    [House Hearing, 117 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

      VOTING IN AMERICA: THE POTENTIAL FOR VOTER LIST PURGES TO INTERFERE
                    WITH FREE AND FAIR ACCESS TO THE BALLOT

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                           SUBCOMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS

                                     OF THE

                               COMMITTEE ON HOUSE
                                 ADMINISTRATION
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                        ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                                  MAY 6, 2021

                                   __________

          Printed for the use of the Committee on House Administration

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                           Available on the Internet:
             http://www.gpoinfo.gov/committee/house-administration

                              ______

                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    45-399                  WASHINGTON : 2021

      VOTING IN AMERICA: THE POTENTIAL FOR VOTER LIST PURGES TO INTERFERE
                    WITH FREE AND FAIR ACCESS TO THE BALLOT

                       COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION

                      ZOE LOFGREN, California, Chairperson
    JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland               RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois,
    G. K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina      Ranking Member
    PETE AGUILAR, California             BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia
    MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania       BRYAN STEIL, Wisconsin
    TERESA LEGER FERNANDEZ, New Mexico

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                                  MAY 6, 2021

                                                                       Page

    Voting in America: The Potential for Voter List Purges to
      Interfere with Free and Fair Access to the Ballot..............     1

                               OPENING STATEMENTS

    Chairman G. K. Butterfield.......................................     1
        Prepared statement of Chairman Butterfield...................     4
    Hon. Bryan Steil, Ranking Member.................................     6
        Prepared statement of Ranking Member Steil...................     8

                                   WITNESSES

    The Honorable Joshua L. Kaul, Attorney General, State of
      Wisconsin......................................................    12
        Prepared statement of The Honorable Joshua Kaul..............    14
    Sophia Lakin, Deputy Director, Voting Rights Project, ACLU.......    17
        Prepared statement of Ms. Lakin..............................    19
    Marc Meredith, Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania...    38
        Prepared statement of Dr. Meredith...........................    40
    Kaylan Phillips, Litigation Counsel, Public Interest Legal
      Foundation.....................................................    49
        Prepared statement of Ms. Phillips...........................    51

                            QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD

    The Honorable Joshua L. Kaul, Attorney General, State of
      Wisconsin, Answers to submitted questions......................    72
    Sophia Lakin, Deputy Director, Voting Rights Project, ACLU,
      Answers to submitted questions.................................    75
    Marc Meredith, Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania,
      Answers to submitted questions.................................    81
    Kaylan Phillips, Litigation Counsel, Public Interest Legal
      Foundation, Answers to submitted questions.....................    86

                           SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

    How the Wisconson Voter Purge Targets Black Voters, Submission...   152
    American Political Science Review, One Person, One Vote:
      Estimating the Prevalence of Double Voting U.S. Presidential
      Elections, Submission..........................................   156
    Georgia Voter Roll Purge Errors, Submission......................   170
    Science Advances, The Racial Burden of Voter List Maintenance
      Errors: Evidence From Wisconsin's Supplemental Movers poll
      books, Submission..............................................   192
    11th Circuit Judgment Florida, Submission........................   202
    Judge Fred Biery Order, Submission...............................   236

      VOTING IN AMERICA: THE POTENTIAL FOR VOTER LIST PURGES TO INTERFERE
                    WITH FREE AND FAIR ACCESS TO THE BALLOT

