WASHINGTON - The Committee on House Administration held a Full Committee Hearing titled, “Clean Rolls, Secure Elections: Reviewing Voter List Maintenance Standards.”

Witnesses:

• Mr. J. Christian Adams - President & General Counsel, Public Interest Legal Foundation

• Mr. Justin Riemer - President and Chief Executive Officer, Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections; Partner, First Street Law

• Ms. Mary Kay Heling - Voter

In case you missed it, here are the top takeaways:

1. "Reasonable Effort" in the NVRA

Chairman Bryan Steil (WI-01): Can you give us a little color as to what is reasonable effort according to the judiciary?

Mr. J. Christian Adams: Well, that's a terrific question because as it stands right now, it just means make an effort, and you got a participation trophy, right? If you do something, you succeed. But look what Congress passed after reasonable effort. In the language of the statute, it says to remove. There's actually an action verb, isn't there? It's not just make an effort, it's actually you have to do something, and I think that's what the courts have improperly focused on.

Chairman Bryan Steil (WI-01): And is it true in a case that you were involved in litigating, the court came back and said that the reasonable effort is such a low standard that as long as one deceased voter is removed from the rolls they've met their Section 8 obligations?

Mr. J. Christian Adams: I think it's worse than that, as long as you have a program and you're doing anything, you've satisfied what Congress tried to do. 

2. Voter data sharing between states

Vice Chair Laurel Lee (FL-15): As a former Board of Elections official, you helped Virginia establish data sharing agreements with neighboring states. Would you tell us how effective, were those useful, is it something that you recommend other states deploy to help ensure their roll accuracy?

Mr. Justin Riemer: Absolutely. It's absolutely essential because the NCOA data does not have enough, it's missing information. The best way is for states to talk to each other and to share that information and to get these voters off the rolls. And I think one thing that I was emphasizing is what we really need to do is skip this confirmation process that you have to wait two federal general elections as much as possible because it just doesn't work. It's too clunky.

3. Properly notifying ineligible voters on the rolls

Dr. Greg Murphy (NC-03): The federal requirements for notifying voters before removing them from voter rolls; can you expand on those a little bit?

Mr. Justin Riemer: Once an election official has reason to believe that a voter may have moved, for example, they are required to mail what's known as a confirmation mailing, and that is sent to the address where the voter is registered, forwardable. So if the voter has moved somewhere else, in theory, that piece of mail is supposed to go to their new address. So that is how the process works. When that mail does not come back to the election official, or that the voter does not return it saying, "I've moved, cancel me from the voter rolls," which is what happens only 30% of the time. The voters only request cancellation about 30% of the time or notify the election official that they're still there and not to remove them. And what happens is those election officials, unless they hear from the voter, they have to wait for up to 4 years until they can remove that individual from the voter rolls. 

4. Transparency in voter list maintenance

Rep. Mike Carey (OH-15): To ensure transparency for Ohioans, the statewide voter registration database is actually posted weekly on the Secretary of State's website, and the public can view the daily voter registration snapshots to see which registrations were added, updated, or removed. Mr. Adams, I know there's a lot of information here, but why is transparency when conducting voter list maintenance important?

Mr. J. Christian Adams: Well, that's what Congress put into the NVRA so we can look, and we brought cases, we won a case in the First Circuit Court of Appeals for transparency. We have a case in the Fourth Circuit on appeal where we beat South Carolina because they actually don't let anyone look at the rolls unless you're a registered voter, which totally violates the NVRA. Without transparency, you can't know what's going on and that's why it's so important.