U.S. House of Representatives Committee on House Administration

02/11/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 02/11/2026 11:48

ICYMI: Top Takeaways from Full Committee Hearing on Restoring Integrity in Federal Elections

WASHINGTON - Yesterday, the Committee on House Administration held a Full Committee Hearing titled, "Make Elections Great Again: How to Restore Trust and Integrity in Federal Elections."

Witnesses:

  • The Honorable Chuck Gray, Wyoming Secretary of State

  • The Honorable Ann Bollin, Michigan State Representative

  • Mr. T. Russ Nobile, Senior Attorney, Judicial Watch

  • Ms. Karen Brinson Bell, Principal and Co-Founder of Advance Elections

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

1. Implementing Citizenship Verification

Chairman Bryan Steil (WI-01): What was the experience in the state of Wyoming after you had your election - after you've implemented citizenship verification?

The Honorable Chuck Gray: Well thank you, Chairman Steil, for that question. And we had a very clean bond election last year under the documentary proof of citizenship requirement. It was very clean, no issues, no complaints. It was just very well run and people were excited that we implemented this commonsense measure.

Chairman Bryan Steil (WI-01): So the fearmongering that we're hearing today didn't materialize in the state of Wyoming from a cost standpoint, from a disenfranchisement standpoint, what you ended up with was a good, solid, clean election.

Click the image or here to view Chairman Steil's Q&A.

2. Timely Election Reporting

Vice Chair Laurel Lee (FL-15): We heard testimony earlier, the Chairman had great questions about the connection between timely election results reporting and voter confidence. I'd like to hear your perspective on that. But also in your written testimony, you go a step further and note that election ballot deadlines past election day, in your view, even violate federal law. Tell us about that.

Mr. T. Russ Nobile: Yeah, it's not just us. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said that. So, we've been litigating this for five years. When Congress enacted the first election integrity provision in the history of Article II, it enacted election day. And in all times, election day ended on election day. But in the last 15 years, there's been this activist effort to get state legislators to extend ballot receipt deadlines in a way that, frankly, makes elections disorderly and unreliable and suspicious. And it's radically reduced public trust in elections. And for the last 15 years, we've been suffering through two weeks of post-election uncertainty because people aren't just getting their ballots returned in time. And frankly, the denominator of ballots outstanding continues to increase, which when people go to bed at night, they need to know how many ballots are outstanding. They need to know how many ballots are left to be counted, and they don't need to wake up three days later and find out there's an additional 150,000 ballots coming in. So, it's just, frankly, radically undermining elections.

Click the image or here to view Vice Chair Lee's Q&A.
3. Debunking "Jim Crow 2.0"

Rep. Morgan Griffith (VA-09): I agree with my colleagues. All American citizens should have the right to vote. I do, however, disagree that the desire to have all Americans being able to vote has been bipartisan in the past. Having been a child during the Jim Crow era, I can assure you that the Make Elections Great Again bill is not Jim Crow. But let's talk about Jim Crow in Virginia. In 1902, the Virginia Constitution was rewritten by Democrats. They didn't take it to the people to vote on it. They just did. It assembled in Richmond. And the concept was, everybody will recall, to disenfranchise African Americans. But what people don't recall is it was also to disenfranchise poor white Republican voters in the western part of the state, the very part of the state that I now have the great pleasure and am proud to represent. It was done to take them out of the voting rolls, too, because the Republican populist coalition was challenging the dominant Democrats in the state, and the Democrat party did that, led by E. Carter Glass of Lynchburg, Virginia. And it would take some time to break that coalition up. And you know what it was, Mr. Chairman? It was the federal government interfering, according to all the Democrat politicians of the time, interfering in the states and telling them you can't continue to run your elections with poll taxes, with complex, subjective registration processes and having quote unquote, an understanding clause, making sure that people understood what was going on in the election that broke that up in the mid 60s. And guess what followed that? The election of the first Republican governor since Reconstruction in 1969. I participated in that election not as a voter, but as somebody working out there in the hustings. Yeah, I was a weird kid. And I remember the debate between the mountain valley Republicans and the Democrats who controlled everything and who didn't want blacks and poor whites from the western part of the state actively participating. So I assure you, Mr. Chairman, your bill is not Jim Crow. I've got to tell you, it was an interesting time to live in, and I'm glad it's passed. And what we want to do is to make sure American citizens can vote.
Click the image or here to view Rep. Griffith's Q&A.
4. Maintaining Clean Voter Rolls

Rep. Mary Miller (IL-15): Representative Bollin, what steps would you like Congress to take to ensure that states like Michigan and Illinois are fulfilling their responsibilities under federal law to maintain clean and accurate voter rolls?

The Honorable Ann Bollin: One is I do think we need to establish, kind of reset these universal base standards. Number one. Number two is I do think that the post-election audits would help in this regard, the list maintenance. And I think that we should be working in concert with the Michigan legislature, at the federal level as well, to make sure that these records are turned over. And the responsibility, you know, in Michigan, we have very decentralized elections. And while the Secretary of State wants to take over much of this, we do need partners in this. And I do think that that's what this Act can do is, again, relegate the authority back to our locals and have the assurance. And if there is funding, I think the funding should be tied to compliance. And unfortunately, I mean, I know we don't want to tie fundings, but as the chair of appropriations especially in split government, these are common sense reforms. These are not partisan reforms. We should all be on board trying to allow people to vote. And how has that happened? That's accurate voter rolls and verification.

Click the image or here to view Rep. Miller's Q&A.
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