                                  ----------

                             THURSDAY, MAY 6, 2021

                      House of Representatives,
                             Subcommittee on Elections,
                             Committee on House Administration,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:00 p.m., via
    Webex, Hon. G. K. Butterfield [Chair of the Subcommittee]
    presiding.
        Present: Representatives Butterfield, Aguilar, Leger
    Fernandez, and Steil.
        Also Present: Representatives Lofgren, Scanlon, and Rodney
    Davis of Illinois, and Loudermilk.
        Staff Present: Jamie Fleet, Staff Director; David Tucker,
    Parliamentarian; Brandon Jacobs, Legislative Clerk; Sean
    Wright, Senior Elections Counsel; Andrew Kasper, Elections
    Counsel; Peter Whippy, Communications Director; Natalie Young,
    Press Secretary; Tim Monahan, Minority Staff Director; Caleb
    Hays, Minority General Counsel and Deputy Staff Director;
    Gineen Bresso, Minority Special Counsel; Nick Crocker, Minority
    Deputy Staff Director; and Mike Cunningham, Minority Policy
    Staff.
        Chairman Butterfield. The Subcommittee on Elections of the
    Committee on House Administration will now come to order.
        I am pleased that several members have joined us today, and
    I will recognize each one of them by name, first of all, to say
    greetings to each one of them, but also to establish a quorum.
        We have with us Mr. Aguilar from California; the Ranking
    Member, Mr. Steil, from Wisconsin; Ms. Leger Fernandez from New
    Mexico; the Ranking Member of the full Committee, Mr. Davis of
    Illinois; Ms. Scanlon from Pennsylvania; and, of course,
    myself. I will declare a quorum to be present.
        Let me begin by saying good afternoon to all of you. As we
    begin today, I want to note that we are holding this hearing in
    compliance with the regulations for remote committee
    proceedings pursuant to House Resolution 8.
        Generally, we ask Committee members and witnesses to keep
    their microphones muted when not speaking to limit background
    noise. Members will need to unmute themselves when seeking
    recognition or when recognized for their 5 minutes. Witnesses
    will also need to unmute themselves when recognized for their 5
    minutes or when answering a question.
        Now, members and witnesses, please, please keep your
    cameras on at all times even if you need to step away for just
    a few moments. Please, please do not leave the meeting or turn
    your camera off. There are good reasons for this rule, and I
    will insist that we abide by the rule.
        I would also like to remind members that the regulations
    governing remote proceedings require that we cannot participate
    in more than one committee proceeding at the same time.
        And so at this time, I will ask unanimous consent that all
    members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend
    their remarks and have any written statements be made part of
    the record.
        I hear no objections. Hearing no objections, it is so
    ordered.
        Ladies and gentlemen, this is the second in a series of
    hearings this Subcommittee will be conducting this calendar
    year examining voting and election administration in the United
    States of America. Today we are examining State and local laws
    and processes governing the removal of registered voters from
    voting rolls.
        Federal law requires that States make a reasonable effort--
    that is the terminology in the law--States must make a
    reasonable effort to remove registered voters from their rolls
    who are ineligible to vote in the State because, for example,
    they have passed away, they have died, or moved maybe to
    another State.
        But the law also requires that any State statute or any
    process governing the removal of voters from the voting rolls
    must be uniform, must be nondiscriminatory, and in compliance
    with the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
        Now, since the Supreme Court's 2013 decision in Shelby
    County v. Holder--which we are all familiar with, that case
    rendered a key provision of the Voting Rights Act to be
    inoperable--a number of States across the country have moved to
    aggressively remove voters from their voting rolls.
        Recent reports have found that States removed more than 30
    million voters from their rolls between 2014 and 2018, just a
    span of 4 years.
        The voter roll purges have been particularly aggressive in
    States that before Shelby had to obtain preclearance under the
    Voting Rights Act of their voter removal programs from the
    Department of Justice.
        One study that I have read, one study found post-Shelby
    County increases in purge rates are between 1.5 and 4.5 points
    in States and localities formerly covered by the Voting Rights
    Act compared to States and localities that had never been
    covered. That causes me some concern.
        Far too often these new aggressive voter roll purge efforts
    have wrongfully removed voters who were properly registered to
    vote. Indeed, studies indicate that hundreds of thousands of
    properly registered voters have been the subject of flawed
    voter purge efforts. Voters and organizations have spent
    thousands of hours and millions of dollars to correct these
    errors.
        And so I think we can do better. We must do better. We
    should be doing all that is in our power to make it easier to
    vote, not erroneously trying to strip properly registered
    voters of their right to vote.
        The facts and circumstances surrounding several of the
    voter purges also raise significant questions about whether
    those voter purge efforts complied with mandates under Federal
    law that any program providing for the removal of voters from
    voting lists, they must be uniform and they must be
    nondiscriminatory.
        Several States have engaged in highly public efforts to
    remove noncitizens from their voting rolls. These efforts,
    which disproportionately seek to disenfranchise Hispanic and
    Latino voters, often rely on databases that are known to have
    inaccurate citizenship information.
        Equally troubling is evidence that the databases and
    processes many States are using to remove voters from their
    rolls are likely to disproportionately burden minority voters.
        Let me put it simply. Longstanding socioeconomic
    disparities appear to make it more likely that properly
    registered minority voters are erroneously identified as
    subject for removal. That troubles me, and it should trouble
    you.
        Also troubling is a growing trend of conservative interest
    groups filing legal actions seeking to compel States and compel
    localities to remove voters from their rolls. Many of these
    actions, which rely on little more than allegations that
    registration rates are implausibly high, have been targeted.
    They have been targeted at cities and counties with
    disproportionately large minority populations.
        High voter registration should be a subject of community
    pride, not an invitation to litigate.
        And perhaps most troubling is the raft of bills recently
    enacted or currently being considered by State legislatures to
    remove even more voters from the rolls.
        These bills, these bills which have their genesis in the
    baseless allegations of irregularities in the 2020 election,
    often provide for the removal of voters based on little more
    than a voter exercising his or her right not to vote in a
    single election.
        The testimony provided today will help us as this Committee
    seeks to understand what needs to be done to ensure that voter
    list maintenance efforts are nondiscriminatory and do not
    erroneously remove properly registered voters, plain and
    simple.
        And so I look forward to hearing from today's witnesses and
    working with my colleagues on this very, very important issue.
        I now would like to recognize the Ranking Member of the
    Subcommittee, Mr. Steil, for his opening statement.
        Mr. Steil.
        [The statement of Chairman Butterfield follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Steil. Thank you very much, Chairman.
        I can report, in the State of Wisconsin we have a lot of
    pride because we have one of the highest voter participation
    rates in the country.
        But as we dive into this topic, Federal law requires States
    to, quote, ``conduct a general program that makes a reasonable
    effort to remove from the official list any voters ineligible
    by reason of death or change of address.''
        And so when President Clinton signed the National Voter
    Registration Act in 1993, he said, quote, ``Every year from now
    on, we are going to have more registered voters and more people
    voting. We are going to make the system work,'' end quote. And
    the NVRA's purpose is to make it easier to register to vote and
    to ensure that States have accurate voter rolls to support
    voter confidence in Federal elections.
        That is what the Democrat House, Senate, and Democratic
    President Bill Clinton thought then. Now Democrats suggest that
    this Democrat-led effort interferes with free and fair access
    to the ballots. Is this the same Democratic Party that
    supported the NVRA's reasonable safeguards in 1993?
        There is nothing that should be controversial about
    ensuring people who have died or moved away aren't registered
    at their old address. A State's refusal to comply with NVRA is
    expensive, it is wasteful, it creates voter confusion, and it
    weakens voter confidence in election results.
        If we want to actually increase voter participation, I
    believe we should be fighting for better-run elections so
    people will hold confidence in the election results. If States
    mail live ballots to everyone on an outdated list, we might
    expect multiple ballots to arrive at incorrect addresses. Many
    of these problems wouldn't happen with proper list maintenance.
        Outdated voter rolls may lead to long lines for in-person
    voting. In 2020, L.A. County voters waited hours because voter
    check-in equipment was overwhelmed. Turns out L.A. County had
    over 1.5 million ineligible people on the voter rolls. A suit
    was filed by a nonpartisan watchdog that alleged L.A. County
    had 112 percent of its adult citizens registered to vote.
        Under pressure, as you may know, California and L.A. County
    finally agreed to clean up their voter rolls in 2019. And,
    unfortunately, then California Secretary of State Alex Padilla
    could not tell this Committee last fall how many ineligible
    people, those who were deceased or those who moved out of the
    State, had been removed from California's unmaintained voter
    rolls. Not a lot of faith that California is in compliance with
    the NVRA.
        Pennsylvania recently was forced to comply with Federal law
    and remove 21,000 deceased individuals. Michigan, their
    Secretary of State removed 177,000 ineligible, saying that
    Michigan was not engaged in ``sufficient comprehensive
    efforts'' to maintain its lists.
        In my home State of Wisconsin there was a lawsuit recently
    on this issue of list maintenance. Wisconsin wasn't keeping its
    voter lists up to date, and over 70,000 individuals are
    registered even though, by all indications, they have moved.
        My State's attorney general, a witness we will hear from
    today, filed a brief and presented oral arguments in court in
    support of keeping these individuals on Wisconsin's voter rolls
    even though they no longer lived where they were registered.
    And according to WEC, none of them voted in 2020, further
    indicating that these individuals moved.
        Not that these facts are stopping Democrats from trying to
    conflate the issue. Speaker Pelosi tweeted about the case and
    got a ``pants on fire'' rating from PolitiFact because she
    claimed 200,000-plus people, quote, ``[would] Be prohibited
    from voting,'' end quote.
        Of course that is not true. Anyone who has moved may
    register to vote with a new address. And in Wisconsin, folks
    can even register to vote at the polls on election day.
        The point is this. Our goal should always be to ensure
    every eligible voter can cast their vote and that each voter
    has confidence in the integrity of our election process and
    outcomes. The NVRA provides specific instructions for
    conducting list maintenance and voter fail-safes. No voter may
    be removed solely for failure to vote no matter how long that
    has been. No comprehensive list maintenance may be conducted
    within 90 days of a Federal election.
        And, importantly, if a mistake is made, voters can still
    preserve their vote by casting a provisional ballot and
    addressing the issue with election officials.
        Inaccurate voter lists can significantly increase wait
    times for in-person voting and have ineligible voters on the
    voter rolls weaken voter confidence that our elections are run
    fairly and are run accurately.
        I believe we should be working to ensure States comply with
    Federal law Democrats passed in 1993, not making excuses.
        But across the board, I look forward to today's discussion
    and conversation.
        And with that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back.
        [The statement of Mr. Steil follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Butterfield. Thank you, Mr. Steil. The gentleman
    yields back.
        In just a moment, I will introduce today's panel. But
    before I do that, let me just acknowledge the presence of the
    full Committee Chair, Ms. Lofgren of California, and yield time
    to her for such statements as she may choose to make.
        Ms. Lofgren, thank you for joining us.
        The Chairperson. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
        I just wanted to stop by for a minute and thank the members
    of the Elections Subcommittee for the vigor with which they are
    approaching the questions of the right to vote in America and
    thank also our witnesses for appearing today.
        Obviously, voting is fundamental for American citizens. It
    is the whole basis for our country's freedom and what our brave
    men and women have gone off to fight for over the decades so
    that we have that precious right. We need to guard that right,
    and I am confident that the Committee's inquiries will help
    protect that right.
        We all know that the NVRA was passed when the Voting Rights
    Act was in full swing, before the Shelby decision. And so here
    is the question: Have there been pretextual uses of purges that
    really are intended to get to the essence of what the Voting
    Rights Act was originally intended to protect?
        I think that the Committee's deep dive, the data that you
    will get, will inform the Congress and the country as to what
    steps, if any, we should take relative to the Voting Rights Act
    and the preservation of the rights of every single American
    citizen to vote.
        So with that, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for letting me sit
    in and listen and share these words. I commend you for your
    excellent leadership and every member of this Committee for the
    work that you are doing. And I yield back with gratitude.
        Chairman Butterfield. Thank you, Madam Chairperson. And
    thank you so very much for your leadership and all that you do,
    not just for this Committee but for the Congress. Thank you
    very much.
        Let me also extend an opportunity to the Ranking Member of
    the full Committee, my dear, dear friend and neighbor from the
    great State of Illinois, Mr. Davis, for any remarks that he
    might want to make before we hear from the witnesses.
        Mr. Davis. Mr. Chair, I am probably going to surprise you,
    the Chairperson, and the rest of my colleagues today by
    deciding not to go on a diatribe. I want to hear from our
    guests today, and I would like to get as quickly into the Q&A
    as we possibly can.
        And don't think this will probably ever happen again in our
    career together. I am going to yield back the balance of my
    time.
        Chairman Butterfield. Well, you are very kind, Mr. Davis.
    We will allow you to accumulate these minutes. How about that?
        As a reminder to our witnesses, each of you will be
    recognized for 5 minutes. There is a timer on your screen. I
    think you can see it there to the left. There is a timer on
    your screen. Please be sure you can see the timer and are
    mindful of the 5-minute time limit.
        Your entire written statements will be made part of the
    record, and the record will remain open for at least 5 days for
    additional materials to be submitted.
        And so today I welcome each of our witnesses. Joining us
    today are Josh Kaul, who is the Attorney General for the State
    of Wisconsin. We have Sophia Lin Lakin of the American Civil
    Liberties Union. We also have Dr. Marc Meredith of the
    University of Pennsylvania and Kaylan Phillips of the Public
    Interest Legal Foundation.
        Let me be specific about each one.
        Josh Kaul is the 45th Attorney General of the State of
    Wisconsin, having grown up in Oshkosh and Fond du Lac,
    Wisconsin.
        General Kaul--I keep wanting to call it differently--but
    Kaul is the State's chief legal officer and is responsible for
    representing the State in all legal matters.
        General Kaul's top priorities are protecting public safety,
    fighting for clean and safe drinking water and against climate
    change, and protecting the rights of Wisconsinites.
        Prior to serving as attorney general, he litigated numerous
    cases under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, including Wisconsin, my
    home State of North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia. He also
    served as Federal prosecutor in Baltimore, Maryland.
        Next witness, Sophia Lin Lakin, is the Deputy Director of
    the ACLU's Voting Rights Project and assists in the planning,
    strategy, and supervision of the ACLU's voting rights
    litigation nationwide.
        She has an active docket protecting voting rights and
    combating voter suppression across the country and has led or
    worked on successful challenges to discriminatory voting laws
    in several States, including Georgia, Indiana, Kansas,
    Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia.
        Among other notable cases, she was lead counsel in cases
    successfully challenging a series of Indiana voter purge
    statutes.
        She is a frequent commentator on voting rights issues,
    presenting at conferences and conducting voting rights
    trainings nationwide.
        Next is Dr. Marc Meredith. Marc is an Associate Professor
    with the University of Pennsylvania, Department of Political
    Science. His research examines the political economy of
    American elections with a particular focus on the application
    of causal inference methods. His substantive research interests
    include election administration, election law, political
    campaigns, and voter decisionmaking.
        His research has been published in numerous leading
    journals, including the American Political Science Review, the
    American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics,
    the Quarterly Journal of Political Science, and the Proceedings
    of the National Academy of Sciences.
        Kaylan Phillips. Kaylan is a litigation counsel with the
    Public Interest Legal Foundation. Ms. Phillips has extensive
    experience at every level of litigation in State and Federal
    court, including our U.S. Supreme Court. She also has
    experience representing clients before Federal and State
    administrative agencies.
        Before joining the Public Interest Legal Foundation, she
    was an associate at the Bopp Law Firm where her Federal
    practice focused on election law.
        Ms. Phillips has also authored numerous amicus curiae
    briefs on key election law issues, such as, ``One Person, One
    Vote.''
        I now would like to recognize each one of our witnesses,
    and I will do them one at a time, starting with Attorney
    General Kaul.
        You are now recognized for five minutes.

     STATEMENTS OF THE HONORABLE JOSHUA L. KAUL, ATTORNEY GENERAL,
      STATE OF WISCONSIN; MS. SOPHIA LIN LAKIN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR,
       VOTING RIGHTS PROJECT, ACLU; DR. MARC MEREDITH, ASSOCIATE
    PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA; AND MS. KAYLAN PHILLIPS,
          LITIGATION COUNSEL, PUBLIC INTEREST LEGAL FOUNDATION

                      STATEMENT OF JOSHUA L. KAUL

        Mr. Kaul. Thank you to the Chair and Ranking Member of the
    Subcommittee, the Chair and Ranking Member of the full
    Committee, and also to the other Members of Congress who are
    here.
        I would like to start today by talking about Wisconsin's
    experience with ERIC data.
        Pursuant to legislation passed in 2015, the State of
    Wisconsin joined the Electronic Registration Information
    Center, Inc., which is known as ERIC.
        Through ERIC, States and the District of Columbia share
    data with the goal of using that data to assist them in
    identifying eligible voters who aren't registered and voter
    registrations that are no longer valid. ERIC uses data from
    States' voter files as well as data from other sources, such as
    the U.S. Postal Service.
        Now, in 2017 Wisconsin for the first time received a so-
    called ERIC ``movers report,'' a report that identifies people
    who possibly have moved. That data has been received every
    other year, so we also received it in 2019.
        Based on the 2017 data, Wisconsin sent approximately
    340,000 potential movers postcards, and it gave them 30 days to
    respond in order for them to remain active on the voter rolls.
        Over 6,000 voters responded and kept their voter
    registrations active at the address at which they were
    registered. The other voters who received those postcards were
    deactivated.
        Now, according to a memo from the staff at the Wisconsin
    Elections Commission, that is our State-wide body that oversees
    elections in Wisconsin, that deactivation created some problems
    in the 2018 spring primary. And according to the Elections
    Commission memo, there were some voters who had not moved but
    hadn't returned their postcards who were left off the poll
    books.
        So the Wisconsin Elections Commission followed up with some
    of the affected voters, and overall, based on their followups
    and having identified situations where voters appeared to have
    moved but didn't, they reactivated over 12,000 voters to the
    rolls between January and March of 2018.
        In addition to that, there are three municipalities, the
    city of Milwaukee, the city of Green Bay, and the Village of
    Hobart, that reached out and had their voters reactivated.
        So ultimately what the Elections Commission did was create
    a Supplemental Movers Poll List so that when voters showed up
    at the polls they could confirm that they had not, in fact,
    moved and could thereby avoid re-registering. And over time,
    more than 6,000 voters ultimately re-registered that way.
        In 2019, the Elections Commission used a different approach
    with the movers data it received. There it sent out letters in
    October of 2019 to approximately 230,000 people and asked them
    to confirm that they still resided at their registration
    address. The letters indicated that voting would keep those
    voters active, and they didn't say anything about deactivating
    voters.
        The next month, however, in November 2019, a group known as
    WILL, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, filed suit on
    behalf of three registered voters and taxpayers in Wisconsin
    arguing that the voters who hadn't responded to those notices
    within 30 days should be deactivated. They made an argument
    under Wisconsin State law that that deactivation was warranted.
        Initially, a circuit court judge granted their request and
    issued an order requiring the Elections Commission to comply
    with the provisions of State law, in its words, and deactivate
    the registrations of the electors who had failed to apply for
    continuation of their registration within 30 days of the date
    the notice was mailed under that provision.
        That decision was subsequently reversed in a 3-0 court of
    appeals decision. And the case then went up to our State
    supreme court, and, as Ranking Member Steil mentioned, I
    personally argued that case before our State supreme court.
        Our court is generally regarded as having a 4-3
    conservative majority. But despite that, the court ruled 5-2 to
    affirm the court of appeals decision that those voters did not
    need to be deactivated.
        So there are a couple points I will just note briefly in my
    closing seconds.
        One is, there were thousands of voters who were identified
    in the movers data who ultimately either responded to the
    mailing or reactivated their registrations at the polls. That
    comparison to the number of in-person voter fraud cases is
    dramatic.
        I see that my time is up.
        [The statement of Mr. Kaul follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Butterfield. All right. The gentleman's time has
    expired.
        Ms. Lakin, you are now recognized for five minutes.

                     STATEMENT OF SOPHIA LIN LAKIN

        Ms. Lakin. Chair Butterfield, Ranking Member Steil, and
    members of the Subcommittee and the full Committee, thank you
    for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Sophia Lakin,
    and I am the Deputy Director of the ACLU Voting Rights Project.
        Everyone agrees that voter list maintenance, when done
    responsibly, is appropriate and necessary. But proper list
    maintenance entails not only removing ineligible registrants,
    but also taking care that eligible voters are not erroneously
    purged.
        Unfortunately, States and counties around the country have
    engaged in overzealous, sloppy, and/or poorly timed purge
    practices that have wrongly removed and ultimately
    disenfranchised eligible voters.
        Examples of court challenges to improper purges are
    described in my written testimony, but I would like to
    highlight just a few here today.
        Proponents of more aggressive purging often propose
    targeting ineligible voters for removal by comparing State
    voter roll lists to various databases, like other States' voter
    registration lists. But these databases are often incomplete or
    out of date and the protocols used to identify potential
    ineligible voters deeply flawed.
        As a result, eligible voters are often improperly flagged
    for purging, and the results of these distorted comparisons are
    frequently used irresponsibly to support false or exaggerated
    assertions about the integrity of our voter rolls.
        Texas provides a prime example. In 2019, Texas Attorney
    General Ken Paxton tweeted, in capital letters, ``VOTER FRAUD
    ALERT,'' claiming that almost 100,000 registrants in Texas were
    noncitizens based on a voter roll comparison to driver's
    license records.
        But that was false. Within a week, it was clear that many
    of these voters were actually naturalized citizens who had
    already confirmed their citizenship.
        In Harris County alone, this translated to about 18,000 of
    the 30,000 voters flagged there, and an audit of 150 randomly
    chosen names from the remaining 12,000 revealed no noncitizens.
        The impact of this purge of naturalized citizens was of
    profound concern, not least because over 80 percent of Texas'
    naturalized citizens are Black or of Latino or Asian origin.
        Civil rights organizations, including the ACLU, sued, and
    the case was settled with Texas ending this deeply flawed
    effort. But the settlement came only after the court found that
    Texas, quote, ``created a mess,'' which, quote, ``exemplified
    the power of the government to strike fear and intimidate the
    least powerful among us.'' Texas taxpayers ended up on the hook
    for $450,000 in costs and attorney's fees.
        The potential for disenfranchisement as a result of these
    inaccurate purges is real. Too frequently, voters discover they
    are no longer on the rolls only when they show up at the polls
    and it is too late to fix the error.
        This was the case with our Ohio client, Navy veteran Larry
    Harmon, who voted in the 2008 election, but like millions of
    Americans around the country, opted not to vote in the 2010
    midterms.
        When Mr. Harmon tried to vote in the 2015 Ohio State
    elections, he arrived at the polls only to discover that his
    registration had been canceled even though he had continuously
    lived and filed taxes at the same address for 17 years.
        Litigation is not adequate on its own to prevent
    disenfranchisement. These cases are costly and slow, and even
    if one practice is blocked another can spring up in its place.
        Take Indiana. In 2017, Indiana adopted a purge program that
    required the immediate purge of voters flagged as having moved
    out of the State using the highly inaccurate and now defunct
    Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck program.
        Studies have shown that the Crosscheck system incorrectly
    flagged people more than 99 percent of the time. But under the
    Indiana program, targeted voters would get no notice or
    opportunity to correct the record before they were removed.
        When it comes to accurate rolls, ensuring that voters have
    adequate notice and sufficient time to correct the record if
    they are wrongly purged is critical.
        Federal courts blocked the State from implementing the new
    requirement, but just a few months later Indiana enacted a new
    law with the very same problem.
        Even the demise of Crosscheck was not a deterrent. Indiana
    just created its own version, the Indiana Data Enhancement
    Association.
        This latest iteration of Indiana's purge program was again
    blocked, but Indiana appealed the ruling and the appeal was
    argued this past April, nearly 4 years after the case was first
    brought.
        The United States continues to lag behind other developed
    democracies when it comes to voter participation in our
    elections. We should be working together to increase this
    participation and remove obstacles, including practices that
    wrongly remove voters.
        Thank you.
        [The statement of Ms. Lakin follows:]

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        Chairman Butterfield. Thank you, Ms. Lakin.
        At this time, I will recognize Dr. Meredith.
        You are recognized for five minutes.

