady funding
stream for elections to support this critical infrastructure. Although
the election is practically upon us, additional funding, even at this
late date, can be used to secure additional PPE, cover the costs of
additional space for processing and voting, and cover expanded
payrolls.
CISA
Continue to provide tools, education, and support for election
officials.--CISA has proven to be an essential partner to State and
local election officials by providing election officials with a range
of tools, education, and support to strengthen the cybersecurity of
their election systems. Since CISA began working with election
officials and other partners to increase the security and information
sharing across election systems and networks, important benchmarks have
been reached. Notably, CISA has conducted hundreds of vulnerability
assessments, offered on-line cybersecurity training completed by close
to 3,000 election officials across the country, and developed tools and
resources like their Last Mile and Misinformation resources to improve
election official security posture and awareness. A critical
contributor to CISA's success has been its ability to build trusted
relationships with election officials and others in the space working
to improve election cybersecurity.
Continue information-sharing coordinator role.--Another
coordinating role that CISA plays in the election community is as an
information-sharing hub--CISA monitors, receives, and shares out
critical information on cyber threats and incidents to election
officials and other key stakeholders. On election day for the 2018
Midterm Election and on 2020's Super Tuesday CISA hosted an
unclassified Situation Room at DHS. This gathering of invested
stakeholders expedited communications and incident response and was
demonstrative of their collaborative approach to securing our
elections.
State/Local
Expand EI-ISAC membership.--All 50 States plus the District of
Columbia participate in the EI-ISAC, which provides elections officials
with regular updates on cyber threats, cyber event analysis, and cyber
education materials. While State participation is key, additional
tools, outreach, and support targeting local officials is needed for
the elections community as a whole to benefit from the critical
services provided. For some without a dedicated cybersecurity or IT
staff person, the information shared, and actions required can be
overwhelming. To meet these needs, an effort is underway to make the
messages more consumable and actionable for local officials who may not
be as steeped in the more technological aspects of the content.
Expand options for voters.--State and local election officials need
to continue their efforts to provide voters with as many safe voting
options as they can and ensure that in-person solutions allow for
adherence to CDC recommendations while still processing voters in a
timely fashion. Restrictions on types of facilities that can be used
should be lifted, all government facilities be made available. Number
of days, hours, and locations for voting should allow voters sufficient
capacity to spread out over both time and distance.
Education Campaigns.--Election officials need the resources to
undertake a concerted effort to educate and update voters with what
their voting options are in 2020. At this time there are currently more
than 200 cases of election litigation in the courts all across the
country. Almost every State has a challenge to some aspect of how the
General Election is to be conducted, along with State legislatures
still seated in a dozen or so States with potential election
legislation. Election officials must communicate information so voters
are aware of changes and can act early in the process.
Voters
Make a plan to vote.--Voters should verify what their options are,
make a plan to vote, and talk to friends and family members about their
plans. Ensuring that correct information is being shared is critical.
vote by mail
I would like to turn to the other channel of voting, voting by mail
or absentee.
Since the Civil War, ballots have been entrusted to mail carriers
for safe delivery. Since the late 1980's the State of Oregon has
conducted all of their elections by mail. In the 90's, the Postal
Service created the Official Election Mail Logo to help identify
ballots and voter registration materials in the mail stream. But it was
not enough.
Ten years ago, when election officials would have a postal session
at our conferences, election administrators from across the country
would line up at the microphone to share their stories of poor
communication: Phone calls that went unanswered, emails that were never
returned, questionable customer service.
However, in the ensuing decade we made great strides in fostering a
collaborative partnership between election officials and the Postal
Service. For tens of millions of American voters their ballot is handed
to them not by a poll worker, but by their postal carrier and we have
seen USPS embrace their role in what I often refer to as ``delivering
democracy''. It isn't just another envelope in with the more than 400
million mail pieces each day: It is someone's ballot, someone's vote.
Protocols were established:
the tracking of election and political mail throughout
processing;
focused training of operational staff on treatment of
ballots;
the creation of a special Service-Type ID (STID) for ballots
in the intelligent mail barcodes to raise visibility of ballots
in the data (to parallel what the logo does visually);
the sweeping of plants for ballots in increasing frequency
as election day draws near with nightly all-clears verifying
that all ballots have been processed and are on their way to
their final destination; and
Election Mail specialists were tasked with outreach to
election officials to aid them in their navigation of the many
rules and regulations in the tome that is the USPS Domestic
Mail Manual (DMM).
Some of these efforts have required overtime.
Some of them require additional trips, and some late trips.
The ``Mandatory Stand-up Talk'' directive postal employees received
in early July outlined no overtime and no late trips and that changes
``may be difficult'' and that ``we may see mail left behind or mail on
the workroom floor or docks''. This is diametrically opposed to the
ethos of the Postal Service: ``Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom
of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their
appointed rounds''.
It has been reported that ``there IS overtime'' and that ``there
have been no official changes''--yet my understanding is that a
mandatory directive outlining that ``Every single employee will receive
this information, no matter what job they perform'' changes the
expectation of what that employee will do on the job. Although the
Postmaster General made statements in an effort to clarify the
situation in his recent testimony, there is still confusion amongst
postal employees, election officials, and voters.
My concern is with the postal carrier out on their route and their
shift is about to end: Do they finish the route? Do they leave the
remaining stops to be picked up the next day? What if there are ballots
in those mailboxes?
If the carrier DOES complete their route, will the truck heading
for the processing plant wait for the carrier to come in? Even if it
means that they don't leave on time?
If the mail is not collected or does not go to the plant on the day
it is picked up, will it be postmarked that day, or the next?
Some will say that it is only delayed 1 day--but in many States 1
day is a day too late for the ballot to count. And there are many
points along the journey that such a delay could occur (see Figure 1).
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
It was reported earlier this week that trucks are leaving on time,
but they are leaving empty.
The Postal Service has recommended for years that that ballots mail
out at First Class, rather than Marketing Mail (formerly Standard
Mail). The use of Marketing Mail is most common in the Western States
where we have whole States, and large portions of other States, mailing
out ballots to voters weeks in advance of election day. Many election
offices have mailed at this rate not because they have a lesser view of
Election Mail, but because they have been told for years that the use
of the Election Mail logo and the green Ballot Tag 191 (a placard that
goes on the mail trays) allowed the Postal Service to identify ballots
and expedite their delivery. This is still what local Postal employees
are telling election officials, what they recently experienced in the
State's primaries in the last few weeks.
Yet from L'Enfant Plaza election officials have been hearing that,
``You get the service that you pay for. The logo does not change the
class of service.'' It is only recently that the Postmaster General has
somewhat begrudgingly agreed to continue prioritizing Election Mail.
The tone I am hearing from this Postmaster General is a new one, it
is accusatory and combative where previously it was collaborative and
instructive. At the recent Board of Governors meeting it was said that
``we cannot correct the errors of the Election Boards if they fail to
deploy processes that take our normal processing and delivery standards
into account.'' Election boards do not set the dates and deadlines to
mail out ballots, State legislatures do and they have been remiss to
change them.
The voters should not be disenfranchised because of the failings of
their elected officials. In the past the Postal Service has moved
mountains if need be to ensure ballots were prioritized--even, and most
importantly, in those final days before the deadline.
I will be honest; this is where I do have some internal angst. For
years I have been calling on the States change their deadlines to
request a ballot--and some have. The Postal Service recommends voters
mail back their ballot at least 1 week before it is due, and that is
pre-COVID. Yet, 22 States allow a voter to request a ballot in that
time--7 allowing for a voter to request a ballot by mail on Monday for
Tuesday's election. This sets the wrong expectation for voters, the
expectation that even if they do wait until the deadline things will be
fine. They won't. Especially if the Postal Service is no longer going
to the lengths, they have in the past to make certain that voters
aren't the ones to pay the cost for outdated statutes. That cost is
high. That cost is with their vote.
It is all about timing. Removal of blue collection boxes, pulling
sorting equipment off-line, hiring freeze, rapid reorganization, pilot
programs to change carrier routes in urban areas--some of these actions
may be warranted and fully supported by data, but the lack of
transparency has been palpable; and in a vacuum, you get viral. The
public outcry of concern demonstrates that the voters are listening,
they are watching, and it is impacting their confidence in their
ability to vote by mail.
Last, every election there are interruptions of service.
Hurricanes, fires, tornadoes, floods, indeed 9/11 was an election day
in New York City. But this year we also are in a global pandemic and do
not know where the next hot spot will be nor when it will hit. Our
democracy depends on people, and people can get sick. The Illinois
Board of Elections is currently under quarantine. We know that Fulton
County, GA had a 2-week quarantine in the primary and a death of an
employee. The Postal Service employs more than 600K people and
processing plants and carrier pickup and delivery depend on them. Now
is not the time for a hiring freeze.
action items
Congress
Fund the USPS.--All of the changes that have been proposed by the
new Postmaster General have been done under the auspices of financial
stability. Although fiscal changes need to be made, the timing of these
changes is questionable. We need to properly fund our Postal Service--
not only to support the vibrancy of a safe and secure channel to vote
in a global pandemic, but also to ensure rural America remains
connected, that our citizens receive their pharmaceuticals, and that
our economy isn't further decimated.
Create Formal Election Mail USPS Policy.--To ensure a consistent,
expedited, and high level of service for Election Mail every election,
USPS should adopt a formal standardized Election Mail policy that
encompasses First Class mail service standards and postmarking to
prioritize ballot processing and delivery.
Provide Paid Postage for all Election Mail.--Providing pre-paid
postage for every voter would reduce barriers to voting and increase
efficiency at the local election jurisdiction level by creating a
Federal indicia to pay for outbound and inbound Election Mail to
voters--a system already in place for military and overseas voters as a
part of UOCAVA legislation.
USPS
Treat Election Week as ``Peak Season''.--Formally treat the week
before a Federal election as ``peak season.'' In accordance with
holiday ``peak season'' operating processes, keep processing plants
open and operating during the 2 weekends before election day. Consider
mirroring tax-day-level front-line service on election day.
Increase USPS Election Mail Training and Outreach.--Following the
protocols used in 2016, require USPS election mail coordinators to
reach out to each State's chief election official to promote open
communication. Increase all USPS staff's understanding of processing
Election Mail and ensure that all front-line customer-facing staff
proactively offer Election Mail services like round stamping ballot
return envelopes through an increased volume of Election Mail trainings
to an expanded scope of USPS staff.
State/Local
Increase Ballot Tracking and Mail Ballot Return Options.--Consider
using barcode data--like intelligent mail barcodes--and other
information from the USPS to verify that a ballot was submitted in time
instead of only relying on a cancellation or postmark. Require Service-
Type Identification (STID) for all Election Mail to allow USPS to know
where ballots are in the mail stream. Providing voters with expanded
options for returning their ballots through drop boxes independent of
USPS will aid voters who need to safely return their ballot in the last
week before election day.
Align State Ballot Request Deadlines with Reality of Mail Delivery
Time Lines.--For many years now, USPS has advised that voters return
their ballots back in the mail 1 week before they are due. However, the
necessary policy changes to align dates and deadlines with USPS
delivery standards hasn't happened in many States and more than 20
States allow for a voter to request a ballot be mailed to them within 7
days of an election--after the time that USPS recommends the ballot be
mailed back. This problem will be exacerbated given if ballot
prioritization protocols are changed and additional time is added to
the process.
Voters
Don't Wait to Request.
Don't Wait to Return.
Know Your Options.
conclusion
I got into the field of election administration almost 20 years ago
because I was concerned with what I saw, with what I was hearing. At
every turn voters were being told that machines could be hacked, votes
flipped, the system was rigged, the candidates were all the same, there
was rampant fraud, there would be obstacles like long lines/onerous ID
laws/voter intimidation. I was concerned because I saw turnout
dwindling, apathy growing, and our democracy slipping away.
Ballots mail out to voters in less than 1 month. Military and
overseas voters' ballots will go out in every State in the Nation on
September 19. We don't have much time; the runway is running out. The
American public is tired, frustrated, grieving the loss of more than
180K souls. They need to be assured that in this moment it is safe and
secure to vote by mail if that is what they choose. In this moment
their voting booth may be their kitchen table, their ballot box, their
mailbox. For voters who opt to vote in person, they need to be provided
with safe options that do not cause them to choose between their health
and ability to participate.
In this moment their voices will be heard and their votes counted.
I look forward to any questions you may have.
Chairman Thompson. Well, thank you very much for your
testimony.
Finally, I recognize Secretary Adams to summarize his
statement for 5 minutes.
Ms. Slotkin. You are muted, sir.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL ADAMS, SECRETARY OF STATE, COMMONWEALTH OF
KENTUCKY
Mr. Adams. I have only done like a thousand of these in the
last 4 months, you would think I would figure that out. Thanks.
I will start again.
Mr. Chairman, Members of the committee, good afternoon. I
am Michael Adams, Kentucky's secretary of state. I was sworn in
January of 6 of this year. Talk about hazing the new guy.
