WASHINGTON - Committee on House Administration Ranking Member Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) today released this statement following a Subcommittee on Elections hearing titled, "The Impact Of COVID-19 On Voting Rights And Election Administration: Ensuring Safe And Fair Elections."

"Despite what we heard here today and even more reports of voters being disenfranchised in primaries across the country where states moved too quickly to expand mail-in voting, Democrats on this committee and in the House continue to support federalizing our elections and mandating vote by mail, whether a state is prepared or not," said Davis. "Unfortunately, the majority refuses to talk about these problems, but voter confusion is real, polling consolidation leading to long lines is real, ballots not being received or signed is real, multiple live ballots being sent to the wrong address is real, and many other issues that risk disenfranchising voters when a state is not prepared to expand vote by mail are real. It's time for the majority to join the real world and abandon the push for H.R. 1. Instead, we should do everything we can to help states develop their own system between now and November that ensures every person can safely vote."

The only witnesses actually in charge of setting election policies to testify before the hearing today were invited by Davis and both testified about how the federal government can support their efforts to allow every person to vote during COVID-19, but that they were opposed to a federal takeover of our elections.

"Protecting the credibility and integrity of elections in Alabama is something I made a commitment to do when campaigning for office in 2014. Today, I was proud to share our efforts to promote the trusted confidence in the process and to prevent the high-jacking of the 2020 Election Cycle from the fraudulent practices of direct voting-by-mail and ballot harvesting. With state and local election officials working together with members of Congress, we will protect the right for eligible Americans to participate in the electoral process," said Alabama Secretary of State John H. Merrill.

"I am accountable to Louisianans, and I cannot cede control of our elections to politicians thousands of miles away. Receiving one-time funds to run elections during an unprecedented crisis at the expense of radically changing our election system is a trade-off we are not willing to make," said Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin.