Mr. Speaker and ladies and gentlemen. I, Stephane Tubbs Jones, a Representative from the state of Ohio, and Senator Barbara Boxer, a Senator from California, have objected to the counting of electoral votes of the state of Ohio on the grounds that they were not, under all the known circumstances, regularly given.

I thank God that I have a senator joining me in this objection. And I appreciate Senator Boxer's willingness to listen to the plight of hundreds and even thousands of Ohio voters, that, for a variety of reasons, were denied the right to vote.

Unfortunately, objecting to the electoral vote from Ohio is the only immediate avenue to bring these issues to light. While some have called our cause foolish, I can assure you that my parents, Mary and Andrew Tubbs, did not raise any fools. They raised a lawyer, they raised a former judge, they raised a prosecutor and thank God they lived to see me serve as a member of the House of Representatives.

I am duty-bound to follow the law and apply to the law to the facts as I find them. And it is on behalf of those millions of Americans who believe in, and value, our democratic process and the right to vote, that I put forth this objection today. If they are willing to stand at polls for countless hours in the rain, as many did in Ohio, then I should surely stand up for them here in the halls of Congress.
Read the rest here.

For most of us in the Senate and the House, we have spent our lives fighting for things we believe in – always fighting to make our nation better.

We have fought for social justice. We have fought for economic justice. We have fought for environmental justice. We have fought for criminal justice.

Now we must add a new fight – the fight for electoral justice.

Every citizen of this country who is registered to vote should be guaranteed that their vote matters, that their vote is counted, and that in the voting booth of their community, their vote has as much weight as the vote of any Senator, any Congressperson, any President, any cabinet member, or any CEO of any Fortune 500 Corporation.

I am sure that every one of my colleagues – Democrat, Republican, and Independent – agrees with that statement. That in the voting booth, every one is equal.

So now it seems to me that under the Constitution of the United States, which guarantees the right to vote, we must ask:

Why did voters in Ohio wait hours in the rain to vote? Why were voters at Kenyan College, for example, made to wait in line until nearly 4 a.m. to vote because there were only two machines for 1300 voters?

Why did poor and predominantly African-American communities have disproportionately long waits?

Why in Franklin County did election officials only use 2,798 machines when they said they needed 5,000? Why did they hold back 68 machines in warehouses? Why were 42 of those machines in predominantly African-American districts?

Why did, in Columbus area alone, an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 voters leave polling places, out of frustration, without having voted? How many more never bothered to vote after they heard about this?

After four years of "improving" our system, the results remain ultimately the same as they did in 2000. It is clear that we have not done enough to fix the shortfalls in our voting system to ensure that segments of our population no longer feel disenfranchised. There can be no denial of these failures. Our government must work to ensure that voter's rights are protected and that all votes are counted, even if 100% of the citizens go to the polls on Election Day.

Since the 2000 election, our government has spent almost one hundred billion dollars trying to ensure all Iraqis have the right to vote, but only three billion dollars to ensure we Americans have the same right. We have ATM machines on every corner that keep our financial records, yet we can not provide an adequate number of voting machines capable of recording our votes accurately. Voting is the most fundamental aspect of our democracy; we must do everything in our power to protect it.

Today, the outcome of the election did not change. However, the voices of those citizens who did not have their votes counted on Election Day were finally heard. (Click here to read the whole statement.)

And finally, a brief attempt to explain what I felt as I watched the proceedings yesterday.

When I was growing up Catholic in the 1970s,  the nature of "going to confession" was changing. When I went for the first few times, the assigned penance was the then-standard, "Say X number of Hail Marys/Our Fathers." Looking back, it reminds me of having kids write "I will not..." some large number of times.

I can't tell you when or why it changed--maybe it was when we got a new priest, but at one point I went to confession, and for my penance, the priest told me to do something to "make it better". So, for example, if I had told a lie, I was supposed to go back to the person and tell them the truth. If I had been mean to my younger brother, I was supposed to do something nice for him.

Gotta say, I would have preferred to knock out a dozen Hail Mary's or so. But I had to admit that "doing penance" by making amends in some way is much more meaningful.

Not a perfect analogy, I know, but I couldn't help but think of this when I watched yesterday's electoral challenge. The fight for fair elections is far from over, but at least some of the Democrats finally did their "penance". 

ON CAPITOL HILL
Electoral College Debate
The House and Senate return to their respective chambers to debate the irregularities in Ohio during the November 2004 election. As always, sessions of each are airing LIVE in their entirety. Visit our Congress page for the gateway to our Congressional resources links.
THE HOUSE ON C-SPAN
THE SENATE ON C-SPAN2

Candidates Want Second Ohio Recount

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Two third-party presidential candidates asked a federal court Thursday to force a second recount of the Ohio vote, alleging county election boards altered votes and didn't follow proper procedures in the recount that ended this week.

Also, in Newsweek, an interview with Jesse Jackson: