Jim Kolbe: “Yes, we do welcome observers to our elections. We welcome people coming into this country. We have thousands of them…”

“Yes, we do welcome observers to our elections. We welcome people coming into this country. We have thousands of them come in every year. We invite them to come. They come under various plans, journalists, politicians, all kinds of people, who look at elections at the local level, at the State level, at the national level at our conventions. I have hosted those people in my district on election day, on primary day, on general election day. We should want those people to come here. What we are talking about is whether we have people come here that have some kind of official capacity to determine the validity of our elections. We have a uniquely, unlike most other countries which have national elections, a National Elections Supervisory Board. Ours are so scattered. Every State has the responsibility for determining the elections. So it would not be possible or not be wise to do that, and that is why this amendment is a very simple amendment that makes sense. Yes, come and observe, but you are not going to be here to determine the validity of the elections.”