House Republicans put forward a bill this week aimed at ensuring election integrity nationwide, warning that Democratic lawmakers are likely to try and misrepresent the proposed legislation.
On Monday, a group of five Republican members from the Committee on House Administration formally introduced the American Confidence in Elections Act in Atlanta, according to Fox News.
They argued it will equip states with the necessary resources to safeguard election integrity and renew trust among voters in the electoral process.
Trust in the electoral system has fallen among the American public, but particularly among Republican voters, over recent years following the controversies that continue to cloud the 2020 presidential election as well as some races in November, such as Republican Kari Lake and her high-profile court case over the election for Arizona’s governor. (The case wasn’t resolved until an Arizona court judge ruled against Lake on May 22.)
The legislation includes several provisions, including a requirement of photo ID mandate for all federal election ballots and providing federal help to states to ensure that non-citizens are prevented from voting.
According to Fox, committee chairman Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin said the ACE act will make it “easy to vote and hard to cheat.” He described it as a “commonsense legislation” and “a rational approach that Americans can get behind.”
The decision to announce the legislation in Georgia was a response to the backlash the state had previously faced following the passing of S.B. 202, which Democrats falsely claim was an effort to disenfranchise black voters and recreate the era of “Jim Crow.”
Following the bill’s passing in 2021, Major League Baseball made the decision to move its All-Star game from Atlanta to Denver, which some analysts estimate incurred a loss of $100 million to Atlanta’s economy.
The Biden administration also tried, unsuccessfully, to sue the state on the grounds it was violating civil rights.
“Rest assured, the left is going to attack this legislation,” Stiel said, according to Fox.
“It’s one of the reasons I think it’s important that we’re here in Georgia because we saw the left’s false attacks against voter integrity legislation previously.
“I have no doubt that the left is going to attempt to attack, to mislead, to disguise the work that we’re doing,” he continued.
“It’s all the more important that we’re here in the open holding hearings, not just in Washington, D.C., but here in Atlanta, Georgia, and across the country so people have the opportunity to read, to review the legislation.”
Other lawmakers present for the unveiling of legislation include Reps. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, Stephanie Bice of Oklahoma, and Laurel Lee of Florida.
Although the bill is likely to pass the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, it remains unlikely that it will pass the Democrat-controlled Senate or be signed into law by President Joe Biden.
In 2021, the Democrats attempted to pass their own voting legislation known as the For The People Act. The bill passed the then-Democratic-controlled House amid ferocious Republican opposition. but failed to advance through the Senate.
Trust in America’s electoral system has plummeted in recent years. In 2022, a poll by the news site Axios and the polling firm Momentive found that 42 percent of Americans either do not accept Biden as the legitimate winner of the 2020 race or are unsure.
A bare majority of 55 percent accept Biden as the legitimate winner, according to the poll.
In the poll, 37 percent said they had lost faith in American democracy.
via westernjournal
