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During a House Administration Committee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC) spoke about North Carolina's voter registration laws.
Transcript
00:00I now recognize Dr. Murphy of North Carolina for five minutes.
00:05Thank you, Madam Chairman.
00:07You know, I've been in Congress a little over five years now,
00:09and I feel it's kind of like a basketball game,
00:11where the guy who does the wrong thing first,
00:15and then the other person, maybe he fouls one player first,
00:18and the second player who responded,
00:20it's everybody who puts the attention to the response
00:22rather than the primary problem to begin with.
00:25And that's what it seems to be.
00:26We always scream at what the reaction is
00:27rather than the real problem itself.
00:29Nobody is saying that our election system is perfect.
00:33Nobody is saying that.
00:34We live in a human society.
00:35We have human frailty.
00:37We're not saying that.
00:38Mistakes happen.
00:40And that's why we have reform.
00:42You know, it's very interesting.
00:43We're talking about the North Carolina Board of Elections
00:46and how Ms. Helding, you know, really got screwed by them.
00:51Absolutely.
00:52But I think I just want to point out
00:53that the North Carolina Board of Elections
00:55has been run by Democrats for many, many years,
00:57and I'm happy to say that now the legislature
01:01has taken control of the North Carolina Board of Elections
01:03and turned it over to Republican control.
01:06And now the Republicans have begun
01:08the registration repair project
01:10to ensure that all eligible voters
01:13have accurate and complete information on file.
01:16Imagine that.
01:16We're actually running a system that works.
01:18The State Board of Elections has publicly announced
01:21that the project will not result
01:23in the removal of any eligible voters.
01:26So we had a horribly run democratic system
01:30that Ms. Helig had the terrible experience
01:35of having to deal with,
01:36and now the adults have come into the room
01:38and said,
01:39we're actually going to run something right.
01:41That's great.
01:42You know, look, we sat right here.
01:44You all sat at that table
01:45when the Michigan Secretary of State sat there,
01:47and she would not allow the removal
01:49of over 22,000 dead people.
01:52How are we supposed to respond to that,
01:54Republican or Democrat?
01:55How do you respond to that?
01:56That's fraud, period, point blank.
01:58And that's our job,
01:59is to ensure that those people
02:01are taken off the rolls.
02:03We don't want any eligible voter removed.
02:05The experience that you went through, man, was horrible.
02:07I'm sorry for that on the part of North Carolina.
02:11But, you know, damn,
02:12if we want our elections to be secure,
02:14it's okay that we look at this stuff.
02:17It's much more,
02:18it's much worse
02:19if we have somebody voting who shouldn't
02:21than somebody, sadly enough,
02:22had to go through what you did.
02:23So I apologize for that.
02:26There's a new sheriff in town in North Carolina,
02:27and hopefully they'll run it in a system
02:29that actually works
02:30rather than having 200,000 people put on a roll
02:34where their voting rights are questioned.
02:37I'll turn back.
02:39Mr. Reamer, just a couple questions.
02:41The federal requirements
02:43for notifying voters
02:44before removing them from voter rolls.
02:47Can you expand on those a little bit?
02:49Absolutely.
02:50So once an election official
02:52has reason to believe
02:53that a voter may have moved, for example,
02:56they are required to mail
02:58what's known as a confirmation mailing.
03:00And that is sent to the address
03:03where the voter is registered affordable.
03:05So if the voter has moved somewhere else,
03:07in theory,
03:08that piece of mail is supposed to go
03:10to their new address.
03:12So that is how the process works.
03:15When that mail does not come back
03:16to the election official
03:17or the voter does not return it,
03:20saying, I've moved,
03:21cancel me from the voter rolls,
03:22which is what happens only 30% of the time.
03:25The voters only request cancellation
03:27about 30% of the time
03:29or notify the election official
03:30that they're still there
03:31and not to remove them.
03:33And what happens is
03:35those election officials,
03:36unless they hear from the voter,
03:37they have to wait for up to four years
03:39until they can remove that individual
03:42from the voter rolls.
03:42Yes.
03:43I mean, it just, you know,
03:44I had a former colleague,
03:46anesthesiologist,
03:46who we were in the operating room
03:48talking one day,
03:48and he was livid
03:49because he went to vote
03:50and someone had voted in his place.
03:52So to say this stuff doesn't occur
03:54is absolutely wrong.
03:55And then I've had patients who said,
03:57yes, I got mailed five ballots,
04:00five ballots to my house.
04:01But so to want to clean up this system
04:05is not wrong.
04:06It's not wrong.
04:07It is absolutely the right thing to do.
04:11I just, I'm baffled
04:12that people want to fight that.
04:14One other question.
04:17Actually, Mr. Adams,
04:18thanks for being here today.
04:20What is the best practice for states
04:22to share voter identification role
04:24with each other?
04:25And I will say this real quickly,
04:27and maybe my time might run out.
04:29I apologize.
04:30You know,
04:31Social Security has a great pension.
04:32If somebody dies,
04:33you get a notice pretty damn quick
04:35that you're not getting your benefits.
04:37Why can't we tie that to voter rolls?
04:41Wouldn't that be an interesting concept?
04:42But anyway,
04:42I'll let you answer your question.
04:43The best is commercial data.
04:45Commissioner Don Palmer
04:46at the EAC
04:47has advocated for this.
04:48I'm on the Board of Advisors
04:49of the Election Assistance Commission.
04:52We have advocated
04:53at Public Interest Legal Foundation
04:54use Experian commercial data
04:56as the most accurate.
04:58There's a cost,
04:59but we can figure this out.
05:00Yeah.
05:00All right.
05:00Thank you, Madam Chair.
05:01Thank you for my yield back.

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