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AP17:090

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 30, 2017
Contact:
Jesse Melgar or Sam Mahood
(916) 653-6575

Statement by Secretary of State Alex Padilla on the Fifteenth Anniversary of the Help America Vote Act

SACRAMENTO – California Secretary of State Alex Padilla released the following statement following Sunday’s anniversary of the signing of the Help America Vote Act:

“Fifteen years ago, in the wake of the 2000 Presidential Election and debacle in the state of Florida, the United States Congress came together and adopted the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) on a bipartisan basis. Among other things, HAVA provided funding to improve voting across the nation. In California, HAVA funding helped counties purchase new and upgraded voting equipment, and allowed the Secretary of State’s office to develop and deploy VoteCal, our statewide centralized voter registration database. HAVA was the kind of commonsense bipartisan response to a real crisis that Americans deserve to see from government. Today, our voting systems are once again at a crossroads. Aging voting systems are the gravest threat to our democracy. State and county elections officials work diligently to maintain voting systems, but we need help. As we celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of HAVA, we must also recognize the urgent need to invest in election modernization once again to ensure the transparency, security, accessibility, and integrity of our elections.”

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