House EASE Act pushes protections for both in-person, mail-in voters

As the White House and states tussle over mail-in voting, U.S. Rep. Don Young (R-AK) introduced a bill this week known as the Emergency Assistance for Safe Elections (EASE) Act, which proposes to ensure safety at the polls and accuracy in mail-in counts.

“The November election is fast approaching, and we must ensure that citizens can safely cast their ballots and have their voices heard,” Young said. “The COVID-19 pandemic has altered our daily life, and special care will be needed on election day to combat the transmission of the virus.”

The bill would compel states to clean their voter rolls and guarantee their accuracy. It pushes hiring of new, younger poll workers, cleaning initiatives for personal protective equipment and disinfecting of equipment at polling places, bans a practice by which political operatives collect ballots door-to-door — ballot harvesting — and updates guidelines for e-voting technology. Importantly, it would also authorize $400 million for states to achieve all of this.

“The EASE Act is a critical piece of legislation that will help make the November election safer by keeping polling places clean, providing needed PPE to election volunteers, and recruiting a younger, lower-risk generation of poll workers to assist any voter who may run into problems casting their ballot,” Young said. “Many voters will be casting absentee ballots this year, and our bill also helps streamline the process of issuing ballots by ensuring accurate voter rolls.”

Joining Young in his support of the legislation were nine of his Republican colleagues, U.S. Reps. Brett Guthrie (KY), Dan Meuser (PA), Devin Nunes (CA), Elise Stefanik (NY), Ken Calvert (CA), Mario Dias-Balart (FL), Michael McCaul (TX), Mike Garcia (CA) and Steve Chabot (OH).