Unanimous Consent Request--S. 4033

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am so honored and proud to join my colleague from Minnesota, who has been such a champion on this issue in all kinds of constitutional weather. She has been a leader for all seasons on this issue, tireless and steadfast in her advocacy. And my colleagues who are here today with us are strong allies and partners, and I am really proud and honored to join them today.

The name of this act is the Natural Disaster and Emergency Ballot Act. We are in a disaster for our democracy if we do not act, if we fail to take the initiative within days, literally, to protect the ballot.

You know, sometimes I think about voters in other countries who literally brave death to vote. In one or more countries their hands are marked so that they can be identified as having voted, but also, they could be identified by opponents of those rights and potentially punished for voting.

Here in this country, there are no such obstacles in the way of physical harm, until now. Now we face the threat of an epidemic which can deter people from coming to the polls, but it has simply added to an ongoing threat from suppression that has existed for years and years and years in some parts of the country.

We need to do everything now to protect voters. It is a shared responsibility--Federal and State. In the Federal Government, we know that this right is in peril. Look at what has happened in Wisconsin and in Georgia: the lines, the closed ballot places, the other kinds of confusion and deterrence that have been created.

In Kentucky's recent primary, fewer than 200 polling places were open instead of the 3,700 usually there in a typical election year. That is unacceptable. But that State is hardly alone, and we will see that pattern repeated unless we act soon.

In the last decade, 25 States--literally, 25 States--have enacted new voting restrictions, including strict photo ID requirements, cutting back on the availability of early voting, and registration restrictions. These constraints should be of paramount concern.

The Supreme Court has gutted the Voting Rights Act, allowing States with long histories of voting discrimination to make it harder for voters of color to cast ballots. Coronavirus has added an additional layer of voter suppression, which will further result in mass disenfranchisement.

A secure and resilient electoral process is critical to our national interest. It should be a matter of pride to all of us, and we should all be ashamed and embarrassed that a free, fair, safe, secure, and accessible process may be made impossible either by health threats or suppression threats.

States should allow no-excuse, mail-in, absentee voting, expand voting periods, and improve the safety of in-person voting. The money that is necessary to assure free, fair, accessible balloting--that $3.6 billion--ought to be a matter of bipartisan acceptance

Connecticut is known as the Constitution State, but Connecticut has work to do, and its State legislature will, in fact, do that work-- hopefully, this month, in July--by expanding mail-in balloting. Those kinds of changes in State law may be necessary across the country, but here we can make it possible, on our watch, to assure that obstacles to fair and full voting are removed.

We simply can't continue to be unprepared. The fight for voting rights remains more critical than ever before. It is a matter of integrity and credibility for our democracy. As we look around the world, we should be leading by example, not by suppression and obstacle.

We need solutions now to protect Americans' health, but the health of our democracy depends on this measure.

I am proud to join my colleagues. I urge that we have bipartisan support for it and that it be expanded.

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