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Chairman Steil's full opening statement as prepared for delivery:
Today, the Committee on House Administration will continue its oversight of federal election policy.
As the Chairman of the Committee, it's a top priority of mine to improve federal election law and increase transparency with American voters.
During the 2024 election cycle, over 155 million Americans across the country cast their ballot in elections for President, Senate, the House of Representatives, and state and local positions.
Over 16 million of those votes were cast in California.
Most Americans watched election results being announced on election night.
This was not the case in California.
According to the Associated Press, it wasn’t until December 4th – nearly a month later - that all of California’s races were called.
The longer it takes to provide the results of an election, the more voters can lose trust and become frustrated with the process.
Today, we will examine the reasons for California’s delay in reporting results.
A major cause for delay in California’s election results is the State’s universal vote-by-mail system, which is prone to delays in voting, tabulation and, ultimately, calling of races.
The ability to vote by mail in California has been available since 1982, and state lawmakers have continued to expand the bounds of mail-in voting ever since.
In 2022, the California legislature codified pandemic-era procedural laws and enacted universal vote by mail for every election administered by the state.
In other words – every registered voter in California gets a mail-in ballot.
This not only opens the door for potential fraud, but also causes delays on the counting side.
Another issue we’ll explore today includes accepting ballots after Election Day.
Currently, California accepts ballots delivered up to seven days after Election Day.
We'll discuss with our witnesses if that means it needs to be postmarked, what happens if it's not postmarked, what happens if it's dated, not dated?
This matter because on Election Day, California will not know how many ballots are cast so results cannot be announced in a timely manner.
Make no mistake, it is California’s own state policies that are creating the significant delays in election reporting.
While other states are taking steps to implement positive change, California has spent 50 years moving in the other direction.
For example, a state like Florida with a population of over 23 million is able to report election results on election night.
Following the 2000 election, Florida took a serious look at its own election policies and passed a law to ensure ballots are counted on and by election night.
California's system also doesn't increase voter participation.
Timely election results, I believe, builds voter confidence, and can increases voter turn out.
In Florida, voter turnout in 2024 was 78.9% of registered voters, a record high.
California’s participation in the 2024 election was 71.4% of registered voters.
Florida requires absentee ballots to be delivered to local election offices by the close of polls on Election Day.
In Florida, absentee voters may cure ballot discrepancies within two days after the election.
In California, voters have up to 28 days to cure absentee ballots.
28 days, that's a long time and something we will be discussing with our witnesses as well.
In November, three days after the election, I traveled to Los Angeles County Central Count and got to witness the tabulating process in Los Angeles County firsthand.
When I arrived, three days after the election, L.A. Central Count still had 900,000 outstanding ballots that needed to be tabulated - and that's in L.A. County alone. That wasn't in the state of California, 900,000 total, just in L.A. County.
It was an amazing experience to walk through L.A. Central Count and I think we have an opportunity to talk with our witnesses about reforms that could be made.
This is uniquely important because the balance in the House of Representatives still had not been determined in large part because races in California weren't called due to the lax election laws that are resulting in these delays.
The rest of the country should not have to wait on California to know the results of an election.
We are looking at California today because they have continued to move the goal posts in their election policies.
California’s election administration highlights why Congress must conduct oversight of the states’ federal elections and determine whether it might be necessary to enforce baseline standards of election integrity.
I thank our witnesses for being here today and I look forward to our discussion.
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