commended for holding these hearings, and to really help to make the American dream stay, not only a dream but a reality, with maximum participation of all of our citizens in this very priceless process.

Mr. PANETTA. Mr. Chairman, if I may just follow up with one. brief question, and I would appreciate a brief answer so we can keep it short. With regard to each of you having some political instincts for what your States might or might not do, could you give us some indication as to whether you believe the State legislatures, assuming the Federal Government were to pass this, the Congress were to pass this and it would become law, whether your State legislatures would adopt it?

Mrs. TUCKER. Yes.

Mrs. SCHAFFER. Yes, I think in Connecticut we not only would have time to adopt it, but I think that the specter of a dual election tort in 1978 would pose to be such a serious threat to the sanctity of the elective system that the legislature would comply with what the Federal law demanded.

Mr. Guzzi. Yes, and to follow up as to the possibility of a dual system, it really is administratively unworkable. It would require the keeping of two separate voting lists. It would require at least in Massachusetts the printing of two separate ballots, and would be an administrative nightmare. For that reason as well as the positive leadership, to clarify a statement made earlier, that it is perfectly appropriate for the Congress to take leadership with reference to Federal elections, for all of those reasons I think the Massachusetts legislature would adopt it.

Mr. PANETTA. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman THOMPSON. Mr. Frenzel.

Mr. FRENZEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I noticed when you, Mr. Chairman, were speaking of the wonderful results achieved in the Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania elections over the last 16 years, I took the trouble to look them up as you were talking about it, to find out how those systems performed. I notice that in Connecticut from the year 1960 to 1976, voting declined 24 percent. If you take 1962 to 1976, which is the congressional election rather than presidential, it declined 1 percent. In Massachusetts down 14 percent for the presidential and down 19 percent for the congressional. In Pennsylvania, the most distinguished of all, down 16 percent from 1960 to 1976, and down. 22 percent from 1962 to 1974.

I cite those figures not to embarrass anybody, because it is illustrative of what has happened in this country, and these are States I think that have made, in the judgment of all objective observers, pretty good efforts to increase registration, to increase participation, and yet the decline has been I guess charitably described as precipitous.

Chairman THOMPSON. If the gentleman will yield.

Mr. FRENZEL. I will yield to the chairman.

Chairman THOMPSON. I think had I recited the changes of which I am aware in many other States that the same phenomenon would exist. I have no answer for it, any more than I have an answer to

the remarkably low participation of the youngest people in society in the system.

I might suggest, although I am sure I would be hard put to prove it, that those statistics would be even worse had the changes not been made which have improved the system, partricularly in these three States.

Mr. FRENZEL. I think I would not agree with the chairman, but I do agree that the phenomenon is nationwide. I note in the 18 States that used mail registration in the last election, the average participation was 54.1, and in those 33 States that did not use it, the participation was slightly higher, 54.8, so it is a little hard to point to any particular registration system and say that that is going to be the salvation of participation in American democracy. I think that if we are trying to sell same day voting day registration as something that is suddenly going to turn all these numbers around, we are going to have a very disillusioned public. I hope that none of us are saying that.

I want to particularly compliment the secretary from the State of Connecticut for her suggestions to us. I think most of them have great merit. A number of them I would hope to put in amendment form, and I hope that we will be able to go forward with them. I am a little nervous about your cost estimates. I think in the past couple of days we have had people submitting to us cost numbers, which are not terribly meaningful to us. What we are trying to do is establish the Federal responsibility for costs, and I don't think that we have the responsibility to take more than what the increased ccst would be for the registration system which we are apparently going to impose on you, so I hope that when you prepare your numbers, that you will do the double check, and make sure you are not billing us for, for instance, the handling of same day registration later on, because you have to do that anyway under any system.

I think our liability, or at least I believe, it should extend only to the extra clerks that you might have to hire on election day, and the training and recruitment of those clerks, but the other, voting machines, the handling of registration and so on in my judgment are properly assignable to State and local costs, and should be covered, and I would appreciate the comments of any of you on that.

