Roy Blunt: “I appreciate having the time. I appreciate the leadership that my good friend from California has shown on this issue.…”

“I appreciate having the time. I appreciate the leadership that my good friend from California has shown on this issue. Madam Chairman, Members, many of us in this Chamber have been reminded over the years, some of us more frequently than others, that elections don't always yield the most convenient results. But as unpredictable and, at times, disappointing as their outcomes can be, for some reason we keep holding them, and we go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that basic conditions of privacy and integrity are properly observed and protected. The reason we do that is not that we are gluttons for punishment, that we want to go back facing the disappointment of not being successful on election day. It is that, in our democracy, secret ballot elections represent an essential mechanism for establishing legitimacy. We recognize elections as the fabric that holds our democracy together. Lose an election, and you tend to ask yourselves plenty of questions. Most of us, though, after all the soul searching we do, don't decide that one of those questions is answered by the idea that next time we just simply fail to hold the election.”