|
||||||||
  |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Senate approves election reform billBush expected to sign legislation into law
From Dana Bash
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Nearly two years after hanging chads and butterfly ballots in Florida threw the presidential election into turmoil, Congress sent President Bush a bill intended to cure the voting problems exposed in 2000. By a vote of 92 to 2, the Senate Wednesday approved spending nearly $4 billion dollars over the next three years to buy equipment and hire workers to meet new nationwide voting standards in time for the next presidential election in 2004. The final bill, passed 357-48 by the House last week, will be the first major overhaul of election law since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and is touted by a key sponsor as the "first civil rights bill of the 21st century." The White House has indicated the president will sign the measure. "This is the first time in more than 200 years that the federal government will take a very proactive role in the conduct of elections," said Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Connecticut. Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Missouri, a chief co-sponsor, said the bill achieves his two goals of "making it easier to vote but tougher to cheat." The only lawmakers to oppose the bill were New York's two Democratic senators -- Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton. The measure would require states to:
To battle voter fraud, the bill would require first-time voters to produce valid photo identification to register. Voters who did not have driver's licenses could provide the last four digits of their Social Security numbers or be assigned special voter ID numbers. The voter fraud provision proved one of the most contentious issues among lawmakers over months of negotiations. Many Democrats said they worried that strict requirements -- like making a driver's license mandatory -- could disenfranchise some Americans, especially urban voters who tend to cast their ballots for Democrats. But others, like Bond, said strict identification is imperative to combat problems of votes being cast on behalf of dead people and dogs. "If your vote is canceled by the vote of a dog or a dead person it's as if you didn't have the right to vote," Bond said on the Senate floor before the vote. Dodd shot back, "There were human beings who were not allowed to vote. While it's humorous to talk about dogs who voted, it's not funny to talk about people who showed up and didn't, and were denied to do so. "The right to cast a ballot will never again be denied to anyone who comes to vote. That is not an insignificant achievement," he said. Election reform became an issue after the disputed 2000 presidential race when Democrat Al Gore said thousands of ballots in Florida had either been improperly counted or not counted at all. For five weeks, he fought for a recount in certain Florida counties, but the Supreme Court effectively stopped his efforts, and George W. Bush won the presidency.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
