The reporter who photographed forged registrations and other items, broke open the corrupt system then existing that encouraged vote fraud, documented the method the vote thieves used, and gave the prosecutors the key to their victories.

In the early days of Project LEAP, conditions at the Chicago Board of Election Comissioners were less than ideal. A particular problem was the Board's unwillingness to purge voter registration rolls of voters who had died or moved. With thousands of unqualified names on the lists, there were thousands of opportunities for false votes to be cast. And they were.

To remedy this and other conditions, Project LEAP brought suit against the Board in Federal court. As part of the out-of-court settlement, the Board-under its new chairman, John H. Hanly, who testified before this committee on Tuesday- agreed to conduct special purges of voter registration rolls by sending out special board personnel in suspect areas; by comparing affidavits from lodging houses with the precinct binders; and by verifying challenges made by voters.

As the result of the Board's new commitment to accurate poll lists, we have seen great improvements. In the first specific purge, for example, leading up to special aldermanic elections in only four of Chicago's 50 wards in 1973, the Board deleted 3,231 names out of approximately 150,000 following on-site inspections; struck 424 names by comparing lodging house affidavits; and eleectd 247 names on the basis of challenges by qualified voters. Since being named chairman in 1973, John Hanly has continued to concentrate on cleaning out registration rolls of unqualified names.

Again, from a prosecutor's viewpoint on behalf of Project LEAP, let me warn the Congress that it had better be ready to appropriate millions of dollars to U.S. Attorneys' offices throughout the Nation to police and prosecute the new type of vote fraud. These additional dollars will be needed if the offices are to handle the specific investigations and prosecutions that will be required if this bill is passed. The prosecutorial offices will need extra attorneys, investigators and support staff to handle what we predict will be an enormous load.

I have participated in political campaigns of all kinds for more than 20 years. Most frequently I have worked in ballot protection. The war stories are legion-fraudulent voting by precinct captins and election judges, manipulation of voting machines and paper ballots, false counts, even physical violence. But the themes are the same-an unscrupulous, ambitious captain, no regard for party or ideology, ambitions to get ahead politically or job-wise, no built-in political check, opportunity and desire to steal votes. It was there and it is there, unless you can legislate a change in the human nature of the small but perverse group that steals our elections.

The battle took years in Chicago, but we've pretty much won. We ended the most massive vote fraud in 1972, although problems still exist.

However, Congress-under the very best of intentions-will reopen the door to vote fraud, in Chicago and in every other area that has ever had an election day problem. You are unwilling to spend the millions of dollars that will be required to police the polls and

prosecute under the new crimes that will be committed. You are dumping upon us and every other area in the country subject to similar problems the potential of wholesale vote theft. You will return us to a system where every close election will leave the victor with the stigma of having won in a corrupt election.

Please do not leave us with a heritage whereby we corrupt the system for illusory purposes of a more democratic society with easier registration and greater participation.

Project LEAP as an organization has played a significant role in improving the entire election picture in Chicago, often from a basis of first-hand knowledge. One of our board members most knowledgeable in the practical aspects of vote fraud is Richard Barnett, who can tell you more about the actualities of the results of false registrations and voting.

Mr. ROESER. Mr. Barnett.

Mr. BARNETT. Project LEAP's most basic opposition to the concept of on-site voter registration is the prospect of massive fraud in polling places throughout the Nation. We feel that such fraud is bound to occur-and particularly in areas where there are large numbers of the poor and powerless, who are the most frequent victims of vote fraud.

In Chicago, as in so many other places, the poorest and the least powerful are the blacks. Black reformers in Chicago do not view this bill as a help to blacks. Instead, we view it as a system that will guarantee that blacks will continue to be manipulated at the polling place-by other blacks or by anyone determined to affect the outcome of elections by stealing votes.

Let me take Mr. Gardner's comments a little further and tell you why Project LEAP feels it is essential to have registration cut off prior to election day, whether it is 2 weeks or a month.

