Rick Scott: “If my colleague from western Massachusetts wants to defend democracy and protect elections, I offer him an alternative…”

“If my colleague from western Massachusetts wants to defend democracy and protect elections, I offer him an alternative that I, and a majority of Americans, would support. There should be some commonsense, national standards in place to ensure Americans know their elections are free and fair and that their votes are not diluted. That includes requiring voter ID, something 83 percent of Americans support. You need an ID to board an airplane, buy certain medicines, apply for jobs and bank accounts, check into hotels, rent a car, donate blood, and purchase a lottery ticket. Why should voting in our elections have a lower verification standard than purchasing a lottery ticket? Surely, we can also agree that requiring proof of citizenship makes sense. And if a State has a noncitizen on the voter rolls, they should be removed. Now, the minority leader thinks that is racist to make people prove citizenship to vote. Just remember, every Member of this body and all of our friends in the House had to prove their citizenship to take office. Yes, even my colleague from Massachusetts had to prove he was an American citizen to take his seat in the U.S. Senate and represent the good people of his State. So are the requirements for being elected to the U.S. Congress racist? I cannot imagine the Senator from Massachusetts believes that to be true. We are all here to represent U.S. citizens, and we should be certain that it is only U.S.…”