Mrs. SCHAFFER. Mr. Frenzel, in the cost estimates which were drawn up by my staff, the single largest cost, which is a nonrecurring cost, is for additional voting machines. We base those projections on the experiences of States that already have election day registration. We took their figures, estimated that there would be a 13 percent increase in registration as a result of this federally mandated program, so that over $2 million would have to be spent for additional voting machines if we were to keep our ratio of having 1 machine per every 900 voters.

Mr. FRENZEL. If I may interrupt, I really don't think the Congress is interested in buying voting machines for you. I think we are interested in helping you with same day registration, but for heaven sakes, your voting in your State has declined, Madam Secretary, by somewhere between 12 to 14 percent, and I think if more people want to vote, you have the responsibility to provide those machines.

Mrs. SCHAFFER. Well, I would argue from the State of Connecticut's point of view that we get so little money now for election administration, and hopefully the coffers of new voters will be overflowing, because of your excellent actions on this subject, and we just say please don't make us pick up the tab, and we don't want to have long lines and we don't want to have confusion on election day.

Mr. FRENZEL. We don't want you to either, and I can't blame you for trying to get some more money for the State of Connecticut. I guess I would encourage that, particularly if I came from Connecticut, but I hope the State election officials don't look on this as some kind of a goodie bag, that they are going to support services which they would normally have to extend anyway.

Mrs. TUCKER. May I make a comment on that?
Mr. FRENZEL. I would appreciate it if you would.

Mrs. TUCKER. On the cost of registrars alone we would need approximately 21,000. We have over 9,000 voting districts, so on that cost alone, we estimated that cost to be $990,000, and with the allocation in this bill, we would receive $960,000. We would be $30,000 in deficit.

Mr. FRENZEL. Does that include training as well?

Mrs. TUCKER. Nothing at all, just the basic cost. Our law mandates $40 to $50 per registrar.

Mr. FRENZEL. I don't know how the rest of the committee feels but I am sympathetic to the training and recruitment as well. Mr. FRENZEL. Mr. Secretary from Masachusetts.

Mr. Guzzi. Two comments.

First, we have initial figures, and I think for most of us we are still developing the actual cost figures, and perhaps by the end of the hearings we will have substantial data. In Massachusetts our projection is approximately a $3 million cost, and of that approximately $1.5 million would be covered by the Federal money. So it is clear that there will be significant State and/or local monies involved.

Mr. FRENZEL. If I may interrupt at that point, your figures will not be helpful to us at all unless they are broken down so we can know what they are for.

Mr. Guzzi. Yes.

Mr. FRENZEL. Everyone has come in and said it isn't enough, and that is very typical I think, but if you will buttress those figures with some breakdowns, I think then we will be able to make the judgments. I concur in the chairman's thought that there probably isn't enough money in the bill at the moment.

Mr. Guzzi. Second, with reference to your initial statement, I think that in terms of the patterns of participation in each of our States and the country, that really is an argument to take a hard look and to change our present laws, and in fact you are quite correct. Even with the changes that have been made particularly in Massachusetts it hasn't worked for a number of reasons. In Massachusetts, for example, we have become increasingly a mobile society, not only with reference to younger students, for example, but also with technical and professional people, who move between States and/or within the State, and those numbers from my per

spective are the strongest argument for changing our present system. I also agree with your figures on registration by mail. In fact the data hasn't suggested that_registration by mail would significantly change voting turnouts. It has, however, in the three States that I am familiar with, with election day registration, suggested that the numbers would be changed. That has occurred in Maine and it has occurred in Minnesota and Wisconsin as well.

Mr. FRENZEL. I would like some time at our mutual convenience to discuss with you some of those Minnesota voting participation figures. The figures suggest the presence of a vice presidential candidate on the ticket did the same thing for our voting that happened in Massachusetts in 1960. There are a number of other factors of course. Just because I don't believe that this is going to increase participation very much doesn't mean it may not be something worth doing. Any attempts to open or make it more convenient is helpful, even if it doesn't produce demonstrable voting participation figures in the next couple of years.

Mr. Chairman, I yield my time.

Chairman THOMPSON. I thank you. I might comment that we have run into an embarrassing problem. We have a conference report vote on now, immediately following which this committee has the funding resolution of the Assassination Committee. These are the second bells. Then we have a scheduled 2 o'clock full committee meeting to dispose of four contested elections cases. I am embarrassed particularly by the presence of the president of the League of Women Voters, and wonder if it would be possible for her to return tomorrow morning briefly. She has a very brief statement, but some of the members did want to question here.

