thomas e. perez who works for the civil rights division at the department of justice. much of the discussion has centered around the move act, it's an issue for which many secretaries of state are extremely proud of our -- cast their ballots in a timely manner, some of is discussion has focused on the interaction with the department of justice, who is responsible for some enforcement of those statutes. mr. perez previously served as the department of maryland's regulations which -- he has spent his entire career in public service as a county councilmember and president, a career attorney and a federal prosecutor with the d.o.j. civil rights division. aag perez addressed this group

last winter. we have asked him to talk about the enforcement problems for 2012 and how the -- section 203 language, minority changes, the nvra. please join me in welcoming assistant attorney general tom perez. >> good afternoon. it's great to be back here, i was here friday talking about the election directors and it was a very productive session and i look forward to this as well. i remember our meeting a year ago and that was also very productive and i want to thank you at the outset for all of your hard work. we all have a shared interest and i know we take that responsibility to ensure the right to vote very seriously, whether it's in the move act

context, whether it's in the nvra context, every voting context we take that very seriously and we have that shared interest in protecting our voting rights. i had the good fortune last month of traveling to austin with the attorney general who talked about voting rights. it got me in the spirit of taking a look at that once began and when president johnson passed that law, he said and i quote, the volt is the most powerful interest ever -- breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men and women because they're different from other men and women. the act passed by a vote of 327-74 in the house and 79-18 in the senate. fast forward 41 years and when congress reauthorized the act, it did so again in an

overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion. congressman jim sensenbrenner -- as a lynch pin of the law, the house voted to reauthorize section 5, 390 to 8. so it was a reminder to me that voting rights and i think civil rights are a bit large has a proud bipartisan history in america. everyone in this room has a shared interest in ensuring that those who gave their lives to preserve the right to vote did not do so in vain. i would like to talk about what we're up to because our voting section -- as -- meredith l. plats and richard delhime.

we have two core substantive objectives that animate our work. we are pursuing a voting program that seeks to ensure access to the democratic participation for all legally qualifiedo that ens the opportunity to participate in the democratic process, free from discrimination. we're in the middle of the busiest periods in your work. this is the busiest cycle of the decade, and i would like to talk about all the areas that you mentioned. let me begin with our work in the section 5 area. as you know, section 5 is one of the lynch pins of the voting rights act and it applies to all or part of our 16 states. the redistricting push comes to us for review under these

preclearance standards. we did a lot of work getting ready for this moment. last year we published updated substantive guidance. and nen we provided the rule for the administrationsection 5. the procedures hadn't been revised since 1987. so that guide was very important as part of our out reach work. and then when the census data started rolling out in february and then again in april, we got to work because we began receiving the redistricting plans and we will during the course of this roughly 18-month bulge in our work, we will receive about 2,700 redistricting plans and by way of example, last month we received more redistricting plans than any month actually in our history. so we have gotten about 1,200 so

far, so we're roughly halfway in. and we have a lot of work to do. i passed out for your information a chart marked appendix a. it was a summary of our work in the section 5 area. and actually there's been some updates since then and what i wanted to do very briefly is just give you a sense of what we have been up to. we have received roughly 30 or so, a little over 30 state wide redistricting plans and we have -- if you look at this appendix, and i will update it in a moment, we have actually me cleared or consented in litigation just 29 state wide plans. the only two state wide redistricting plans that we have opposed are the texas congressional and the texas house of representatives. so if you look at appendix a,

you'll see a few that say pending. california is no longer pending, we cleared that. you'll see a pending on south dakota, that's no longer pending, we cleared that. and you'll see michigan is pending and that's no longer pending because that was precleared. let me give you an example of what we have been doing. our process is to be sure we give a comprehensive and independent review of all these plans. and louisiana is a good example of the approach that we have taken. because we not only have waited the plans to do the rejew. but before that, we have done a remarkable amount of outreach to explain the process. in the case of louisiana, i actually traveled down there at the suggestion and invitation of a bipartisan group of lawmakers and i addressed a bicamera session in the house and the senate. i did so because of term limits

there's been a lot of transitions. 2/3 of the members had already gone through a redistricting cycle. it was important to explain firsthand what the process was and i think we'll have a very, very useful discourse. and this was the first redistricting in louisiana where all of the litigation has been cleared. i mentioned contested litigation involving the texas plans, that trial in the section 5 matter ended last week, closing arguments are tomorrow. there was litigation in the section 2 proceeding that went to the supreme court. we participated as an amicus.