Despite the challenges we have faced this year, Kentucky has a
good story to tell, and I am honored to have the opportunity.
On March 6, Kentucky diagnosed its first case of COVID-19.
Ten days later, our Governor, Andy Beshear, a Democrat, and I,
a Republican, jointly agreed to delay Kentucky's primary
election from May 19 to June 23. Before long, we knew the virus
would not be gone by June. Our legislature, at my request, came
together across party lines to grant a Democratic Governor and
Republican secretary of state new joint emergency powers to
change our election methods, but only if the Governor and I
acted together. To make a change, we must both turn the key.
It was obvious that flexibility in our election system was
needed. In our State, usually 98 percent of voters vote in
person on election day. That traditional model was not well-
suited to today's challenges. Kentucky had the good fortune to
vote after several other States, and we learned a lot from
their experiences, positive and negative. This flexibility gave
us time to monitor those developments.
The biggest benefit, though, of legislators of both parties
giving Executive branch officials of both parties the ability
to make changes was that the new rules were fair and seen as
fair. We avoided the brinksmanship you have seen in some other
States. We fashioned fair and clear rules well in advance of
the election and consistently messaged the new procedures in
order to both inform and reassure voters. Bipartisanship not
only led to a better product, with concerns on both sides
accommodated, it also showed voters on both sides that our new
election rules were legitimate.
To be sure, there were those outside our State who thought
they knew better how to run our election than we did. Whether
in Hollywood, New York, or here in Congress, they put out false
and hateful tweets that riled up citizens of other States to
jam our phones with obscene calls and even death threats.
Everything they accused us of and everything they predicted
would happen was just flat wrong, and they should all be
ashamed.
We had a huge voter turnout and no spike in COVID-19 cases.
Turns out Kentucky knows best what is best for Kentucky, and I
would urge you to let Kentucky be Kentucky, let Michigan be
Michigan, and respect the laboratories of democracy that lead
to innovation in a decentralized election system. Although I am
grateful for the CARES Act funding Congress gave us to reduce
our costs, I would rather you give us no funding at all if more
funding means you are going to tell us how to run our
elections.
In our State, we found that what made the most sense for
our June primary was no-excuse absentee voting, as we had a
severe drop-off in the number of available poll workers and
voting locations. For November, with turnout expected to more
than double that of the primary, we are tightening the absentee
voting standards somewhat, preserving it for those who need it
due to age or health concerns, but also not overwhelming our
infrastructure, our county clerks who process the ballots, and
our postal system.
In both elections, we have utilized an absentee ballot
request portal linked to our driver's license database so we
can verify voter identity. We also track ballot envelopes with
bar codes and signature match every single one before the
ballot is counted.
Both for our primary and general election, we have offered
weeks of early in-person voting. I have found that Kentuckians
of both parties want to vote in person if they can, and as we
showed in June, we know how to conduct in-person voting safely.
Although I support absentee balloting for those who need it,
early voting is a far less expensive and labor-intensive way to
conduct an election. It takes the pressure off election day
voting sites. Having more election days also spreads out the
crowds, facilitates social distancing.
One silver lining of our pandemic primary is that it
prompted an upgrade of our voting equipment in some of our
counties where prior voting equipment did not allow for a paper
trail. This was due to HAVA dollars that you appropriated us in
December. Otherwise, it would not have been possible. We used
those funds strategically, alongside CARES Act dollars, to help
counties get new scanners and other equipment usable for
processing absentee ballots which, of course, are paper
ballots.
For me, the gold standard is paper ballots counted
electronically, so we get the speed of a quick count but the
security of a paper trail. It was a goal of mine over this
decade to introduce paper balloting to every Kentucky county,
but now it won't take nearly that long.
We have our work cut out for us. I am grateful to Congress
for coming together to appropriate funds we States could use to
run our elections in a difficult time. I would encourage you to
do so again, but not at the expense of any strings attached,
red tape, or direction how to run the elections that, under our
Federal Constitution, are tasked to the States and us, the
election officials.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Adams follows:]
Prepared Statement of Michael Adams
Mr. Chairman, Members of the committee, good afternoon.
I'm Michael Adams, Kentucky's secretary of state. I was sworn in
January 6 of this year. This is my first testimony before Congress, and
my first election year as Kentucky's chief elections official. Talk
about hazing the new guy. Despite the challenges we've faced this year,
Kentucky has a good story to tell and I'm honored to have the
opportunity.
On March 6, Kentucky diagnosed its first case of COVID-19. In the
days immediately following, the biggest challenge in election
administration I thought I faced was in getting enough Lysol and hand
sanitizer to our approximately 3,700 election precincts.
Then, virtually overnight, the world changed. The second week of
March, we in Kentucky knew this crisis was real when college basketball
was canceled. Just 10 days after our first COVID-19 case, our Governor,
Andy Beshear, a Democrat, and I, a Republican, jointly agreed to delay
Kentucky's primary election from May 19 to June 23, the maximum 5 weeks
allowed by law.
Kentucky is not unique in allowing public officials to delay an
election during a state of emergency. September 11, 2001, was primary
election day in New York City, and since 9/11 many jurisdictions now
have these laws. However, Kentucky is very unique in the following
respect.
Our legislature, at my request, broadened the Governor's and my
joint authority to alter the time or place of an election, adding to
those the ability to jointly act to alter the manner of an election. It
was obvious in early April, right before our part-time legislature
adjourned, that flexibility in our election system was needed. In our
State usually 98 percent of voters vote in person on election day. That
traditional model was not well-suited to today's challenges. However,
our legislature did not have time before constitutionally-mandated
adjournment by April 15 to conceive, debate, and pass a new election
code. Even if they had, an election plan designed in early April might
not have met the needs of late June.
Our legislature came together across party lines and expanded the
emergency powers of a Democratic Governor and Republican Secretary of
State--but only if we acted together. To make a change, we must both
turn the key.
Kentucky had the good fortune to vote after several other States,
and we learned a lot from their experiences, positive and negative.
This flexibility gave us time to monitor these developments. The
biggest benefit, though, of legislators of both parties giving
executive branch officials of both parties the ability to make changes
was that the new rules were fair, and seen as fair. We avoided the
brinksmanship you've seen in other States; we fashioned fair and clear
rules, well in advance of the election, and consistently messaged the
new procedures in order to both inform and reassure voters.
Bipartisanship not only led to a better product, with concerns on both
sides accommodated; it also showed voters on both sides that our new
election rules were legitimate.
To be sure, there were those outside our State who thought they
knew better how to run our election than we did. Whether in Hollywood,
New York, or here in Congress, they put out false and hateful tweets
that riled up citizens of other States to jam our phones with obscene
calls and even death threats. Everything they accused us of, and
everything they predicted would happen, was just flat wrong, and they
should all be ashamed. Turns out Kentucky knows best what is best for
Kentucky, and I would urge you to let Kentucky be Kentucky, let
Michigan be Michigan, and respect the laboratories of democracy that
lead to innovation in a decentralized election system. Although I'm
grateful for the CARES Act funding Congress gave us to reduce our
costs, I would rather you give us no funding at all if it means you're
going to tell us how to run our elections.
In our State, we found that what made the most sense for June was
no-excuse absentee voting, as we had a severe drop-off in the number of
available poll workers and voting locations. For November, with turnout
expected to more than double from the primary, we are tightening the
absentee voting standard somewhat, preserving it for those who need it
due to age or health concerns, but also not overwhelming our
infrastructure--our county clerks, who process the ballots, and our
postal system. In both elections, we've utilized an absentee ballot
request portal linked to our drivers' license database so we can verify
voter identity. We also track ballot envelopes with bar codes and
signature-match every single one before the ballot is counted.
Both for our primary and general election, we've offered weeks of
early in-person voting. I've found that Kentuckians of both parties
want to vote in person if they can, and as we showed in June, we know
how to conduct in-person voting safely. Although I support absentee
balloting for those who need it, early voting is a far less expensive
and labor-intensive way to conduct an election, and it takes the
pressure off election day voting sites, where we face the challenge of
finding both the locations and the poll workers. Having more election
days also spreads out the crowds and facilitates social distancing.
One silver lining of our pandemic primary is that it prompted an
upgrade of voting equipment in some of our counties whose prior voting
equipment did not allow for a paper trail. This was possible due to
HAVA dollars you appropriated in December. We used those funds
strategically alongside CARES Act dollars to help counties get new
scanners and other equipment usable for processing absentee ballots,
which of course are paper ballots. For me, the gold standard is paper
ballots counted electronically, so we get the speed of a quick count
but the security of a paper trail. Whether you're concerned about vote
hacking by foreign powers, or domestic actors tampering with voting
machines, or even just the ability to perform a reliable recount, paper
ballots counted electronically makes sense. It was a goal of mine over
the decade to introduce paper balloting to every Kentucky county, but
it now won't take nearly that long.
We have our work cut out for us. I'm grateful to Congress for
coming together to appropriate funds we States could use to run our
elections in a difficult time. I would encourage you to do so again,
but not at the expense of any strings attached, red tape, or direction
in how to run the elections that, under our Federal Constitution, are
tasked to the States, and us, their election officials. Thank you.
Chairman Thompson. I thank all the witnesses for their
testimony.
I remind the subcommittee that we will have 5 minutes to
question the panel. I now recognize myself for questions.
I would remind the Ranking Member from his comments that
the committee's oversight jurisdiction directs the committee to
review and study on a continuing basis all Government
activities [inaudible] of the homeland security. Safe, secure
elections, free from disinformation campaigns, are integral
parts to homeland security. Moreover, the United States Postal
Service is a critical component to the Nation's critical
infrastructure, and this committee is responsible for ensuring
the security of that critical infrastructure.
All of us on this committee are elected officials. We have
seen elections conducted in our communities time and time again
[inaudible] by excellent local officials. Clearly, we see
elections as a local responsibility. We trust those
individuals. However, President Trump has repeatedly made
baseless allegations and spread misinformation about voting by
mail. In fact, in July, the President even issued an appalling
tweet urging that we delay the American election because of the
so-called risk of voting by mail. Ironically, we know that the
President votes by mail, the First Lady votes by mail. The
Postmaster General testified that he plans to vote by mail, as
he has done for many years.
Ms. Patrick, to be clear, is there any meaningful
difference between absentee voting and vote by mail?
Ms. Patrick. I think that there is a lot of confusion
around that, Mr. Chairman. In the vast majority of the States,
it is one and the same. Some previously called it absentee
voting, and they have changed their statutes, like Florida did,
to refer to it as vote by mail. There are a handful of States
where they do make a subtle distinction in their statutes
between absentee and vote by mail, and sometimes that
distinction is in reference to whether or not a voter on one
list or the other permanently gets a ballot mailed to them or
whether they need to make a request for every election.
But when we hear about it in the National landscape, it is
almost commonly referring to the exact same process of a ballot
being mailed out to a voter and then the voter having options
in how they would like to return their ballot.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you.
Secretary Benson, I understand that Michigan has approved
universal vote by mail. In your experience, is vote by mail
uniquely prone to fraud?
Ms. Benson. Thank you for the question, Mr. Chairman. No,
we actually have now conducted 3 elections this year alone with
a full right to vote by mail, with more citizens voting by mail
than ever before and with zero reports or evidence of fraud.
That said, the signature standard that we have in place to
ensure that signatures are matched on the envelope in which a
ballot is sent to the signature we have on file ensures that we
have a security check in place so that we can find and
investigate irregularities, if and when it occurs. So we have
got a system in place to protect the process, but notably, the
evidence shows primarily that people want to vote by mail and
there is zero evidence of fraud or irregularities.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much.
Secretary Adams, in your short tenure there, have you found
much fraud in vote by mail or absentee ballot process?
Mr. Adams. Well, Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to say
that our election this year was clean. I did have some concerns
about going from about 2 percent absentee balloting to what we
ended up with, which was about 75 percent. We put a lot of
protocols in place to make sure that we didn't have vote fraud.
We formed an interagency task force with Federal and State
partners to closely supervise potential problem spots. There
are certain parts of our State that have more of a history of
election shenanigans than other parts, and so we were very
vigilant, we surveilled it tightly, and we had a clean
election.
Chairman Thompson. So as far as you are concerned, those
local officials that you talked about, if left to their own
devices, they will probably design a system, to the extent
practicable, that is fraud-free?
Mr. Adams. Well, sir, I will say this: You know, No. 1, I
have confidence in all of my colleagues of both parties who are
in my position. Some have different models of what election day
looks like than what we have in Kentucky, and I like what we
have maybe better than what they have, but I think they are all
people of integrity. They are all people held accountable by
their voters to have clean and fair elections. But I do think
that local control is best, State control is best. It enables
us to design the system that meets our specific needs.
With respect to fraud, you know, we have really tight
protocols here in Kentucky. As I referenced in my testimony, we
require the voter to apply for the ballot. We run that through
the database, make sure all the information is correct, and we
then track the ballots and bar codes, and then we signature
match every single one. These are best practices that we have
seen in other States and we have implemented those here.
