Global Electoral Exchange Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5274) to promote international exchanges on best election practices, cultivate more secure democratic institutions around the world, and for other purposes, as amended.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

The text of the bill is as follows:

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Mr. ROYCE of California. Mr. Speaker, I ask that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include any extraneous material in the Record.

Mr. Speaker, America is more secure when fewer nations are authoritarian, and that is the unfortunate alternative to democracy, are authoritarian strongmen. These strongmen regimes justify their repression at home by creating enemies abroad.

Since the freedom we enjoy is a threat to authoritarian regimes, the U.S. and our allies are natural targets for their aggression. We have seen this, unfortunately, with Moscow, with Beijing, and with the regime in North Korea. This is why there is longstanding, bipartisan support in this Congress for our democracy promotion programs overseas.

In recent years, however, we have seen democracy decline worldwide. This is fueled, in many cases, by a decreasing level of public confidence in democracy and in elections. Unfortunately, many people around the world just cannot trust that their elections are free and fair, and we have seen this happen in Honduras, in Cambodia, and in the DRC.

The bill before us addresses these issues by crafting an international exchange program with an objective, and that is, of promoting capabilities and instilling best election practices around this planet. This two-way exchange program will support countries in between their election cycles when they have the time to assess shortcomings. And then it will help them during elections to integrate lessons learned, to build coalitions, and to implement reforms.

Healthy societies depend on elections that accurately reflect the decision of voters. The world has a shared stake in the integrity of the election mechanisms--these are the nuts and bolts of how people cast their votes and how these votes are counted, and how they have done this free from manipulation.

I want to close by noting that this is a very real-time concern, and particularly important in the Western Hemisphere, as there are national elections coming up this fall in Brazil, and next year in Bolivia and El Salvador. So I urge my colleagues to support this measure.

I would like to thank the authors of the bill. I would like to thank Representative Castro and Representative Meadows. I would like to thank also our ranking member, Mr. Engel. They put a lot of work in on this important legislation.

There has long been a strong bipartisan consensus in Congress on the importance of promoting democracy overseas, and this is because America is undeniably more secure when fewer nations are authoritarian.

But democracy promotion is not just about that. It is not just about our security. It is also morally just. Human rights are far better protected in democratic countries, ones without dank prison cells full of political prisoners.

Elections are an important part of democracy, but all too often, elections overseas are plagued, often by corruption or technical challenges, sometimes by lack of transparency. And this bill will address these impediments by creating an electoral exchange program so that we can take our best practices and lessons learned overseas to help local governments improve their own election capacity.

So I urge my colleagues to support this measure, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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