Political Quotes

“I want to address, very briefly, the amendment of the Senator from New York. We put too much time and effort into this without taking just a moment to express my thanks to the Senator from Connecticut, the Senator from Kentucky, and their staffs for a lot of work that has gone into this effort. It is with great pride and much relief to be back on the floor today, we hope, completing work on election reform. The 2000 election opened the eyes of many Americans to the flaws and failures of the election machinery, our voting systems, and how we determine what a vote is. We learned of hanging chads and inactive lists. We discovered our military's votes were mishandled and lost and not counted. We learned of legal voters who were turned away, while dead voters cast ballots. We discovered that many people voted twice, while too many people were not counted even once. Finally, that is why we are here today. This final compromise bill--and it is a compromise in the truest sense of the word. I have never seen any more effort to reach a compromise, to try to accommodate the legitimate concerns on all sides, than I have seen in this effort. I believe that, while nothing we do is perfect, we have gone a long way toward meeting those concerns. The $3.5 billion in this bill provided in funding over the next 5 years should make a significant improvement for States and localities to improve and update their voting systems.”