                       STATEMENT OF MARC MEREDITH

        Mr. Meredith. Chairman Butterfield, Ranking Member Steil,
    and members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to
    testify before you today.
        Managing voter registration or list maintenance is one of
    the most challenging tasks election administrators face. The
    structure of American election administration means that
    elections officials often are deciding whether to take actions
    to cancel a registration with uncertainty about whether a
    registrant remains eligible to vote at their address of
    registration.
        There are negative consequences both in failing to take
    action on the registrations of those who are no longer eligible
    to vote and when taking action on those registrations who are,
    in fact, eligible.
        Keeping ineligible registrations on the rolls increases the
    cost of election administration and leaves open the possibility
    that an invalid vote could be cast.
        Conversely, taking action on eligible registrations can
    reduce these registrants' trust in the electoral system and
    prevent them from casting a ballot.
        My testimony today highlights my research showing that
    poorly conceived list maintenance protocols can jeopardize
    electoral integrity by impeding eligible registrants--and
    particularly eligible minority registrants--from voting.
        Election administrators have not always recognized some of
    the limitations in the data commonly used in list maintenance
    protocols. List maintenance protocols often rely on information
    on voter registrants contained in other administrative data,
    including data from other States' registration rolls, to
    identify ineligible registrations.
        Sometimes information about a different individual, who I
    refer to as a registration doppelganger, gets attributed to a
    registrant.
        This occurred frequently, for example, in data provided by
    the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck program, or
    Crosscheck, a consortium in operation between 2005 and 2019 to
    assist member States in identifying registrants who have moved
    out of State.
        Crosscheck identified cases in which a registrant in one
    member State shared the same first name, last name, and date of
    birth as a registrant in another member State.
        In some cases, election administrators took action on the
    registrations identified by Crosscheck, even in the absence of
    corroborating information indicating that these two
    registrations belong to the same person.
        While the probability that any two distinct registrants
    share the same first name, last name, and date of birth is
    exceedingly small, this happens with significant frequency once
    you are considering trillions of pairings of registrations.
        Thus, list maintenance protocols that took action on the
    basis of Crosscheck data in the absence of corroborating
    information made it harder for some eligible registrants to
    vote just because they had the misfortune of sharing the same
    first name, last name, and date of birth with a registrant in
    another Crosscheck member State.
        A study that I recently published about Wisconsin's list
    maintenance protocols in 2017 and 2018 illustrates other issues
    with using databases to identify registrants for cancellation
    without appropriate safeguards.
        In late 2017, the Wisconsin Elections Commission mailed out
    postcards to registrants flagged as potentially having moved by
    the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC. The
    postcards asked recipients to confirm their registration to
    avoid having it canceled.
        Two findings of my study are particularly relevant.
        First, a majority of registrants who were eligible to vote
    at their address of registration failed to respond to the
    postcard. This highlights that giving notice is not sufficient
    to undo all of the damage when eligible registrations are
    canceled.
        Second, minority registrants were about twice as likely as
    White registrants to vote in 2018 at the address at which they
    were flagged as potentially moving from. This highlights the
    potential for new list maintenance protocols to particularly
    impede eligible minority registrants from voting when they are
    first enacted.
        The National Voter Registration Act of 1993, or NVRA, helps
    but is not sufficient to prevent poorly conceived list
    maintenance protocols from unnecessarily disenfranchising
    voters.
        First, litigation relying on NVRA only blocked the recent
    Indiana law, which attempted to cancel registrations solely on
    the basis of Crosscheck data once it had already been passed.
        Second, the NVRA does not stop Indiana or any other State
    from using flawed data like Crosscheck to move registrants from
    active to inactive status.
        There are a number of reasons why it became more difficult
    for an inactive registrant to vote than an active registrant.
    For example, inactive registrants are excluded in many States
    from receiving certain forms of election mail that are shown to
    increase turnout. Finally, the NVRA does not cover all States.
        List maintenance protocols that lack meaningful safeguards,
    like Indiana's implementation of Crosscheck, come at a
    significant, perhaps unacceptable cost to electoral integrity.
        My research shows that applying a list maintenance protocol
    proposed by Crosscheck in Iowa would have flagged thousands of
    registrations that were, in fact, used to legally vote.
        Greater oversight could prevent the use of list maintenance
    protocols that fail to recognize electoral integrity means
    ensuring eligible registrants can vote as well as stopping
    ineligible votes from being cast.
        Thank you.
        [The statement of Mr. Meredith follows:]

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        Chairman Butterfield. Thank you, Dr. Meredith.
        Ms. Phillips, you are now recognized for five minutes.

                      STATEMENT OF KAYLAN PHILLIPS

        Ms. Phillips. Chairman Butterfield, Ranking Member Steil,
    members of the Committee, thank you for the invitation to
    testify today. I am litigation counsel for the Public Interest
    Legal Foundation, a nonpartisan charity devoted to promoting
    election integrity and best practices for election officials.
        A significant problem facing America's electoral process is
    the chronic inaccuracy and lack of integrity in the voter rolls
    that list the individuals registered to vote in local, State,
    and Federal elections.
        As an initial matter, I implore the Committee to reconsider
    the use of the term ``purge'' when referring to list
    maintenance practices. Historically speaking, purges are often
    violent systemic acts of removing political, racial, or ethnic
    groups from society. Simply put, list maintenance is good
    public policy.
        For example, the Public Interest Legal Foundation
    discovered one Pennsylvania registrant who had seven active
    registrations.
        The failure to maintain a continuous program of reasonable
    list maintenance causes many problems, including inaccurate
    voter rolls and misallocation of election resources and funds
    by both election officials and candidates.
        The Public Interest Legal Foundation has developed a robust
    data analysis program with particular emphasis on voter
    registration list maintenance audit functions.
        In essence, the foundation can see how well of a job States
    are doing to identify and timely remove registrants who are
    deceased, relocated, exist in duplicate or worse, and may be
    claiming improper addresses as residences.
        The foundation recently settled a Federal lawsuit against
    the Pennsylvania Department of State focused on the question of
    whether the Commonwealth was performing reasonable efforts to
    remove deceased registrants from the rolls per Section 8 of the
    National Voter Registration Act of 1993.
        Foundation researchers found in excess of 21,000 registered
    voters positively matched against verifiable death records,
    some with dates of death dating back as far as the late 1990s.
        In the aftermath of the 2020 election, lawmakers must come
    to understand the overall quality of an election experience
    relying heavily on mail ballots rests on the reliability of the
    voter registration lists. Vote by mail plus inaccurate
    registration lists equals problems.
        By expanding the removal categories under the National
    Voter Registration Act, we can reap the benefit of more
    detailed accounting practices and hedge the risk of a single
    person being automatically mailed two ballots with variations
    of their own names on it.
        In closing, we have seen marked improvement in voter roll
    quality over the past decade. Many States are showing
    noteworthy innovations in maintaining lists despite Federal
    mandates based on practices and technologies from nearly 30
    years ago.
        Congress can act to help identify and spread those best
    practices.
        The time for measured action is now. Election integrity
    policies have sustained popularity for years and are showing
    renewed spike in interest.
        I look forward to any further questions. Thank you for the
    opportunity to appear.
        [The statement of Ms. Phillips follows:]

