first day of office, january 2003, we had just had the help america vote act signed into law and we had these varied discussion s and those elected before me had good input into the making of the law as the congress was writing it. so these issue s were well debated then. i come from a state and personally believe in the validity of electronic machines. having said that, we left it up to our counties to decide what machines fit them best as long as they were complaint with the help america vote act. so inn eindiana we have a patchwork of paper based machines and completely electric ton i c tr -- electronic ones. the concern cans about the privacy was in the paper and that was the reason to go to

electronic. so, do you have have a follow-up to that? >> yeah, and i'm not as concerned, we do electronic scanning and optical scanning, and so forth, it's more the cyber space voting, to be able to vote online, if it is coming from a computer in a foreign country, the national security agency can read what is coming in. it's not presumably a u.s. citizen, or how would they know that? and the general question is, if we move to a system where it's a all online voting, and our move toward that, and and we are under lots of different pressures here right now and some of it from congress to do that for overseas voters. what, what protections can you offer to make sure that votes still stay private? >> well, i have been asked to come not to speak on behalf of other members, i can speak for myself certainly and part of

indiana. but i can give you a sense of what congress may to in the here and now. based on the membership that we have. the way we would approach your question is to empower the state and states as much as possible. that is the approach you would see coming out of house. and i think that is where this decision lies. the answer lies at the state level and what your taxpayers and voters are more comfortable with. keep in mind though, once you the confidence of your taxpayers a and residents, and the nation, think florida 2000, you'll see the federgovernment and congres like we always do, act and act quickly, and generally over react to the situation. so i think your goal has to be

in an aura of federalism, do what you have to do to keep the confidence of the voter and the taxpayer in the process that you have. and that is not to dive into another topic, that is an example of how we successfully approached the photo id in indiana, it was a confidence builder and increased voter turn out. so do it that way and then you have that back stop and the defense to say to the federal government, stay the heck out. what protections can we give you? we can talk about and debate that, but if you have a system like that, you need to be able to have the protections yourself first. there was a first question there, i'm sorry. >> how about the issue of fining state officials. i know secretary chapman is up to speed on that. >> there's no talk about that going on in the house

administration committee that i know of. >> was it not recommended by the justice department? >> oh. >> no that was a separate issue that we discussed but it occurring in our state with the question of who appropriately handles those filings, which the secretary of state's office does in our state but we do not police or enforce them. and so, i have asked most of the representatives here from their states how they do and of course there's a patchwork of how it's done. so, a little bit different in every state. but one of those questions was, who follows up on those candidate filings and if they have not reported in three years or they reported two weeks late or they have misleading information on those filings are they fined? who pleases and enforces those? and the attorney general in many cases does. >> the filings of declaration of candidacy? >> the financial filings. >> save that one for mr. perez.

>> if i could, you know, offer some further clarification on the question. i think we heard from bob carry thishat the secretaries of state or the states are liable is because that is what the federal law says, the federal law says that the states are liable for the voters ensuring that the ballots go out on type. every state has a different set of rules, as you are aware of as a former secretary of state, and in many cases we are being held accountable for things we do not have control over. and the idea that the members of congress that work on the issues, and it sounds -- we have all worked at different levels of government and we know the

states could not -- do not all t the same. i never handle a ballot. they are all done locally. so to be held liable for something that we have no control over, seems to be a disconnect between how the law is perceived in terms of its implementation at the local level and state level and how the federal government believes it should be implemented. >> that warms me up a little bit. we had similar types of i objects, penalty and accountability but not responsibilities in the help america vote act. that was the story of my life as a secretary of state for eight years. seemed like we were always responsible for and accountable for things we did not have any

control over. i have certainly become, john, desense tiezed to it. so part of me tells you, let's suck it up and get the jobs done because that is what the secretaries of state do, having said that, there has to be a reasonable approach and i would be interesting to work with had this organization if you find an alternative way regarding the issue of accountability, or a process to make sure that we can best to our job as chief election officer without unfairly being held to account for something we have no control over. i would love to work with you on a bill if we identify series issues and alternatives to them. >> and congressman rokita, if i might, i don't want to mislead lieutenant governor from alaska was asking a question, it was one issue, to be more specific with you. we were concerned, or i felt a majority of the group made some

meants about some recommendations that have come out of doj, stating basically that absentee election ballots were late than the secretary of state would be fined and of course, we understand, nobody has worked harder, as you know, and nobody will work harder than secretaries of state from around this country to ensure that our military are allowed to vote. and i think that is something that we all agree on, it's a common bond that holds us together as a nation and organization, it's the one thing we agree on. the concern was that we would be sued that election absentee ballots are not handled by secretaries of state and we are held responsible. to answer your question about what one of the solutions might be, it was recommended this morning, and not by me, because my governor's birthday is february the third, but someone

