Reaffirming the House of Representatives' Commitment to the Orderly and Peaceful Transfer of Power Called for in the Constitution of the United States
Floor Speech
Mr. Speaker, today, we are here to waste time on an unnecessary resolution to commit to a peaceful transfer of power.
To be clear, President Trump and House Republicans are committed to ensuring Americans receive a free and fair election. Republicans are also committed to peaceful transitions of power.
Democrats have been the ones to contest Presidential elections. They contested the 2000 election, they contested the 2004 election, and Democrats still refuse to believe that President Trump won the 2016 election fair and square. So ahead of November 3, 2020, the Democrats are using floor time for partisan smear tactics to undermine the President.
The administration has been clear. On September 24, 2020, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany stated: ``The President will accept the results of a free and fair election. He will accept the will of the American people.''
The real question today is: Will the Democrats accept the results of the election?
They are already questioning the legitimacy of this election. Hillary Clinton, the Democrats' nominee in 2016, has advised: ``Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances.''
A senior House Democrat stated that President Trump is not going to win fairly.
Democrat Presidential nominee Joe Biden has said that his ``single greatest concern'' is that the President is ``going to try and steal this election.''
This resolution is just another attempt by the Democrats to instill fear within the American people, just one more hoax for them to perpetrate upon the American people.
Not only have Democrats prematurely questioned the results of the election; they have proactively sought to erode basic election security safeguards as States move toward all mail-in voting, universal mail-in ballots. This is the concern that President Trump has been warning about.
In several States, Democrats are trying to eliminate absentee ballot witness and notary requirements, expanding ballot harvesting, and extending deadlines for States to receive mail-in ballots for up to a week after the election. If successful, Democrats will inevitably open the door to election crimes and administration errors.
So while making baseless accusations about President Trump stealing the election, Democrats are also undermining the integrity of the electoral process by pushing for less accountability. On top of that, we are here today to consider a resolution to chastise the President for raising policy concerns about the process. This is ridiculous, and it needs to stop.
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Mr. STEUBE. Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close.
Mr Speaker, let's be clear: The real threat to our democracy are the attempts to undermine the election process.
Universal mail-in voting is not the same as absentee ballots like we do in Florida. When a voter requests an absentee ballot, she knows to expect it. Universal mail-in voting is when States mass mail ballots to voters, whether or not a voter has moved, has died, or is otherwise no longer eligible to vote or is even a citizen of our country. Universal mail-in voting increases the risk of election crime or administrative error because States are providing prepaid return envelopes for election ballots.
The U.S. Postal Service does not typically postmark premarked mail, and although it has a policy to postmark election-related mail, its policy is not foolproof, as we have seen in some primary elections over the summer.
All of these last-minute changes will harm the integrity of the election process and risk chaos in the general election. We are already seeing the disastrous results of the Democrats' last-minute process changes.
Last week, the Justice Department found that several military ballots were discarded in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Seven of the nine ballots were cast for President Trump--not surprising.
This month, the Georgia Secretary of State revealed that at least 1,000 Georgians voted twice in the June 2020 primary, once via mail-in balloting and once in person.
In New York, Governor Cuomo's last-minute shift to all-mail voting cost thousands of ballots in Chairwoman Maloney's primary to be discarded for lacking postmarks. Election officials took 6 weeks to certify the results of the primary.
In a New Jersey municipal election, a last-minute shift to all-mail voting resulted in the Postal Service still delivering ballots to election officials weeks after the election.
If these problems occurred in local primary elections, the risk to a national general election is even greater. The President is right to highlight these problems, and I fail to understand why Democrats won't.
The best and surest guarantee of electoral integrity is for Americans to vote in person where safe and possible, with absentee ballots available for those who legitimately cannot make it to the polls or have voter ID safeguards in places like we have in Florida.
This resolution is nothing but political messaging and creating a narrative without any facts to base it, just like the Russia collusion hoax.
There is no question that every single American, including President Trump, wants a peaceful transfer of power after a free and fair election, but this rhetoric and fear-mongering by our friends across the aisle must end. The liberal mainstream media and Democrats should stop this nonsense and let the American people speak.
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