Political Quotes

“I rise today to support the hard work of the conferees on the election reform conference report. I did not hesitate to vote against S. 565 because it unfairly disadvantaged rural States and did not fix the most grievous flaws with the current system. I am pleased to report that significant improvements have been made from the original bill, and I support this attempt to give greater integrity to the electoral process. We can now ensure that the ballots from our servicemen and women overseas are properly handled. Their ballots cannot be refused based on early submission, and each will bear a postmark in order to avoid recent election debacles from occurring again. All States will receive a minimum grant award, with the potential to apply for additional funds, an improvement over the Senate-passed version, which would have disadvantaged rural States with a solely competitive grant program. Most importantly, this report identifies remedies for election fraud. States may purge any individuals who do not vote in two consecutive Federal elections and are unresponsive to follow-up by State officials. We must clean up our voter rolls, and this provision gives States the vehicle to do so, should they choose to use it. This is by no means a perfect report, but I am sufficiently convinced that we have taken great strides to better our voting process.”