Statement of Wade Henderson at Election Reform Press Briefing
Speech by Wade Henderson on February 25, 2002.
Good afternoon. I'm Wade Henderson, Executive Director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. The LCCR is the nation's oldest, largest and most diverse civil and human rights coalition, with over 180 national organizations representing persons of color, women, persons with disabilities, labor organizations, older Americans, gays and lesbians, major religious groups and civil liberties and human rights organizations.
The purpose of this afternoon's briefing is to discuss the current Senate debate on election reform legislation?the sleeper civil rights issue of the 107th Congress. The enactment of meaningful election reform is the Leadership Conference's highest legislative priority.
As we now know, in Election 2000 millions of American citizens were denied their basic right to cast a vote and to have that vote counted. Numerous studies of Election 2000 have shown that many of these voting irregularities disproportionately affected citizens who are racial minorities, persons with disabilities, the elderly, the poor and citizens who speak languages other than English. And the significant problems that were exposed in the nation's voting system weren't confined to any one locality, state or jurisdiction. Americans discovered in the most dramatic way possible, that although we may be a "first world" power, we have a "third world" election system, and worse yet, it's broken. And yet, even though it's been over a year since Election 2000 few states have enacted meaningful election reform. They seem to be waiting for Congress to act.
In the last few weeks, the issue of election reform has been largely overshadowed by the debate on campaign finance reform , and yes, both debates are important. But unless we guarantee the right to vote for all Americans, all else is hollow. It's up to Congress to step in and guarantee the right to vote; and it's up to President Bush to express his support for both the bill and the money needed to pay for it.
The Leadership Conference strongly supports the efforts of Senators Christopher Dodd, Mitch McConnell and others to reach a bipartisan agreement on comprehensive election reform. Their efforts resulted in the introduction of the Dodd-McConnell substitute amendment to "The Equal Protection of Voting Rights Act " (S. 565). The substitute amendment contains several key provisions, including the adoption of minimum national standards regarding voting technology, provisional balloting and the creation and maintenance of computerized statewide voter lists. While the LCCR supports continuing Senate action on the Dodd-McConnell substitute, we do have several remaining concerns, which we will discuss shortly, regarding specific provisions currently in the substitute amendment.
On the call with us this afternoon to discuss some of the important parts of this debate are representatives of several organizations that have been working on this issue. This afternoon we will hear from Lloyd Leonard, Legislative Director of the League of Women Voters; Marisa Demeo, Regional Counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund; Jim Dickson, Vice President for Government Affairs, American Association of People with Disabilities; and Hilary Shelton, Director, NAACP Washington Bureau. We also have on the call representatives from several other national civil rights organizations who will be available to answer questions following opening remarks from our panelists.
