Protection and Advocacy for Voting Access Program Inclusion Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. STEIL. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from the great State of Illinois for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, I support the Protection and Advocacy for Voting Access Program Inclusion Act, which makes a simple technical fix. It would now include, as noted, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and the American Indian consortium as eligible recipients of funding that would help improve voting access for people with disabilities.

Originally, this bill was to be paired with the Confirmation of Congressional Observer Access Act on the suspension calendar, and I must note that I am pretty disappointed we are not also moving forward with the Congressional Observer Access Act.

I introduced this bill with the support of Ranking Member Davis in July, and I believe that it is a missed opportunity to increase Americans' public trust in our elections.

The Congressional Observer Access Act would simply have clarified that designated congressional election observers--that is, individuals who have been designated in writing by Congress--would have the access they need to observe the administration of Federal elections.

This is not a partisan bill. In fact, Congress already has this authorization under the Constitution. This straightforward bill would have provided clarity, which our State and local election officials requested in order to provide observer access more readily.

I am disappointed that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle walked away from doing these bills on suspension, and I encourage them to work with Ranking Member Davis and myself to get this passed as soon as possible. We must work together to take commonsense steps that promote election integrity.

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