So just to be clear, I think all things being equal, voting
in person is the gold standard, but we are in unique times and
we have got to acclimate to that.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much.
Mr. Dimondstein, in the few minutes that I have left, let
me thank you and the Members for all you have done to fight for
our Nation's Postal Service. The Postal Service is a good
public good, and in rural areas like the one I represent and
where I live, it is truly an essential lifeline.
How have the President's efforts to politicize the Postal
Service hurt this institution?
Mr. Dimondstein. Well, look, this is an institution, Mr.
Chairman, that has 91 percent favorability rating from the
people of this country. Throughout the political spectrum, it
is equal, whether someone identifies as a Republican or a
Democrat, Independent, Libertarian, Green, or whatever. So when
the top official of the land calls the Postal Service a joke,
consciously says they are withholding needed emergency COVID
relief funds, that the Post Office will not be as successful in
serving the people of the country in vote by mail, rails that
package rates should be raised 4 times, which would be a
detriment to every single consumer in this country and every
single e-retailer, it undermines the people's confidence in the
Postal Service. For us as postal workers in the front lines--
and especially in the front lines as essential workers in this
pandemic, it is an insult.
It also paves the way to a privatization agenda, Mr.
Chairman, because that is the agenda of this White House. It is
in writing. You are not hearing this from me. It was in a June
2018 Office Management Budget report. But to get to privatize,
that means dismantle, break up, and sell to private
corporations for private profit. When you have a 91 percent
approval rating, you have to break that bond, because the
people will never allow something that they feel so strongly
about to be taken from them. The way you try to break that bond
is you degrade and you undermine service so it doesn't work for
the people of this country.
We are in a moment where we are hearing from customers all
over the country that the service that they are used to is not
there and it needs to be restored and needs to be restored
quickly.
Chairman Thompson. Well, thank you.
I thank all our witnesses for being here today.
I now recognize the Ranking Member of the full committee,
the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Rogers, for questions.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As you and I have both talked about for years and expressed
our frustration for years, for the 16 years we have been on
this committee, we don't have the broad jurisdiction we think
we should have. I would be thrilled if, in fact, we had the
jurisdictional reach that you described earlier, but I
respectfully disagree that we have any jurisdiction whatsoever
over the topic of today's hearing.
Having said that, Mr. Adams, you heard Secretary Benson
describe how safe her in-person voting was in her State because
of the distancing and the sanitization. Do you find that in-
person voting is unsafe in Kentucky?
Mr. Adams. No, sir. I am very proud that we had hundreds of
thousands of people vote in-person in Kentucky, and we had no
spike in COVID-19 cases. We have had a spike, subsequent to
that, coming after the 4th of July holiday weekend, and we have
hit a new plateau since then, unfortunately.
But, no, I am really proud of the fact that we conducted
in-person voting safely. We did that by offering election day
voting at vote centers where any person in the county could go
vote, regardless of precinct. We also had 2 weeks of early
voting now to space out the crowds and ensure social
distancing. But I am very, very confident that we can repeat
that. I think we will have a lot more people vote in person in
November. I am proud that we had high turnout in our primary.
We had about 29 percent. That is pretty good for us. I think we
will have about 72 percent in November.
I am concerned about overwhelming our load capacity with
absentee ballots. So I am not going to run down absentee
ballots, but I think it is not the full solution by itself. I
think we have to have in-person voting also. I found that
opinion not just among Republicans who are dubious of voting
through the mail system, but also from a lot of Democrats.
Mr. Rogers. Let me ask, do you believe one method of voting
is more secure than any other method?
Mr. Adams. I think, all things being equal, voting in
person is preferable. I will say that we haven't had, that I
have seen in my reading of history or otherwise, any sort of
mass conspiracy to steal a State-wide election since about the
late 1940's, we had a very famous case then. But we still do
have election fraud, and it tends to be in local races, usually
a county executive race or a mayor race. You have got a small
jurisdiction, it takes very few votes to steal it, and you have
got patronage on the other side of it, and this happens in
small towns sometimes, mostly the eastern part of our State.
But those are isolated instance. You see those every once in a
while. Those are easier to catch if you have got in-person
voting, because that is the voting where you are supervising
the voting with election officials.
So all things being equal, that is certainly my preference,
but, you know, certainly my grandparents are still alive, they
are in their 80's, and they want to vote, and they are nervous
about going out to do that in person right now.
Mr. Rogers. Great. Thank you.
I wanted to ask you about the difference between absentee
ballot voting and this universal voting. In Alabama, my home
State, in order to vote absentee, you have to request a ballot.
My understanding--and up until this election, we had about 12
different reasons that you could vote absentee. They were
pretty broad. But in this year during the pandemic, there is no
reason necessary. If you want to vote absentee because you are
just remotely being worried about being exposed to the virus,
you can vote absentee.
How, in your view, does that differ from universal voting?
My understanding of universal voting is that everybody on the
voting roll is sent a ballot. Is that not correct?
Ms. Patrick. So it is a question of semantics, Mr.
Congressman. So I often talk about voting by mail or absentee
voting as an evolution. Every State in the country started out
with there being an excuse being required for absentee voting.
Then what has happened over time is that the excuses either
grow in number and then eventually they get removed and you
have no-excuse absentee.
Mr. Rogers. Right.
Ms. Patrick. Some States have kept that no-excuse absentee
terminology or phraseology. Others have then changed it to say
vote by mail. What has happened in the next stage in the
evolution is that very often a voter--the voting population
tends to like to vote by mail or vote absentee, and then a
jurisdiction gets overwhelmed with all of the applications.
I saw this in my own home State of Arizona when I was a
local election official there. We had a lot of people, and
every time they send in an application, particularly for States
where it has to be for every election--and we saw this in the
primary elections of election officials being overwhelmed with
all of these applications coming in. I did a study, and it
turns out that each one of those applications ends up costing
around a dollar for processing, for postage. So every one of
those application has a cost associated with it, and year after
year, we found the same voters were sending in the same
application.
So then, States moved to a permanent absentee list, and
that is where my former State of Arizona sits right now with 60
or 70 percent of their voters on a permanent list, and that is
when the former--the other States then go to that final stage
of all mail elections.
So in this moment, universal vote by mail is a phrase that
is being used that, quite frankly, has never been part of the
lexicon. I have worked on the EAC's voting voluntary system
guidelines and the glossary of those documents for years, and
it has never been referred to as universal vote-by-mail
elections.
So in this moment, we are seeming to redefine phrases that
are being used as though there is a definite distinction across
all States and, unfortunately, that is just not the case,
because you do have States where they have both. They call it
absentee voting if you are 65 years of age or older or have a
permanent disability and you are on a permanent list, or they
call it vote by mail if you send in an application to vote in
that specific election.
So, unfortunately, we have so many different terms. Some of
those terms are used for the same process and some of the
processes use different terms in a given State.
Mr. Rogers. Right.
Ms. Patrick. So I hope that helped to clarify.
Mr. Rogers. Well, the concern that I have got is, you know,
I was a county commissioner back in the 1980's, and I am
familiar with how we ran the processes, and we always had
problems trying to keep our voting rolls cleaned up, because
people move, people die, and it is just--it was a perpetual
problem and continues to be. I worry if we just start sending
ballots out to people because they are on voting rolls, that it
could lead to fraud.
But with that, my time is expired. I thank you for being
here.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey for 5
minutes, Mr. Payne.
Mr. Payne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
opportunity to be here today.
In addition to accepting ballots returned by mail, many
election offices give voters the opportunity to return ballots
in drop boxes throughout the city. I support this effort to
provide voters more ways to return their ballots but have
concerns about the security of the ballot boxes. CISA is
responsible for providing election officials advice on both
physical and cybersecurity and has several guidance documents
related to election security.
Secretary Benson and Secretary Adams, what advice, if any,
has CISA provided you about the security vulnerabilities
associated with ballot drop boxes and how to mitigate them?
Ms. Benson. Well, I will start. Thank you, Congressman.
Now, to date, we, as I have mentioned, provided nearly a
thousand drop boxes to election jurisdictions across the State
of Michigan. [Inaudible] you see [inaudible] to emphasize
[inaudible] to meet the needs of our voters this year, and I
want that to be recognized. [Inaudible] have succeeded in our
elections this year [inaudible]. Our drop boxes are located
[inaudible] many are located inside city halls [inaudible]
those doors are typically under surveillance by the cameras
[inaudible]. We also had clear chain of custody [inaudible].
To answer your specific question about CISA, we are in
regular communication with them, and oftentimes it is a
reactive communication where they are sharing with us
information that they hear of that we should know about. But
that said, our partnership with them is one that is very
robust, and our communications have been significant. You know,
I am sure that if they hear of any credible threats in the
security of our drop boxes, they would share them with us.
Mr. Adams. I----
Ms. Benson. Go ahead, Secretary.
Mr. Adams. OK. Sorry about that.
So thank you, Representative. So I will just second
everything that Secretary Benson has said with regard to CISA
drop boxes. I will add this: This is pretty novel for our
State. Again, historically we have about 2 percent of voters
vote absentee. There really hasn't been a demand to necessitate
drop boxes. They are expensive. They are about 2 grand apiece.
They are like tanks.
So it is an expense that we haven't invested in
historically. But I found, interestingly, that the demand for
drop boxes in my State in the primary came from Republicans. I
was a little dubious that we could get this done without a big
firestorm, but actually it was Republicans that liked the drop
boxes. I won't represent that that is a universal viewpoint,
but what I found is a lot of Republicans are comfortable
applying for a absentee ballot and getting it, voting at home
safely, and then just don't want to mail it back. They want to
bring it back. They want the personal satisfaction of dropping
a vote into a bin and knowing it is in the bin. So we actually
found that there was greater like of drop boxes on the GOP side
than on the Democratic side in our June primary.
We have really strict protocols. Back in the primary, we
only gave each county a smattering of them, and we told them to
put them inside the clerk's office or inside a government
building. Looking back, I think that was maybe a little bit too
restrictive, because a lot of these buildings were closed or
had limited hours and were trying to avoid people indoors with
this pandemic. So in November, we are going to have more drop
boxes and we are going to put them outdoors, but we are going
to have them under continuous monitoring by government
officials to make sure that there is no hanky-panky with them.
But to be frank, these things are more secure than
mailboxes. Mailboxes are pretty secure, but these things are
mailboxes and then some.
[Inaudible.]
Chairman Thompson. You have to unmute yourself.
Mrs. Lesko. Hi. This is Congresswoman Debbie Lesko.
You know, I have to tell you that I get a little bit
frustrated when we continually, at the opening statements, Mr.
Chairman, you continually, I think just about every time, you
have bashed President Trump, and I would actually like to try
to get some bipartisan stuff done. It is just frustrating to
me.
You know, there was a--I have to ask a question for
clarification from Ms. Patrick. Ms. Patrick, I understood you
to say when Mr. Rogers asked you a question about the
difference between, you know, a requested ballot versus
universal mail-in ballot, which would mean that every
registered voter received a mail-in ballot, and you had said
something to the effect of, unless I misunderstood you, that,
oh, we just have these permanent early voter lists which
basically, as you know, in Arizona, if I wanted to be on that
list, I as a voter request to be on that list. I am not just
automatically sent a mail-in ballot.
But yet there are States, in my understanding, that every
registered voter does get mailed a ballot. They didn't request
it. It is Washington, Oregon, Utah, Colorado, Hawaii.
So can you clarify your statement, please?
Ms. Patrick. Yes, absolutely. I am sorry--and thank you for
bringing that up, Representative Lesko. So what I was meaning
to more clearly define is that some States say vote by mail
even if you need to submit an application. So whether it is a
permanent application to get on the list or whether it is
basically an application for a vote-by-mail ballot. So, when we
take a look at some place like Florida, you apply for every
election that you want to get a ballot, but they don't call it
absentee voting. They call it vote by mail.
Mrs. Lesko. Thank you.
Ms. Patrick. You are correct that there are also all-mail
elections, and there are States that do that. In fact, of
course in your home State of Arizona, many localized elections
for more than a decade have been all-mail elections at the
county level, just not at the State.
Mrs. Lesko. Thank you for clarifying because there is a
concern. I think what President Trump is saying is there is a
concern that all registered voters would get automatically
mailed a ballot versus a voter requesting a mail-in ballot,
which is done in Arizona, and we have been doing it in Arizona
for years. Like the other secretary of state said, that they
check the signature.
But I guess I am going to ask the Kentucky secretary of
state, don't you think there is a risk of voting--every single
person on the voter registration list a ballot? Because I don't
know about in your State, but in our State, there is
certainly--the voting rolls aren't always updated. So you are
going to have people that are still registered at an old
address. You are going to have people that have died that
haven't been taken off the rolls because it is often a little
bit difficult to get the name off of the rolls because I think
in Arizona it is still the law where the person has to get it
like 3 times mailed to them, and the person that receives it
saying, ``No, this person isn't here anymore.'' That is my
question to you.
