HR 1 would cement all of the worst changes in election law made in blue states in 2020 and nationalize them. Federal control of elections would be the norm. States would be relegated to colonial outposts that carry out Washington DC’s mandates. ‘Democracies die when one party seizes control of the elections process, eliminates the safeguards that have protected the integrity of the ballot, places restrictions on free speech, and seizes the earnings of individual citizens to promote candidates they may abhor,’ says Rep. Tom McClintock, a California Republican. ‘Democracies die by suicide, and we are now face to face with such an instrument.’
Does HR 1 justify such apocalyptic rhetoric? Sadly, yes. Hans von Spakovsky, a former member of the Federal Election Commission, says that while the Constitution does allow Congress to override the power of states to decide ‘the time, manner and place’ of federal elections nothing on the massive scale of HR 1 has ever been attempted.