In March 1972, a young black man named Jesse Madison ran for State Representative on the West Side, as an independent Democrat in the Democratic primary. Jesse thinks he had the votes that day, but that he lost because of a number of different types of election fraud. A large part of vote fraud on Chicago's West Side is "ghost" voting under false names. When voter registration lists are not purged ahead of an election day, hundreds of unqualified names can be left on the rolls, and they can all be voted.

In March 1974, Jesse Madison ran again. This time there were Project LEAP election judges in many of the West Side precincts. Jesse also had pollwatchers to guard against altered vote totals at the end of the day. In addition, the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners had made a point of conducting several special investigations on the West Side and had removed hundrds of unqualified names. In one instnce, the number of registered voters dropped from 550 to 405 in a single precinct after a special purge. In March 1974, Jesse was declared the winner of the Democratic primary by 174 votes. In a district with 144 precincts, that came to a little more than one vote per precinct. In March 1976, Jesse's runningmate, Earlean Collins, won her State Senate democratic primary by only 62 votes in the 144 precincts-or less than 3/4 of a vote per precinct. These candidates would not have won election if Chicago still had a major problem with "ghost" voting.

Project LEAP is committed to an honest vote count for all candidates. We want each legitimate vote counted once-but only once. We have already expressed many of our reservations about this bill. However, we also see the following problems as well:

1. It's extremely difficult to find enough people willing to serve as election judges even now, when it takes nearly 15,500 people to cover Chicago's precincts. This bill would, in praticality, require an additional two registrants in each precinct, or another 6,000 people. We wont be able to find them.

2. It is extremely easy to obtain false identification cards under many different names. There will be plenty of people motivated enough to get false I.D.'s to go from polling place to polling place to vote again and again. Under this bill, it is much easier to vote with false I.D.'s than it is to get into a Chicago bar-our bars usually require at least three pieces of specific identification.

3. The election judges themselves may be dishonest and allow many, many false registrations and votes. In Chicago, many people who are prosecuted for vote fraud are election judges of both parties.

4. There's no way to find a false registrant after the election. 5. There's no way to separate out a vote from a false registrant after the vote has been cast. If a candidate loses due to false registrations and votes, the election is a farce.

6. If investigations after election day show that there have indeed been false registrations and votes, the results of an election can be thrown into the courts if a candidate decides to sue. We may be faced with the prospect of having to conduct an election over again. 7. States that keep their own registration laws for local offices will, in effect, have to conduct two separate elections-since under this bill the voters registering at the polling places on election day will be able to vote only for Federal offices. If voting machines are used, they cannot be set to lock out the rest of the offices, so paper ballots will have to be used. In Chicago paper ballots almost always mean vote fraud because they are easier to alter than voting machines.

8. If States decide to abandon their own registration laws in order to avoid confusion, there may be more pressure to steal elections for the local offices. In many cases, the local offices such as prosecutor are far more important to the local power structure than the national offices are.

9. On election day the long lines of persons waiting to register and then to vote may discourage voters from participating in the election.

10. Our polling places will become chaotic and confused, undermining a voter's right to vote in dignity.

As an alternative to this bill, Project LEAP urges that Congress continue to encourage states to conduct voter outreach programs to register voters in advance of every election day. We have seen this concept work in Chicago, where the Chicago Board of Election Comissioners has reached thousands of people by going out to neighborhoods. We feel that this concept should be expanded to include deputy registrars in every high school, library and public building, in addition to the registration places now in use.

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Only with advance registration can we have a system of checks and balances on voting. Only with advance registration can there be ways to challenge unqualified persons. Only with advance registration can Project LEAP's effectiveness continue. If this bill passes, every community that has ever had an election problem will need a Project LEAP, and right now there isn't enough of us to go around. This bill is bad, for Chicago, for New York, for Louisiana, for Newark and Camden, for Philadelphia, for Dallas, for any place where minorities get the short end of the voting stick. We urge this committee and the entire Congress to defeat it.

Mr. FRENZEL. Thank you very much.

Mr. Wiggins.

