Vernon Ehlers: “a very fundamental question in the American democracy is how do we ensure that voters are legal voters? What is the…”

“a very fundamental question in the American democracy is how do we ensure that voters are legal voters? What is the purpose of voter registration? It is, pure and simple, to prevent fraud. We have to recognize that the laws of this land are written to control the bad folks, not the good folks. And I do not think it is an insult to Americans to have voter registration. But if we have registration, there has to be some requirement that the people have met the requirements of the registration laws. How do we do this? By checking identification when someone registers to vote. If we prohibit that, if we have simple mail-in voting registration for anyone that wishes, then why have registration at all? Why not just simply use the poll directory or the telephone directory and check people off on that as they vote? If we are going to have a voter registration and the purpose of it is to prevent fraud, we have to ensure that fraudulent behavior does not take place and this bill will do that.”