GOP Rep. Markwayne Mullin: States, not feds, must decide on how to have 'fair and open elections'

Oklahoma GOP Rep. Markwayne Mullin made clear Tuesday morning that states – not Congress – should be the ones making the decisions about having "fair and open elections." 

He spoke hours before the Senate was expected to vote on congressional Democrats’ sweeping election-law bill, the We the People Act, which would effectively expand voting.

"Our founding fathers were very, very confident in the fact that they wanted the states to control their own elections," Mullin said on the "Just the News AM" TV show. "That's why they speak very clearly on Article One, that they wanted the state legislators to control the election results. They didn't want the federal government getting involved because they knew that if the federal government got involved that [federal lawmakers] could also keep themselves in power."

The five-term congressman also spoke as some GOP-led states, including Georgia and Texas, have or are attempting to strengthen voting security laws to reduce fraud. 

"The federal legislative branch, we only have one role in this, and that's to count the Electoral votes in either certifying or contesting them," Mullin told show host Sophie Mann. 

Protesters on Jan. 6 stormed the Capitol Building in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying states’ Electoral College votes that showed Democrat Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 presidential election over then-President Trump.

"The election laws, even the federal election laws, are decided on the state level, and each state can decide their own," Mullin also said Tuesday. "I think that's going to be up to the state legislators to decide which direction they move to make sure that they have a fair and open election."