Help America Vote Act

Help America Vote Act of 2002

Long title	An Act to establish a program to provide funds to States to replace punch card voting systems, to establish the Election Assistance Commission to assist in the administration of federal elections and to otherwise provide assistance with the administration of certain federal election laws and programs, to establish minimum election administration standards for States and units of local government with responsibility for the administration of federal elections, and for other purposes.
Acronyms (colloquial)	HAVA
Nicknames	Help America Vote Act of 2002
Enacted by	the 107th United States Congress
Effective	October 29, 2002
Citations
Public law	107-252
Statutes at Large	116 Stat. 1666
Codification
Titles amended	42 U.S.C.: Public Health and Social Welfare transferred to 52 U.S.C.: Voting and Elections
U.S.C. sections created	42 U.S.C. ch. 146 § 15301 et seq. transferred to 52 U.S.C. §§ 20901–21145
Legislative history
Introduced in the House as H.R. 3295 by Robert Ney (R–OH) on November 14, 2001 Committee consideration by House Administration, House Judiciary, House Science, House Government Reform, House Armed Services, Senate Rules and Administration Passed the House on December 12, 2001 (362-63 Roll call vote 489, via Clerk.House.gov) Passed the Senate on April 11, 2002 (unanimous consent) Reported by the joint conference committee on October 8, 2002; agreed to by the House on October 10, 2002 (357-48 Roll call vote 462, via Clerk.House.gov) and by the Senate on October 16, 2002 (92-2 Roll call vote 238, via Senate.gov) Signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 29, 2002
United States Supreme Court cases
Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, 553 U.S. 181 (2008) Brunner v. Ohio Republican Party, 555 U.S. 5 (2008) Husted v. Randolph Institute, No. 16-980, 584 U.S. ___ (2018)

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law (United States)107–252 (text) (PDF)), or HAVA, is a United States federal law, which was authored by Christopher Dodd^[1], and passed in the House 357-48 and 92–2 in the Senate and was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 29, 2002. The bill was drafted (at least in part) in reaction to the controversy surrounding the 2000 U.S. presidential election, when the Supreme Court narrowly ruled that Bush was the president. The necessity for this ruling stemmed from controversies surrounding the validity of the election and whether votes were cast in a fair and equitable manner. The main point of contention surrounding the perceived unfairness was due to the millions of votes that were not represented due to mechanical errors or errors due to the manner in which the ballots were cast.^[2]

The goals of HAVA are to:^[3]

• replace punchcard and lever-based voting systems;
• create the Election Assistance Commission to assist in the administration of federal elections; and
• establish minimum election administration standards.

HAVA mandates that all states and localities upgrade many aspects of their election procedures, including their voting machines, registration processes and poll worker training. The specifics of implementation have been left up to each state, which allows for varying interpretations of the federal law.

^[4]