Tension between the two major parties appears to heat up after the Democrat-backed election bill was blocked in the Senate. On Wednesday, Kamala Harris spoke to the press about GOP senator’s unanimous vote against the so-called Freedom to Vote Act, which aims to federalize U.S. elections. She expressed her frustrations.
On the other hand, GOP senators like Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) argued the bill would erode the integrity of U.S. elections.
“The Senate is designed to stop bad ideas and purely partisan proposals, while helping truly necessary and bipartisan bills become law,” he noted. “As we have shown in the recent past, the Senate is fully capable of making law in this area when actual issues need actual solutions and actual bipartisan works occurs. By contrast, there is nothing necessary or bipartisan about this naked power grab, so it will continue to go nowhere.”
The bill aims to require same-day registration at all polling locations by 2024 and expand early voting as well as force every state to implement drop boxes for the deposit of mail-in ballots, which is currently only authorized in 13 states.
Democrats are calling the bill a compromise after their last sweeping election bill, H.R.1, failed to gain enough support from both sides of the aisle. However, according to McConnell, the only compromise that exists in the so-called Freedom to Vote Act is how much power the left and far-left agreed to grab.
“This latest bill still subjects popular, common sense state election integrity protections like voter ID to the whims of federal bureaucrats,” he stated.
The Kentucky lawmaker went on to add, the point of implementing national election laws is to fix serious problems with voting systems like back in 2002 when senators addressed purported voting irregularities with the Help America Vote Act.
“We did that when there was an actual problem that needed solving in an actual bipartisan process,” said McConnell. “But as long as Senate Democrats remain fixated on their radical agenda, this body will continue to do the job the framers assigned it and stop terrible ideas in their tracks.”
Regarding the so-called Freedom to Vote Act, it’s not expected to advance any further. However, Harris warned this loss will not deter Democrats from their efforts to nationalize U.S. elections.