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        Chairman Butterfield. And thank you, Ms. Phillips, for your
    testimony.
        It is now time for member questions. I will go in the
    following order.
        Mr. Aguilar, you should go first.
        Mr. Aguilar. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate
    you having this hearing, and Chairperson Lofgren, Ranking
    Member Steil, and Ranking Member Davis for being here.
        And all of our witnesses who took the time to be here,
    thank you so much.
        You know, we heard a lot here about voter list maintenance
    and how it can hurt Americans' ability to vote.
        Dr. Meredith, Ms. Lakin, and Attorney General Kaul, can
    each of you provide just one way that list maintenance can
    occur without removing Americans' access to the ballot box?
        Dr. Meredith.
        Mr. Meredith. Congressman, I will go first because I was
    named first.
        I think there are ways that you can improve the process to
    reduce the likelihood of errors in either direction. Whenever
    there is uncertainty you can never be sure you are going to hit
    one way or another, but your goal is to do the best that you
    can to reduce your errors. Your goal can never be zero errors.
        But I think one piece of data that is very helpful in voter
    registration databases is the last four digits of an
    individual's Social Security number.
        In cases where you have access to the last--in a case where
    both States have access to the last four digits of someone's
    Social Security number, both States do, they can make much more
    accurate assessments when they observe someone with the same
    first name, last name, and date of birth in their registration
    files to know whether those are the same person or the so-
    called registration doppelganger.
        Mr. Aguilar. Ms. Lakin.
        Ms. Lakin. So I think there are a number of ways that voter
    list maintenance can be improved.
        One example I would give is perhaps automatic voter
    registration, which is a way of both facilitating participation
    and also making sure that voter rolls are more accurate by
    creating a constant stream of updates between registration
    agencies, other State agencies, and elections officials.
        About 19 States, including Representative Davis' home State
    of Illinois, have in recent years adopted these kinds of forms
    of automatic voter registration, which ensures that when voters
    move, for example, their registrations are automatically
    updated with the State. I think this is one really good way of
    ensuring both the accuracy of the voter rolls and ensuring
    that, at the very least, reducing the risk that voters are
    improperly removed from the rolls.
        Mr. Aguilar. Thank you.
        General Kaul.
        Mr. Kaul. Yeah. There are very useful ways to utilize
    cross-State data like the ERIC data that I was talking about
    before. One of the purposes of that data is to encourage States
    to reach out to people who aren't registered and to help them
    get registered to vote.
        At the same time, that data can also be helpful in
    providing information to election administrators to identify
    cases where there might potentially be voters who should be
    deactivated.
        What is important I think, though, is not to just take that
    data and act based on that data alone, but rather to follow up,
    and, for example, if you believe that somebody who is
    registered may have died, to follow up and get confirmation
    from vital records as to what that data indicates may be the
    case.
        Mr. Aguilar. Thank you. I appreciate the answer.
        Ms. Phillips, in 2016 and 2017 Public Interest Legal
    Foundation prepared a report titled ``Alien Invasion'' that
    alleged widespread noncitizen registration in Pennsylvania and
    Virginia and included highly sensitive personal information of
    numerous voters. Is that correct?
        Ms. Phillips. I disagree with the classification, but there
    is a report that we published called ``Alien Invasion,'' yes.
        Mr. Aguilar. The report was found to include inaccuracies.
    Many of the voters listed in the report were, in fact, citizens
    properly registered to vote. Is that correct?
        Ms. Phillips. The report relied upon data from the State of
    Virginia, and if there was any problem with that data, that
    would lie in the hands of the State of Virginia. And, in fact,
    we sued the State of Virginia for improper list maintenance.
        Mr. Aguilar. Was the president and general counsel of your
    organization ever required to issue a written apology to voters
    that had incorrectly been described in the report as
    noncitizens?
        Ms. Phillips. There is an apology. He made an apology.
        Mr. Aguilar. Was he required to issue the apology?
        Ms. Phillips. Not to my knowledge.
        Mr. Aguilar. Your organization has brought numerous efforts
    to try and force States and local governments to remove voters
    from their voting rolls. And given that your organization has
    been proven to not accurately determine whether voters are
    properly registered, why is your organization in a better
    position than local elected officials to decide which voters
    should be removed?
        Ms. Phillips. Well, I would like to know what inaccuracies
    you have discovered. In fact, we have offered a bounty, so to
    speak, for anyone who can find somebody who was improperly
    removed resulting from our enforcement actions, and to date, no
    one has come forward saying that they were improperly removed
    as a result of our actions.
        Mr. Aguilar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time is up.
        Chairman Butterfield. Thank you, Mr. Aguilar.
        At this time, I will recognize the Ranking Member, Mr.
    Steil, for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Steil. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        What I am hearing today is, I think we can all agree we
    want every eligible voter to be able to cast a ballot. My
    objective is to ensure that it is easy to vote and hard to
    cheat.
        There are two key reasons why a person registered in a
    jurisdiction would need to be removed from the voter roll: The
    person is either deceased or the person has moved out of the
    jurisdiction or is otherwise disqualified. Federal law requires
    removing these registrants.
        In general, in Wisconsin, we do a pretty good job removing,
    in particular, deceased persons from the voter rolls. But at
    times, and in particular when the death is closely timed to the
    election, there have been instances of a person voting
    illegally on behalf of a dead person.
        Mr. Kaul, are you familiar with a case of voter fraud in
    Ozaukee County from 2020 in which a Wisconsin woman was charged
    with voting on behalf of her dead partner?
        Mr. Kaul. I have read reporting about that, yes.
        Mr. Steil. Very good. I think it is a case worthwhile
    looking into, because I think it shows that there are
    instances, when voter rolls are not clean, someone may try to
    take advantage of the situation. I think it shows the
    importance of making sure the voter rolls are accurate and up
    to date.
        And it is much more difficult, admittedly, to clean up
    voter rolls when someone moves because there is less paperwork
    associated than when someone has passed away.
        And the question before us today is, how do we clean up and
    remove ineligible voters from our voter rolls to avoid any
    illegal votes while still making it easy for folks to vote
    legally?
        And so, Mr. Kaul, if I can, should election officials in
    Wisconsin be prioritizing maintaining accurate voter rolls, in
    your opinion?
        Mr. Kaul. Yes. I think list maintenance is important for
    all the reasons that you have heard spoken about today. And I
    also think in Wisconsin we have same day registration, which I
    encourage all States to adopt because it is really helpful.
        Mr. Steil. I am going to get to that in just a second. I
    had that in my opening remarks because I think that is a key
    point here, and, in particular, how it plays out with voter ID.
        But, Mr. Kaul, is it correct that the original--not the
    original, the 2019 active movers list from the Wisconsin
    Elections Commission, that is the list of individuals who
    report on an official government transaction form an address
    different from their voter registration address, included, I
    think as you said, 232,000 individuals?
        Mr. Kaul. It was approximately 230,000, yes.
        Mr. Steil. In that neighborhood. And Wisconsin was able to
    confirm about 7 percent or about 17,000 of those individuals
    were registered at their original address, correct?
        Mr. Kaul. That is approximately right, yes.
        Mr. Steil. That is the number I have from the Wisconsin
    Elections Commission.
        And so then I think the question becomes, what about the
    other 93 percent of the individuals, the overwhelming majority
    of the people on the 2019 original movers list, what happened
    to them?
        And from the Wisconsin Elections Commission we were able to
    discover that 58 percent registered at a new address, which is
    great--they have moved, they are engaged in the process, that
    is appropriate, those folks it would be rational to bring off
    the list then--3.6 percent were deemed inactive for reasons
    such as moving out of State, being deceased, or another reason.
        And then the question really comes to, what is the final
    third? The roughly 30 percent or 71,000 people still on the
    active mover list are there because they didn't respond to a
    simple request for information from WEC.
        But there are also further indications that they have moved
    and they have not requested continuation of address, they have
    not re-registered to vote at a new address, and they did not
    vote in the 2020 election.
        WEC confirmed that no one in this list of roughly 71,000
    people did vote in the 2020 election, which is, to me, further
    evidence that this might have been a list of folks that have
    moved. And then, Mr. Kaul, you argued in court to keep these
    71,000 individuals on the voter rolls.
        And so the question becomes, what is the plan to keep the
    voter rolls accurate if we don't ultimately remove ineligible
    voters?
        And in the response to Mr. Aguilar asking what is the plan,
    I know we can do additional followup, but is there a specific
    plan that we could do in Wisconsin to specifically remove
    voters that all evidence indicates have moved and should be
    removed from the rolls?
        Mr. Kaul. Yeah. So, first of all, what we argued in court
    was that the Wisconsin Elections Commission was not required to
    remove a number of voters from the rolls. And the figure that
    you cited, the 230,000 figure, that shrunk significantly over
    time for the reasons that you mentioned.
        Mr. Steil. And it came down to 70,000 people total.
        But here, let me just move as to why I am so concerned.
        H.R. 1, as you may know, was passed by the House and would
    really gut voter ID laws. And when this issue is combined in
