Political Quotes

“all Americans are concerned with maintaining and improving the integrity of our nation's elections. We know that, in some recent cases, illegal immigrants and others not legally qualified to vote have registered and cast ballots. A number of bills have been introduced in this Congress to deal with this problem. Regrettably, H.R. 1428, while attempting to restore electoral integrity, actually threatens to return us to a darker era in our nation's history, when people's voting rights were frequently challenged or harassed and their right to cast ballots was denied. H.R. 1428 would allow local officials to check the eligibility of registered voters by submitted names from the voting rolls to the Immigration and Naturalization Service or the Social Security Administration. But how will the names be chosen? Will the Smiths, the Johnsons, and the Andersons be scrutinized, or will the efforts of local officials be more focussed on the Singhs, the Martinezes, and the Nguyens? Unfortunately, the historical record would indicate the latter. In addition, the bill presumes that the INS and the SSA will have their records available and updated for use by local officials, which we know is not likely to be the case. And should local election officials not be able to confirm citizenship, they can drop voters from the rolls without having proven that they are not qualified to vote.”