Elijah Cummings: “today this is not about overturning election results but reforming a broken election system. Mr. Speaker, as I listen to…”

“today this is not about overturning election results but reforming a broken election system. Mr. Speaker, as I listen to my friends from the other side I become quite upset when I hear them say things like, we are trying to break down the election system, taking away from the credibility of our election system. Nothing could be further from the truth. What we are trying to do is make sure that every single voter has the right to vote and that their vote is counted. This is not a black and white issue. This is not a Republican/ Democrat issue. This is a red, white and blue issue. This Constitution that we base our country and our laws on, the fundamental things of that Constitution, that building block, is the vote; and when we take away that vote, then what we do is we basically are destroying our democracy. That is what this is all about. I wonder, I really do, if it were your wife who was denied the right to vote or your child, would you be making the same arguments? All we are saying is we want to make sure that if we have a broken system, if there is one person whose vote is not counted, if there is one person who does not have the right to vote, then that is one person too many. It is as simple as that. So it upsets me that you keep saying these things about us denying Bush his opportunity to be President and all this kind of thing. That is not true. What we are addressing is the fundamental right to vote. It is simple as that.”