U.S. Capitol----------------------------Pentagon

When the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate pass different versions of the same bill, the appropriate procedure for resolving the differences is the appointment of a conference committee, consisting of members from each house. The function of the conference committee is to reach agreement on a single version of the bill, which is then re-submitted to each house for passage.

The Senate has passed the 2005 Defense Authorization Bill, containing Section 1065, which calls for the postponement and extension of the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment (SERVE). The House had already passed its own version of this bill, containing a provision that will, if implemented, terminate the SERVE program.

For details about the different versions, click here.

The Senate Armed Services Committee, having fewer members than its House counterpart, will be sending its entire membership to the Defense Authorization Conference Committee. The larger House Armed Services Committee will select a portion of its members to participate in the reconciliation project. These House members are expected to be appointed after the Congress returns from its Fourth of July recess, on July 6th or soon thereafter.

As a first step towards ascertaining the sentiment in Congress regarding the future of SERVE, this reporter today sent an e-mail to the office of Senator John McCain of Arizona, providing him and his staff with links to countless Latest Voting News articles about SERVE and other links to more SERVE documents. Here's a copy of it:

Dear Senator McCain,

I'm a reporter with Etopia Media Voting News. I'm writing to get your position on which version of pending legislation regarding SERVE, the Pentagon's Internet voting system, you think should be included in the coming conference report reconciling the House and Senate 2005 Defense Authorization Bills.

For your convenience, here's a link to an article about the competing versions of the provision on SERVE:

Here's information on the SERVE money trail.  

Here's more about SERVE's creation.  

Here's a link to 70 more articles about SERVE.

I'd like to find out your position is on continuing the SERVE program, as called for in the Senate version of the 2005 Defense Authorization Bill, as opposed to the provision in the House version of the bill, which calls for terminating it.

Also, I'd like to know how vigorously you will be pursuing your preference regarding SERVE during the deliberations of the 2005 Defense Authorization Conference Committee. In other words, how important is this issue to you, relative to other items included in these bills.

Thank you in advance for any information you can provide concerning these matters.

Regards,

Marc Strassman
Reporter
Etopia Media Voting News
Etopia Media Political News Networks
Etopia Media News Networks


To participate in a poll about what Congress ought to do about SERVE, click here.