Arlen Specter: “This has been a contentious subject because there are those who contend that it ought to be that easy for somebody to…”

“This has been a contentious subject because there are those who contend that it ought to be that easy for somebody to vote, contrasted with others of us who believe that simply on a signature it is insufficient to avoid fraud. The underlying bill on election reform is a very important bill. There is no need to recount what happened in the Presidential election of the year 2000, with special emphasis on Florida, to emphasize the need for reform of the voting process, to bring modern technology into play, to avoid the chads and the dimples, and to find a way to have voters' intent recorded honestly and completely. The drafters of the underlying bill have worked very hard on all aspects of it, including ways to deal with this question of fraud. They came up with a compromise which said somebody could be accorded the right to vote if there was a photo identification, or if the individual had some other document which showed that person was in existence, such as a utility bill or a bank statement or a government check or a generalized provision or any kind of a document which is similar, to show that a voter, "Mr. John Voter," "Mrs. Jane Voter," actually was in existence.”