Democrat-backed For the People Act draws campus voter fraud concerns

A new bill to overhaul the way many Americans vote could have major consequences for election integrity on campus.  

H.R. 1, known as the “For the People Act,”  would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to require every college and university to name a staff member as a “Campus Vote Coordinator” and to list that person’s contact information online. 

Every Campus Vote Coordinator would be required to communicate to all students twice a year regarding where to vote and how to register. 

Further, the bill allows the Secretary of Education to send federal grant funding to schools that “demonstrate excellence” in driving voter participation.

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The Secretary of Education would dictate how and when schools must make their reports, including “information and assurances that the institution carried out activities to promote voter registration by students.” 

According to the bill, such “information and assurances” would include “sponsoring large on-campus voter mobilization efforts, engaging the surrounding community in nonpartisan voter registration and get out the vote efforts, creating a website for students with centralized information about voter registration and election dates, inviting candidates to speak on campus, offering rides to students to the polls to increase voter education, registration, and mobilization.” 

Multiple Republican lawmakers have since weighed in about the legislation. 

”I think H.R. 1 is a terrible policy, I would call it the universal fraud law,” Sen. Ted Cruz said during an interview with Sean Hannity.  ”We came out of this last election where we saw multiple allegations of serious voter fraud and the Democrats and the media took on the talking points that voter fraud doesn’t exist. That anyone who says it exists is somehow engaged in a conspiracy theory. Now with H.R. 1, the Democrats are seeking to lock in their advantage. They want mail-in ballots everywhere, they want no photo ID.”

”The Democrats have made an incredibly cynical decision, which is that they believe that they benefit from voter fraud,” Cruz continued. “They have the White House and both houses of Congress and they’re trying to take this moment of time to lock in permanently by changing the rules so that they can manipulate and steal election results.”

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”H.R. 1 doesn’t protect election integrity, it undermines it. The number one priority of Democrats is holding onto power,” he added. 

Republican House Minority Whip Steve Scalise also weighed in, saying, “Every single American should be OUTRAGED by this: Democrats just voted to ban voter ID nationwide and force every state to permanently expand mail-in voting.” 

National Review editor Deroy Murdock also criticized the For the People Act, writing in a FoxNews.com opinion editorial that “H.R. 1 would shift control of elections from cities, counties and states to Washington, D.C. It would make mass mail-in ballots permanent, prohibit voter ID, launch automatic voter registration (whether people want to vote or not), allow same-day registration and voting (allowing zero time to vet potential voters for eligibility), enshrine ballot harvesting, and funnel all appeals into one court — the traditionally Democrat-controlled D.C. Circuit Court.” 

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @AngelaLMorabito