Washington, DC – Committee on House Administration Ranking Member Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) released this statement regarding seven congressional races still uncalled in California and New York because large numbers of mail-in ballots have not been counted.

"It is ridiculous that California and New York are still counting more than two weeks after an election," said Davis. "We've had election observers in many of these districts and what they're witnessing is the state's failure to run efficient elections. In California's case, it's the Secretary of State's decision to mail live ballots to decades-old voter rolls. In New York, it's the state increasing mail-in voting without making the other changes needed to ensure election officials can count these votes in a timely manner. I understand that this year was unprecedented, but the people of California and New York deserve a better process."

Background
California mailed a live ballot to every registered voter in the state despite voter rolls that have not been meaningfully updated for at least 20 years. This, coupled with ballot harvesting, makes it difficult to know the number of outstanding ballots and to confirm the chain of custody. As late as September 2020, California's Secretary of State Alex Padilla could not confirm whether they had updated their voter rolls as required by law and again by the courts.

New York does not start processing any absentee ballots until at least 7 days after Election Day, which is a major issue when you have five times the number of absentee ballot requests than in past years.