    Wisconsin, it gives me great pause that we have 71,000 people
    on the rolls that appear to be incorrectly on the rolls, by all
    accounts, and we are looking at gutting voter ID law with H.R.
    1.
        And so in Wisconsin and States across the country, we have
    voter rolls that are problematic and not accurate. And at the
    same time, we have Nancy Pelosi and attorneys working to gut
    voter ID law, and further, H.R. 1 would create a one-size-fits-
    all approach.
        So I will leave it with this, because I know my time is
    running out, Mr. Chairman.
        I want it to be easy to vote and hard to cheat. And rather
    than working to remove key voter integrity provisions, my
    priority would be for us to work to find ways to really improve
    the confidence in our elections by working to appropriately
    clean up the lists.
        And with that, I will pause and yield back to you, Mr.
    Chairman.
        Chairman Butterfield. Thank you. The Ranking Member yields
    back.
        At this time, I will recognize Ms. Leger Fernandez for 5
    minutes.
        Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for holding this
    important hearing to hear about voting roll purges as a means
    of suppressing access to the ballot.
        And I want to really thank the witnesses for lending us
    your expertise and viewpoints.
        So the 2020 Presidential election saw record numbers of
    Americans, including record numbers of Latinos, turn out to
    vote. And this was in spite of certain State actions designed
    to limit access to the polls, especially for Latinos and other
    communities of color. And we see that certain States continue
    to pursue efforts to limit access to the ballot, including
    using the purging of voter rolls as an excuse.
        So I would note that while HAVA and Federal and State laws
    require maintenance of the rolls, it must be nondiscriminatory.
        So that is the issue that we are concerned about today, is
    how can we ensure it is nondiscriminatory, especially when we
    have so many instances of States choosing to target Latinos and
    other minority voters in that process.
        For example, both Florida and Texas have engaged in high-
    profile efforts to try to remove alleged noncitizens,
    predominantly Latino voters, from the voting rolls.
        Ms. Phillips, after facing legal challenges, those two
    States were forced to abandon those efforts. Indeed, the Texas
    Federal court found that the alleged problem of voter fraud
    was, quote, ``infinitesimally small.''
        And, as Ms. Lakin noted, the court further found that
    Texas' State actions to purge the voter rolls, which were very
    similar to Florida's, exemplified, as you noted, exemplified
    the power of government to strike fear and anxiety and to
    intimidate the least powerful among us.
        Ms. Phillips, as a litigator in these matters, have you
    read these orders, the Texas LULAC v. Whitley and Arcia v.
    Florida Secretary of State?
        Ms. Phillips. Yes, I have.
        Ms. Leger Fernandez. Mr. Chair, I seek unanimous consent to
    enter into the record the two documents. As noted, the first
    was the 11th Circuit decision holding that Florida's voter
    purge program violated the law, and the second was the district
    court order requiring that Texas officials halt the removal of
    voters from the polls.
        Chairman Butterfield. All right. Without objection.
        Ms. Leger Fernandez. Ms. Phillips, you opined in your
    testimony that inaccurate voter rolls is a significant problem
    in America's electoral process.
        Do you think it is a problem if these purges remove a
    disproportionate number of eligible voters of color from the
    voter rolls? This is a yes or no question.
        Ms. Phillips. Absolutely. No eligible voter should be
    removed.
        Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you.
        You know, contrary to what we hear in sometimes capitalize
    tweets of fraud and big news splashes, there is not actually
    evidence that there are many undocumented immigrants committing
    widespread voter fraud.
        Dr. Meredith, in your view, what is the result, what is the
    actual result when we have these targeted, highly publicized
    efforts to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls?
        Mr. Meredith. I think you want to think both about the
    direct and indirect effects that election actions will have.
    There are potential direct effects if an eligible person's
    registration gets removed or the direct effects if an action
    results in a registration being removed that prevents an
    eligible vote from being cast.
        But I also think it is important to keep in mind that
    voters don't have complete information. A lot of times I like
    to remind my Introduction to American Politics class that only
    two-thirds of Americans know the name of the Vice President.
        And so I think one concern I have when you have high-
    profile efforts is that people don't always understand the
    exact actions being taken and can misconstrue actions to
    potentially have broader effects than they do.
        So, for example, I have done research on voter ID laws and
    show that a lot of people don't understand that if they don't
    have their ID on the day of the election there may be a process
    for them to still cast a ballot via provisional ballot.
        And so I have concerns about any election policy that you
    don't just want to think about directly who the affected
    parties are but also indirectly what the consequences might be.
        Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you, Mr. Meredith.
        Ms. Lakin, you noted in your written testimony that many
    lawsuits brought by the Public Interest Legal Foundation and
    other activist organizations actually focused on jurisdictions
    with large Latino and Black populations and that these lawsuits
    were rejected.
        Can you share how these cases could limit voting access for
    minority voters?
        Ms. Lakin. Yes, absolutely.
        The problem with many of these voter roll purges, as we
    have discussed, is that in many cases the inaccuracies in the
    voter rolls, the type of information that is being collected,
    for example, noncitizen information, are going to target,
    unfortunately, voters of color most frequently.
        When applied then in certain areas that have high
    populations of minority voters you are going to end up in a
    situation where you are inevitably disproportionately removing
    voters of color and minorities from the rolls, and that is
    extremely concerning.
        Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you. My time is up. I yield
    back.
        You need to unmute, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. Davis. I think you are muted, Mr. Chair.
        Chairman Butterfield. I was trying to use the space bar to
    unmute. I keep getting a message that it can be used as an
    unmute tool, but it didn't work.
        But anyway, thank you, thank you to the gentlelady for your
    questions.
        At this time, I will recognize the Ranking Member from
    Illinois, Mr. Davis.
        Mr. Davis. Just a quick point of personal privilege. We
    will ask Jamie Fleet to send down the CAO to get your spacebar
    fixed, Mr. Chair. They will be there momentarily, I promise.
        Chairman Butterfield. I think I was the problem, Rodney. I
    confess.
        Mr. Davis. It is never user error, sir. Never user error.
        Chairman Butterfield. Thank you.
        Mr. Davis. I really enjoy these hearings. And I have
    traveled the country during the last Congress, talking about
    many of these issues.
        And here is the good news. The vote suppressionists that we
    talk about in this Subcommittee, they have been doing a pretty
    crappy job over the last two election cycles, because we had
    historic midterm turnout, we had historic turnout in 2020,
    which is great, because that meant as many eligible voters in
    the United States were able to cast a vote for their preferred
    candidates.
        And while we may not like the outcomes of elections, that
    is a positive that we all ought to celebrate.
        And that leads me to my question.
        So, Ms. Phillips, thanks again for being here today, again,
    with all the witnesses. Give us your definition of list
    maintenance for the Committee.
        Ms. Phillips. Certainly. List maintenance is ensuring that
    only eligible individuals are on the voter registration list.
        Mr. Davis. Good. As you are aware, Section 8 of the NVRA
    governs the process for States to conduct list maintenance,
    which is critical for good election administration.
        Can you briefly describe the criteria and requirements that
    must be met in order for a State to remove a voter from its
    registration rolls?
        Ms. Phillips. Sure. Section 8 requires that list
    maintenance be conducted for registrants who are deceased and
    who have been moved. And there are certain fail-safes in there
    to ensure that voters are not removed unless certain criteria
    are met.
        Mr. Davis. Great.
        There are many people who believe that voters are removed
    from their State's voters rolls solely as a result of not
    voting. That is not true, right?
        Ms. Phillips. That is not true.
        Mr. Davis. What makes a voter inactive?
        Ms. Phillips. It depends on the State law. Oftentimes it is
    an indication from a number of sources that a voter has moved,
    a registrant has moved, for example, the National Change of
    Address database.
        Mr. Davis. Okay.
        Speaking of that, can you describe the voter notification
    process and really the timeframe that States must follow when
    removing inactive voters from the registration rolls according
    to law?
        Ms. Phillips. Absolutely. The problem is that this is State
    law specific. So it is difficult to explain every State's
    procedure.
        However, in general, there will be a notice sent to the
    address that is on file and there will be steps that the
    registrant can take to confirm that the address is still valid.
        And then, if the notice is returned to election officials,
    there are other steps that are then taken by the election
    official.
        Mr. Davis. Okay.
        And some States actually do multiple notices, correct?
        Ms. Phillips. That is correct.
        Mr. Davis. Okay.
        You state in your testimony that a significant problem
    facing America's electoral process is the chronic inaccuracy
    and lack of integrity in the voter rolls that list the
    individuals registered to vote in local, State, and Federal
    elections.
        The foundation has conducted extensive research into the
    accuracy of various State voter rolls, right?
        Ms. Phillips. Correct.
        Mr. Davis. In fact, your foundation has sued several States
    for failure to maintain accurate and current voter rolls as
    required by Federal law, correct?
        Ms. Phillips. That is correct. Not--we have sued counties
    and State election officials.
        Mr. Davis. Okay.
        And through your foundation's work, have you discovered
    State voter rolls that contain more voters registered in a
    jurisdiction than eligible voters that live in that
