When public access to voting is impaired or when public confidence in voting is diluted, democracy suffers and our freedom is less secure.

When I was growing up, we used to play basketball in a park that was never shoveled when it snowed. The basketball rims were never fixed. And we understood then that there was a relationship between public policy and our quality of life.

Democracy means that you have the right to vote without intimidation and undue burdens.

And when people in power can stay in power they do very little to tinker with the apparatus that put them in power.

I found that there is very little interest in Washington for true election reform. That neither the White House nor either house of the Congress seems to be as committed to guaranteeing democratic participation in this country as we seem to be in other countries.

It's an embarrassment that we don't have a broad enough consensus among political leaders that true reform should take place.

Voting in this country has essentially been relegated to a very fledging group of election officials, who receive no training and operate on shoestring budgets on one hand, and political consultants whose job is to get their candidates elected on the other. And when you have that kind of scenario, it's really hard to describe yourself as a vibrant democracy. It's an embarrassment.