Georgia’s Elections Chief is demanding McCarthy take action against federal oversight.
Brad Raffensperger, Secretary of State of Georgia, has urged Kevin McCarthy, Speaker of the House of Representatives, to stand against a federal takeover of elections and endorse improvements to current election law.
On Monday, Raffensperger wrote to Republican leaders in Congress, urging them to “stay consistent” in their opposition to the Democrats’ 700-page “For the People Act,” also known as H.R.1.
Both proponents and opponents of the measure have strong opinions about its intentions and consequences. Opponents say the bill is a blatant attempt to permanently tilt elections in favor of Democrats, while proponents say it would make voting more accessible and safer.
Raffensperger, an opponent of H.R.1, presented five measures that, he claimed, would ensure the fairness of every election in America and show the people that Congress values the principles on which our wonderful nation was established.
Specifically, Raffensperger advocated revising the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), sometimes called “Motor Voter,” and backed efforts to manage voter rolls better.
According to Raffensperger, if we can do better at maintaining our voter lists, we can streamline election processes, cut expenses, and boost faith in the results.
The Georgia secretary of state also called for risk-limiting audits to be conducted in each state after a federal election, a ban on “ballot harvesting” in national polls, and picture ID requirements in all modes of voting.
He maintained that picture identification was the most objective method of verifying voters’ identities and that signature matching was too subjective.
In particular, the Democratic-aligned legal organization Democracy Docket has argued that picture ID laws are the most restrictive kind of voter identification restrictions since they require more evidence than is necessary to confirm one’s identity at the polls.
H.R.1 was first presented in 2019, and the House of Representatives passed it in 2021. Nevertheless, it has yet to be enacted by the U.S. Senate.
The bill includes steps to increase election security, disclose political funding, expand early voting and voting by mail, and make provisions for automatic and same-day voter registration.
Those in charge of ensuring the fairness of elections are concerned that errors and fraud could be introduced into the voting system through same-day voting and automatic voter registration. There must be more time for election officials to verify voter information on the same day as voting. Automated voter registration may increase the likelihood of voting by those who are not eligible.
According to a September 2018 report, the California Department of Motor Vehicles has forwarded over 23,000 fake voter registrations to the state secretary of state’s office thanks to the state’s automatic voter registration law.
In addition to making Election Day a nationwide holiday and creating independent commissions to handle redistricting, H.R.1 would also ban members of Congress from serving on corporate boards.
States would also be required to provide early voting, online voter registration, and absentee ballots without requiring a cause for the request to enhance voting access.
In addition, a change was proposed to decrease the age of voting to 16, but it was ultimately shot down.
McCarthy, then the House minority leader, declared that H.R.1 was intended to place pressure on every election in America and keep its proceedings vague and cryptic.
The law was praised by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who called it a historic reform package to restore the promise of America’s democracy. This, she argued, would restore “the people’s faith that government works for the public interest, the people’s interest, not the special interest.”
Hans von Spakovsky, the senior fellow and manager of the Heritage Foundation’s election law reform initiative, warned The Epoch Times that the bill’s passage in the House in 2021 would effectively nullify “all of the safety protocols and security measures and states have put in place to protect the integrity of the election process.”