Mr. Adams. Well, sure, there is a big difference, from my
perspective, in Kentucky between a universal vote-by-mail
system and an absentee-ballot system. On the West Coast, they
register people automatically to vote if their name is in a
government database. Again, I have confidence in my colleagues.
I think they are people of integrity, but that to me, for
Kentucky, would not be a good system.
One of the issues I ran on for this position last year was
getting our voter rolls cleaned up. During the campaign, it
came out that we had about 200,000 people on our voter rolls
out of 3.4 million registered voters--people who had either
moved away, passed away, or been put away. I have actually
thought that number was low-balled.
As part of our election agreement, the Governor and I sent
postcards to everybody on the voter file. We got about 400,000
of those cards back in the mail undeliverable. So we are in the
process of removing those people within the time period that we
are permitted to do so by law. So, in Kentucky, that would just
be a nightmare, just mailing ballots out through the phone
book. I wouldn't advocate for that.
Mrs. Lesko. All right, thank you.
Mr. Adams. But I would--yes.
Mrs. Lesko. Thank you.
Just a closing statement, Mr. Chairman. You know, it is
frustrating to me, we already passed--the Democrats already
passed their post office bill, and here we are, almost a week
later--it was last Saturday--and we are doing this, like,
almost a week later, in a committee that doesn't even have
jurisdiction. To me, this doesn't make sense. I yield back.
Thank you.
Chairman Thompson. Well, gentlelady, I read into the record
the responsibility for this committee. Your concerns are noted.
Everything I said about the President came out of his mouth. So
I am only repeating what President Trump has said. Now, if you
don't like what I repeat, then you need to tell the President
not to say it. As long as he says it, I am going to repeat it.
The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from New York, Miss
Rice.
Miss Rice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Benson, in 2016, we saw just how easily a hostile
foreign government can wreak havoc by using social media to
spread disinformation and sow doubt and cynicism about the
democratic process, including by trying to make people believe
their votes won't count. Now, while here we are 4 years later,
we know that there are still hostile foreign governments doing
that very same thing. We are unfortunately hearing this similar
kind of misinformation, disinformation, and outright lies
directly from the Oval Office, from the President himself.
You, Secretary Benson, yourself, have been on the receiving
end of one of President Trump's Twitter attacks against voting
by mail in which his original tweet was actually false, and he
withdrew it and then filed another one. But my question is, how
do you address the issue of dealing with misinformation and
disinformation to the people that you represent? Specifically,
how are you able to convince voters that this process is
legitimate and that their vote is going to count and matter?
Ms. Benson. Well, you are right. The challenges this year,
like never before, are that--are attempts to hack the voter's
mind. You know, noting that we are here, that I am here today
before the Committee on Homeland Security, there is a real, in
my view, connection to the work that we do and the work that
you all do in that protecting the security of our elections is
as critical this year as it has ever been. Now, that takes 2
forms--No. 1, our infrastructure, making sure our voter rolls
are secure and impervious to any types of hacking, which we
have increased the security of, conducting post-election
audits, risk-limiting audits, that we are now piloting and
implementing State-wide which, of course, confirm that the
machine counts of ballots are accurate.
That infrastructure security is key. All of the States,
many of the States, have been really ramping up their efforts
in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security and
CISA this year, and then that feeds into our work to protect
voters from efforts to hack their mind and sow seeds of doubt
about the integrity of our elections.
The bottom line for me is that, this year, the results of
our elections in Michigan and, I believe, Nation-wide will be
an accurate reflection of the will of the people. Our elections
will be secure. What the unknown is, what the challenge is, is
ensuring that everyone knows that, that regardless of who they
vote for, that they will have faith at the end of the day that
the system was secure and that their vote was counted.
Now, efforts to sow those seeds of doubt in our
electorate's mind have come from domestic sources and from
foreign sources, this year more than ever before. What we have
done is a number of things, in part, constant communication
with our colleagues in other States because none of us need to
re-create the wheel, and we are all dealing with this together.
There is a lot of bipartisan collaboration with the secretaries
this year that I am really proud to be a part of.
Second, we have established a website, Michigan.gov/
election security, which we will keep up-to-date, pushing back
on every rumor or piece of misinformation that is reported to
us and proactively also sending out information that gives
voters confidence that we are on it, that our system is secure,
and that our decentralized system of elections in Michigan,
where we have 1,500 local jurisdictions all running elections
actually helps to eliminate the possibility of any type of
massive or State-wide effort to impact the security of the
system.
That said, we all have a role to play. We, at the secretary
of state's office, can get out the trusted information and
develop it. But we all have a role to play. You all have a role
to play. Every voice has a role to play this year in sending
out that trusted information, being trusted messengers of that
information, on social media and otherwise. That is why we have
partnered with professional athletes, business leaders, and
other influencers to help us get that information out in a way
that will reach the voters and push back against the rhetoric
that is only going to increase in the weeks ahead and deliver
trusted information about the sanctity and security of their
vote.
Miss Rice. Thank you.
Secretary Adams, you mentioned something that, you know,
brought me back to what happened here in New York, my home
State, on our primary day back in June. Because of the
pandemic, more people took advantage of voting by mail because
they did not feel safe going to vote in person. As a result, I
don't think that New York was prepared, we didn't have the
appropriate infrastructure in place to be able to get results
as quickly as possible, right? So there were some races that
weren't called for, you know, 6 to 8 weeks which, of course,
feeds into, you know, the President's misinformation and
disinformation about, well, you know, if we can't call any
election on election night, then that means whatever result
comes thereafter is necessarily suspect and fraudulent and
rigged.
So, you know, just asking what your tips, because you
mentioned in your, I believe in your testimony or in one of
your responses to your questions that you had, like, a
quadruplefold of mail-in ballots that came in because of the
pandemic. So, if you could just talk about what ways that you
shored up your infrastructure--your election infrastructure--to
ensure that you could count every vote and do it as quickly and
efficiently as possible.
Mr. Adams. Sure. Thank you, Representative. So we did a few
things that were new and unique. We allowed the local officials
to begin processing absentee ballots much earlier, not
announcing any results, of course, but running the ballots
through the machines. We calculated that would have taken about
a month to count them all if we had not let them get started
earlier. So we let them start earlier. It still took a good
week for us to get all the ballots counted, but it would have
been even longer without that.
We also invested in new equipment. We used HAVA dollars we
had left over that you all gave us back in December. We also
used CARES Act dollars to buy scanners and other equipment,
sorters, so our counties could get up to speed. We had 29
counties when I took office that had no machine at all capable
of having a paper trail. So I think we are pretty close. I
think this year we will have actually every county up to speed
on having that capacity.
Something that we are doing for November that is unique
compared to the primary is we are actually starting the
availability of absentee ballot requests earlier but also
closing it earlier. We only had about a month back in the
primary just because of the press of time. The virus developed
so late with our primary, we only had about a month to both get
the absentee ballots requested and out and also do early voting
at the same time, and it was a real crunch on our election
officials at the ground level.
This time we are doing it in stages. We opened up our
portal for requests about a week ago, and we are going to close
it in early October. Then that will enable those to be
processed and allow our county clerks to then pivot to 3 weeks
of in-person voting. So we are not getting a double whammy at
the same time.
So we are going to have 6 weeks of availability for
absentee ballots for those who need them, and that is a
subjective decision of the voter. Then we pivot to early in-
person voting. So I think by transitioning in that way, we can
handle the demand. I think the risk, point of diminishing
returns, if we had too many absentee ballots cast, there would
be a concern about a ballot--the clerk's capacity to process
them, let alone the ability of the Postal Service to manage
them. But I think we have got it handled.
Chairman Thompson. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Miss Rice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much. The Chair
recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr. Katko, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Katko. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It is good to see everybody again.
Ms. Benson and Mr. Adams, these questions are kind-of
focused on you because you are responsible for the election
security in your States. We did a series of roundtables down in
Washington last year, earlier this year, and I did a roundtable
in New York State. What we learned from the roundtables is that
the election ISACs inundate the local board of elections folks
with information, and they are not always able to appropriately
filter and appreciate the importance of those directives.
A woman who is a part-time person who is on the board of
elections in Oswego, one of 62 counties in New York State, said
that last year she had 1,672 directives from the ISAC. She is
not trained in cybersecurity. She is not trained in
electronics, and the person that she works with on her computer
systems is--has many other tasks within the county, is only
very part-time at the board of elections.
So, based on that, when Congresswoman Rice and myself
introduced H.R. 8011, the Cyber Navigators Act, and so we are
just trying to get a feel, and what it does is establishes
grant funding to States for cybersecurity experts and basically
to just share IT folks that are laser-focused on election
security and board of elections issues only, and just help me--
provide technical support as well--and I just want to try to
get a little idea of what the problems are in you two's States.
Do you see similar things with getting inundated with
information from the ISACs, and would this type of bill that I
described be helpful to you? Ms. Benson, go first, please.
Ms. Benson. OK, thank you. Yes, it would. I mean, I think,
again, in our view, team sport. You know, partnerships are key
to success, sharing of information, communication. There is no
role for that of, you know, withholding of information or
partisan agendas when it comes to just making sure our
elections are acceptable and secure is my approach.
So, for us, we talk regularly and partner with our 1,500
local election administrators, but it is 1,500 throughout the
State of Michigan. The more support, the more investment, the
more we can invest in their election infrastructures through
support of Federal funding--and I do believe that standards are
important as well and that the Federal Government has every
right to say, ``If you are going to accept our funds, you have
to meet these guidelines.'' I think that has actually worked
quite well in the past, with the Help America Vote Act and
other election sources of funding.
So, that said, you know, I completely support the concept
of cyber navigators and have worked with other State agencies
to evaluate and improve local and county infrastructure, and
the more support that we can have from our Federal Government,
the more effective we will be able to be in doing that.
Mr. Katko. OK. Great. Thanks.
Mr. Adams.
Mr. Adams. Thank you, Representative. I am happy to take a
look at your and Representative Rice's bill, but it sounds like
a really great idea. It is an issue that we have talked about
here in Kentucky is cyber navigators. We have a decentralized
election system. I like to tell people we don't have an
election in Kentucky; we have 120 elections. We have 120
counties with their own election officials, and those people
have responsibility for other tasks too. Ultimately their
election system is only as good as their local cybersecurity.
So I have encouraged our county clerks to work very
directly with the ISACs. I have tried to build those
relationships between the Federal Government and the local
governments. I do know the ISACs tend to send out a lot of
information, and it is not always--if you get 3 emails a day,
sometimes you wonder, you know, on this one, is it a big deal?
But they do a great job. They have been really valuable
partners.
I do think it would be helpful if we had some folks
available, maybe to travel the circuit and hit county spots.
When I traveled around my State campaigning, I saw that some of
the clerks' offices didn't appear to have secure WiFi. I think
that has been improved since then.
But I do have concerns occasionally also about the physical
plan that some of our county clerks offices, they are in old
courthouses, built in the 1800's sometimes, and just not
designed for tight security. You know, they have got windows
and that sort of thing where that might be access. So, to be
clear, you know, we have reviewed all of this. We feel like we
are in a good position, but we could always get better.
Mr. Katko. OK. Ms. Benson, if it is 200 election districts
and 1,500 people responsible in those election districts, I
would just respectfully suggest--and I think you agree--that
what we are contemplating doing is having IT people that only
work with you folks, and they are yours. You hire them. But
they help monitor your systems and digest what the ISACs are
saying so that you can better secure your systems, because we
have had a lot of talk today about the Postal Service. We even
had a robust discussion about the real big concern down the
road is, are we going to have ransomware attacks? Are we going
to have attacks from the Russians that are going to disrupt our
services? So I ask you both to take a look at this bill and
give me your thoughts because it is picking up steam, and I
really want to try and help you with this as much as I can.
Ms. Benson. We will. If I could mention that we did--with
our past Federal HAVA security funding, we were able to hire a
full-time election security director for the first time in our
State who has been responsible with working directly with our
local counties [inaudible] their infrastructure, their
websites, and the security. So additional support will help us
get even more efficient in that regard, and we will take a look
at the legislation and offer what support we can. Thank you.
Mr. Katko. OK.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much.
Mr. Katko. Thank you.
Chairman Thompson. The gentleman's time has expired.
I recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Correa.
Mr. Correa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this most
important hearing. Can you hear me OK? Can you hear me? Yes?
Yes. Thank you very much. I wanted to follow up on some of Mr.
Katko's comments, and I have a question directed at Secretary
Benson and Secretary Adams. As you know, Russian interference
in the 2016 election is well-documented, their attempt to
influence our election, and 21 States actually were breached by
cyber attacks. So my question to both secretaries is, are you
seeing any repeat of the 2016 elections with reference to cyber
attacks, cyber probes of your systems today?
Ms. Benson. Secretary Adams, would you like to take that,
or would you like me to?
Mr. Adams. Sure. Thanks. Yes, sure. So we have not been
breached, but there has been rattling of our doorknob, let's
put it that way. I don't want to get too specific in this
setting. Happy to share more----
Mr. Correa. You are getting knocks at the door. You are
getting knocks at the door.
