[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 120 (Tuesday, July 17, 2018)]
[House]
[Page H6266]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              DUTY TO VOTE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Cohen) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, the most fundamental right in our country is 
voting.
  The Pew Charitable Trust recently did a study on registration and 
voting in each State. I am sad to say that my State of Tennessee came 
out pretty bad.
  We were 40th in the number of people registered in our State. About 
78 percent of the people were registered to vote.
  In turnout, we were last. Only 28.5 percent of the people in 
Tennessee voted. This was based on the 2014 elections.
  The 2018 elections will determine a lot about who sits in this House, 
who sits in the Senate, and, eventually, who sits on the Supreme Court. 
It is imperative that everybody register to vote so that they can vote 
in the November elections, not just in Tennessee, but everywhere in the 
country, and that everyone turn out to vote so the voting totals are a 
fair representation of the people, all the people, if we are going to 
have a House and a Senate that is representative of America.
  What occurred in Helsinki and what was brought out with the 
indictments by Special Counsel Mueller show how much the Russians think 
of our election system, that they got involved in a cyber attack on our 
country to defeat a candidate.
  We should care as much about our electoral system as the Russians. We 
should care more about it. The fact that more than 20 percent of the 
citizens in my State do not register and do not vote is appalling.
  With the continued threat to the electoral system in 2018, it is so 
important that we at least make it difficult for the Russians to have 
an impact. That means that each and every citizen needs to register, 
register others as their civic duty, vote as their civic duty, and make 
their voices heard. Otherwise, this room will not represent ``America 
the Beautiful.''

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