Amy Klobuchar: “I come to the floor today to speak in support of legislation that is critical to our democracy, the Freedom to Vote Act…”

“I come to the floor today to speak in support of legislation that is critical to our democracy, the Freedom to Vote Act, which I introduced this year with many Senators who worked together through the summer to come up with a bill that would make a difference for our country, with input from secretaries of state across our country, election experts, in order to give the people of this country the right to vote, to protect the right to vote, and to make sure that they understood that they can vote anywhere from any ZIP Code in a safe way because right now, sadly, that is simply not the case in many States in our country. If you are in North Carolina right now and you want to cast a mail-in ballot and you have COVID or you are in the hospital, you have to get a notary public to sign off on your ballot. If you are in Georgia, and you don't register, you are a new resident there, you have moved there from another State, and you are in a big election, and you think, well, I am going to vote in the final place, you are no longer allowed to register in the last month as you were in the past during the runoff election. As we saw in the last election in 2020 in Houston, in that county--5 million people--there was only one drop-off box in the entire county; Harris County, 5 million people, only one drop-off box. There are places in States where you wait in line, 8, 10 hours in the hot Sun just to exercise your right to vote.…”