Mr. Adams. That is exactly right. So I appreciate the point
you are making, Representative. All of our other problems don't
just go away because we have got this big equipment problem. We
still have to keep our eye on the other balls, cybersecurity
being one of the foremost.
Ms. Benson. I will just add that we have been consistently
monitoring, in partnership with our local governments and the
Federal authorities, the potential for threats. We have also
increased the security around our qualified voter file,
implemented State-wide audits, and convened an election
security task force with National experts, including
representatives from Federal Government, to help advise us on
how to increase the security of our system.
So that said, we have not encountered, as, you know, our
neighbors in other States may have, any significant attempts at
the State level or at any local levels, to interfere with our
system. But, you know, we are 60 days out, and a lot can happen
in those 60 days. So the bottom line for us is we are prepared,
if that knock comes, to push back and also to publicize it and
raise awareness about it so that people know the facts and the
evidence of what has happened and exactly what we did to stop
any potential attack and protect our system.
So we are prepared to protect the system, and we are
prepared to identify any attacks before they occur, and I am
confident that we will if that happens.
Mr. Correa. Another question to Secretary Benson and
Secretary Adams. You know, this morning, as I was driving into
work, I heard a story on the radio that nursing homes, the
seniors at our nursing homes, there is a concern that they may
not be able to have their votes counted because they rely on
vote-by-mail exclusively to vote. I thought to myself, what
about our servicemen and -women around the world that also vote
by mail? What assurances are you--what steps are you taking to
make sure that seniors and our service members have their votes
received and counted at your local respective States? Thank you
very much.
Ms. Benson. Thank you. That is such an important question
on both fronts, and I will take both. It kind-of is captured
by--the bottom line is we are doing everything we can
administratively, within our existing statutory authority in
Michigan and the funding that we have, to secure and ensure the
votes of our seniors and our military and overseas voters are
counted. But we have some challenges and I will talk about
that. On the--for our senior citizens, making sure that either
drop boxes are accessible, are, you know, are available to
those who may not feel comfortable returning their ballots
through the mail, are important, and identifying the specific
needs of each particular community is, you know, important.
Also, of course, protecting them from outside individuals
coming in at this unique moment in the pandemic.
So, where we have also had to move polling locations that
were in senior centers to other locations, we have done that
ahead of time, proactively in most cases, to also protect the
health and safety of those individuals and then work to ensure
that they can still access their vote either through the mail,
voting early, or in person, and again that underscores why
choices are so important.
With regards to military and overseas voters, as
Congresswoman Slotkin mentioned earlier, I have personal
experience with this as a military spouse. In Michigan, ballots
can be electronically delivered to overseas voters but must be
returned via U.S. mail, and that is in our law. I have called
on our State legislature to change that and allow the
electronic return from--or the fax return from military members
overseas and their spouses and their dependents, in particular.
But we are waiting on them to act. We need them to act because
this action is critical in the face of this year's particular
challenges where we have already heard from numerous voters
living overseas, whether serving in the military or for other
reasons, who cannot access the mail due to the pandemic.
So, for them, we are working on finding other options, but
nothing really is a substitute for the action that we need from
the State legislature to enable our overseas voters to more
easily return their ballot through a secure, electronic method
as many States already allow. So my hope is we will get some
changes there, but we are also looking for other avenues and
workarounds in the next few weeks to ensure that we are--that
we are working with our overseas voters to protect their votes.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much. The gentleman's
time has expired. We recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania,
for 5 minutes, Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Chairman Thompson and Ranking Member
Rogers. This is a question I think we are going to direct
specifically to Secretary Adams and Secretary Benson. What has
the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the State of Michigan, what
has been done to clean up your voter rolls to ensure that
ballots are being sent out to who are truly eligible voters?
Secretary Adams, I will ask you to answer first, please.
Mr. Adams. Thank you. As I said a minute ago, it is an
issue that I ran on; it is one I take really seriously.
[Inaudible] to report to move this as quickly as I can, but
also per my agreement with our Governor, part of what I got
from that for my side was a much prompter, much more aggressive
movement toward compliance. The law that requires us to keep
our voter rolls clean was passed by, I should say, a Democratic
Congress and signed by Bill Clinton. It is not a partisan issue
to keep your voters rolls up-to-date. There is just no
legitimate interest in not having that.
So part of what we did is we did a mailing, as provided for
in the National Voter Registration Act. It was in the form of a
postcard informing voters of their new options to vote by
absentee ballot by mail, by drop box, or early in person or on
election day in-person, and that gave us a way to inform the
public, but it also gave us a way to get notices back
undeliverable and put people in the queue for removal from the
rolls.
Something else that we did that was part of that agreement
was, the people that are identified as having returned
postcards, they get a letter from me that explains that it is
an offense under our criminal law in Kentucky to knowingly be
dual-registered and certainly to vote in more than one State.
So those letters have gone out, and we are getting responses
back. We are taking people off the rolls--with their written
consent. We are not purging people right before a Presidential
election, but we are removing people that we have confirmed
have passed away through the--working with the Democratic
Governor of my State and his bureau of [inaudible] statistics.
So, between that partnership, removing our dead voters, and
also actively seeking out and finding people who have moved and
getting their consent to remove them, we have actually made
significant process. We had a month recently where we took off
more dead voters than we added live voters. It is pretty
amazing to see in a Presidential year when you see a lot higher
voter registration.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you. I think that is great. The removal of
deceased voters in your Commonwealth, that is very important
for a fair and safe election.
Secretary Benson, would you like to answer this as well?
Ms. Benson. I would, yes. I want to emphasize that here in
Michigan--and I have said this for years now--we believe that
good healthy election administration is about making it easier
to vote and harder to cheat. The efforts that we have
implemented to clean up our voter rolls really began on Day 1
when I took office and I joined ERIC, the Electronic
Registration Information Center. That partnership, which is a
collaboration of the majority of States--I think close to 30
now in our country--enables us to be in constant and frequent
communication to track individuals who mail--I am sorry--who
move to other States and perhaps register there, enables us to
then update our records accurately, and it similarly enables us
to proactively identify and remove voters once they have been
deceased. So joining ERIC was very critical as a first move.
Second, what we have done is implement automatic voter
registration. Now, what that has done is not only made it
easier, much easier than ever before, for our citizens who are
eligible to vote to become registered voters. But it also
requires us, every time someone comes to our office to get a
driver's license or State ID, or update their license or ID, we
check their voter registration record, and we can increase the
accuracy of our voter rolls daily now.
One of the most interesting and unexpected side effects of
implementing AVR has been that we are able to now consistently,
daily, across the State, confirm or update or correct errors in
our voter registration records that may have accumulated over
years.
The last thing that we did--and this is important--for the
first time in 9 years, we did a State-wide mailing, which the
secretary, my colleague from Kentucky, has emphasized and many
other of my colleagues as well, is key to also, in addition to
what I just talked about, making sure we are touching every
voter and identifying inaccuracies or outdated records. So our
State-wide mailing, which was conducted this year, which was,
of course, our mailing to every registered voter of information
of how to vote by mail and an application----
Mr. Joyce. I am just going to interrupt you because I just
have a few seconds. Secretary Adams, we know that, in New York,
over 30,000 ballots were mailed to voters just a day before the
June primary. What are you working to do to make sure that
ballots are mailed out sooner so that you are not scrambling as
the election approaches?
Mr. Adams. Well, for the--our normal default in our law is
a voter can request an absentee ballot up to 7 days before the
election, and the county clerk has a week to send it back.
Well, that is election day. So we changed that for November. We
actually have a deadline of midnight of October 9 for the voter
to request an absentee ballot other than in case of a personal
medical emergency. So we have an earlier cut-off to apply for
the ballot, but that also gives the clerks the ability to get
it out there faster.
Mr. Joyce. [Inaudible] expired. Thank you very much.
Chairman Thompson. The gentleman's time has expired. The
Chair recognizes the gentle lady from Illinois for 5 minutes,
Ms. Underwood.
Ms. Underwood. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. The integrity
of our elections is essential to the preservation of our
Republic. The on-going COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the
need for greater flexibility in how, when, and where people
vote. As I and many of my colleagues have said over and over,
no one should be forced to choose between protecting their
health and exercising their Constitutional right. That is why
it is so important to make sure that Americans can vote from
home and trust that their ballot will be delivered and counted.
In addition to its many other essential functions, like
delivering medicines to the 80 percent of American veterans who
receive prescriptions through the mail, the Postal Service is a
critical part of our election infrastructure. During the
pandemic, a well-functioning Postal Service is more important
than ever for holding a safe and accessible election this fall.
Mr. Dimondstein, I think some people watching this hearing
might not know all the ways that postal workers are involved in
our electoral process. Can you briefly describe, from a postal
worker's perspective, why a functioning Postal Service is so
important for a safe and accessible election?
Mr. Dimondstein. Well, thank you for the question,
Congresswoman. Well, from the standpoint of view of the postal
workers, we touch the mail at all aspects. So we are delivering
mail to people's homes, and that often goes through--it will go
through sortation facilities. It will be trucked to carrier
units so the letter carrier can come to your home that day. So
clerks, letter carriers, all are touching the mail, and we take
that responsibility, that sanctity of the mail, that privacy of
the mail, we treat it as if it is our own. On the other side if
someone chooses to then mail back that ballot, that gets picked
up, it may get--somebody may bring it to a post office and drop
it in a box at the post office or give it to the window clerk.
Somebody may drop it in a drop box in their neighborhood or in
their own mailbox, and the letter carrier will pick it up
because mail can be put into the system that way----
Ms. Underwood. Right.
Mr. Dimondstein [continuing]. And it goes back into the
processing plants, and there postal workers are trained to give
ballots priority. If it is designed well, it is very
noticeable, the mail can be identified, made sure that it is
pulled out of the system. Some States, workers have to put
the----
Ms. Underwood. Thank you.
Mr. Dimondstein [continuing]. The voter puts a stamp on it.
Other, it is prepaid. That all has to be processed and----
Ms. Underwood. That is right.
Mr. Dimondstein. So we are involved with the process----
Ms. Underwood. Thank you.
Mr. Dimondstein [continuing]. The whole way and proud to do
it.
Ms. Underwood. Thank you, Mr. Dimondstein. It is clear that
the USPS has a leading role to play in this election, and so
that is why I am so disappointed that this administration has
taken on an effort to undermine this essential service with
operational changes that threaten democracy itself.
While I am glad that Postmaster General DeJoy has committed
to reversing or postponing some of those changes, I remain
concerned about the damage that has already been done.
I recently spoke with Valerie Savage, the president of
Local 351, of the American Postal Workers Union chapter in
Aurora, Illinois. She described some of the recent operational
changes she and her colleagues have observed at the USPS
facilities that serve my constituents and others in northern
Illinois. Ms. Savage says that previously machines were used to
sort the mail so that letter carriers received it organized by
the order in which they traveled their route. But now she says
those sorting machines have been taken out of service, and so
that mail has to be sorted by hand. Ms. Savage estimates that
sorting the mail manually takes about 10 times as long as it is
used to take the machines, which she says could result in
delivery delays of 2 days or more.
Ms. Patrick, if Ms. Savage is correct that mail delivery in
northern Illinois could be delayed by 2 days or more, what
impact would that have on our State's ability to count every
ballot in a timely manner?
Ms. Patrick. Thank you so much for the question,
Representative Underwood, and in fact, I included a figure in
my testimony that speaks directly to this issue. Because when
we had the stand-up talk from the Postmaster General, there was
a directive saying no overtime, no late trips. We, in fact,
then saw the pulling of sorting equipment. This is a dramatic
shift. Even though some of these activities have happened in
the past, this has been a change in tone, a change in the
transparency of what is behind changing some of these things.
So I asked one of my colleagues----
Ms. Underwood. Right.
Ms. Patrick [continuing]. Appropriate the figure that shows
all of the ways in which it can delay. It can be delayed by 1
day: If a carrier is near the end of their route and their
shift is ending, do they leave the ballots in the remaining
mailboxes, or are they able to go and get them? If, in fact,
they go ahead and complete their route, the truck that is at
the mail center, getting ready to go off to the processing
plant, do they wait for them or not? We have seen reporting in
the last couple of days that the trucks are not waiting, and
trucks are leaving empty. So this is not a very good policy to
implement just a month before ballots are being mailed, and it
has me very concerned.
Ms. Underwood. I share your concern.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this hearing, and I yield
back.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much. The Chair
recognizes Mr. Garcia from California for 5 minutes.
Mr. Garcia. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
all. This is my first committee hearing. It is an honor to be
here. I want to thank Ranking Member Rogers for that very kind
introduction.
Look, I just want to start with maybe a comment and go into
a few questions. First of all, I want to say that I fully
support the letter carriers in our country. The United States
Postal Service does a tremendous service for our Nation. In
many cases, the folks out there delivering our mail are also
veterans, folks who have served on the front lines, and they
continue to, frankly, serve on the front lines out there,
delivering our mail, and in most cases in a timely fashion in
the midst of this COVID environment. So I am a staunch
supporter of the letter carriers. My uncle was one for more
than 30 years, and I understand the value that the service
brings.
