James Lankford: “we are talking again about the SAVE Act. This is a simple piece of legislation that focuses on two key ideas: that if…”

“we are talking again about the SAVE Act. This is a simple piece of legislation that focuses on two key ideas: that if you are an American citizen, which is required by law, you just show it. I call that the ``trust and verify'' portion of the bill. The 1965 Voting Rights Act begins with the statement ``all citizens.'' It is already required under Federal law that you have to be a citizen of the United States to vote. We have all agreed on that. There is no one disputing that--Republican, Democrat, Independent. We all agree American citizens are the ones who should decide the future of America. What we disagree on is, Should we check or should we just trust that it actually is true? I have shared in this body before, that, in Oklahoma, we passed a statute, several years ago, saying: If you go to jury duty and you tell a judge, ``I am not eligible to be able to serve on a jury because I am not a citizen of the United States,'' in Oklahoma, we then check to see if you are registered to vote. We have found quite a few folks who have told a judge, ``I am not a citizen,'' but have told the election board, ``I want to vote anyway.'' Well, that is not legal. In Oklahoma, we purge the voter rolls when that happens in order to make sure those individuals who have already given sworn testimony that they are not citizens are not also registered to vote. That is not true everywhere across the country. Lots of folks just say: We just trust, but we never verify.”