a twist. and trump was fixated on this twist pence said. it was the provision that could theoretically at least keep trump in power. while the democrats held the current house majority the 12th amendment of the constitution stated voting on a contested election wouldn t be done by a simple majority vote in the house. instead the amendment said the election vote would be counted in blocks with one vote per state. republicans controlled more delegations in the house of representatives meaning trump would likely win if the house chamber ended up deciding the victor based on the prescripts of that amendment. former vice president quail said thought that was preposterous and dangerous. quail told mike pence, quote, mike you have no flexibility on this, none, zero, forget it, put it away. pence said in reply, i know.
there was a time it was passed on a bipartisan basis. so we got together over the summer. we put together a bill that is intended to get broad support. it does things like ensures that there is access to the ballot. who could be against that? to make sure that eligible americans can vote whether it s through early voting, vote by mail, weekend voting. it ensures that states will have same day registration. the kinds of things that just make it makes voting accessible to the average person. in addition to that we re addressing these voter suppression laws that we re seeing all across our country that are intended to turn democracy on its head so rather than voters picking their politicians, the politicians select their own voters. it addresses the issue of partisan and racial gerrymandering. yet another way of squeezing the voices of ordinary people out of their democracy and it protects the integrity of our democracy
around the country. well, the freedom to vote act released today for the first time is 592 pages of compromised legislation that would establish national minimum standards for early voting and vote by mail and national minimum standards for nonpartisan map making for drawing congressional districts and federal standards for handling elections equipment and records including cyber security around those things. it s a lot. it s 600 pages of a lot. the democrats say every single democratic senator will support it. crucially they have put democratic senator joe manchin of west virginia in charge of scaring up ten republican senators to vote for this major so it can survive another inevitable republican filibuster. that said the lead republican of the senate, mitch mcconnell, already promised today within hours of the bill being announced that won t happen,
by dealing with issues around cyber security and ensures states like georgia that have voter i.d. laws, that those laws are intended to make sure eligible people can vote. but they re not used to cherry pick certain voters. and so the bill provides a baseline for voting so that you have access to that basic american right no matter where you live. it s the most american thing we can do. it s the most important thing we can do this congress. and i think that as important as other issues are if we fail to do it we will have failed the people who sent us here in the first place to debate about all these issues. and i think that history will rightly judge us harshly if we fail to address voting rights in this defining moment. among the nine of you who worked on this, did you talk about procedural matters? if senate republicans don t come along, you make a great case on the merits, you make a great case in terms of the nonpartisan appeal of this, the all-american
news contributor from austin, texas. congratulations to your home state with the lift-off with bezos and his team west of you. so how is this working out? they went from a paid charter to a zoom chat in washington, d.c. this isn t working out very well because they are telling a falsehood. chris turner, the state representative said it makes it harder to vote. that s a lie. it expands the number of hours for early voting in texas both on we can days and weekends. it lowers the threshold that you are required to have early voting on weekends. right now we have 254 counties. those with a population of 100,000 or more are required to have weekend voting. this lowers it to those counties with 55,000 or more. expands more counties requiring early voting on weekends. mail-in verification. your mail-in ballot used to be signature verification. now just put your driver s