Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Says GOP 'Laying Groundwork' to Overturn State Elections They Lose

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has spoken out against the Biden White House's stance on opposing Republican voter suppression. During a Sunday appearance on CNN's State of the Union, the progressive lawmaker said the approach "verges on naivete."

Ocasio-Cortez specifically took issue with recent comments from White House officials saying that Democrats should work to "out-organize" Republican efforts to curb voting access in many states.

"I appreciate the White House's optimism, but I believe it verges on naivete," the New York congresswoman said. "It already took unprecedented historic organizing to overcome the voter suppression efforts in 2020 and we barely squeaked through on the majority and White House election we have."

Ocasio-Cortez elaborated on her position, saying that the already dubious prospect of "out-organizing" might not matter, as she believes GOP lawmakers are working towards being able to reject any election results they do not like.

"Beyond that, even if we are successful in 'quote, unquote' out-organizing voter suppression, which is a ridiculous premise on its face," Ocasio-Cortez said, "Republicans are already laying the groundwork in installing state-level attorney generals and beyond to overturn the results of any state election that they frankly do not like in states where they have taken power. And so even if you are successful in out-organizing, they're laying the groundwork to not even certify the results of the election."

Ocasio-Cortez cited the recent GOP-backed election audit in Arizona as an example of these Republican plans in action.

The congresswoman reiterated her support for H.R. 1, also known as the "For the People Act," as a means to fight back against potential voter suppression efforts. Amongst other things, H.R. 1 would get rid of barriers to voting across the U.S. and would restrict partisan gerrymandering.

The "out-organizing" comments from the White House reportedly came as a result of the For the People Act failing in the Senate, where it received notable pushback from moderate Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

Newsweek reached out to the White House and the offices of Representative Ocasio-Cortez but did not hear back from either before publishing time.

Ocasio-Cortez has also recently taken fellow Democrats to task for allowing the nationwide eviction moratorium to end on Saturday night. She went so far as to call out certain "conservative Democrats in the House" who "threatened to get on planes rather than hold [a vote to extend the moratorium]."