Norton Statement on Markup of the ACE Act, Which Contains Provisions to Interfere in Local D.C. Elections

WASHINGTON, D.C. – After the Committee on House Administration reported out the American Confidence in Elections (ACE) Act, which contains several provisions to interfere in local D.C. elections, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said the markup demonstrated Republican’s commitment to reducing access to voting in D.C. and the country and interfering with D.C. home rule. The ACE Act would make it more difficult to vote and administer elections in the District of Columbia.

“Yesterday’s markup demonstrated the Republican commitment to meddling in local D.C. affairs and making voting as difficult as possible for D.C. residents,” Norton said. “It is ironic that Republicans in Congress, who do not represent D.C., are abusing their undemocratic power over D.C. in an attempt to make voting more difficult in a jurisdiction that is already denied voting representation in Congress. While I will work to defeat their bill, the markup was the latest form of the wide-ranging anti-home rule attacks D.C. continues to suffer at the hands of Republicans in Congress.”

The ACE Act would require photo identification or Social Security number to vote, require photos in poll books, prohibit same-day registration, prohibit automatically mailing ballots to voters, require ballot drop boxes to be located within a D.C. government building and monitored through 24-hour remote or electronic surveillance, require the removal of names from voting rolls, prohibit, with limited exceptions, a person from collecting a mail ballot completed by another person, require mail ballots to be received by the close of the polls, require election results to be announced no later than 12 hours after the closing of polls, prohibit non-citizens from voting, give partisan poll watchers virtually unfettered access to polling sites and permit them to challenge ballots and tabulations, allow the public to observe the testing of election equipment and prohibit the use of ranked choice voting.

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