Vicente Gonzalez: “Mr. Speaker, if one thinks in terms of the greatest and most precious right that any American citizen would have, and…”

“Mr. Speaker, if one thinks in terms of the greatest and most precious right that any American citizen would have, and that is the right to vote, it is the great equalizer. One vote counts just as much as any other. The vote of the President of the United States is no more important and is given no more weight than the vote of someone who is 18 years old and happens to be a senior in high school and casting their vote for the first time. It empowers us. It empowers the people of the greatest democracy known in all of history, and therein lies our problem, and that is the exercise of that right. Now, we all know that we have laws at the State and Federal level that protect the right to vote. It guarantees the right to vote. We have the Constitution of the United States, the Supreme Court of the land, that, again, will guarantee us the right to vote. But it is only guaranteeing the right to vote. What thwarts, what frustrates, what impedes the citizen's right to vote, regardless of the constitutional guarantee or the laws that we have on the books? Well, believe it or not, it is something as simple as a machine that malfunctions, something a little more complicated by not keeping an accurate voter list.”