    jurisdiction?
        Ms. Phillips. Yes.
        Mr. Davis. Voters registered at commercial addresses rather
    than residential addresses?
        Ms. Phillips. Yes.
        Mr. Davis. What about voters registered at vacant lots?
        Ms. Phillips. Yes.
        Mr. Davis. Deceased voters, dead voters?
        Ms. Phillips. Yes.
        Mr. Davis. I know I am from Illinois. I shouldn't talk
    about that.
        Nonresident voters?
        Ms. Phillips. I am sorry. What do you mean by nonresident
    voters? Not resident of the jurisdiction?
        Mr. Davis. Correct.
        Ms. Phillips. Yes.
        Mr. Davis. What about duplicate registrations?
        Ms. Phillips. Yes.
        Mr. Davis. Noncitizen voters?
        Ms. Phillips. Noncitizen registrants, yes.
        Mr. Davis. Noncitizen registrants. Okay.
        Well, look, I think it is great to have these discussions.
    We are talking about vote fraud being infinitesimal, it is just
    such a small amount, it is just a little bit of fraud. You
    know, everything matters. Every instance of fraud matters.
        Remember, we did not seat a duly elected Member from North
    Carolina's Ninth District because of voter fraud and the ballot
    harvesting provisions that were not legal in North Carolina but
    legal in California and others.
        There are so many processes right now in our election
    process that we need to delve into that, but at the same time
    we have to encourage the positivity of how well we have done as
    a country in every State across this Nation in having historic
    voter turnout in the midterms and in the last election, the
    last Presidential election.
        And I know some of my colleagues' heads might be exploding.
    They will say, ``Turnout doesn't matter.''
        Well, it did when we were figuring out--when our
    predecessors were figuring out what covered jurisdictions would
    be in the original Voting Rights Act. It mattered then, it
    should matter today, and we are doing things right in this
    country.
        And I thank all of our witnesses and my colleagues for
    being here today.
        I yield back.
        Chairman Butterfield. I thank you, Mr. Davis.
        At this time the Chair recognizes the gentleman from
    Georgia, Mr. Loudermilk.
        Mr. Loudermilk. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate
    the opportunity to be here and appreciate this hearing, because
    voter maintenance is extremely important.
        And before I begin my questions, I want to reiterate that
    this is a top priority for every Republican on the Committee,
    that every lawful vote be counted and that every qualified
    voter is able to vote safely. That is extremely important. It
    is the basis of our Nation and our election system.
        The integrity of our elections should be paramount as we
    exercise our role on this Committee to oversee the Federal
    elections process, and that includes ensuring that voter rolls
    are kept up to date.
        One issue that is of particular concern to me and many of
    my colleagues and one that I will continue to be vocal about
    addressing is the propensity for poorly maintained voter rolls
    to undermine public confidence in election results, especially
    with the increased prevalence of mass mail-in ballots like we
    saw in the 2020 election.
        In fact, a member of my staff received three primary
    ballots during the last election cycle. The ballots did not
    belong to my staff member or anyone else who lived at that
    address, and they had lived at that address for several years.
        And at the residence for the elections in the jurisdiction
    which he received the ballots, they did not live. Basically he
    lived in D.C. and these ballots came from Maryland to someone
    else's name. And, again, he had lived at that address from way
    beyond the previous election.
        To be clear, these were not ballot applications but live
    ballots.
        And in this scenario, if this scenario that had played
    out--now, he took pictures of these ballots and he showed them
    to me and he properly destroyed those ballots.
        But if this scenario plays out in States across the
    country, the potential for millions of ballots to be sent out
    indiscriminately without people requesting them and to the
    wrong address creates the potential for fraud.
        And he very well easily could have filled out these three
    ballots that weren't his. He is from Georgia, lives in D.C.,
    received the Georgia ballot he requested, but received three
    ballots from Maryland he did not request to other people's
    names.
        And this really brings doubt to the integrity of the
    election system.
        Now, my questions.
        Ms. Phillips, your foundation brought enforcement action
    against States for failing to conduct comprehensive list
    maintenance as required under the National Voter Registration
    Act, as the ranking member has brought up.
        In your opinion, why are certain States reluctant to
    routinely conduct voter list maintenance?
        Ms. Phillips. In my opinion, the pressure has come from
    various interest groups not to maintain the rolls for myriad
    reasons. So the pressure is to do nothing.
        It is also at times difficult to conduct list maintenance.
    It requires diligence. It requires consistency. And there may
    be lack of training. Various reasons why election officials
    would not conduct list maintenance.
        Mr. Loudermilk. Okay. One thing you didn't mention was
    funding. Do you ever--have you ever encountered that maybe it
    is a lack of funding to do this?
        Ms. Phillips. Absolutely. And the problem is that having
    unclean rolls only makes the financial burden greater when you
    are mailing out pieces of mail to individuals that should not
    be registered to vote. So it is one of those tasks that should
    be a priority in order to trim budgets in other places.
        Mr. Loudermilk. So you have mentioned that there is
    pressure from outside groups, which we are fully aware of in
    Georgia. There are a lot of groups putting a lot of pressure on
    the election system, on both sides.
        But you have mentioned that they are putting a lot of
    pressure on some elected officials or government officials to
    not purge voter rolls. I note in some cases there are threats
    of lawsuits, et cetera, et cetera.
        What impact does a State's failure to conduct their list
    maintenance have on the integrity of our election process?
        Ms. Phillips. As you mentioned, it is devastating to voter
    confidence. The example of one person receiving multiple
    ballots, especially for individuals that do not live in that
    location, those effects can be felt far and wide.
        So it is a voter confidence issue and it also is just a
    misallocation of resources for these election officials that
    have in many cases very limited budgets anyway.
        Mr. Loudermilk. Well, thank you.
        And one last question for you. Are States required to
    coordinate with State or Federal agencies to verify voter
    information when conducting their list maintenance?
        Ms. Phillips. No.
        Mr. Loudermilk. Okay.
        Turning to Ms. Lakin.
        Your state in your testimony that accurate rolls are
    appropriate and necessary for election administration. And I am
    glad to hear that the ACLU supports voter list maintenance.
        In your testimony you highlight perceived problems with
    various databases available but don't mention alternatives. If
    States need accurate voter registration lists, what databases
    or alternative measures should they use to maintain their
    lists?
        Ms. Lakin. Thank you, Representative.
        I think I mentioned earlier today that automatic voter
    registration, for example, is one solution, one assistive
    program that could provide assistance with maintaining accurate
    voter rolls, as well as ensuring that voters aren't improperly
    purged from the rolls.
        In addition, having good notice and sufficient time for
    voters who may have been purged from the rolls inaccurately to
    correct the record is absolutely critical in this regard and is
    not always provided in the way that it should be provided, as
    is the case in Indiana where we have sued successfully multiple
    times.
        Mr. Loudermilk. Well, and making sure that only legal
    voters are the ones casting the vote is important. I could go
    through multiple stories of even in this last election people
    that have moved as much as a decade before started receiving
    ballots again from the State they moved from.
        And I have got numerous reports of that, and even people
    that are family members who called me and said, ``Hey, I just
    want to let you know. You know I moved from State X 10 years
    ago. I just started getting a ballot again in this election''--
    which was ironic, that it was this election that they got the
    ballots that they had never--that they hadn't received since
    they left, which tells me it was a voter list issue.
        So thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this hearing. I appreciate
    the time. And I yield back.
        Chairman Butterfield. I thank the gentleman.
        At this time I will recognize the gentlelady from
    Pennsylvania, Ms. Scanlon, for 5 minutes.
        Ms. Scanlon. Thank you, Chairman Butterfield, for holding
    this very timely hearing.
        Chairman Butterfield. It is not a Loudermilk 5 minutes.
    That is a Scanlon 5 minutes.
        Ms. Scanlon. Can I have some of Davis' time maybe?
        Chairman Butterfield. You could do a Davis time limit,
    sure.
        Ms. Scanlon. Okay.
        Chairman Butterfield. Yes.
        Ms. Scanlon. Over the past decade we have seen a rise in
    modern day voter suppression techniques built upon a false
    narrative that our elections are vulnerable to widespread
    fraud.
        This false, unsubstantiated narrative has been used to
    justify an array of voter suppression techniques, including
    strict voter ID laws, restrictions on hours and places of
    voting, and the practice under consideration today, voter roll
    purges.
        Unlike gerrymandering, which has a long history of
    bipartisan abuse, these new techniques have been weaponized by
    one party to suppress the votes of those less likely to support
    that party and to energize its own supporters by claiming--
    without evidence--that our elections are subject to widespread
    fraud.
        Of course, the members of this Committee and the entire
    world saw the damage that can occur when national leaders
    spread lies about the integrity of our elections, with exhibit
    A being the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol which occurred 4
    months ago today.
        Pennsylvania has a robust bipartisan election security
    system, including voter roll maintenance, which not only
    conducts secure and accurate elections twice a year, but also
    in the past year has managed to identify and prosecute those
    few bad actors who tried to commit election fraud. And it is
    worth noting that they were all supporters of the former
    President who were inspired by his unsubstantiated claims of
    rampant election fraud.
        So we are talking about voter roll purges that have been
