During Tuesday’s House Administration Committee hearing, Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) spoke about creating guardrails to protect voting in the United States.
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NewsTranscript
00:00I now recognize the gentleman from Illinois, Ms. Miller, for the purpose of questioning our witnesses for five minutes.
00:09Okay. Thank you, Chairwoman, and thank you to the witnesses for being here.
00:15And I do want to address my colleague, Ms. Johnson.
00:19You just insulted the young, the poor, the rural, and people of color
00:25by insinuating that they don't have enough wherewithal to go get a photo ID or a driver's license.
00:34Ridiculous. Voting is a privilege. Being an American citizen is a privilege.
00:38And we want to make sure that American citizens, that their votes are not being canceled out by people that are not U.S. citizens.
00:50I would like to respond.
00:51So anyway, I have a question for Secretary Landry.
00:54Direct remarks to the witnesses. Carry on.
00:58I have a question for Secretary Landry.
01:01In 2024, Louisiana enacted House Bill 476, which requires that an absentee ballot delivered by a third party
01:10be accompanied by a signed statement of the voter prepared by the Secretary of State,
01:16which attests the voter authorized the Postal Service or commercial carrier to deliver the ballot.
01:23So Secretary Landry, why is signature verification so crucial to ballot integrity?
01:29So we believe that the custody of your ballot is very important, the chain of custody and keeping track of that.
01:37And so when you hand your ballot to somebody, you need to know who has your ballot and what they've done with it.
01:43And so if they're unable to deliver it themselves or they need assistance, we ask them to put their name and signature on there as well so that we know who's delivered the ballot and we know that they have permission to do that.
01:56So what kind of consequences are there if someone doesn't get the voter's authorization or they turn in something that's fraudulent?
02:05There's no consequence for the voter, actually.
02:09The vote is still counted.
02:11But if someone is, there's a prohibition on witnessing more than one or delivering more than one.
02:16And so the prohibition, the penalty is on that person who didn't put their name or who delivered more than one.
02:25So we still count the vote, I think, in those situations where the ballot is delivered.
02:34But if it's missing a witness signature, it's not counted.
02:37In the last election, were you able to identify anybody that turned in some kind of fraudulent whatever attestation?
02:47In the last election, no, we had a lot of complaints in the election before that of people who were harvesting ballots and going to apartment complexes
02:58and offering to assist vulnerable voters and family members had contacted our office and asked that we investigate
03:06because they felt like there was some manipulation going on with assisting with the ballot.
03:12So that's what prompted that legislation.
03:16Well, I think until we have severe consequences for people that are engaged in activities, you know, like what you just described,
03:25I don't think we're going to have free and fair elections.
03:29So I'd like to see.
03:31So just to clarify, if they're missing any signatures, the ballot is not counted.
03:35But if it's just something untoward or against the law that the ballot harvester is doing,
03:44that person is punished and the vote is still counted.
03:46Great. Thank you so much. And I yield back.