Mr. WIGGINS. I would like to thank you for the excellence of your testimony. I think it was important that this testimony be made available for our record to give it a better balance than perhaps it has received heretofore. I regret that more of the members, particularly those who tend to favor the legislation, could not have been present to hear your testimony.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. FRENZEL. Thank you.

Mr. Stockman.

Mr. STOCKMAN. I want to take this opportunity to personally welcome the panel because I have been acquainted for a number of years with two of our witnesses today, Mr. Roeser and Mr. Gardner. I am sorry no members of the Majority were here to hear this testimony. If per chance they peruse the transcript and see this testimony which sheds a totally different perspective on the bill, I hope they won't jump to the conclusion that LEAP is a chapter of the John Birch Society.

Mr. Roeser is Public Affairs Director for Quaker Oats and I know he goes around the country appearing on panels as the token business liberal so that establishes his credentials. Mr. Gardner has been involved with IVI and that is 180 degrees on the other side of the spectrum.

Mr. Barnett has indicated he is affiliated with the Urban League as well. We have here a panel of very credible witnesses who are involved in an election system and process which may not be quite typical of some of the urban areas of the country, but certainly the possibility exists in many other cities as you have indicated. I think you have given us rather devastating evidence of what will happen if this bill is adopted. We appreciate it very much and we will try to make the most of the evidence and testimony you have given as we proceed further.

Mr. ROESER. We thank the committee.

Mr. FRENZEL. I want to repeat Chairman Thompson's apologies for the conditions that forced his absence. He very much wanted to be here. I would like to ask the two members of the committee about this. We have Mrs. Clusen with us from the League of Women Voters. She has been before us once and has been recalled at our request and has been cooling her heels for a long time.

We have a vote on. Would you prefer to have her testimony now or would you prefer to come back for a few minutes and have a chance to discuss her testimony?

Mr. ROESER. I would like to tell Mr. Frenzel and all the other members who are here that if the majority is interested in hearing us we will make some effort to come back at the Majority's pleasure. We were supposed to come on Tuesday. A number of our workers had to take off from their jobs and it was difficult, but if the Majority does want to hear us and give us at least some attention, which we implore the Majority to do, we would be very happy to make some arrangement to come back, Mr. Chairman. Mr. FRENZEL. I would like to speak for Chairman Thompson to indicate that he is well represented by staff, and speaking from experience I know that he will review the testimony carefully and I will review it with him personally. If there is some further information he wants, I know that he will get in touch with you. Again, I do want you to know there is nothing premeditated about this.

Mr. Roeser. No, no. It is not a criticism of him. I was just making our service available.

Mr. FRENZEL. Again, thank you very much for your excellent testimony.

Mrs. Clusen, we will return in five minutes and then we will have your testimony. Thank you very much for your patience.

[A short recess was taken at this point.]

Mr. FRENZEL. In the interests of not delaying Mrs. Clusen any longer, the committee will come to order.

Mrs. Clusen will be recognized. She is the president of the League of Women Voters, and has testified before this committee on a previous occasion at which time she was asked to return because of some special competence that the league had, that we wanted the league to share with us.

Mrs. Clusen.

STATEMENT OF MRS. RUTH C. CLUSEN, PRESIDENT, LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS

Mrs. CLUSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am sure you feel at this point that there isn't a word you haven't heard about this legislation, and perhaps the urgency you had to question us may have passed, but in any event I am pleased to be back here again. We have had a little time to reflect on the bill in the last few weeks since I was here, and we would like to suggest a couple of other changes in addition to the parts we have already mentioned.

In the first place, we are aware of the concerns expressed by some that the bill as it presently stands has no limit as to the number of registrants that an already registered voter can vouch for. We would support language which specified a limit. However, we would hope that the limit would not be less than say five, so as to give opportunities, for example, to families with 18-year old children or older to register under this Act. It is hard to decide on a limit which would not be too high or too low, but this is our particular suggestion for this section.

In this same subsection the committee may want to specify, and there has been some discussion of this today, that any person vouching for an election registrant shall be someone who has