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Floor Speech

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Mr. BANKS. Mr. President, there are some things in the world that are so obvious that there is really no use in debating them. There are things in this world that really ``go without saying,'' and voter ID laws are one of those things.

Voter ID laws are so obvious, they are so commonsense, that it is shocking that we are even having a debate on the floor of the U.S. Senate this week about it. It is hard to see that there are even two sides to this issue, unless, of course, you believe that it really is OK for illegal immigrants to vote in our elections.

But how is that even a debate? The Constitution is very clear that only citizens of the United States of America are eligible to vote in our elections. So that debate is already settled.

Indiana already has voter ID laws. Hoosiers have to show an ID when they show up to vote on election day, and they have to prove that they are who they say they are when they register to vote in the first place.

But it is not fair to Hoosiers when other States don't require voter ID. It is not fair to law-abiding Americans throughout the country because, when we allow noncitizens to vote in our Federal elections, we dilute the power of the American voter, and that should never be allowed to happen in the United States of America. American elections are for Americans, period.

Even with voter ID laws, there are still illegals who show up and try to vote. In fact, our Secretary of State in Indiana Diego Morales just audited our voter rolls in our State to find every noncitizen that voted in our elections to clean up the process and he actually found some, and the Secretary of State and our Attorney General Todd Rokita are prosecuting those voters who voted illegally.

So it is obvious that even in the State of Indiana, where we take election integrity very seriously, that we need to do more to protect our elections, and the SAVE America Act goes a long way to doing that.

It is also obvious that we need to pass the SAVE America Act for very practical reasons, to have voter ID nationwide in Federal elections.

Under Joe Biden, illegal immigrants invaded and flooded into our country, tens of millions of them. Joe Biden and the Democrats allowed this invasion to happen. Democrats defended the flood of illegal immigrants into this country on this floor, and that is why they are so bothered today by the SAVE America Act, a simple bill that is common sense to protect the integrity of our elections.

Voter ID laws are the only way that we can prevent tens of millions of illegals from voting in our elections.

America is about to turn 250 years old. There is so much that we have to celebrate in this great country, the greatest country in the history of the world. But it is crazy to think that we are gearing up for this epic birthday by debating voter ID laws.

The SAVE America Act is common sense. Voter ID is common sense. We have an opportunity this week to pass maybe the most commonsense bill ever passed by the U.S. Senate to protect our elections. I hope we do that. I hope we pass the SAVE America Act now. It is fundamental. I beg my colleagues to join me in supporting it this week.

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