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Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today alongside my colleagues to speak out against the attack on a fundamental right of every American citizen: the right to vote.

I want to thank Senator Padilla for leading this important effort.

The progress, the prosperity, and success of our Nation, both as an economic power and as an inspiration for freedom-loving people everywhere, has been aided by our efforts to tear down the obstacles that prevent citizens from voting.

Today, the President and, seemingly, too many of my Republican colleagues want to throw that progress away. At the President's urgings, they appear to believe that it is OK to turn their backs on  the work, the advocacy, and the sacrifice of women like Susan B. Anthony who worked so zealously for the right of women to vote, and men

like Martin Luther King, Jr., and thousands of Americans who dedicated themselves to opening the voting booths to all Americans.

Indeed, the Trump administration and congressional Republicans are now advancing policies that could disqualify tens of millions of Americans from voting in elections. If adopted, these policies will  make it harder for low-income individuals, the elderly, women, and even

U.S. servicemembers deployed overseas to cast a ballot. Now, that is very ironic.

These men and women in uniform are in dangerous locations to protect our fundamental rights, perhaps the most fundamental right is to vote,  and yet this legislation would impair their ability to exercise that  right.

Election integrity is essential to our democracy. That is why Democrats vigorously support Federal funding and Federal anti-cyber interference in our elections.

But what isn't essential is breaking a system that successfully prevents fraud and replacing it with one that makes it less likely that American citizens can exercise their constitutional right to vote.

Yet that appears to be the Republican plan. Indeed, through a brazen, illegal, and unconstitutional Executive order, the Trump administration is attempting to mandate that every State change how it operates its  elections. Its starkest proposal is to throw out State rules about

voter identification requirements and require what is effectively a national ID--while ignoring current law that already makes it a serious crime for a noncitizen to vote.

They have introduced the so-called SAVE Act, which recently passed the House of Representatives. It attempts to codify the President's dubious Executive order.

Now, I can see people saying: Well, what is the big deal about making someone show ID? Well, like many catchy sales pitches, this policy is really a bunch of ``gotchas'' that will stand between millions of voters and the ballot box.

According to the Brennan Center, more than 9 percent of voting-age American citizens, 21 million people, don't have proof of citizenship--typically a birth certificate or a passport--readily available to show as they try to vote.

And 4 million Americans don't have these documents available at all--perhaps they were lost, destroyed, or stolen--and these Americans could be prevented from voting.

Women who change their names after getting married, and that is 69 million Americans, will not be able to use a birth certificate alone to establish their citizenship, and they might not be able to vote.

Americans could use a passport to satisfy the Trump policy, but according to the State Department, only half of Americans have a passport. And it will set you back $165 to get one just so you can exercise your constitutionally protected right to vote.

By the way, I wonder if that could be considered a poll tax, which was outlawed through our Constitution, and we have to respect our Constitution. We all take an oath to do that.

The Trump policy allows citizens to use a REAL ID ``that indicates the applicant is a citizen of the United States,'' but that is a false promise.

As 15 secretaries of state recently wrote: REAL IDs do not indicate citizenship status. Even if the Federal laws for REAL ID were amended, the nearly 140 million REAL IDs that have been issued over the last decade could not be used as proof of citizenship. And these are the experts on elections, the secretaries of state of our 50 States.

Now, some people may still think it is easy to get these documents or register to vote in person, but if you don't have the money to spare to get the proper documents, if you are elderly or disabled or can't easily get to your townhall, what are you to do? Faced with these barriers, they may just give up and not vote at all, which I believe is the ultimate objective of this legislation.

Voter suppression is the way, I believe, that President Trump and others believe they can succeed at the polls. What the Constitution and the spirit of America suggests and what countless generations of American servicemen have fought for is access to the polls for all and enthusiastic voting by American citizens.

And what about the servicemembers who are just deployed overseas and didn't have time to register? How does that young American report in person--because that is what this says, in person--to establish his or her citizenship?

According to military and veterans service organizations, registration methods used for decades by millions of American civilians and uniformed servicemembers abroad “would likely become impossible under the SAVE Act.”

We will send them to war, but we won't let them vote. Trump's policy would also impose unfunded mandates on States. According to the Rhode Island secretary of state who is one of the most, I think, effective secretaries of state in the country, the State government would need to change its voter registration systems and forms. It may need to purchase new voting machines and equipment, and it would need to pursue a significant public outreach campaign to educate voters about changes in the law.

But the SAVE Act provides zero dollars to cover these costs. States and localities will need to cover this unfunded mandate.

Well, why is the Trump administration imposing these costs and interfering with Americans' fundamental rights as citizens to vote? They claim it is to combat noncitizen voting, but this legislation isn't necessary to do that.

The United States Constitution, the Rhode Island constitution, and Rhode Island State law explicitly state that only U.S. citizens are allowed to vote. Under Federal law, it is a felony for non-U.S. citizens to vote. These laws are enforced, and they are a significant deterrent.

An exhaustive study by the Brennan Center found that at least 30 cases of noncitizen voting were referred for investigation or prosecution during the 2016 election. Trump's Department of Justice in his first term indicted 19 people. The law was enforced, but the objectives of this law are trivial compared to the millions of Americans who must have the right to vote.

Now, those 19 should not have voted, but it is 19 votes out of 129 million cast. And as my colleague from Colorado pointed out, a better mathematician than I, that is a fractional portion of the American public.

And make no mistake, they would suffer the consequences if they did vote illegally, these noncitizens. But we do not need a complete overhaul of our election systems and to strip millions of American citizens of voting rights in order to combat a problem that nonpartisan election experts tell us is already addressed by current law.

The real reasons for this policy are to support Trump's Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen, even though he lost by roughly 7 million votes, to sow mistrust in our government, to deter people from voting. This is all in service of President Trump's insatiable desire for power and his insatiable ego.

Efforts by his enablers to discourage absentee voting have already disenfranchised servicemembers. In North Carolina, Republicans have sought to cancel 65,000 votes in a judicial election--an estimated 2,000 to 8,000 of which were military and overseas voters.

We are on the brink of exporting this injustice nationwide on a much greater scale. Senator Padilla is right to sound the alarm about this, and I am proud to join him. We want to help our fellow citizens participate in our elections because only their participation will ensure that the government is truly accountable to the people it represents. And as the ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee that handles election funding, I hope my colleagues will join me in restoring funding for election security grants to the States to the total of $75 million. If you are serious about election fraud, then give the secretaries of state the resources to ensure that ineligible voters do not cast their vote.

Defunding them is an invitation for abuse. This isn't, nor should it be, a partisan endeavor. Democrats and Republicans shouldn't be afraid to face the voters, all voters, and compete on the basis of our ideas and aspirations.

Trump's Executive order and the SAVE Act show that he has a different agenda, consolidating power for himself, not the people, through dissuading and deterring American citizens from casting their vote, one of the most fundamental values that generations of American service men and women have given their lives to protect, and I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will understand that.

I yield the floor to the distinguished Senator from Washington.