we also have other judicial prehearing matters and we have lodged a number of objections in a number of counties. we're obviously involved in a number of section 5 matters arising out of recently enacted state laws -- voter registration requirements and changes to voting procedures. last month we interjected -- last week texas filed a judicial action seeking preclearance of their voter identification law. florida has adopted a number of changes to its electoral process and filed an action for judicial preclearance of those change. and both the texas id and the there the matter remain ongoing. can't give you detail on our review of those matters, but i can assure you that our

investigation will be fair and fact based. burden of showing that the proposed changes are not discriminatory. and as the attorney general as emphasized, where they immediate th this, we will preclaire the changes. another part of our work is affecting the constitutionality of section 5. as our experience recent and in years past demonstrates, section 5 continues to play a vital role in upholding equal opportunity and equal franchise to stop voting changes from going into effect, whether it's at the state wide level, a county level or a city level. there are some that counter that section 5 is major inclusive. our bailout practice has

expanded in the aftermath of the 2009 northwest austin decision. in the past fiscal year, more bailouts were granted than in the previous seven years combined and i expect this activity will continue. section 5 is a critical component of our enforcement efforts as well and the release of our census redistricting data, we're reviewing the data from the various jurisdictions across the country, considering whether the methods of electing governmental bodies dilutes minority voting strength. we have opened up roughly 100 section 2 investigations in the past year. usually the cases involve challenges to at large methods of election and the usual remedy that we seek, although not in

every case is the election using single member districts. one of the most recent of these cases to be resolved came in august when the second circuit dismissed an appeal from the settle of a case in port chester. i know there are a lot of questions about our language minority provisions. several sections of the voting rightses act provides protection to minority groups to ensure that they will be able to participate equally with english speaking people. the minority provisions of the voting rights act by developing investigations across the country that concern limited english profish shent. we have brought a number of cases under the language mi minority provisions and the work has quite literally stretched from coast to coast. the most immediate case was in

alameda, california. we have done work in south dakota, we have done work in new mexico for voters who are speaking american indian languages. the census bureau as you know released their new determinations of language minority coverage of section 203 of the voting rights act. when i met with the election directors and with you a year ago, one of the very strong messages you delivered was to try and get those determinations out as early as possible so that jurisdictions can have the time to prepare and we heard you and i hope we have given you the requisite time that you need to get the job done. i know it's an important job, i know there are transitions, i was a local elected official. i remember in my county, the

year i ran for office was the first year they were subject to the bilingual ballot provision and there was undeniably a lot of transition involved in that effort. so we heard you and we worked very close with the census bureau to make sure this was done in a timely fashion. roughly 42%, almost 43% increase in nonenglish speak voters. we are doing additional outreach to all of the newly covered jurisdictions and if you have any questions about those issues, i welcome that discussion and we have a cadre of very seasoned attorneys who are very, very happy to work collaboratively with you. let me talk briefly about the nvra because the enforcement of the requirements of the nvra

also remains a very important priority for us, for us and for all of us in this room. because as you know, states covered by the nvra must follow it's environments to make -- disability offices and through the mail and we have for the first time i believe in our thing's history last year, may we had heart a lot of deback, secretaryings of state and other stake holders that it would be useful to have a guidance document that can serve as a how-to document for everybody on noncome plinsz. we pay a lot of attention to the eac data.

the eac's nvra report is very, very helpful in enabling us to figure out where we should indei indiai indiai indeed focus its examination. as you know, secretary 7 requires that voter registration be made availability among other places at state offices providing public assistance or disability services. one of the lawsuits involves rhode island and the other involves louisiana. in the louisiana case, i want to discuss the results because the results have indeed been remarkable. more voters were registered in the first month after the settlement than in the previous two-year reporting period. in the two-year reporting period before the lawsuit, 457 voter

registration forms were submitted by the four affected rhode island social service agreement. in the second month, 1346 forms were received. in two months, a total of 874. this is a total of 4171 new registered voters in the months after the settlement. as opposed to the two-year increase in the previous two years. i want to commend and thank the officials in rhode island for their cooperation throughout this case. we work very collaboratively to fix the problem rather than fixing the blame and i am very grateful for their collaborative efforts in this matter. i always say that the best

policing is the policing that comes from within and i would urge all of us to conduct these sorts of self-assessments on the nvra front to ensure that all of the covered agencies are indpeed in compliance. of the observations that were made by at least two of the election directors was that they're starting to see more problems in departments of motor vehicles. so i wanted to share that feedback with you and would love to brainstorm with you on how to ensure that we are doing our level best to carry out the nvra's very important directives which we all have a shared interest in carrying out. let me -- we all have a shared interest again in ensuring that our military and overseas voters can cast their ballots and do so

in a timely fashion. the first cycle after a bill is passed is undeniably a challenging cycle because it's the first time something's gone into effect and i appreciate very much the efforts of everybody in this room in seeking to comply with the move act of 2010. i also appreciate the efforts of our dedicated career staff in the civil rights division, who spent remarkable amounts of time enforcing the move act. we have done a lot of outreach in the period since 2010 and many of you, with special elections and early primaries this year have already heard from us in our survey work and the rest of you will be hearing from us as your primaries approach. since the enactment of the move act, some states have moved their primary dates further out from the federal election date

