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SEN. JULIAN BOND
[left hand corner an eagle crest with United States of America underneath]
Congressional Record
PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 93d CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION
Vol. 119 WASHINGTON, THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 1973 No. 9

Senate
[three columns]
[first column]
NATIONAL VOTER REGISTRATION
By Mr. KENNEDY (for himself, Mr. STEVENS, Mr. BIBLE, Mr. EAGLETON, Mr. GRAVEL, Mr. HART, Mr. HUGHES, Mr. HUMPHREY, Mr. MAGNUSON, Mr. MOSS, Mr. MUSKIE, and Mr. WILLIAMS):
S. 472. A bill to amend title 13, United States Code, to establish within the Bureau of the Census a Voter Registration Administration to carry out a program of financial assistance to encourage and assist the States and local governments in registering voters. Referred to the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service.

VOTER REGISTRATION ASSISTANCE ACT OF 1973
Mr KENNEDY. Mr. President, on behalf of the distinguished senior Senator from Alaska, Mr. STEVENS and Senators BIBLE, EAGLETON, GRAVEL, HART, HUGHES, HUMPHREY, MAGNUSON, MOSS, MUSKIE, WILLIAMS, and myself, I send to the desk of the Senate for appropriate reference the Voter Registration Assistance Act of 1973. The purpose of this bill is to establish an effective program of Federal financial assistance to State and local governments in carrying out their existing voter registration programs, and to provide specific financial incentives to encourage State and local governments to modernize their registration procedures.

The bill contains four major features:

First, the bill is based on the principle of a voluntary, not mandatory, program of Federal assistance to State and local jurisdictions in the area of voter registration. No State or local government will be compelled to take any action under this bill, but those who wish to take advantage of its financial assistance provisions will be able to do so.

Second, the bill establishes a number of types of Federal grants available to State and local governments:

Grants to pay up to 10 cents per eligible voter to defray the cost of existing voter registration programs.

Grants to pay up to 50 percent of the cost of new programs to expand voter registration, such as deputy registrars, mobile registrars, door-to-door canvasses, and additional locations and extended hours for registration. The maximum grant to any jurisdiction under this category is 10 cents per eligible voter.

Grants to plan computerized registration systems. The maximum grant here is one-half cent per eligible voter or $15,000, whichever is greater.

[second column]
Grants to pay the full cost of registration-by-mail programs.

Grants and technical assistance for the prevention and control of fraud.

Third, the new program will be administered by a bipartisan Voter Registration Administration created in the Census Bureau. The Director of the Census is authorized to carry out the program until the new administration is established.

Fourth, the bill contains a 3-year, $135 million authorization for the program, providing $45,000,000 each year for the next 3 fiscal years.

Of all the figures to come out of the 1972 presidential election last November, perhaps the most distressing is the current estimate that only 56 percent of those who were eligible to vote actually went to the polls on election day. If these preliminary figures are correct, then it appears that the percentage of the voter turnout in 1972 was five points lower even than in the low-turnout year of 1968, itself one of the lowest voter turnouts in any presidential election in this century and the lowest turnout since 1948.

We do not have to look far to find the reason. Again and again, in recent years we have learned that registration is the villian, and 1972 is no exception.

For a nation that likes to call itself the greatest democracy in the history of the world, the system of voter registration in modern America is a national scandal, a blight on our most basic political process. Incredible as it may seem, of all the fundamental rights that Americans hold dear, the way we exercise the right to vote is the one we have neglected most.

Time and again, we have fought to extend the franchise, in order to insure that every citizen has the right to share in the political life of the Nation through participation at the polls. The 15th amendment, adopted in 1870, guaranteed the vote to citizens regardless of their race. The 19th amendment, adopted in 1920, extended the franchise to women. The 24th amendment, adopted in 1964, abolished the poll tax. And the 26th amendment, adopted in 1971, extended the vote to 18-years-olds. All these constitutional milestones are monuments to our continuing concern.

But after every milestone, we always rested on our laurels. We left the job half done. For millions of Americans, the right to vote was a thing they could admire, but never use.

[third column]
The reason is clear. For generations -- indeed, throughout the 20th century -- every American who sought to exercise his right to vote has had to run a gauntlet of arbitrary, unfair, and obsolete requirements of voter registration. Confronted by such requirements, millions of potential voters fall by the wayside at each election, and millions more refuse to even try.

And when I say millions, I mean millions. Take the figures for presidential elections, the elections in which Americans traditionally, have had the strongest incentive to participate. In the election of 1960, 39 million eligible voters failed to go to the polls. In 1964, the figure climbed to 43 million. In 1968, it rose to 47 million. And in 1972, if the estimates are accurate, there were 62 million Americans who did not vote.

If any single figure has come to symbolize the crisis of voter turnout in America, it is these millions of lost voters -- 62 million in 1972. Of the 139 million potential voters in the presidential election last year, only 77 million -- or 56 percent -- actually went to the polls, the lowest turnout since 1948. Sixty-two million people stayed home, at a time when President Nixon was receiving 47 million votes and Senator McGOVERN was receiving 29 million votes.

The voting record of America becomes even more dismal when we compare it to the record of other Western democracies. In 1970 in Britain, 71 percent of the eligible voters went to the polls, and they called it one of the lowest turnouts in British history. In recent elections in other European nations, the turnout has been even higher - 74 percent in Canada, 77 percent in France, and 91 percent in West Germany, to name but three.

We know that the situation has not always been this way in the United States. Throughout the latter half of the 19th century, voter turnout in our Presidential elections consistently ranged in the neighborhood of 70 to 80 percent. Twice, it exceeded 80 percent. Only once did it drop as "low" as 70 percent.

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