The Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) launched an effort Wednesday to fuel election integrity measures in state legislatures across the country.
The RSLC, the committee arm of the GOP that oversees electing and protecting state legislature and state senate officials in statehouses coast to coast as well as electing GOP secretaries of state in all 50 states, announced Wednesday morning a commission to highlight and put forward legislative solutions to stop voter fraud and secure American elections.
The commission, co-chaired by Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill and Michigan state Sen. Ruth Johnson, will consider ideas from state lawmakers nationwide to develop best practices and recommendations for bills that legislatures coast to coast should pass into law to secure elections in the future. The RSLC said the election integrity commission has already begun sampling legislation from the hundreds of proposals in statehouses across the country, with a focus on proposals that increase voter access and participation while also making it harder for Democrats to cheat by ensuring “security, accountability, and transparency.”
The RSLC provided details on the election integrity efforts, a national coordinated campaign to secure the ballot in every state possible, to Breitbart News ahead of its public release.
“Increasing voter participation in this country will require thoughtful repairs to restore the public’s confidence in our elections, and we need to make the reforms necessary to regain trust in the process,” Merrill said in a statement forthcoming from the group. “While there is no one-size-fits-all solution to anything, every state in the nation should be working to assess and improve their respective election laws. I look forward to working with my colleagues on this commission to be a resource for the leaders across the country who are taking the necessary steps forward to improving the process.”
The party committee said it recognizes Americans’ concern with election integrity after what happened in November’s presidential election with mail and absentee voting issues, and it is a national priority for Republicans to enact laws and policies to secure elections in the future. At the same time, however, even though it is a national priority, the RSLC believes it is the party committee best suited to lead this push because it is state legislatures that will set these laws and reforms into motion and take ideas into action.
“The COVID-19 pandemic created unprecedented challenges and exposed that our election processes are far from perfect,” Johnson, the Michigan state senator and co-chair of the commission, said. “The good news is that states are truly the laboratories of democracy, and we can all learn from what others do well as we try to provide assistance to the leaders across the country that are spearheading the effort to reform our elections. I am confident that our commission will be able to provide substantive support to the lawmakers around the nation who need it, and restore our people’s trust in our elections.”
The Wall Street Journal editorial board Tuesday night previewed that this effort would be coming, writing that with hundreds of proposals in state capitols across America already in motion to secure elections, “there’s plenty that the laboratories of democracy could learn from one another.”
The WSJ piece continued by noting the RSLC effort is already in full swing. “A call went out for ideas some weeks ago, and state leaders submitted suggested best practices on everything from signature verification to audit procedures to pre-election testing of voting equipment,” the WSJ editorial board wrote.
According to the forthcoming RSLC statement provided to Breitbart News ahead of its public release, the commission will have five key principles of what it is looking to accomplish with these election integrity reform proposals. They include “empowering states,” “ensuring voter roll accuracy,” “securing absentee/mail-in voting,” “increasing transparency for in-person voting,” and “streamlining the canvassing process.”
State legislatures, especially in states like Georgia which flipped both U.S. Senate seats and the presidential election result to Democrats after significant changes to how its elections were conducted, are already considering major pieces of legislation like one that would bar private donors like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg from funding election offices.
