Fortunately, our country over time corrected and learned from these mistakes.

Do you dispute my premise that the American Legislative Exchange Council has played an active role in the promulgation of the State laws that we are discussing here today?

I hope they respond.

I never showed photo ID.

The way these laws are written, not just any ID will do.

For 42 years, we allowed them to change their address at their polling location and then they could vote a regular ballot.

Let us see who is pushing for these changes in the law and where the money is coming from.

Early voting is primarily used by our fellow citizens who cannot get to the polls on election day.

If this law were to pass in my home State, nearly 890,000 Ohioans over age 18...could be disenfranchised.

We have enshrined the right to vote as one of the major rights that every American citizen has.

How are you going to accommodate the issuance of IDs to one out of five people in Wisconsin who do not have them?

If this is clearly designed to stop some terrible miscarriage of justice at the polling place, then it ought to be prosecuted.

It ends up doing exactly what the League of Women Voters has done, and they have said they are not going to take the chance that their members are going to have those kinds of fines.

Your ID at the University of Texas does not meet the test. However, your application for a firearm, that ID does meet the test.

Does it cause anyone to suspicion that there is a certain number of voters on Sunday after church that go to vote?

It would seem to me in the United States of America in the 21st century we would do everything conceivably possible to give everybody encouragement to vote.

Protecting the right of every citizen to vote and ensuring our elections are fair and transparent are not Democratic or Republican values. They are American values.

You were invited to be part of this panel, and I would like to hear your comments.

A well-organized, violent, often racist campaign successfully prevented many African-Americans from exercising their right to vote.

Thank you very much, Senator Franken. I appreciate your coming and your patience.

Over the course of history, we know that that right has often been honored in the breach.

There is no good reason to close out these millions of people.

Only in the last century did Americans win the right to directly elect their United States Senators.

I am deeply concerned by this coordinated, well-funded effort to pass laws that would have the impact of suppressing votes.

Proponents assert that voter fraud is prevalent and needs to be addressed by sweeping elections reforms.