said if they are suing the state, why not the governor? why are they suing the secretaries of state? that is an interesting concept. but the governor, based on a recent supreme court, is the absolute authority. s so i think it's a good question. >> it's a good with question. what i'm seeing in washington already, it's really easy, first of all things are happening so quickly. needlessly happening so quickly. for example you look at the budgeting, i turned in my budget and had to live under it for two years. now we are planning to spend money as we are spendi ining ne year's money and then we are spending the next year and it's going around and around in this

hamster wheel. for no good reason. the budget, if we decide to pass a budget, it starts all over again. so in all that, when we have bills on other issues, it's easy just to say, oh, chief election officer, secretary of state, make them liable. make them accountable. without, in my opinion, not any more thought than that. and so, i think it would be great for a group like this to help put forward an alternative solution, because we have thought through it. working with a group of congress people to get that thought into law and we can add value to this process. first and foremost i think that elections should be state driven to the extent there are fines involved and accountability measures employed that should come at from the state level and not necessarily from the federal

government down. but using that as a platform, maybe an approach to solve this problem. who should be accountable, realizing that we are all human to begin with. has there ever been a perfect election in the history of the world? no. will there be a perfect election? no. there will be mistakes. but the difference is, are those mistakes happening to just african americans? being done upon women? are they being -- that's the difference. will people, you know, indiana had 5500 poll workers average age 72. sure, there will be mistakes, not because they are 72, the 22 year olds make mistakes too. they intention orred edor,ed a r

ad hoc or is there a systematic issue. >> if you could explain to me, just help me out a bit on the -- i'm sorry, on your committee's scope of oversight and duties, we have talked about, during the last few days, the eac, we have talked about the department of justice proposals, creating private right office action against secretaries of state. we have also talked about f-fap and their activities in the election word that seem to be driving some state's procedures as well. for your committee, what all do you oversee and then what to you influence although you may not have formal authority over it? >> the committee on administration basically oversees is eac, and the fec,

and then we certainly have influence over the f-fap process. so, of course we also issue the members parking passes and things like that. but that was not the heart of your question. >> tha fair amount of leverage. i'm trying to find out who i should be talking to. >> basically what we are dealing with is fec, we had a hearing with them and eac, we had a couple of hearings with them and then the military voting process as well. and then? >> and the department of justice, at least discussions or propos proposals, with regard to personal liabilitities? >> i hope we have influence over that. how much they listen is an open question. >> congressman rokita, ross miller from nevada. some of the discussions this weekend have centered around the eac, obviously this organization as you are aware has twice taken

the position that we believe that the eac should be sunseted, there's now discussion as to what to do in the interim. and, i was wondering if you could just offer a little bit of background as to what is happening in congress with the eac and offer any potential predictions as to what may eventually result? >> i thank you, ross. well, as you all, i'm sure, know, a bill was heard in house administration to defund and otherwise sunset, repeal the enabling the language that instituted the organization. i was a original co-sponsor in that bill. my involvement in that bill came out of the two resolutions that came out of this organization that i was involved in helping to author and get passed.

that bill passed committee and it went to the house floor for a vote that we needed 290 votes for, we did not get that. so it was a suspension vote. i think that leadership thought we had the votes. it did not pass. i am working to see that the eac repeal bill gets heard in regular order so there will be a floor time for it, and then it would 218 votes to pass the house and go on to the senate where i imagine it won't get heard. but i certainly don't speak for the senate or what the senate make up will be after november. so what to do in the meantime? we have no commissioners it's my understanding, we have i think the attorney on acting as the executive director right now who

i think it's public knowledge, if not, i guess we are sharing news s news, that person is being nominated for another position. so the question on the table, especially with regard to the presidential election coming up, what does the eac do or should it be doing under its charge that would help us quote unquotas secretaries of state, as chief elections officers, have a fair and accurate election this this fall. and i will be the first to admit i'm rusty on duties right now of the eac, aside from the legislation i worked on, but with the other issues that we deal with in congress, i rely on my memory as being forming secretary of state, but i can't think of what is absolutely necessary that the eac do that is necessary for these states to have successful, fair and

accurate elections this fall. so i ask each of you that question. >> i believe secretary reed from washington? >> todd, really in terms of the way that we conduct the election, there isn't anything that we need out of the eac per say. but the problem articulated by a few state this is morning during a discussion was that they have money sitting there that has already been authorized to go to the states but has not been released because they don't have commissioners there, they have equipment sitting in offices ready to be operated but the certification that has gone through in the process has not been released by the office. so we had quite a discussion this morning and one thing that national association of state election directors came up with is, a letter to the acting

director saying that he can take this action and in talking to peter shellstock this morning, peter thought it was true as well. those are the two things we need. we need the money that is supposedly already going to the states and release of the equipment so we could ahead and use it this fall. >> i appreciate it, sam, sam was known when i was the secretary of state as the "but" secretary of state, this is good, but -- appreciate your leadership, sam. let me take that back. maybe we can, yeah, i hate to be the guy from the government here to help. but let me help with that. >> we were in the a quandary of getting commissioner appointed temporarily, it ended up supporting the letter to go to