Mrs. CLUSEN. What would be the time? I am appearing before another committee also. If I could appear at 10 o'clock when you resume, it would be possible.

Chairman THOMPSON. Ten o'clock would be fine.

How about our witnesses from Chicago?

Mr. ROESER. Mr. Chairman, I regret to say that I don't think we can be here tomorrow. At great cost we came out here as a public interest committee, and we are frankly very disheartened that we don't have the opportunity to testify today. We have people who have taken off from their jobs. It is very discouraging.

Chairman THOMPSON. This is an unfortunate circumstance. We had scheduled you another day and you were unable to make that. I am embarrassed, but I see no possibility except to go to the floor and vote and try to find a couple of members who can come back. Mr. Stockman, could you come back?

Mr. STOCKMAN. Right after this?

Chairman THOMPSON. After the vote?

Mr. STOCKMAN. No.

Chairman THOMPSON. Mr. Frenzel?

Mr. FRENZEL. Mr. Chairman, I will be here after the vote. Chairman THOMPSON. I shall certainly try to get a majority member, and if I cannot

Mr. BURKE. I can be here until about 1:15.

Chairman THOMPSON. If I cannot, in order that you be heard, I shall take the unusual step of asking unanimous consent that if a

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member of the majority is unable to return, Mr. Frenzel would be kind enough to take the chair, to hear the rest of the witnesses. Mr. WIGGINS. How about 4 o'clock this afternoon?

Mr. ROESER. I thank the chairman. That will be excellent.
Chairman THOMPSON. Mr. Wiggins suggests 4 o'clock.

Mr. FRENZEL. We are likely to be voting. I think we would be better off going ahead.

Chairman THOMPSON. I certainly have enough faith in Mr. Frenzel that I am perfectly comfortable with him chairing, as distinguished from Mr. Wiggins. I wore this shirt today so that his needles wouldn't show. The committee will recess.

[Recess.]

Mr. FRENZEL. [Presiding.] The committee will come to order. Mr. Roeser, chairman of Project LEAP, with Mr. Richard Barnett, and Mr. Sheldon Gardner.

Would you introduce yourselves briefly and then proceed with your statement? The statements that you have prepared for us will become part of the record, and anything you care to say in addition we will be pleased to hear.

STATEMENT OF THOMAS ROESER, CHAIRMAN, PROJECT LEAP (LEGAL ELECTIONS IN ALL PRECINCTS); ACCOMPANIED BY: SHELDON GARDNER, PROJECT LEAP BOARD MEMBER; AND RICHARD L. BARNETT, PROJECT LEAP BOARD MEMBER

Mr. ROESER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Tom Roeser, chairman of Project LEAP which stands for Legal Elections in All Precincts, a Chicago-based, nonpartisan election watchdog organization. To my left is Richard Barnett, who is on our board of directors and who serves as a key person and a troubleshooter to spot vote fraud in Chicago and Cook County. To my right, Sheldon Gardner, a founder of Project LEAP and former deputy State's attorney of Cook County.

Project LEAP grew out of efforts by Democrats, Republicans and Independents to fight election abuses by recruiting, placing and training honest election judges to safeguard the voting process. Thanks partly to our activities, Chicago's reputation as "the vote fraud capital of the nation" has been turned around. Although we still have problems-most notably the practice of illegal assistance, where campaign workers or even election judges unlawfully pull the levers for intimidated voters-we have reached a point where we can pretty safely say that candidates no longer win or lose because of stolen votes. That is the way it has been up to now. We feel very candidly that this law, if it passes, should be called the onsite voter fraud bill, because it will set back our efforts easily many decades.

But in spite of Chicago's great progress in the 5 years since Project LEAP ws formed, our work goes on. Without Project LEAP's monitoring, we would see a quick return to the cesspool conditions of former days-with totally false registrations . . . "ghost" voting by those long dead or moved away . . . voting by telephone . . . and all the other tricks precinct captains developed over the years to produce inflated vote totals. Chicago voters traditionally have been