Melvin Watt: “I rise to support the opposition of my chairman to this amendment. I am really amazed sometimes how much of an effort we…”

“I rise to support the opposition of my chairman to this amendment. I am really amazed sometimes how much of an effort we put forth to support democracy around the world and yet won't do the same thing right here at home. One of the things I have on my wall at home is the first ballot after apartheid that was used in South Africa. Our government, the United States Government, encouraged the folks of South Africa to put photographs of the candidates on the ballot so that they would know who they were voting for because they couldn't read. {time} 1515 Can you imagine us doing that here in the United States, even though it would facilitate people's ability to vote? Yet here we are trying to confuse this issue with the issue of immigration, illegal immigration, when it has nothing to do with that. The majority of voters protected by section 203 are not even immigrants. Section 203 provides language assistance to cover United States voting-age citizens who are not fluent in English. According to the 2000 census, three-quarters of all voters covered by section 203 are native-born voting-age citizens in the United States. So this notion that this is somehow a part of the anti-immigrant movement is just a fallacy. We need to be doing whatever we can to enable our citizens to vote, and this amendment goes in the face of that. I think we should oppose it and move on with the passage of this bill.”