SEARCH: Advanced Search

Election Day shenanigans haunt Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.).

Holt’s father, Rush Dew Holt, a one-term Democratic Senator and career West Virginia state legislator, ran for governor in the Mountaineer State in 1952. Decades later, the controversy surrounding his father’s defeat is still fresh in the younger Holt’s mind.

“Some people believe ... the election was stolen,” Holt said in an interview with Roll Call. “One of my earliest memories is the talk in the family about votes being stolen and ballot boxes being found on the riverbanks.”

Now, Holt is trying to make sure similar allegations don’t cast a cloud over elections in the digital age. Despite devoting the bulk of his energies on scientific, environmental and intelligence matters during his five terms, Holt has become a Democratic go-to guy on voting machines and election arcana.

“I tend to be a little more academic,” Holt said. “I gravitate towards things that I have a background or experience in.”

Holt suggests his interest in voting and election-related issues is little more than an intense hobby; just the sort of leisurely pastime one would expect from a former physics professor. He currently chairs the Appropriations Select Intelligence Oversight Panel and sits on the Education and Labor, National Resources and Intelligence committees. And while it can be the least enjoyable, Holt says his work on the Intelligence panel is important both to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who approached him personally to request that he head the select panel, and to his district, one of the hardest hit by the World Trade Center attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

“I can’t say I enjoy it,” Holt said. “It’s something that I feel is an important duty, just because there is so much money and such important issues of life and death.

“Before Sept. 11, no one would’ve paid any attention the Intelligence Committee,” Holt continued. “Now — almost to a person — people understand that intelligence affects their lives. We lost 100 people from my district on Sept. 11. ... People really understand now how well we invest in understanding the motivations, intentions and capabilities of enemies really affect them. It would be a lot more fun to spend more of my time on national parks and a number of other issues.”

A Close Call

While Holt suggests intelligence matters can be a slog, his work on environmental energy and environmental issues is just the opposite, particularly national parks located thousands of miles from the New Jersey Turnpike, which slices through his district. And, oddly enough, he said 12th district voters have been particularly responsive to his work in the area.

“I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how much the folks in New Jersey care about this. They really like the fact that I’m trying,” Holt said. “Even if they’ve never seen it, they want to know the parks are being protected.”

Despite a full legislative and oversight plate and with plenty of gray matter to spare, Holt also has become an expert in electronic voting machines and other obscure specialties few lawmakers have an interest in, let alone understand. Although he has never served on the House Administration Committee, which oversees the bulk of election-related issues, Holt also appears to have absorbed the minutiae in his free time.

“I’ve gotten more and more involved in good government issues than I ever intended,” Holt said.

While perhaps unwittingly, Holt’s interest in botched elections and shady campaigning doesn’t seem unlikely from a distance. In addition to his father’s questionable defeat, Holt had a close call of his own in 1998, the year he was first elected to Congress. After the polling place closed, Holt recalled, the county clerk misreported the vote — by accident, he emphasized — handing the victory to his opponent.

“I don’t believe it was malicious ... she wouldn’t have done something quite as clumsy as trying to put more votes in my opponent’s column than were people who lived in the precinct,” Holt said. “A simple clerical error.”