US House Hearing Shines Light On Antiquated Voter Roll Maintenance Laws

If banks or consumer firms maintained their client list based on the Federal and State Election Laws, the country would be in chaos.

Your bank accounts would not be accurate. Packages mailed by UPS or Amazon would arrive at people’s old addresses. Deceased people would continue to receive health care coverage up to 4 years after their death. Banks and consumer firms would audit themselves, without external oversight.

The US House of Representatives held a hearing on July 22, 2025 titled, “Clean Rolls, Secure Elections: Reviewing Voter List Maintenance Standards.”

Before we dig into the hearing here is some background on the existing federal statutes.

There are two (outdated) Federal laws that govern voter list creation and maintenance.

The National Voting Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA)

• Requires States to use uniform federal voter registration form

• Requires motor vehicles office to provide for voter registration (this part is why this law is also called the Motor Voter Law)

• Requires State agencies to provide public assistance for voter registration

• Allows voters to register by mail

• Requires US Postal Service to treat election mail as if the State was non-profit

• Requires States to maintain voter registration lists for federal elections

• Requires State to keep voter registration list accurate and current

• Provides criteria for the removal from voter lists

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA)

• Replaces punchcard and lever-based voting systems

• Creates the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to assist with Federal Elections

• The EAC establishes minimum election administration standards including: election procedures, voting machine standards, registration processes, and poll worker training

• Requires accessibility to polling locations

• Requires States to develop a single, uniform, official, centralized, interactive computerized statewide voter registration list

• Requires proof of identity for first-time voting after registering by mail

• Requires use of provisional ballots

• Requires all voting systems to be auditable and produce a permanent paper record with manual audit capacity

July 22nd Hearing Top Takeaways

The Chairman of the Committee on House Administration is Bryan Steil, Republican US Representative from Wisconsin. The hearing lasted about 1 hour and 20 mins.

There were three witnesses who testified and answered questions from the house members

• Mr. J. Christian Adams – President & General Counsel, Public Interest Legal Foundation
• Mr. Justin Riemer – President and Chief Executive Officer, Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections; Partner, First Street Law
• Ms. Mary Kay Heling – Voter

Points that were brought up include:

1. The NVRA “reasonable effort standard” to keep accurate and current voter rolls, is so open-ended that removing just one dead voter can satisfy the requirement. States can just claim that their rolls are accurate and satisfies the law. So lawsuits don’t go anywhere. Often citizens have no standing in court.
2. Currently, minimal efforts are pursued by some states to follow federal statutes. Illinois and Michigan were brought up as two of the worst states. On the other side, Ohio was mentioned as having implemented much more rigorous processes with better results.
3. There are vast differences between states on how they maintain voter rolls.
4. Transparency is missing on many levels.
5. The EAC’s Electronic Administration And Voting Survey (EAVS report) was published about a month ago. It follows every election cycle and this one reports on the 2024 election. While many states do comply, data provided is not consistent across the board. Therefore, the public cannot rely on it representing a full picture of the state of our elections.
6. One example used was that dead voters are not updated with the same rigor that Social Security payment records are. There is no excuse for this.
7. Data entry standards for new registrations are practically non-existent, so errors and inaccuracies are widespread and time-consuming to correct after the fact. This results in duplicate voter records, erroneous addresses, and mail ballots sent to non-existing addresses.
8. Non-US citizens are easily registered, since there is no requirement to provide proof or citizenship when registering to vote. Verification after the fact is time-consuming and an administrative burden.
9. The National Change of Address file from the Post Office, used to validate people who move, is not adequate anymore. To address this problem, some states have implemented reciprocal verification systems, so people are not registered in more than one state at a time. Companies like Experian are used by banks and consumer firms to validate residencies and are a potential solution as well.
10. The current processes used by the elections officials to verify voters’ status is to send a postcard and historically only 30% are returned. Therefore, many invalid registrations linger up to 4 years before removal.
11. During an election year, when most update activity happens, there is a 90-day moratorium prior to both primary and general elections where election officials cannot update their files. This rule is archaic, expensive to implement, and stands in the way of accurate record maintenance.

Top takeaways were summarized, including key video clips, on the Committee’s website and you can view them here.

The entire hearing can also be viewed here.

What Happens Next?

As you can see, many of the issues that the Pigpen Project has grappled with were reviewed in this hearing. We welcome the efforts by the US Congress.

The President’s Executive Order on “Preserving and Protecting The Integrity of American Elections” has helped put focus on how the “United States now fails to enforce basic and necessary elections protections employed by modern, developed nations, …”

It is clear from this hearing that the NVRA and HAVA laws need to be revamped.

The laws need to be more prescriptive, stronger on audit requirements, and clearer on defining outcomes. We should expect accountability from both elections officials and voters alike.

Next, the US House must put pen to paper and address the persistent problems that plague the voter rolls in the United States. US Rep Steil and House Republicans are proposing the American Confidence in Elections Act (ACE) to accomplish this goal.

It should be noted that the US Congress’ Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE), that addresses the non-US Citizens issue, was passed by the US House of Representative earlier this year and is currently awaiting the US Senate’s action. It should be passed when the Senate returns from their summer recess in September 2025!

In conclusion, we need to re-establish trust in our elections. Voter rolls must be accurate, secure, accessible and transparent.

This must be implemented in time for the 2026 election cycle!