Political Quotes

“I say to my good friend from Montana, with whom all Members enjoy a wonderful relationship, a basic problem is not only should the people have the right to vote, they should all have the right not to vote. If people decide they do not want to vote--we would like them to vote, we hope they do, but citizens from time to time decide, for whatever reason, they do not want to participate in an election or two. That should not automatically result in their being purged from the list in the community in which they reside. We worked hard in this bill to come up with a centralized, statewide voter registration system, which is going to be a major step, as the Senator from Missouri has pointed out, in dealing with fraud. As part of that, we drafted a uniform standard for purging those lists so we have the same standards to apply around the country. Obviously, we know there are differences in the country from one place to the next. This is not an onerous burden at all, in our view. It is a provision that took a lot of time to work out. This would flip motor-voter on its head and allow jurisdictions to purge voters for not voting. That has never been the intent. With a great deal of respect for my colleague from Montana, I urge the defeat of this amendment. I think this would be a major setback for a carefully crafted bill.”