This last piece of legislation, this $25 billion piece of
legislation, wasn't the right answer to help our letter
carriers. I support overtime. I think the letter carriers and
the Nation benefit from the overtime, but this bill didn't
allow the post office to make the changes necessary to truly
protect our letter carriers in this COVID crisis. So I will
just extend the fact that while we--while we also--we can
support the carriers and the U.S. Postal Service and vote
against this latest bill, they are not mutually exclusive, and
I look forward to more meaningful legislation in the future
that actually does help the U.S. Postal Service and its
carriers.
With that, I will pivot to the election elements of this. I
just went through a special election in May where 423,000
ballots were sent out with self-addressed, stamped envelopes. I
think we had over 90 percent of those ballots actually returned
through the mail, or rather 90 percent of the votes that were
counted were through the mail. So I am not necessarily too
concerned about the inability of the post office to get the
ballots out and returned.
What is more alarming to me--and I think this is an echo of
what my colleague from Pennsylvania, Representative Joyce, was
getting at--is that especially here in the State of California,
the update and frequency of updates to the registration rolls
is anemic.
Just prior to my election but unfortunately after the 2018
election, the State of California removed about 1.5 to 1.8
million dead voters or voters who were removed--or moved from
California to other States. This is a huge number. So I guess
my question is--and what that ended up doing before the removal
of those dead voters and folks who had moved was it allowed in
L.A. county alone about 112 percent of our population to be
registered as voters. That makes no sense. There is no math
that allows that. There is no law that tolerates that.
So I guess the question is, what is at the root cause of
our inability at the State level to ensure that we are
refreshing the registration rolls in a timely fashion, not
after elections, but before elections and with enough lead time
to make sure that it is being sort-of baked into the election,
or fully baked in, in steady-state, before the ballots actually
go out. I guess, Secretary Benson, we can start with you and go
from there. I realize you guys are not representing California,
but this is a Nation-wide issue.
Ms. Benson. Yes. Thank you, Congressman. The 3 things I
noted about what we have done in Michigan--frequent mailings,
automatic voter registration enabling us to checking our rolls,
and joining ERIC--I don't believe, and someone will correct me,
but I don't believe California is a part of ERIC, and I don't
know the details around that, but that has certainly been key
in helping us continue to update our rolls in collaboration
with other States because people are mobile. So, when there is
a National change of address--actually, I just got
confirmation, California is not part of ERIC. So that is
something that I would recommend--it certainly helped us--as
well as mailings and the other things I talked about.
The other thing I will mention about the comparison
numbers--you mentioned 112 percent registered--we have to be
careful. What we found in Michigan in looking into those
numbers is what we are comparing, meaning, if we are using old
Census data that may be undercounting a community and then
comparing that to actual voter registration numbers, you could
get a mismatch of really kind-of almost comparing apples to
oranges, that doesn't accurate reflect the percentage of
eligible voters who are registered to vote. So again, you know,
just would offer that as well. But ERIC and being a part of
ERIC has been a key part of our ability to improve consistently
the accuracy of our rolls.
Mr. Garcia. OK. Thank you. I am out of time, but I would
love to get the specifics on that. Maybe we can help out the
beautiful State of California to get on-board with modern
technology. That would be fantastic.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much. Time is expired. I
recognize the gentle lady from Michigan, Ms. Slotkin, for 5
minutes.
Ms. Slotkin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Correa took sort-of the part of my question, which is
great. I am just concerned, I guess, as an Army wife and an
Army stepmom, that we have got, I think, over 200,000 uniformed
military serving overseas. Can you just walk through--I am
sorry--again the way that they are going to be able to vote?
The problem I have is this idea that they are literally over
fighting for the very democracy that we are talking about here
today, and because of the delays in getting ballots out and
back and the whole thing, I am worried that literally the
200,000 serving abroad and then the extra 700,000 that are
serving inside the United States not at their duty station--not
at their voting location, excuse me--are going to be completely
disenfranchised. So convince me, Secretary Benson--I know this
issue is close to your heart--that we are not going to be
disenfranchising our veterans, especially serving abroad.
Ms. Benson. It is a risk, I will just say that, in Michigan
because right now, in Michigan, ballots can be electronically
delivered to overseas voters but must be returned via the mail.
As I mentioned earlier, we need our State legislature to change
the law to allow the electronic ballot return securely. This is
something that we know other States do. Even at a time like
this, where numerous voters living overseas cannot access the
mail due to the pandemic, we need solutions, and we need our
State legislature to be a partner in developing those solutions
because democracy is a team sport and that partnership is key,
and there is only so much I have the authority to do or that
Congress has the authority to do. We need our State legislature
to act.
So, in addition to that, as we wait for them to act, I will
note that in many States, the ability of an overseas voter to
return their ballot other than through the Postal Service,
which is what we are looking for, alternative avenues of
return, has more to do with where the overseas voter is living
rather than who the voter is, meaning that some laws authorize
return options based on whether a voter is living in a hostile
fire, imminent danger zone. This would be true, you know,
whether the voter is in the military, family of the family, or
a civilian overseas, who, you know, based on where they live,
the availability of the standard Postal Service, or
inavailability of it, requires an additional workaround.
So you know, my office has been asking, since I took
office, for a change to this law, to enable more paths. We also
hope, you know, that there is opportunities for others to
advocate for those paths or to offer alternative ways of
individuals to deliver and return those ballots, but it is a
critical issue. It is something that we cannot solve alone. But
it is something that weighs on my heart greatly because we have
to solve it for November.
Ms. Patrick. Would it be OK if I jump in there?
Ms. Slotkin. Thank you. Secretary of State Adams, can you--
oh.
Ms. Patrick. I am sorry.
Ms. Slotkin. I just want to shift the topic if I could, if
that is all right. Secretary of State Adams, can you help us
understand your view of using uniformed military at polling
locations? I am concerned about the general issue of either
uniformed military or law enforcement being placed in any way
at our polling locations or in the administration of our
elections. I understand that, in Kentucky, you had the Guard
called out in some form or fashion, I don't know exactly how,
but can you give us your views since we have heard the
President talking about placing law enforcement at polls. Just
help me understand where you come at this.
Mr. Adams. Thank you, Representative. So, to be clear, the
Governor did call out the Guard. We have a great partnership
with them, but they were not in uniform, and they served a
purely support role. They helped in sanitization. They helped
move the equipment around and that sort of thing, but they were
not poll workers--that is not even out of uniform. So--and that
was an offering that we made--it was voluntary for acceptance--
to our counties. About half of our counties said, ``Yes, we
will take it.'' Half said no.
We had a very unfortunate shooting of an individual during
a demonstration who unfortunately was killed by a member of the
National Guard, and so that came a few weeks before election
day, and that was, I think, another reason why there was some
reluctance to utilize the Guard even in that sort of limited
fashion.
So, in Kentucky, we actually have a law that to be a poll
worker, you have to live in the county, absent some sort of
special permission. So it is just not really feasible for us in
any event, without a change to that law, for us to utilize our
National Guard as poll workers. There is also the concern that
some people can find that to be intimidating, but we had----
Ms. Slotkin. Yes. Thank you for that, sir. I appreciate you
raising that because I think the specter of the President
saying he wanted to bring law enforcement potentially into our
elections process, when he tweeted that, the intimidation that
comes from having uniformed or law enforcement personnel at
polls should not be underestimated. I appreciate your answer on
that.
Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. I am out of time.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Missouri, Mr.
Cleaver, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you and
the Ranking Member for the meeting.
Frankly, I am pleased that you would place this issue on
our committee agenda because we are, you know, less than 80
days out from an all-important election. I have a grandson who
is upstairs in my home right now in bed with corona. There are
3 of us in the house, and all 3 of us sleeping in separate
rooms.
The point I want to make is that this is an awful disease,
and we should not force anybody to go stand in line and--making
them susceptible to this deadly virus. I get a little emotional
talking about it, but I want to ask our panel whether or not
they believe that there is such a thing in the world as voter
suppression. Just, you know, we can go from left to right.
Ms. Benson. I will go first on that because we are fresh
off of an experience of just that, Congressman. First my
sympathies, my condolences, to your family. I know how
challenging and uncertain this moment must be healthwise. So my
heart goes out to you, and we will keep you in our prayers.
Mr. Cleaver. Thank you.
Ms. Benson. The issue with voter suppression is, as we saw
evidence. I believe in data and I believe in, you know,
[inaudible] decisions, as we saw first-hand yesterday,
[inaudible] remarks that specifically said that, if you vote by
mail, which is something [inaudible] so they have [inaudible]
bad things will happen that are [inaudible]. In my view,
[inaudible] because this is the tip of the iceberg [inaudible]
for efforts to try to discourage people from voting one way or
another, or voting at all, with false information, [inaudible]
scare tactics, that was the case for this particular
[inaudible].
Mr. Cleaver. Thank you very much. Let me ask our secretary
of state, do you believe that the intelligence community is
correct, or do you think they are making up the delivery of
that intelligence to us, that not only did the Russians
interfere with the last election, but they are already involved
in trying to disrupt our--what they want to really do is sow
discord in the Nation? But one of the ways they do it is, of
course, trying to convince us that democracy doesn't work,
voting doesn't work.
So do you believe that that is a truth, that our
Intelligence Committee is making all the--all of the
intelligence agencies had a meeting at a restaurant and decided
to lie to the American public about what the Russians are
doing?
Ms. Benson. Would you like me to----
Mr. Cleaver. Yes.
Ms. Benson. Sure, if it was directed at me. We have, been
just trying to, you know, cut through the noise and the
rhetoric this year and speak directly with those doing the work
and have found, you know, that evidence exists, as we all know,
and as Congress and the U.S. Senate has found, of clear efforts
to interfere with our elections.
What that means for us, as we prepare for November, is that
we have got to [inaudible]. We have got to be aware of all the
data of what has occurred before, and we speak just directly to
our law enforcement agencies, the FBI, and everyone involved in
election security. We have asked continuously for the
information [inaudible] those who are involved in [inaudible].
So I am confident that [inaudible], that it is not a partisan
issue [inaudible]. And we will continue to [inaudible] in what
we are doing to protect [inaudible] in collaboration with those
at the local, State, and Federal level.
Mr. Cleaver. I think my time is running out. The reason I--
that was not going to be my initial line of questioning, Mr.
Chairman, so I apologize. But I just wanted--some of my
colleagues who are good and decent people, were critical of
you, Mr. Chairman, about why would you place the postal issues
on the agenda for Homeland Security--Homeland Security--
Homeland Security. If we have an impending invasion by Russia,
it would seem to me that this would be an appropriate issue,
Mr. Chairman, and so I want to thank you very much for putting
this on the agenda.
I yield back.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr.
Richmond, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Richmond. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and hopefully I
don't have to use all that time, but let me just go to
Secretary Adams really quickly and ask, what we saw in Kentucky
was a rapidly expanded mail-in voting process. Quick answer,
yes or no, would be, did you see wide-spread fraud or abuse in
the mail-in ballots?
Mr. Adams. No, sir, not in our State.
Mr. Richmond. OK. But also I saw some reports that we
reduced tremendously the number of polling places. That is also
true, right?
Mr. Adams. Well, that wasn't my decision, but, yes, we had
individual counties make decisions to reduce their locations,
which was necessary because the locations weren't available.
They were places of worship that were closed due to a stay-at-
home order, they were nursing homes and so forth. We also have
a drift of poll workers.
Mr. Richmond. Let me ask a question in your experience and
I will rely on my experience. My experience is that if you want
the full participation of voters, you make voting as accessible
as possible. So when we reduce polling places, No. 1, we create
longer lines, and No. 2, we create more travel burdens for
people to get there. Do you agree with that?
Mr. Adams. Well, I agree that if the polling locations are
available and the poll workers are available, you should open
the polls. What we didn't want to have happen in Kentucky, and
didn't have happen, is what happened in Wisconsin, which is,
they tried to open up sites and people didn't show up, and then
the voters were disenfranchised.
Mr. Richmond. No, no, I understand that. But I want you to
listen to my question very carefully. Do you agree that the
burden of traveling further could likely reduce participation
in the democratic process? Do you also agree that the long
lines that would ensue were also a burden to the democratic
process because people may or may not have the time to wait in
line, people may not have the stamina to wait in line, and the
burden of travel to get there? So do you agree that that is
also a burden to the democratic participation in the democratic
process?
Mr. Adams. Well, I certainly do agree with that. It is less
of a burden if you have got absentee balloting available, but,
sure, it is a burden.
Mr. Richmond. Let me jump just really quickly to--and
everybody can answer on this--just the ability of the Federal
Government to help you, CISA for example, in terms of making
sure that your election is both safe, transparent, and that we
have back-up to ensure that the election results are what the
people's will dictates.
Ms. Benson. I will respond to that, if I could,
Congressman, and thank you for your service and your questions.
