WASHINGTON - Yesterday, the Committee on House Administration held a field hearing in Atlanta, Georgia on the introduction of the American Confidence in Elections (ACE) Act. The ACE Act is the most conservative election integrity bill to be seriously considered in the House in over 20 years.

In case you missed it, here are some of the top takeaways:

1. The ACE Act is House Republicans' federalist approach to boost voter confidence.

Chairman Bryan Steil (WI-01): "I know the left is going to be attacking the bill, just like they did in Georgia, but here’s the truth about the ACE Act: 

  • The ACE Act will uphold the Constitution and ensure states maintain primary control over elections.
  • The ACE Act will support our overseas military voters.
  • The ACE Act will give states access to federal databases like the Social Security death list so they can remove dead people from their active voter lists.
  • The ACE Act will prevent federal funds from flowing to places that allow non-citizens to vote.
  • The ACE Act will stop foreign adversaries from voting in D.C. elections.
  • The ACE Act will permanently prohibit bureaucrats at the IRS from targeting conservative non-profit groups.
  • The ACE Act will fight against cancel culture and protect every Americans’ First Amendment rights.
  • The ACE Act will stop the Biden Administration from weaponizing federal agencies. 
  • It’ll prevent federal dollars from being used for partisan election activities.
  • Most importantly, the ACE Act will restore voter confidence in our elections.
When voters are more confident their vote will count, they are more likely to participate." 
Click the image or here to view Chairman Steil's Opening Remarks.  
2) The ACE Act equips states with tools to implement common-sense election integrity measures like requiring photo voter ID.
  

Representative Barry Loudermilk (GA-11): “Before we started here earlier, I had a member of the media come to me and say 'I've been looking over the bill, this seems like something that should be bipartisan. Why is there an argument against Senate Bill 202? What is the argument on the other side?' They were honestly asking this question. So what, in your opinion, is so controversial about any of the reforms that are in this bill?"

Spakovsky: “I don’t think there should be any controversy. The biggest complaint or criticism you always hear is: 'If you require an ID, you’re going to suppress votes.' We know that’s not true, and the reason we know it’s not true is we now have turnout data for almost 15 years and the turnout data overwhelmingly shows it does not suppress turnout.” 
Click the image or here to view Representative Loudermilk's full Q&A. 
3) The ACE Act provides states access to federal databases so they can maintain clean, accurate voter rolls.

Representative Stephanie Bice (OK-05): “It's an important point to know one of the tenets of the ACE Act is cleaning up the voter rolls. Who do you think in the U.S. is doing voter maintenance well?" 


Spakovsky: “The easiest way to find out who's doing it well and who's not is to check the Election Integrity Scorecard that the Heritage Foundation premiered in December of 2021 in which we rate every single state's best practices. We scored states based on a perfect score of a hundred. The highest state was in the low 80's, the worst state would have flunked out of college, their scores were so low."

Rep. Bice: "That's why this particular piece of legislation is so important. We want to improve the process. We want to make sure that we have accurate, reliable, trustworthy elections at the end of the day. This legislation aims to do that very thing."
Click the image or here to view Representative Bice's full Q&A. 

Watch the full hearing here.