LITTLE ROCK (KATV) — A federal bill that would change how elections are run is being debated in the U.S. Congress and several Arkansas lawmakers on Tuesday joined state officials to voice their concerns about the legislation.

"In my opinion, H.R. 1 is one of the biggest government overreaches in the history of our country," said Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston

The 800-page bill would require states to have a 15-day early voting period, same-day voter registration and would eliminate voter ID requirements at the polls. Thurston was joined by U.S. Sens. Tom Cotton and John Boozman, U.S. Rep. French Hill and Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, all Republicans, to explain why the "For the People Act" should be voted down.

"This is a backwards-looking measure, that if you thought the elections around the country weren't great in 2020, this institutionalizes that," Hill said.

Michael John Gray, chairman of the Democratic Party of Arkansas, thinks the bill is necessary to expand voting access.

"Any time I hear a politician worried about making it easier for people to vote, it makes me think they're worried that there will be more voters paying attention to what they're doing," he said.

Cotton said the bill would would "open the floodgates for fraud in our elections."

"Democrats want to ban photo ID for voting, but they want to require Americans to have a vaccine passport to travel in their own country," he said. "That's more Orwellian than something that would have happened in Soviet Russia."

Gray disagreed.

"Voting without an ID has been done for 200 years in this nation and it worked," he said. "But if we have to feel uncomfortable about something, he's going to find the issue that divides us instead of looking at all of the beneficial things including making it easier to vote without an ID would do for us."

The bill did pass in the House earlier this month with every Arkansas delegate voting against it. The Senate version of the bill is currently being debated.