Joe Morelle

The amendment that I am offering makes clear the very real potential for post-election audits to be abused by those willing to deny the outcome of an election, spread false information about our electoral process, and profit from the…

I think we all agree that post-election audits are an important tool to help ensure the accuracy of our elections.

Rather than preventing fraud, this bill is truly an attack on the rights of voters.

Voter fraud is virtually nonexistent in American elections. No evidence has been presented through these series of hearings.

This bill is another attack on eligible voters of color disguised as fraud prevention, which this Committee has shown no evidence exists.

We should be doing everything we can to expand access to the voting booths and to the ballot.

Adding a proof of citizenship requirement disproportionately prevents otherwise eligible voters of color, young voters, low-income voters, elderly voters, and voters without stable housing from registering to vote.

The claims upon which this bill is based are baseless.

This is one of the provisions from the ACE Act which we consider extremely partisan and we also believe is a blatant attempt to disenfranchise voters.

The residents that live in our Nation's capital should be able to fully participate in our democracy.

I urge my colleagues to heed Mr. Buck's call to restore their party's credibility with the American public by ceasing the baseless insinuations and the constant undermining of the results of the 2020 election, knowing full well they lack…

The system is notoriously unreliable.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for gathering us together for this markup, which consists of a series of eight separate measures dealing with election law.

Voting should be free. Voting should be fair. Voting should be accessible for all Americans.

If anything shakes the American people's confidence in our Government, it is watching the slow motion Hindenburg disaster that has been this majority's efforts over the last 9 months.

One of our Republican colleagues from Texas, Congressman Roy, recently noted he knows of not one, quote, 'material, meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done,' end quote.

I will be offering an amendment, Mr. Chair, shortly, that would do all of that. Failure to adopt that amendment would, in my view, lead us to vote no, and I would urge my colleagues to vote no on H.R. 4555.

If my colleagues are going to allow Federal dollars to be used to conduct the audits described in the bill, they should allow State and local election officials to participate in conducting them and should ensure that proper guardrails are…

Indeed, the record of this Committee, as I indicated, and the hours and hours that we spent, there is no evidence of significant voter fraud in 2020.

It is our duty to ensure that registering to vote, and the act of voting be made simple and easy for all those eligible to do so.

Slashing these funds would be a grave mistake.

I do warn my colleagues this bill would not just punish Democrats, HAVA funds benefit everyone.

This bill is an attempt to restrict freedom rather than to expand it.

Let us be clear also, Democrats ardently believe that Government can, indeed should, be used to expand prosperity and opportunity, ensure safety and health, and most importantly safeguard rights and freedoms.

I want to be very clear about this bill up front. Everybody in the room knows it is a messaging bill, has no chance of passage.