For the People Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Mrs. BICE of Oklahoma. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the package of en bloc amendments. These amendments continue to go down a path that is partisan and unnecessary.

I also strongly oppose the underlying bill, H.R. 1, the so-called For the People Act.

Madam Speaker, H.R. 1 would retract the hard work that States such as Oklahoma have done to improve our election laws.

When I served in the Oklahoma State Legislature, we implemented requirements to ensure the security of our elections in our State. However, H.R. 1 includes a Federal mandate that would take away the ability of States to oversee and manage their own elections.

Madam Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from Paul Ziriax, the secretary of the Oklahoma State Election Board, in which he raises serious concerns that H.R. 1 would supersede most of Oklahoma's election laws. Oklahoma State Election Board, Oklahoma City, OK, February 25, 2021. Hon. Jim Inhofe, United States Senator. Hon. James Lankford, United States Senator. Hon. Kevin Hern, United States Representative, District 1. Hon. Markwayne Mullin, United States Representative, District

2. Hon. Frank Lucas, United States Representative, District 3. Hon. Tom Cole, United States Representative, District 4. Hon. Stephanie Bice, United States Representative, District

5.

To the Honorable Members of the Oklahoma Congressional Delegation: As Oklahoma's chief election official, I am writing to make you aware of my concerns regarding H.R. 1, as introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, and its U.S. Senate companion, S. 1.

H.R. 1's election administration component would result in an unnecessary federal takeover of election administration policy across the nation. One sponsor's stated goal of this legislation is to ``overcome rampant voter suppression''--yet I have seen no evidence of such rampant ``suppression'' here in our state.

H.R. 1 would supersede most of Oklahoma's election administration and election integrity laws, making our elections less secure, more complicated to administer, and much more expensive to conduct. Although H.R. 1 claims to only apply to ``federal'' elections, almost all elections here could be affected because Oklahoma's state and county elections are held on the same dates as federal elections.

Although the concerns with H.R. 1 are too numerous to provide an exhaustive list in this letter, there are some fairly amazing levels of micromanagement of elections in this legislation: from requiring ``self-sealing'' return envelopes, to setting the number of days of ``early'' voting, to mandating that new state voting systems be capable of ``ranked choice'' elections, to dictating how close voting locations must be to public transportation stops.

H.R. 1 is incompatible with many of Oklahoma's existing state laws. For example, Oklahoma law requires that federal elections must be certified one week after the date of the election. But H.R. 1 disregards such deadlines, requiring absentee ballots to be accepted and counted 10 days after Election Day--which is three days after the state must certify the election results.

This legislation takes direct aim at Oklahoma's existing election integrity laws, making it virtually impossible for election officials to verify the identity of in-person and mail absentee voters, requiring states to allow untrackable absentee ballot harvesting, mandating voter registration by telephone, and making it nearly impossible to prevent double voting by allowing voters to vote anywhere in the state whether they are registered to vote at that location or not. In an H.R. 1 world, Oklahoma election officials would have no means to reassure the electorate that an election is fraud- free.

Other provisions will add great uncertainty to elections in Oklahoma, such as the requirement that tribal leaders can determine certain voting locations on tribal land--which given the recent U.S. Supreme Court's McGirt decision, might be interpreted as most of the State of Oklahoma.

Finally, H.R. 1 does not include realistic timelines for implementing its election administration changes. By our estimation, implementing even a few of its major provisions might take years--yet H.R. 1 demands that dozens of major new election administration policies and technologies be put in place in time for the 2022 elections. This is setting up election officials for failure, and I fear that many experienced election administrators in our state may quit or retire rather than attempting the near-impossible task of implementing the provisions of H.R. 1 should it become law.

There are legitimate disagreements about election policies. In fact, most states have very different election procedures. This is by design. Under the Constitution and our federal system of government, it is the responsibility of State Legislatures to determine the time, manner and place of elections. Congress should not attempt to implement a one- size-fits-all set of election rules for the states. For this reason, it seems likely that the enactment of H.R. 1 would almost certainty lead to costly and lengthy litigation.

If you or your staff would like to discuss this issue further, please feel free to contact me. Thank you. Sincerely, Paul Ziriax, Secretary, Oklahoma State Election Board.

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Mrs. BICE of Oklahoma. Madam Speaker, the Constitution is clear that States prescribe the time, places, and manner of holding elections.

While the majority claims that this is a bill to reform our political system, the reality is that the changes in this bill would likely lead to a greater incidence of voter fraud and would deprive States of the right to oversee the administration of their own elections.

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