House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil (R-Wisc.) is seeking to reform Washington, D.C.’s elections to make them the “gold standard” for election integrity in the U.S. Steil’s American Confidence in Elections (ACE) Act proposes giving states access to Social Security death databases to clean voter rolls and introducing photo ID requirements to enhance voter integrity. The bill also requires annual list maintenance, prohibits same-day registration and ballot harvesting, prohibits automatically mailed ballots, and requires post-election audits. Steil hopes that restoring faith in American elections through these reforms will encourage more people to participate in elections. The ACE Act has three main pillars: providing states with voluntary tools and resources for running elections with the highest integrity, implementing much-needed reforms in D.C. to clean up years of election difficulties, and protecting free speech. Steil’s Administration Committee recently held a hearing to discuss the ACE Act, which was written with the help of state and local election administrators and stakeholders across the country. The hearing featured former Clark County Registrar of Voters Joseph Gloria, who spoke about the primary mode of identification of voters in the county, which is signature verification, as they don’t require photo ID. Steil believes that sharing best practices across the country and utilizing states that put forward good voter integrity provisions is essential to achieving election integrity. Steil also points to Georgia’s election reforms in 2021, which included popular election integrity safeguards such as signature matching, voter ID, restrictions on drop boxes, a ban on the mass mailing of absentee ballot request forms, and mandatory citizenship checks. The reforms ultimately inspired more people to vote and were successful in enhancing voter confidence in the election process. Despite Democrats’ criticisms of the reforms as a tool of voter suppression, a record number of midterm ballots were cast in the 2022 general election in Georgia.
Source link
It is important that carbon credit schemes also benefit local communities.
The World Meteorological Organisation has stated that 193 countries have given unanimous backing to a scheme to monitor global greenhouse...