the acting director but yeah, it would really help if we could get push from the tsh >> in your opinion, are these final decisions or have they been made or what kind of decisions would we need to make that we would need commissioners to do? >> we would need to push the organization to start getting some of this out and peter is still here? peter, do you have any clearer >> peter could i ask you to come up to the microphone and identify yourself? >> i'm peter, on the two points that secretary reed raised. the certifications of an

individual voting system are issued by the executive director of the agency they do not they release by the commissions and don't require a release of funds does not require acts by the commission, those are nondiscretionary grants. >> these decisions don't require a lot of discretion, correct? i mean it's ones or zeros, stamps yes or no, basically, i'm oversimplifying it but there's a line that we check off, we check off the boxes and the certification issue and/or the money portion of it. >> absolutely. >> i think you're right, i don't think we need commissioners really. >> congressman, you said a couple of things earlier that i

really appreciate and number one empowering the state when it comes to what we're doing, i think most everybody or all the secretaries are in agreement on that. also in the elections process that we all are human, we're dealing with a lot of humans ourselves, especially in georgia where we do have a statewide system but we have 159 districts that are sending the ballots out. and unlike secretary miller concerning military and overseas ballots, it seems like sometimes, i can certainly understand when states are not in compliance, that there are people that are upset about that, it would be too. but it's concerning to me that when you have a state that has a ballot here, or a ballot there. i think we all would agree there needs to be a ballot.

it seems like we're persecuted by one or two ballots from states that are not in compliance at all. . >> i have no objection. >> and certainly you would give oversight to the justice department, if there's any way you can help influence to make them realize that we wanted a working relationship as we do these things and we're also subject to what the legislators in our states pass. we would appreciate that at the state level. >> i'm going to advocate for it and if you ever hear that i'm not, please let me know. i need to remember where i came from and want to go back to. >> jason gant in colorado. i know that the federal

government is a lot of times out of whack compared to what some of the states are doing, but with that note, with the help america vote act of 2002 and getting things ready for '03 and '04, those systems are now pushing at least ten elections this summer and this fall that there's going to be a problem that some of those systems are going to start failing, which is then going to require states to use any leftover help america vote act funds or now the states to be funding a federal mandate. so i'm very cautious of where the federal government is. but i want to start thinking about when these machines start to fail, what is going to be the planni plan if we need to start today discussions whether we need to

change the way we do it. >> back in 2003 and 2004 that those machines were the newest and the best technology and we were doing such a good job in work them would now be obsolete. i think in indiana, they would have several more years of life left. but i don't pass that observation on any further than that, as far as any other states go. i think if -- you heard me advocate here for a half an hour about state's rights and federalism and how we're human. i think if the states were caught flat footed or even negligent in 2000 it was how

little attention the states paid to the election process and how much little money we put in. i think since 2000, you should be directing your energy, at least in significant part to your state legislaturoe because the days when they're investing a lot in that process, i think are over. that's the straightest, most honest answer i can give you. maybe it's completely wrong. maybe there's going to be a bipartisan group of congressmen and women who come out tomorrow and say, you know what, we like the changes we made with the help america vote act, we like the access that the machinery is giving and we have decided we're going to allocate it to the states and block grant it. maybe tomorrow they'll come out

and say that, completely unbeknownst to me. but i would say as you being a secretary of state, you should get your state acclimated to the in fact that they have got to put a lot more money in the election process. if out the other side of your mouth you're going to say federal government stay out of our election process. i think that's a two-way street there. that should have generated some discussion and push back. where's . >> congressman rikita, one of the issues we have worked on very diligently and i think you worked on when you were secretary of state, which was the passage of the move act, which is about making sure that the overseas ballots are mailed

out on time and that our military men and women have a way to transit them in time so that they can vote. can you tell me anything about what advance that caused even further? >> nothing's come through the committee that i know about and perhaps it should u on the other hand, i think the move act is moving and it's working. maybe you could tell me if it's not. but i think it's a pretty successful project and so, you know, i like to leave well enough alone and let it continue working. i see my good friend delbert hoseman from mississippi here, if he hasn't offered yet, or if he hasn't tried, i suspect it should go to him and get a new secretary of state delegation to the middle east. i know our troops are coming home. but delbert led a delegation of secretaries of state to the middle east to see the voting

process in 2008. and we got from that, you see the move act come into play from there. and the secretaries of state were very instrumental in that entire process. i don't like to see our men and women at war, i don't like to see them not safe. but if they're going to be doing their job for us, we need to go our job for them. being on the grouped in 2008, it was excellent material, so we could continue serving them. >> are there any other questions for congressman rikita. we thank you very much for taking your time and for helping -- [ applause ] and moreover, i think we all very much appreciate someone who understands what we're going through and how the

interrelationship with the federal government making sure that you're there to advocate for us as well. and that you're willing to work toward some alternative solutions for some of the problems that we have discussed. >> i have already self-identified and agreed to take on one task here today and we'll get to work on it and i would like to be back again to report. >> thank you very much congressman rikita. >> began, my name is ross miller, savannah secretary of feet. i have the privilege of introducing our