I think, in our experience, we have had a great working
relationship. The only challenge--and I think this is worth
mentioning--is, who hears first when there is a problem? Is it
the local election official, or is it the State? Myself and my
colleagues have worked to kind-of make sure the State knows
about it when a vendor we use or when a local jurisdiction in
our State encounters a problem. I think we have gotten a little
bit better on that line of communication, but just so that you
all know, that has been a consistent conversation we have been
having Nation-wide among my colleagues and the representatives
of CISA to make sure, again, that we know at the State level
what is going on in our States.
Mr. Richmond. Got it. Let me--and thank you for that
answer. Let me just ask one very quick question, and if
everybody could answer yes or no, it would be very helpful--
have you in your experience so far seen any evidence or
indication that Russia is trying to interfere in an election in
our particular State? We can start with Mr. Adams or whoever
wants to answer, but it would be very helpful if you could just
give me a yes or no on that.
Mr. Adams. Respectfully, Representative, I don't feel
comfortable getting any into anything Classified today. I will
just go back to my prior comment that our doorknobs are being
rattled.
Mr. Richmond. Well, let me ask you this, in your
experience--and I would assume that, Mr. Adams, you are
elected, right?
Mr. Adams. I am.
Mr. Richmond. I would assume that, Ms. Benson, you are
elected, right?
Ms. Benson. Yes, I am.
Mr. Richmond. So let me just pose this question because
this is factually correct. Let's assume that if someone Googled
or went to the website for Antifa, and it was redirected to the
Adams website, or the secretary of state website for Ms.
Benson, that that is--and it is--the website for Antifa is
owned by the Russians--that that is Russian interference in an
election so that is a factual basis. So, if that was redirected
to your websites, would you all personally view that as Russian
interference in your election?
Ms. Benson. I would say yes. You know, I would just say
also, you know, past reports have indicated that there have
been, as we all know, Nation-wide efforts and attempts in
various states. We have really successfully protected our State
against any infiltration or effects of efforts or attempts, but
that doesn't mean----
Mr. Richmond. Excuse me. The question is still the same. I
mean, in my district, if someone went to a website that was
unpopular, let's say the Ku Klux Klan, and it redirected them
to my website, that is an adverse action to my reelection. So
my question is, if Antifa website, owned by the Russians, was
redirected to the Adams campaign or the secretary, Ms. Benson,
your campaign, would you see that as negative interference----
Ms. Benson. Yes.
Mr. Richmond [continuing]. From the Russians?
Ms. Benson. Yes.
Mr. Richmond. Mr. Adams.
Mr. Adams. Yes. That would be a dirty trick. I can't tell
you that is the thing that keeps me up at night though.
Mr. Richmond. Well, thank you for that answer.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for your time, and I yield back.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much. Let me remind the
Members that when you are not talking, to please mute yourself
because some of the feedback we are getting is some of you left
your mikes open.
The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from New York for 5
minutes, Ms. Clarke.
Ms. Clarke. I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I thank our Ranking Member and panelists for their expert
witness today. My first question will be directed toward
Secretary Benson and Ms. Patrick. As State and local officials
work to administer primaries this spring, many chose to rapidly
expand access to absentee ballots or vote by mail, including my
home State of New York.
As COVID-19 continues to spread, it is imperative that we
continue expanding these options for the November elections,
particularly in light of the admonition we have all received
that COVID may have a resurgence as to whether--changes in
people move indoors.
In addition, however, we also need to learn from our
experience in the spring. New York's challenges implementing
vote by mail or absentee voting made National news, but New
York was hardly the only State that struggled. This past
weekend, The Washington Post reported that more than 500,000
ballots were rejected in primaries held across 23 different
States.
In contrast, some States have successfully conducted their
elections exclusively by mail for many years.
So, Secretary Benson, what are some of the reasons that a
ballot can be invalidated, and how do the rules on assessing
the validity of a ballot vary by State?
Ms. Benson. That is such an important question,
Congresswoman, and that is actually one of the things that
keeps me up at night as we prepare for November.
We have seen in our August primary--now, again, 2.5 million
people voted; 1.6 million voted by mail--just over 10,000
ballots were unable to be counted that were mailed in, for
various reasons. Of those 10,694 ballots that were unable to be
counted, 6,400 of them, the vast majority, couldn't be counted
because they were sent in prior to election day but received in
the 2 days that followed. That is a big deal. Those votes
should have counted. In my view, voters should not be
disenfranchised for doing everything they are supposed to do if
another system, particularly the Postal Service, fails to
deliver their ballot on time. That is why we increased the
secure drop boxes that we have been putting in place across the
State, but it is also critical for us that we become a State
that if something is postmarked by election day but received in
the day or 2 following, that it should still count.
Now, the other major reason why those ballots didn't count
was because they were sent in through the mail, and on the
signature check on the ballot envelope in which the ballot is
placed, that voters must sign outside, and that signature is
then matched with the signature we have on file. In about 2,225
of those 10,000 ballots, about 2,000 either had a signature
missing or a signature didn't match. We need to require our
clerks to follow up when they get a ballot without a signature
or a mismatch to identify any irregularities or confirm that
voter's identity and make sure it counts.
Those are 2 things that we have asked our State legislature
to act on, but they have not. But if those are acted on by
November, that will ensure that the vast majority of the
ballots that previously were unable to be counted will be able
to be counted in November's election.
Ms. Clarke. Thank you, Secretary Benson.
According to the Post article, common processes ``tend to
disproportionately invalidate ballots from youths--younger
voters and voters of color.''
Ms. Patrick, is that true? If so, why is that the case?
Ms. Patrick. So I think it is absolutely important to know
that it is true. The No. 1 reason is a late ballot. The No. 2
reason for rejection across the country has to do with the
signature being missing, and that could be younger voters not
signing it, not knowing where to sign, and/or the signature
changing.
So we know that signatures mature around the time you are
25 years of age or older, and so the message to voters is to be
consistent. So be consistent with the way you sign. If you have
what's often referred to as like a throw-away signature, that
is fine, but just be consistent with what signature you are
using so it doesn't get rejected.
The other critical element in the late aspect of the
ballots is that the Postal Service recommends you put your
ballot in the mail 1 week before it is due, and yet 22 States
allow for a voter to request their ballot after that time line.
So--I wrote about this in 2016 called The New Reality of Voting
by Mail--first-class mail delivery is 2 to 5 days, and so
voters who are putting their ballots in the mail on Monday or
on Tuesday on election day, if a postmark does not count in
that State, their ballot may not count because 1-day delivery
is something of the past.
So it is very important that voters not focus on the
deadlines because those deadlines set them up to fail and set
false expectations. But, instead, as Secretary Adams
referenced, focus on the first day to mail and being the first
person to vote. So don't wait to request it and don't wait to
return it.
Ms. Clarke. Mr. Chairman, it is troubling to me that a
ballot can be rejected because of a relatively minor error or
due to circumstances outside the voter's control. Members of
Congress must better understand what we should be asking our
State and local election officials to make sure that no voter
is disenfranchised because of a preventable ballot error.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the hearing, and I
yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much to the lady from New
York. I too have a real concern on that, and I think the
committee will get together and see if we can recommend some
policy changes that we might can get implemented into law to
have some continuity of how that process works.
The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from Nevada, Ms. Titus,
for 5 minutes.
Ms. Titus. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
As you know, and I suspect some members of the panel know,
Nevada just passed in special session AB4, which has to do with
elections, where everybody who is an active registered voter
will receive a ballot, and then there are more opportunities to
vote in person so that you don't have to be overcrowded during
this pandemic time. Despite that, we are being sued on some
bogus constitutional grounds. Even our Republican secretary of
state has asked that the suit be dropped.
I would ask the panel if they are experiencing this or know
of other secretaries of state who have seen this kind of
chilling effect or attempt to delegitimize elections taking
place through the courts and how they might suggest we deal
with it.
Second, Mr. Adams mentioned briefly--and I would like to
follow up on this--that it is very hard to find poll workers.
Most of the workers are seniors, and they are reluctant to put
themselves out there in the time of the virus because they are
going to be facing a lot of people. What are you doing to find
poll workers, getting them to show up for testing and be sure
that they come on election day so you don't have a crisis at
these polling places?
Third, many of the arenas around the country are saying--I
think you've got State Farm Arena, Milwaukee, the Pistons, the
Dodgers, here in Nevada we have got the new Raiders stadium as
a place where kind of a massive one-stop voting place on
election day. Are there problems with that? Do you see that as
a good thing? How can we make that work?
Thank you, and I will ask anybody who wants to respond.
Ms. Patrick. I will jump in very quickly on the cases
question because I know that the secretaries have answers for
the other 2, and that is that there are currently more than 200
cases around election administration around the country. So the
answer is yes, there are many cases around many options,
whether it has to do with drop boxes or sending out ballots to
all voters.
Ms. Benson. I will add to that because I have been very
much involved in the effort to enable sports arenas to be
utilized, in places where it makes sense to do so, for election
purposes. These could be for voting, for early voting, or as we
are doing at Ford Field in Detroit, Ford Field, our football
arena, will be a place where ballots are secured and processed
and prepared for recounting at the end of the night.
So in many ways, the sports industry is filling a
significant need that democracy has this year in, not just
physical spaces and the need for more physical spaces to vote,
but also people. So we are proud that here in Detroit--and,
again, I have been a part of conversations in many markets and
with election administrators around the country to encourage
our sports teams to also provide poll workers, give their
employees the day off, and empower athletes to be voices for
serving as poll workers. The More Than a Vote effort that
LeBron James has led that I have been an advisor on since its
beginning has really been a leader on both of these fronts and
has been one of the reasons why we have been able to recruit
close to 10,000 election workers in our State that has enabled
us to keep in our August primary all of our precincts open and
also, importantly, fill unexpected vacancies at the last
minute, when poll workers show up or feel uncomfortable showing
up on election day. We have recruited and trained hundreds on
standby, which we used in our August primary, we will have
ready for November as well.
The people and the places that make our democracy work are
really critical needs this year, and it has been gratifying to
see the way in which many of our industries, in particular our
sports industry, has stepped up to fill those needs.
Mr. Adams. Hi, Representative. So I will try to get to all
3 of your questions if I have time. First, the sports venues
are a great idea. We used those in Kentucky in our primary. We
used Kroger Field where the University of Wildcats play
football. We used our State fair center where we have our State
fair every year. It is a gigantic venue.
To be clear, those shouldn't be the only locations in the
county where you can go vote, but there should be vote centers
available that are easy to get to. We actually had free
transportation to these places in the primary. So it is a great
model.
With regard to poll workers, after I won in November, I
testified to the legislature we had a crisis in getting poll
workers. This is before anyone even heard of coronavirus. It is
a problem anyway. We have got a whole aging generation of baby
boomers who are poll workers disproportionately, and they are
aging out even without regard to COVID-19. So part of my
challenge has been to try to get younger people to step up,
millennials and my generation, Gen X, get them to be civic- and
community-oriented and get them to volunteer as poll workers.
We have seen some success from that. We have been very active
in the messaging on that. We opened up a portal to volunteer to
be a poll worker. We have found thousands of people already in
5 of our counties tell me they have already got enough poll
workers in locations to open up all of their precincts on
election day. So that is pretty good considering it is only
late August.
Your last point on litigation, I will tell you, I am an
attorney, I did election law professionally prior to coming to
this office, and I have never seen a litigation environment
like what we had this year. You see a lot of cookie-cutter
lawsuits around the country. I have been sued 12 times. I have
been pretty successful so far, but I've been sued 12 times,
primarily on the--from the left side. You have got litigation
from right-wing groups, from left-wing groups that are trying
to get the election rules more to their liking. Look, if they
have got a good argument, right, but I think that these things
should be decided democratically. If a court makes up the
election rules, I don't think the public will accept that.
I think why it worked so well in Kentucky was is that we
had a Democratic Governor and a Republican secretary of state
working through the critical process to write the rules instead
of it being up to a judge to decide.
Ms. Titus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the
hearing.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much.
The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from New Jersey, Mrs.
Watson Coleman for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. I want to thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman. This has been a very helpful and illuminating
committee meeting, and I am grateful to hear the testimony of
all of our excellent witnesses, and thank you.
It is shameful that we should have this much discussion
right now how to protect our vote from the shenanigans,
particularly the undermining that takes place coming out of the
President's mouth. We should all be trying to figure out, in
this emergency situation, how to facilitate voting.
New Jersey is one of those States like Nevada that made a
decision to send ballots to active voters as opposed to the
additional step of requesting a ballot and then getting a
ballot. We are the one--we are also one of the States that is
being sued, and that is a shameful use, expenditure of the
President's power and his authority and resources. Doggone it,
I am angry.
But here is a question I would like to ask both of the
secretaries of state and Ms. Patrick. Did both of you testify
that you can process ballots that come in through early voting
apparatus prior to election day?
Ms. Benson. We cannot in Michigan. We cannot begin even
opening the envelopes until election day morning, which is a
big issue for us that we have asked our State legislature to
address.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thank you.
And you, Secretary Adams, in Kentucky, can you process the
ballot before election day?
