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Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida and Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel spoke to reporters Tuesday ahead of President Biden’s visit to Georgia, slamming the president for his remarks about Republican election reform laws and saying that Biden is attempting a federal takeover of state elections.
“The Democrat big lie is that any election reforms suggested by Republicans are intended to suppress voters from voting in a race. That’s not true at all,” Scott, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), told reporters. “Our goal is maximum participation and zero fraud. Not some fraud, we want zero fraud.”
STACEY ABRAMS WILL MISS BIDEN’S VOTING RIGHTS SPEECH IN GEORGIA
Asked whether the 2020 election spurred the GOP’s push for tighter restrictions, Scott said that the new regulations were general provision for integrity.
Ronna McDaniel, Chair of the Republican National Committee, photographed in her Michigan home on Jan. 16, 2021. (Nick Hagen for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“We just went through and said ‘How can we improve it?’ to make sure nobody is doing the wrong things, to make it easier to vote,” Scott remarked. “Every year we have these common sense reforms.”
Scott continued, “And you can see it in Georgia – they were common sense reforms.”
McDaniel reversed the same question and expressed confusion as to why Democrats would not support the proposed integrity laws, saying that initiatives such as voter ID laws were broadly popular with the American people.
McDaniel went on to claim that Biden’s home state, Delaware, has tighter restrictions on voting than Georgia.
“I think Joe Biden, instead of being in Georgia today, should be in New York. Because for years under Donald Trump we heard Democrats talk about foreign interference in our election,” McDaniel said. “I can’t think of a greater interference in our election than allowing close to 900,000 noncitizens to vote in our election.”
The New York City Council approved a measure last month to allow the nearly 800,000 legal noncitizens in the metropolis to vote in municipal elections.
The measure, which would apply to green card holders and those with work authorizations, doesn’t include state or federal elections. People in the country illegally would not be allowed to vote, according to FOX 5 in New York City.
The city would be the largest to allow noncitizens to vote.
Republicans were quick to point out that Stacey Abrams, the influential Georgia Democrat and gubernatorial candidate, would be missing President Biden’s important voting rights speech Tuesday due to a scheduling conflict.
“There’s bad, and then there’s ‘Gubernatorial candidate in a state you carried cancels on you’ bad,'” Ben Williamson, an adviser for former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows tweeted.
He quote-tweeted a post from New York Times reporter Nick Coransanti, who cited an Abrams aide. The reason for the scheduling conflict was not clear. An Abrams aide confirmed reports and told Fox News she has a conflict but expressed the candidate’s support of the president.
Fox News’s Brie Stimson contributed to this report.
