Vernon Ehlers: “I wish I had more time to respond to all of the erroneous comments that have been made. Some of them may have been…”

“I wish I had more time to respond to all of the erroneous comments that have been made. Some of them may have been pertinent as relating to the original bill as introduced. But I wish all those commenting would have read the amended bill that we have before us now. There has been much discussion about poll taxes. Absolute nonsense. I would never stand for putting a poll tax on any citizen of this country. There is no poll tax. We specifically provided that the State and the Federal Government will pay for any cost. There is no poll tax in this bill. Furthermore, it is said the burden falls on the poor. Again, nonsense. We help the poor. There is no burden on the poor. We assist them by helping them prove citizenship and paying for it. So when they apply for Social Security, when they apply for Medicare, when they apply for prescription drug coverage, they will have proof of citizenship in hand. This benefits the poor. It benefits those who do not have citizenship, because we help them to prove citizenship and we pay for it. This bill is designed to cut down fraud. I put the question, Where is the fraud? Several have said, there is no fraud. There is fraud. In the 2000 election in Philadelphia, they had 103 percent of the voter turnout in one precinct. That is fraud.”