Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, it has been almost 2 years since the 2000 Presidential election, an election that created a crisis of confidence in our Nation's election system. It has been more than 9 months since the House of Representatives passed the Help America Vote Act, H.R. 3295. It has been more than 5 months since the Senate passed its version of election reform legislation, S. 565, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Equal Protection of Voting Rights Act of 2002 by a vote of 99 to 1. Yet the conferees still have not completed their work. The 2000 Presidential election lost between 500,000 and 1.2 million votes because of faulty machines, confusing ballot designations and designs, reported voter intimidation, and other human and mechanical impediments to the voting process. According to the United States census population survey, 2.8 percent of the 40 million voters who did not vote in 2000 stated they did not vote because of problems with polling place operations such as long lines and inconvenient hours or locations. Many of those who did vote in 2000 found themselves wondering whether their vote was counted and whether they actually voted for the candidate of their choice.”