to ensure that the ballots can be timely transmitted and we appreciate those efforts because that was obviously one of the biggest challenges we encountered. you will see that we filed a motion for additional relief in our case against new york which had a late primary date and failed to get a number of ballots out in 2010 and failed to move its primary date out from the general election. just last friday, the judge in that case moved the primary date to june 26. following the 2010 election cycle, we kushlgted a review of our nationwide experience. we had conversations with a host of stake holders, including people on the hill, including people that are in this room and we have prepared a legislative reforms that we would like to share with you. the train hasn't even remotely gotten ready to leave the

station, and i tell you that so we can have in the weeks and months the concerns that you may have. one of the most frequently heard concerns, both last year and in the months since my visit here a year ago, was the frustration that some of you in the room feel toward our civil rights division enforcement and the concern that i heard was that the d.o.j. civil rights division was trying to hold states accountable for misdeeds of local jurisdictions over which you feel that you have little or no control. i very much appreciate that concern. and at the same time i would respectfully call our attention to the language of the statutes itself. because the move act and for that matter the nvra create responsibilities and they refer to states, states shall, states shall.

and by comparison, section 203 refers to states or political subdivisions which is why our action is not against the state of california, it's against alameda county. so that is -- i very much appreciate the frustration that was expressed a year ago regarding situations where perhaps counties or cities or other subdivisions were remiss in some of their obligations. but it has been the department's long standing practice, under both republican and democratic administrations, under statute, the move act and nvra to hold states accountable in these statutory contexts. and this practice is based on the plain language of the sfa statute. i certainly look forward to continuing this conversation with you because i'm going to

guess that the frustration has not abated, but i wanted to make sure that i -- i figured i would get one laugh line, but i wanted to proactively front and acknowledge those concerns and make sure that you know that we're very willing to engage in dialogue but recognizes that we start with the plain language of the congressional edicts and so i look forward to that conversation. i want to get to the question and answer part because that's always the -- for me, the most interesting and educational part of this, but let me spend a brief moment -- we send freshman observers from the office of personnel management out into the field to monitor elections around the country throughout the election calendar. and these are elections for federal, state and local office. we had a big presence around the country in the 2010 election.

overall in 2010 we monitored 56 elections in 45 jurisdictions in 19 states. the job of these observers is simply to monitor the elections supervisory attorneys and when there are concerns we get in touch with you promptly to talk about them and we'll continue to do that. that was a large data dump of what we have been up to. we're as busy as we have ever been across several fronts. i appreciate those who are burning the candle at every which end. if you want to learn more about the cases we filed and the guidance that i mngsed to you,

www.justice.gov/str/voting. or you can call us directly in the voting section or the front office of the civil rightses division. 514-2151. we have the responsibility to -- access to all qualified a right and through our joint efforts, i think we can get there. stu for your time. i would love to entertain any questions you might have and i might get a glass of water before hand. thank you very much. >> yes, sir. >> thank you, jason gant of

south dakota. we have, you mentioned shannon county, an indian reservation in our state that of course we provi provide free clearance when your observers were in our state observing the election. but i want to make sure that come the 2012 election, if the -- visit the great state of south dakota. and i invite everyone to visit the state of south dakota that you're going to be cooperating and notifying my office as well as the local election officials to make sure that everyone is on the same page on what activities you're going to be involved in so that should there be an issue that we became aware of that we may require your assistance or

vice versa,a that we have that line of communication open and effective come election day. >> i asked chris to come with me fade because chris is chief of the voting -- chances are you might where getting a call from chris or from somebody else in the section. >> can i follow up on justa part? >> yes, sir. >> in that regard, when i spoke with chris before, but we have never gotten feedback for what you get when you go out. i mean you are -- you have been to mississippi many times and to many of the other states that you list here, but we never get a report as to what you find and what the issues are. and i wondered if those would be available to us when you complete your investigation and why not. >> let me turn to chris so that you can hear directly from

chris. >> mr. secretary, we will try to do better in that regard. we do try very hard to give feedback to local jurisdictions. after we have monitored u we'll try hard to loop your office in seeing. >> one other followup before -- and chris, thank you for meeting with us when we were in washington, i appreciate it, it was very informative and we appreciate that. subsequent to our meeting, south carolina's voting -- was rejectreject ed y'all wrote a letter indicating that -- salient points was the difference in minorities having driver's licenses and nonminorities have been driver's licenses and the percenta percentage was small, maybe 2% or something.

that was the only statistical data that you based your letter on. first, is that correct? and could you tell us how important the discrimination between a minority having driver's license and a nonminority having a driver's license, what weight that was given. because that was the only one in your rejection letter. >> i can't get into the deliberations other than what is in the public record, because as you know, it remains a pending matter. the ---every particular submission is going to be fact specific and what is the lynch pin in any of these submissions is that the state has the burden of proving retro gressive effect. we did have what was noted in the letter pertai t