Rep. Claudia Tenney, who along with several other members of Congress sent House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a letter outlining the issues with HR-4, said Saturday the voting bill is dangerous because it federalizes elections rather than following constitutional provisions.
"Elections (are) specifically set forth in the Constitution to be handled and administered by states through their local counties," the New York Republican said on Newsmax TV's "The Count."
"It also weaponizes the Department of Justice and gives them the opportunity and the power to move into election districts as well as smaller issues as telling an election district in a city or a town where they can actually place a voting booth."
Tenney noted that in her own county, the Department of Justice has gone in and claimed there were "constitutional problems and that civil rights were violated, but that's absolutely false."
'The DOJ, with very partisan bureaucrats, with a lot of power, have gone in and now intimidated the local counties," said Tenney, adding that with HR-4, "you could see this on a grand scale in every state in every county" and that could create "complete chaos. This is a disaster on a major scale."
Tenney said she's concerned that centrist Democrat senators like Sen. Joe Manchin and others will vote for the bill, which passed in the House by a party-line vote.
She also rejected the Democrats' argument that Republicans want to prohibit voting access.
"This is demagoguery at its worst level," said Tenney. "As Republicans, we want every legal vote to count and we would like to see every legal citizen cast a vote in our elections. By the way, we've been voting in larger numbers and minorities have been voting in larger numbers throughout the nation and it's just a complete lie and it is complete demagoguery."
House Republicans now have an election integrity caucus, which, and they are encouraging party members on the federal, state, and local levels to remind everyone that their votes should count.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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