WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Mike Gallagher today released the following statement after voting against Congressional Democrats’ latest attempt to pass legislation that would federalize U.S. elections:
“States, not the federal government, have authority over our elections. The Democrats are attempting a radical power grab that, if successful, will destroy our election system by nationalizing elections and destroy the Senate by nuking the filibuster. The whole effort is based on a dangerous lie that state legislatures are engaged in racist voter suppression. President Biden repeated this big lie on Tuesday in a reckless speech that was beneath the office of the President. I urge the president to abandon this crazy progressive scheme and focus on the real issues affecting Wisconsinites.”
The bill includes a number of radical provisions that would create confusion and distrust in elections, by:
- Transforming the U.S. Attorney General into an unelected, unaccountable “Election Czar” with the power to change state elections law and circumvent state constitutional processes.
- Creating a national clearance process for existing voter ID laws, requiring every state with a voter ID law to submit their existing statutes to the new Elections Czar for approval.
- Imposing new restrictions on state efforts to keep their voter registration lists clean and accurate by weakening and restricting states’ ability to maintain voter roll accuracy which would allow ineligible people to cast ballots in many states.
- Requiring every state and political subdivision to submit voter integrity laws for approval by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. and imposes a new formula designed to subject every state to preclearance for all election law changes.
- Creating a 6:1 funding match small donor contributions of $200 or less—meaning for every $200, the federal government would match $1,200.
- Drastically limiting free speech and imposes vague standards that disadvantage all groups who wish to advocate on behalf of any legislative issue, specifically requiring them to disclose the names of donors who donate above a certain threshold.
- Mandating automatic voter registration by requiring DMVs and other entities to report information for automatic voter registration without necessary safeguards, allowing for ineligible voters to be registered.
- Requiring states to allow same-day registration, to allow for minimum 15 days of early voting, and to accept ballots received 7 days after election day.
- Requiring all states to operate specific early voting hours and to operate early voting polling places at mandated locations.
