WASHINGTON - Committee on House Administration Ranking Member Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) sent letters to elections officials in all 50 states, and in the 5 U.S. territories conducting federal elections, alerting them to the House Election Observer Program, one of Congress' premier and longest-running official election integrity efforts. Ranking Member Davis explains the importance of the program, the Committee's constitutional authority to deploy election observers, the reasons an election observer may be deployed, and requests that elections officials ensure access for these House election observers during the midterm election.

As the letters state:
"As in past elections, the House will use this legal authority to credential and deploy trained congressional staffers to serve as official House election observers in close, or particularly cumbersome congressional elections, in the coming weeks. This allows us to prepare for the possibility that a candidate could later contest the race in the House of Representatives."

The letters continue:
"Our credentialed observers have been trained by experts in election observation and instructed that they play no formal or advocacy role in the administration of the election or the vote counting process; they are to function exclusively as observers. The House's constitutional authority in this area supersedes state law, and House observers operate solely under this authority and must be granted access to view the process even if state law credentialing, partisan quota, or access requirements exist to the contrary."

You can find one of the full letters here. Each state and territory received the same letter.


BACKGROUND:
The Constitution grants each House of Congress the duty to serve as the final "Judge of the Elections, Qualifications and Returns of its own Members," and House Rules delegate this authority to the Committee on House Administration, which has broad jurisdiction over federal elections. For years, the Committee has credentialed and deployed trained House staff members to observe congressional elections across the country, typically as preparation in the event a candidate later decides to contest the election in the House of Representatives, as former congressional candidate Rita Hart (D) did in 2020, losing to Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-02). You can learn more about the program here.

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