Julian Bond: “I was interested to read in today's Washington Post an editorial urging us to move forward on the election reform bill.…”

“I was interested to read in today's Washington Post an editorial urging us to move forward on the election reform bill. This bill has been championed by Senator Dodd, the chairman of the committee, and Senator McConnell, the ranking member. I have had a role in some antifraud provisions. The Florida elections of this year seem to have brought more attention to the need for election law reform. The conclusion of the Washington Post is that: At a time when voter turnout is at an all-time low, bolstering public confidence in the machinery of democracy is especially urgent. I agree with that. That is why I worked so hard to see if we could get a bill passed that would do that. We need to make it easier to vote and tougher to cheat. Unfortunately, what we saw in Florida this year was the old truth: No matter how much appropriations in or what kind of legislation you have, if you have incompetence in local election officials, incompetence trumps everything. We know there were tremendous problems this year in an area where there were problems in 2000, even though they had new machines. Nevertheless, we have worked on a bill that has many compromises and has a good structure for getting the kind of equipment we need to improve elections, providing additional safeguards, voting machines for those with disabilities and, in my view, the very important role of preventing dead people, nonexistent people, and dogs from voting.”