Amy Klobuchar

Thank you very much, Ms. Gerken.

I have introduced a bill with Senator Tester, the Same Day Registration Act, which would try to make the voting process easier by allowing people to register on the same day as they cast their ballot.

When you have 100-year-old women who have to wait in line for hours, then we have a problem

I want to thank Chairman Schumer for calling attention to this very important issue and for inviting me to chair this hearing.

I think it is important to set the record straight in the sense that, you know, Mr. Potter talked about Watergate and it led to a law that changed the way presidential campaigns were funded.

I am very troubled by the recent Supreme Court decision, the McCutcheon decision, extending the damage Citizens United caused in my mind.

We had a tremendous hearing last week on campaign finance and what that means to our democracy

Congratulations on your incredible service to this committee, and we wish you well in your new position.

We have consistently had one of the highest turnout rates in the country, and that is why Senator Tester and I and Congressman Ellison in the House are so devoted to this idea of same day registration.

The work of the Rules Committee is not just making sure the Senate works and that the inaugurations work, but it is also making sure our democracy works and that our election works

The sense that the public believes that all of politics, and particularly in Washington, is thoroughly corrupt, that citizens do not have much of a say here, that other interests are prevailing, has a corrosive impact on the ability of a…

This is taking it to a whole different level, as you point out, when there is no disclosure and the effect that will have.

I just think it so much weighs on the side of getting this disclosed

It has made a difference in the outcome. It gave us Governor Jesse Ventura, which is for sure, because we had the public funds.

I think with this lack of trust with all these big contributions, people still will now look at it...

One of the things I am worried about as I looked at this McCutcheon decision, even more than the expenditures decision, is that it will just play to the poles.

I am incredibly troubled by these decisions when you can have a few thousand people be able to give hundreds of thousands of dollars, and I just think it destroys our campaign finance system.

One of the things you also talk about in here is the people serving overseas in our military and how having online registration materials would be so helpful to them.

It is important to the people of America. It is important to our processes. It is important to who we are as a country.

Your report also talked about the importance of access to information in languages other than English, including ballots in other languages, outreach to non-English media outlets, bilingual poll workers.

The conflict between the interest of safety to children and voters is a conflict that should not be allowed to exist.

For language minority voters to go to the polls and to find that there is nobody there to help them, who can speak their language successfully, is simply just not consistent with offering the kind of experience that all of our voters…

I just do not see that as the major problem as much as it is that it has become hard for people to vote.

What I am concerned about is the effect of this is to disenfranchise voters.

I come from a state where we literally put a camera on rising waters on a river, and everyone in the community tunes in to see what is exactly happening.