Committee on House Administration Ranking Member Morelle Opening Remarks at the Committee Hearing titled “2022 Midterms Look Back Series: Government Voter Suppression in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania”
Washington, D.C. – Committee on House Administration Ranking Member Joe Morelle (D-NY) delivered the following opening remarks at the full committee hearing titled, “2022 Midterms Look Back Series: Government Voter Suppression in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania”:
“Thank you, Chairman Steil for yielding me time. Thank you to the witnesses for joining us this morning.
“Today's hearing is more than a bit confusing for those of us on the minority side of the aisle.
“Some facts are very clear.
“There is no doubt there was a paper related problem or shortage at multiple precincts in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, on Election Day, November 8th, 2022.
“That is, without a question, a very, very bad thing.
“I understand the remedy decided upon by local officials was to afford voters the opportunity to vote by other means.
“Nonetheless, there should never be a case where election officials are caught napping and don't have enough paper.
“Such a situation is completely unacceptable, and we share our majority colleague’s alarm.
“This raises serious questions.
“Did someone forget to buy paper?
“Or did they buy the wrong kind of paper?
“Who bears the responsibility for ordering and purchasing paper?
“How many voters were affected by this?
“Were voters denied the right to vote?
“Did election workers offer each voter a backup method of voting?
“How many voters took advantage of the opportunity to use a backup method of voting?
“Some have suggested the laws may have been broken, and to that point, the local District Attorney, as my colleague, the majority the Chair, has suggested, the local district attorney has been investigating the incident and, according to press reports, hopes to be done with that investigation soon.
“The resulting report, we would expect, would answer these sorts of factual questions and would make some recommendations on who's to blame and whether or not criminal charges would be forthcoming as a result of breaking laws or criminal intent.
“Which brings us to the question that is sort of mystifying to us on this side of the aisle.
“What exactly are we trying to accomplish in today's hearing?
“There is no one here from Luzerne County government and no one here from the Pennsylvania Department of State.
“Individuals who could actually shed some light and provide answers to some of these key questions.
“Our colleagues in the majority did invite folks from both offices, yet they declined, citing a reluctance to interfere with the ongoing district attorney's investigation.
“Their reluctance seems logical, at least from our point of view.
“If you bring witnesses from a DA's investigation into a congressional hearing before the investigation is concluded, the witnesses might contradict their own testimony to the day, contradict each other, or taint the future testimony of other witnesses.
“Not interfering with an ongoing investigation is a familiar enough concept.
“Although we are spending a fair amount of time here in Washington talking about it lately.
“In any event, that leaves the question I asked earlier.
“What's the purpose of today's hearing?
“If it's to establish that something went wrong last November in Luzerne County?
“We completely agree. This much has already been established.
“Again, the minority has been fighting for the rights of every voter as long as I can remember, and this case is no different.
“The title of this hearing, “Government Voter Suppression in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania”, more than implies a concerted, intentional effort, a conspiracy, if you will, to disenfranchise voters.
“Is the majority suggesting a conspiracy on the part of Luzerne County Council to suppress voters?
“The County Council has 11 members, 10 of whom are Republicans.
“I'm also led to understand, and I'm no expert on Luzerne County politics, but it's not exactly a bastion of progressive politics.
"If it's to establish that suppression resulted in the outcome of the 2022 elections in Luzerne County being false or inaccurate, I would just say that as it relates to the House races, we did not receive any election contests, which is a formal complaint filed with the House of Representatives touching on Luzerne County this year.
“In fact, we did not receive any contest at all, which is the majority has pointed out, highlights the successes of the 2022 midterm elections.
“We have heard a fair amount from our colleagues in the majority on the need for decentralized election administration.
“They argue for states’ rights and limited federal intervention.
“I'm not sure this is the best example of such a principle, but in any event, I just wanted to touch on the limited nature of the of the exercise we're engaging in today and to continue to raise questions that we have about why we're even here today and why we're not waiting for the District Attorney's report, why we're not waiting to make sure that we have a better understanding of the fact pattern from local officials and state officials as to what happened, how the paper shortage occurred, who's responsible and who has the liability.
“I also note that the county manager, perhaps not related to this all, but resigned from office within days of the election.
“Now, whether or not that had anything to do with the paper shortage and who's responsible, I can't say.
“Just note that that manager was hired again by a county council that has 10 Republican members out of its 11 member board.
“But we want to know what's happening.
“We certainly do not want any voter to be disfranchised in the United States of America.
“That's a principle on which we have fought for decades, and we will continue to fight.
“And with that, thank you all again for being here. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.”
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