Rep. Allen West said Monday that Florida’s controversial effort to purge its voter rolls is not an attempt to target minorities, as some progressive leaders have charged, and he accused the federal government of “going after sovereign states.”

“I don’t think it is disenfranchisement. I think that African-Americans that are citizens of [the] United States of America can get out and vote. Four years ago we saw them vote in numbers that had never been seen before,” West said Monday on C-SPAN. “I think that we should be able to go in and look at our voting systems and making sure they are clean.”

The Florida Republican argued that it is up to each state to ensure the accuracy of its voting system, and that the federal government should leave Florida alone to accomplish this goal.

“The state of Florida has been trying to get the Department of Homeland Security for over a year to work with us, to make sure we do have integrity of the voting system, because I think that’s what makes America America — our democratic process,” he said. “And I don’t think we need to have the UN or anyone else coming in and looking at it. We can clean it up ourselves.”

He added, “I have a problem with the Department of Justice once again going after sovereign states that are trying to do the thing that is necessary to keep integrity in our process.”