    initiated by some States, but I want to focus on efforts by
    groups such as Judicial Watch and the Public Interest Legal
    Foundation to force voter purges in areas that do not favor
    their candidates.
        In the lead-up to the 2020 election, the group Judicial
    Watch attempted to force the State to purge hundreds of
    thousands of voters but focused on the three counties bordering
    Philadelphia, two of which I represent, which have increasingly
    trended to Democratic candidates over recent years.
        Ms. Lakin, the ACLU intervened in this suit brought against
    Pennsylvania and its counties prior to the 2020 election. Can
    you discuss what happened in that case and address Judicial
    Watch's allegations about mass defects in voter roll
    maintenance?
        Ms. Lakin. Yes, absolutely.
        In this case, which was recently dismissed in March of
    2021, there were allegations that the list maintenance process
    was incomplete, was unreasonable, or was insufficient.
        In dismissing this case, however, the court concluded that
    the lawsuit was based on outdated information and data which is
    subject to all the problems that we have discussed earlier.
        And the court also concluded that Judicial Watch based its
    lawsuit on--rejected the claim that just high discrimination
    alone should lead to an inference that counties have a list
    maintenance problem and targeting districts just based on that
    information alone leads to--is not a problem in itself.
        And I should just flag very, very briefly that, because
    there is this notice and waiting process that has been
    highlighted by many members today and other witnesses, there is
    often a little bit of a lag before some voters that are to be
    removed are actually removed.
        And so that in and of itself should not be a basis for
    forcing jurisdictions like your own to conduct overly
    aggressive purges based on information that is outdated and
    may, therefore, wrongly purge and disenfranchise voters.
        Ms. Scanlon. Would it be fair to say that this group was
    not seeking for a global solution to Pennsylvania's voter roll
    situation if it was only targeting the most Democratic
    districts?
        Ms. Lakin. I think that would be fair to say, that it was
    targeting just the three districts that were included in the
    lawsuit.
        Ms. Scanlon. Are you aware that, having had the case
    dismissed just in March, three days ago Judicial Watch has now
    tried to start the case all over again in the run-up to the
    2022 elections?
        Ms. Lakin. I am, unfortunately, aware of that fact.
        Ms. Scanlon. Unfortunately aware.
        So one of the things we have seen is that Judicial Watch
    and these other organizations bring these suits. Very
    expensive, aren't they?
        Ms. Lakin. Litigation is often extremely expensive on both
    ends, on everybody's part.
        Ms. Scanlon. So it wastes valuable public resources that
    could go into more election security, more election
    availability?
        Ms. Lakin. I think that is a fair statement.
        Ms. Scanlon. Okay.
        Is there anything we can do to reform the NVRA to prevent
    suits like the one that was brought here?
        Ms. Lakin. Yes. There are multiple ways that list
    maintenance can be improved. There can be additional
    protections for ensuring that overly aggressive purges aren't
    taking place.
        For example, increased guardrails for using improper,
    unreliable, or outdated data; ensuring that there are
    additional checks on that information; ensuring that there is
    more notice that is provided for voters who may be flagged in
    that; and banning, for example, inaccurate proxies, for
    example, the failure to vote, which we have argued and have
    demonstrated is highly inaccurate as a trigger for removing
    someone from the rolls.
        These are all different methods for ensuring that local
    jurisdictions and States aren't forced to conduct purges that
    are overly aggressive and wrongly disenfranchise thousands and
    thousands of voters.
        Ms. Scanlon. Thank you.
        And I see that my time is expired. I did want to involve
    Mr. Meredith from the University of Pennsylvania in the
    discussion, but I am afraid the Chair will have my head.
        So thank you for your testimony, and I did appreciate your
    report.
        Chairman Butterfield. Thank you, Ms. Scanlon. And you just
    got a chuckle from the staff. Thank you.
        The Chair now recognizes himself for not more than 5
    minutes.
        Let me just address this to Ms. Lakin.
        Ms. Lakin, what do you think are the most important changes
    that we can make to Federal election laws governing State voter
    list maintenance practices?
        Ms. Lakin. Thank you for that question, Chairman.
        The Congress can do many things. I would point to the list
    maintenance and transparency and notice provisions in H.R. 1.
    Those go quite a long way.
        In addition, there are these guardrails that I mentioned
    with Representative Scanlon that help to ensure that proxies
    that are unreliable, that are based on outdated databases are
    in place to ensure that voters are given security precautions
    before they are removed from the rolls.
        I would also highlight--and this has come up in a few
    instances--that same-day registration, I will add that it does,
    in fact, provide at least some fail-safe for voters who may be
    erroneously purged from the rolls who can then show up at the
    polls, that they are able to register and vote at that time.
    That is at least a fail-safe option for those voters.
        Chairman Butterfield. Thank you.
        What about you, Dr. Meredith? Can you add any to this
    discussion?
        Mr. Meredith. I think one thing I would like to see done is
    more modernization in how people are notified when there are
    questions about whether they are eligible to vote or not.
        I think the cases that make me most concerned are when
    things like undelivered election mail trigger list maintenance
    action which is then responded to by sending them a postcard.
    If the problem is that there is an issue with the mail, you are
    not going get that postcard.
        And so I think we need to be thinking about what forms of
    communication we can be using beyond postcards to make sure
    that voters actually see the information and can act upon it in
    a timely way.
        Chairman Butterfield. Thank you. Thank you for that.
        Let me now go to the attorney general.
        Mr. Kaul, you have testified, I believe you said, in
    numerous cases to protect voters' access to the ballot, and
    that is a good background for the question that I need to ask
    you.
        What are the most important tools at the Federal level, not
    the State level, but the Federal level to protect the right of
    the voter to exercise their franchise?
        Mr. Kaul. That is right, Mr. Chair. I have litigated
    several voting rights cases.
        Certainly the U.S. Constitution protections related to the
    right to vote are critically important. But the Voting Rights
    Act plays a critical role as well.
        Strengthening the Voting Rights Act and providing greater
    clarity to how Section 2 applies, I think, is very useful.
        It is also true that we have seen States since the Shelby
    County ruling restrict access to voting. So restoring some sort
    of regime like used to be in place under Section 5 would be
    extremely valuable.
        And then rules that protect people's access to
    registration, like the NVRA, are also very valuable.
        Chairman Butterfield. Attorney General, my staff tells me
    that you successfully defended the Wisconsin Elections
    Commission against an effort by a conservative group to
    compel--it was an interest group--to compel the purging of
    voters in your State.
        Why are State and local election officials in a better
    position than private interest groups to determine whether to
    initiate proceedings?
        Mr. Kaul. There are a few reasons. One is State and local
    officials can obtain local data and they can find things like
    death notifications that, when you have an outside interest
    group that is just using log scale data, they can't get into
    the details as well.
        The other thing is election officials often have access to
    personal identifying information that is not publicly
    available. And so they can make a better determination often
    about whether two records relate to the same person or
    different people.
        And then, of course, they have experience administering our
    elections. They are not there with an agenda other than to
    administer elections fairly and effectively.
        Chairman Butterfield. Thank you.
        I have got 30 seconds left, and let me conclude with Ms.
    Lakin.
        How do State voter removal programs have the potential to
    discriminate against minority voters?
        Ms. Lakin. Well, there are a number of different ways. The
    database inaccuracies and flawed matching protocols that we
    have discussed play a really big part in this.
        As I noted, in Texas the fraud effort there targeted
    naturalized citizens who are a group that, at least in Texas,
    80 percent of that group were Black or Latinx or of Asian
    origin. The same was true in the Florida purge that attempted
    to target, again, noncitizens but ended up sweeping in
    naturalized citizens.
        Matching protocols, as we talked about with Dr. Meredith,
    they rely on names and date of birth. They frequently
    disproportionately flag voters of color because of their naming
    conventions and higher rates of similar names.
        These burdens also, they are halting the process of getting
    registered in the first instance. They fall more heavily on
    voters of color due to structural inequalities, structural
    racism, the history of suppression in this country that make
    many of these activities much more difficult for voters to
    overcome.
        Chairman Butterfield. Thank you.
        Ms. Lakin. Thank you.
        Chairman Butterfield. Thank you. I think my 5 minutes has
    expired.
        Let me just thank all of the witnesses for your very
    valuable testimony today.
        And I thank the members for their questions. These have
    been some very insightful questions.
        The members of the Committee may have additional questions
    for the witnesses. And, if so, we will ask you to respond to
    those in writing. The hearing record will be held open for
    those responses.
        Again, I want to thank all of the witnesses for your very
    valuable testimony today. Many thanks to all of you for all
    that you do in the voting space, in the election space. You
    have been very valuable to this process, and I thank you for
    it.
        We will continue to have these important hearings as we
    seek to comply with the Supreme Court's decision of 2013.
        Without objection, the Subcommittee on Elections of the
    Committee on House Administration stands adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 3:25 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

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