After the hotly contested election in 2000, Republicans and Democrats came together to pass the bipartisan Help America Vote Act ("HAVA").  HAVA was a response to the chaos of the 2000 Florida recount.  HAVA was not perfect but it represented a good faith effort on all sides to come together and passed 357-48 in the House and 92-2 in the Senate.  This should be the way all election reform is done.  Unfortunately, it is not true anymore. 

On Friday, the House Administration Committee held a markup hearing to consider H.R. 2722, also known as the SAFE Act, “a bill to protect elections for public office by providing financial support and enhanced security for the infrastructure used to carry out such elections, and for other purposes, or a related measure, and for other purposes.”

Recently, Congress has been focusing on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and election cybersecurity by holding hearings.  Lawyers Democracy Fund (LDF) has been covering these hearings on its blog and Twitter feed.

In today's markup of House Resolution 1, the House Committee on Administration defeated on party-line votes all amendments offered by the three Republican members to attempt to fix problems with the bill. The RNLA live-tweeted the markup, and here are some highlights (or, lowlights):