Congressional Record/Volume 167/Issue 4/House/Counting Electoral Votes/Arizona Objection Debate/Zeldin Speech
Mr. Zeldin. Madam Speaker, my constitutional oath is sacred, and I have a duty to speak out about confirmed evidence-filled issues with the administration of the 2020 Presidential election in certain battleground States.
Signature verification, ballot observation, voter roll integrity, voter ID requirements, and ballot collection protections were weakened on top of the millions of mailboxes that were flooded with unrequested mail-in ballots.
Many of my constituents have been outraged and demanding that I voice their objections here today.
This debate is necessary because rogue election officials, secretaries of state, and courts circumvented State election laws. They made massive changes to how their State’s election would be run. These acts, among other issues, were unlawful and unconstitutional.
Congress has the duty to defend the Constitution and any powers of State legislatures that were usurped.
Some claim today’s objections set new precedent by challenging State electors. That claim, of course, ignores that Democrats have objected every time a Republican Presidential candidate has won an election over the past generation. If you don’t have any observations today, that is your call, but don’t lecture about precedent.
Over the past 4 years, Democrats boycotted President Trump’s inauguration and State of the Union Addresses, pushed the Trump–Russia collusion conspiracies and investigations and knowingly lied about it, voted to impeach the President before even knowing what to impeach him for, and then actually passed Articles of Impeachment before Senate Democrats voted to remove him from office.
Today’s debate is necessary, especially because of the insistence that everything President Trump and his supporters say about the 2020 election is evidence-free. That is simply not true.
No one can honestly claim it is evidence-free. When I say that, in Arizona, courts unilaterally extended the legislatively set deadline to register to vote.
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The Arizona State Senate issued subpoenas post-election to get information from the Maricopa County board on various election matters, but the board and the courts refused to help at all to let the State senate complete its constitutional duties.
In Pennsylvania, where State legislators wrote us about their powers being usurped, the Democrat majority on the State supreme court changed signature, signature matching and postal marking requirements. The date to submit mail-in ballots was extended contradictory to the date set by State law.
The State legislature expanded no-excuse mail-in balloting without a constitutional amendment. Constitutions apply to the acts of all branches of government.
The issue was magnified by the voter rolls being so inaccurate that more voters submitted ballots than there were registered voters. Signature authentication rules for absentee and mail-in ballots were weakened by the Democrat secretary of the Commonwealth without authorization. Ballot defects were allowed to be cured in some counties but not others. There were poll watchers denied the ability to closely observe ballot counting operations.
In Georgia, the secretary of state unilaterally entered into a settlement agreement with the Democratic Party, changing statutory requirements for confirming voter identity. Challenging defective signatures was made far more difficult, and the settlement even required election officials to consider issuing training materials drafted by an expert retained by the Democratic Party.
In Wisconsin, election officials assisted voters on how to circumvent the State’s voter ID laws and signature verification laws, while also placing unmanned drop boxes in locations picked to boost Democrat turnout. The Democracy in the Park event in Wisconsin had over 17,000 ballots transferred that shouldn’t have been.
These are all facts and certainly not “evidence free”.
Americans deserve nothing less than full faith and confidence in their elections and a guarantee that their vote—their voice—counts and that their concerns are being heard. That is why we need to have this debate today, whether you like it or not.
This isn’t about us. This is about our Constitution, our elections. This is about our people and our Republic.