Republican Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey criticized Democrats for driving a “false narrative” on voting rights during a Sunday morning appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
H.R. 1, also called the “For The People Act,” was passed by the House on March 3 and is currently being considered by the Senate. It would make sweeping changes to U.S. election laws like banning state voter identification requirements, legalizing ballot harvesting, and automatically registering 16-year-olds to vote.
NBC anchor Chuck Todd played a clip of Democratic Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock accusing Republicans of failing to stand for “voting rights” before asking Toomey for his thoughts.
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“We ought to be asking our Democratic colleagues why are they so insistent that we not have any mechanism to verify that a person seeking to vote is in fact the person that they say they are,” Toomey said. “Why are they so insistent that people ought to be able to go ballot harvesting, maybe go through a nursing home and get a couple hundred ballots that just happen to be whatever they are.”
“There is a completely false narrative about so-called voter suppression,” he continued before moving to the recently-passed Georgia law. “There’s no voter suppression. Sunday voting is still allowed. There’s an expansion of in-person voting. There’s no requirement that you have a reason for a mail-in ballot. All you need is some verification of ID and so does every department of transportation in America in order to drive. So does every airline if you’re going to get on a plane. So this has been a false narrative entirely, Chuck.”
The Pennsylvania senator suggested that the narrative exists as part of Democrats’ attempt to “get rid of the filibuster.”
“We’re not going to be cowed by being called racist over policy that has nothing to do with race,” he said. (RELATED: Al Sharpton Plans To Campaign Against Democrats Supporting Filibuster By Accusing Them Of Supporting Racism)
After reminding Todd about his criticism of former President Donald Trump for his election-related claims, Toomey argued that some of the pandemic-related state-level election law changes make it “tough to verify the accuracy of the vote.”