Mr. Adams. We can. We can process it if we run it through
the machine, but we don't pull out the machines until the polls
close is how we avoid any premature disclosure of the results.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. OK. So that would be the night of the
election then, right?
Mr. Adams. That is when we push the button and have the
total, but weeks----
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Yes.
Mr. Adams [continuing]. Before that, we will process the
ballots.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Ms. Patrick, I want to address this
issue because I, honest to God, believe that we need to know
the results of the election as quickly as possible to avoid any
of the sort-of continued illegal activities on the part of this
administration to impact the outcome or to suppress the vote--
the legitimate vote. So I am--in New Jersey, I want to talk to
the Governor's office about allowing us to process the ballot
before election day.
I want to know, can this be done, Ms. Patrick, in a way
that secures the vote, ensures the confidentiality, and makes
sure and ensures that there is no tampering, based upon your
knowledge in working in this field? Do you have a response to
that?
Ms. Patrick. I definitely do. I will say, not only is it
what the majority of the States do that process absentee and
mail-in ballots before election day, it is the best practice.
The Bipartisan Policy Center came out with the task force
recommendations to allow States to begin processing those
ballots at least 1 week in advance, and the majority of States
do.
So in reality, on election night, for most of the country,
when the holograms start showing all the results, in the vast
majority of States, those are, in fact, vote by mail, absentee
ballots, early in-person ballots. The few precincts that have
come in right as the polls have closed, those usually come in
later.
So there are a handful of very critical States. Secretary
Benson is one of them, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, those are 3
States that do not allow the processing before election day. So
we will not have those results until later if their States do
not allow them to begin that pre-processing.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Yes. Well, history tells us we would
like to hear those results as early as possible.
Could you just answer the question about what are some of
the mechanisms to secure the vote, to ensure there is no
tampering, and to mitigate leaks that come out of those who are
working in that process? I think that is very important for us
to know.
Ms. Patrick. You know, absolutely best practices
established in the securing of the daily totals, because many
places will start counting a week or 2 weeks in advance, and
many places will have multiple tabulators. So you never
accumulate all of those votes until the polls have closed and
you are able to do so. Also, there are many restrictions. CISA
has been a great partner in explaining physical security of
tabulation centers, the securing of the electric components as
far as what those results are tallied onto every day.
In Arizona, we had 24/7 cameras on our tabulation centers,
so anybody could go to on the website and watch that tabulation
center in the dead of night or when it was very busy during the
day. So transparency and documentation and chain of custody,
all elements of our voting process, are critical, and those are
very well laid out, and those best practices are definitely
available for all election officials.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. So for someone like me who wants to
have that information before I make that call, where do I go
and get this information? I am concerned about the security,
the processing, no leaking, no tampering, you know.
Ms. Patrick. I think that the CISA website has some very
good structures laid out on exactly what the checklist would be
for securing those various channels. The EAC, of course, as a
clearinghouse has additional security information. Then, last,
reaching out to secretaries of state in the States that don't
do this already because, more than likely, they have put forth
what they would like to do in the ability to adopt some of
those best practices.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back, and thank you for this hearing.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much.
The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from California, Ms.
Barragan, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Barragan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this
very critical hearing. I am hearing from a lot of constituents
about the delay of their mail and the concern about election
security and whether their vote will count, so this is so
critically important.
Mr. Dimondstein, thank you so much for being here today.
Thank you to all our witnesses for being here.
My questions, Mr. Dimondstein, are directed to you. After
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testified earlier this week
before the Committee on Oversight and Reform, you stated, ``it
is an indisputable fact mail postal customers have witnessed a
degrading and slowing of mail service since Postmaster General
Louis DeJoy instituted changes in mid-July.''
What have been the consequences for customers of the
slowing of mail service?
Mr. Dimondstein. Well, thank you, Congresswoman. Can you
hear me OK?
Ms. Barragan. I can.
Mr. Dimondstein. OK. Because my computer is saying
something funny.
The consequences for the customers is that a lot of vital
supplies, from medicines to our veterans and seniors, financial
transactions, we have reports from customers they have had late
fees because their bills didn't arrive in time. We have had
reports from customers that mortgage payments didn't arrive on
time. We definitely have had reports from both within the VA,
kind-of whistleblower reports, but also some from veterans
themselves.
We have concrete--and it is largely anecdotal, but it is
coming from all over the country, where our own postal workers
have researched and tried to find out what has happened to
people's mail and found it stuck in the system. So it needs to
be fixed and fixed quickly, and it can be fixed.
Ms. Barragan. What changes in the postal operations do you
attribute the degradation and slowing of the mail service you
and your members have observed?
Mr. Dimondstein. I think it is hard to identify one thing,
but I would put at the top of the list the change in
transportation, because now this focus, and almost a fetish, on
the truck has to leave on time from a sorting location facility
for carry unit and back. So at 6 a.m. in the morning, it has
got to go at 6 a.m. or a few minutes earlier because it looks
better on paper.
But the real life in the post office is we want to get all
the mail in that truck. So, to me, it is not important, to the
customer it is not as important, whether there is a 97 percent
on-time rating now with the trucks leaving and arriving on
time. The question is, is your mail on that truck or did it
need to wait another 7 or 8 minutes for everything to get
loaded on.
Also, there is a constant need for extra trips because
sometimes mail doesn't fit on trucks. Those are being canceled,
and the system backs up pretty quickly. So those are things.
You also need enough work hours, however they are worked,
to make sure that the work gets done.
Ms. Barragan. One of the things that I have been hearing is
that some customers in my district get no mail on 1 day or 2
days, and that is something new and different for them as
opposed to just a delay. Would you say that is because of the
cut that was done to hours, in that maybe a letter carrier
didn't get to them?
Mr. Dimondstein. On that, I can't answer. We don't actually
represent the letter carriers, but it actually probably goes
back to the transportation as well, because if that sorted mail
doesn't get in that truck from the processing sorting
facilities, then that letter carrier cannot get it to the
customers.
So a lot of it comes back to the transportation issue and
making sure, again, that enough hours are worked to get the
work done.
Ms. Barragan. OK. In a statement released on August 18, the
Postmaster General said, ``there are some long-standing
operational initiatives that predate my arrival at the Postal
Service that have been raised as areas of concern as the Nation
prepares to hold an election in the midst of a devastating
pandemic. To avoid even the appearance of any impact on
election mail, I am suspending these initiatives until after
the election is concluded.''
Do you know what the long-standing operational initiatives
are that Mr. DeJoy was referring to in his statement and how
long before his arrival at the Postal Service did they begin?
Mr. Dimondstein. No, I don't. I believe he was referring to
specifically the reduction of mail sortation machines and the
blue boxes, but I honestly don't know.
Ms. Barragan. OK. The Postmaster General said that overtime
has and will continue to be approved as needed. Was overtime
cut or eliminated before August 18? If so, what changes have
you seen in the approval of overtime since Mr. DeJoy issued his
statement?
Mr. Dimondstein. The best we can tell, Congresswoman, it
was put into writing that there was such directives, but it was
implemented very unevenly. In some areas, overtime was still
worked. In some areas, it wasn't. But even where overtime was
worked, often the total hours of work was reduced. The key at
the end of the day, to me, is not how the hours get worked,
whether it is--the Postal Service is understaffed, so they can
hire, they can work overtime. We are in a pandemic. We have had
40,000 postal workers quarantined. Somebody has to make up
those hours as well.
So what we see is still fairly significant levels of
overtime in some areas and in some areas where it has been
banned. Where it has been banned, we know for sure that that is
having an impact on mail backing up.
Ms. Barragan. Well, thank you, and thank you to the men and
women of the Postal Service.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Dimondstein. Thank you.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much. The gentlelady's
time has expired.
The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from Florida, Mrs.
Demings, for 5 minutes.
Chairman Thompson. Is Mrs. Demings on or has she left?
Mrs. Demings. Mr. Chairman, can you hear me?
Chairman Thompson. We got you now.
Mrs. Demings. OK. Let's restart the clock, please. Thank
you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all of our
witnesses.
I just want to start here, the U.S. Postal Service, as we
heard earlier, has a 91 percent approval rating. I think that
sends a pretty strong message about the job that these men and
women do and have done for a lot of years. But we are talking
about today the Postal Service being able to do their job and
voters being able to vote during a public health pandemic.
I am somewhat disappointed that it appears some of my
colleagues on this committee seem more concerned about what
American voters may do than they have showed any concern about
Russia interference, past or present, in our elections.
Based on the President's own admissions, as the Chairman
pointed out, I am totally convinced that this President is
trying to undermine the 2020 election and sees the crippling of
the United States Postal Service as a part of that strategy.
Every Member on this committee should be concerned about that.
Ms. Patrick, there was a discussion earlier about
disinformation. In your testimony, you identified the
increasing role of philanthropy in analyzing election data and
establishing best practices and countering misinformation to
make sure that honest election information is moving forward.
As you know, in the Election Security Act, led by Chairman
Thompson, it would require the President to create a bipartisan
commission and a National strategy to protect U.S. democratic
institutions against cyber attacks, influence operations,
disinformation campaigns.
Could you give me your opinion about establishing such a
commission?
Ms. Patrick. Certainly. So I am predisposed to appreciate
commissions. I did serve on President Obama's Presidential
Commission on Election Administration. As long as the
commission is put forth in a truly bipartisan, nonpartisan way,
and if the Members are selected because of their expertise and
not because of who they maybe know, that is the real key to
that sort of a commission.
So when we had the PCEA, we came out with a report, and
often these commission reports just sit on a shelf and grow
dust and get dusty. But because of the Members of the
committee, because the recommendations were practical and
actionable and held everyone accountable, whether it was
something that the Federal Government needed to do, the State
government, or something that, in fact, a local official could
pick up and implement on their own volition, it was very well
received. To this day, I think many of the recommendations we
suggested are, in fact, why we are in a better place than we
were, you know, so many years ago--or not that many years ago,
rather.
So I think as long as the Members of the commission are----
Mrs. Demings. Bipartisan and bring expertise.
Thank you so much, Ms. Patrick.
To Mr. Dimondstein, you know, a lot of the discussion
centers around the timely delivery and return of ballots if we
are going to be able to make this work. You know, there were
some challenges during the primary, are we going to be able to
make this work during the general election.
On the one hand, some Postal Service encourages States to
send ballots at the first-class mail rate, others at the
marketing mail rate. But the bottom line is, I know there has
been discussion about getting the ballots returned as quickly
as possible. Some have even talked about election mail logos
that would clearly identify ballots that needed to have a
priority status.
Could you talk a little bit about what is actually going on
on the ground and what direction you have been given or your
workers have been given from the U.S. Postal Service as it
pertains to this issue?
Mr. Dimondstein. Well, I think the most encouraging sign is
that the new Postmaster General, under oath before Congress,
did commit that all ballots will be treated as first-class
mail, no matter what rate of mail they are mailed at. That is
an encouragement.
Mrs. Demings. He did commit that?
Mr. Dimondstein. Yes.
Ms. Demings. That is encouraging. What was the practice--he
just said that theory a few days ago. What has been the
practice on the ground as it pertains to ballots and their
first class----
Mr. Dimondstein. Ballots--you know, the Postal Service
doesn't run elections; the States do. The Postal Service does
try to work with States on ballot design. That helps a lot.
They try to work with States on using intelligent bar code
systems which tracks a ballot to the voter, back from the
voter. So that is where you have to have the resources and the
commitment from the National leadership of management at the
Postal Service and the relationship with the States that some
of the secretaries of state have testified to.
On the ground, once the ballots start falling, then you
have to have good training of the employees, the people that we
represent and the other postal unions do----
Mrs. Demings. Have you received any directives from the
Postmaster General since this hearing last week?
Mr. Dimondstein. No.
Ms. Demings. OK.
Mr. Dimondstein. No. We haven't gotten any directives yet,
but we do have a joint task force with the 4 postal unions and
postal management on this very issue that I think has its first
meeting on September 3 or somewhere thereabouts. So we are
going to be very proactive as postal workers, because we have
always moved heaven and Earth to make sure those ballots get
there and----
Ms. Demings. Thank you so much. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Thompson. Thank you very much.
I thank the witnesses for their valuable testimony and the
Members for their questions.
Let me also say to our witnesses, you have been very, very
enlightening to the Members, as well as the public, about the
confidence in our election system, that this system of picking
our leaders is so important to our democracy. I want to
personally thank you for you sharing that that system of
election is a system where local people participate, local
individuals work the polls and, for the most part, our system
of mail-in balloting works. All that we have been hearing from
the White House and other places about how fraught with fraud
and abuse this system is, the testimony today reflects just the
opposite.
So part of our oversight responsibility is to get to the
facts. Again, I thank you for helping us pursue accurate
information.
Members of the committee may have additional questions,
however, for the witnesses, and we ask that you respond
expeditiously in writing to those questions.
Without objection, the committee's record shall be kept
open for 10 days.
Hearing no further business, the subcommittee stands
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:40 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]