The House Administration Committee's subcommittee on elections held a hearing on "potential updates to the NVRA" and LWVUS testified that in any efforts to potentially update the NVRA, it is crucial that the law retains its power to protect voters and facilitate voter registration.
Statement for the Record
Subcommittee on Elections Hearing: “Examining Potential Updates to the NVRA”
December 10, 2025
On behalf of the League of Women Voters of the United States (the League), thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony on the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). The League comes before you not only as an impacted party, but as one of the leading civic organizations that championed, shaped, and helped secure passage of the NVRA more than three decades ago. Our members were on the ground in communities across the country documenting barriers, advocating for reforms, and partnering with legislators to ensure that this landmark legislation reflected the needs of the American electorate. The League has also litigated multiple cases defending the rights of voters and the purpose and intent of the NVRA since its passage.
Because of that history, and because League volunteers continue to work every election cycle implementing the NVRA at DMVs, public assistance agencies, and community-based registration sites, our perspective reflects both the original intent of the law and the practical realities of how the law functions today.
The League is a 105-year-old, nonpartisan nonprofit committed to ensuring that everyone is represented in our democracy. We are a grassroots organization comprised of over one million members and supporters in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, across more than 800 local and state Leagues. The League and its state affiliates have repeatedly turned to litigation to preserve and enforce the provisions of the NVRA, protecting voters from harmful and discriminatory laws.
The NVRA remains a landmark statute that has helped millions of eligible Americans register to vote through streamlined, accessible processes. Its success is a direct result of the collaborative vision that the League and Congress advanced together: that voter registration should be straightforward, fair, and available to every person.
In any efforts to potentially update the NVRA, it is crucial that the law retains its power to protect voters and facilitate voter registration. The NVRA has survived numerous attempts to weaken it. Recent threats to the NVRA have included efforts to modify voter roll maintenance protocols and require documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC) on the national voter registration form. Both efforts would result in a weakened NVRA, which is the last thing that Americans need right now.
The NVRA protects eligible voters from being wrongfully purged from the voter rolls, including preventing last-minute voter roll purges, which regularly deny eligible voters their right to vote. The drafting of the NVRA intentionally struck a balance between voter list maintenance and protecting the freedom to vote for eligible voters. Under the NVRA, states are required to conduct any necessary list maintenance at least 90 days before a federal election. The NVRA also requires states to perform list-cleaning procedures to keep voter registration lists current and accurate, including obtaining data from other sources such as the National Change of Address program, death records, and felony records. While this data can provide useful information, it must always be verified for accuracy. Unfortunately, too many voter purges prioritize speed over accuracy. States often rely on unproven and false assumptions of voter fraud to justify aggressive purge practices, and those practices end up sweeping thousands of eligible and properly registered voters off the rolls. Hundreds of thousands of voters, despite doing what is required, have still been removed by past voter purges. This committee has the opportunity to protect the intent of NVRA.
A clean voter roll is essential to ensuring election administrators can adjudicate elections properly and allow voters to participate in the voting process. If done properly, voter list maintenance ensures that voter rolls are dependable, accurate, and up to date. Precise and carefully conducted list maintenance can remove duplicate names and identify individuals who have moved, died, or are otherwise ineligible. Far too frequently, however, eligible, registered voters show up to vote and discover their names have been removed from the voter lists, and they can’t do anything about it. Additionally, states maintain voter rolls in an inconsistent and unaccountable manner. Officials have a history of striking voters from the rolls through a process that is shrouded in secrecy, prone to error, and vulnerable to manipulation.
In League of Women Voters of Indiana, Inc. v. Sullivan, an Illinois law was struck down that would have allowed the state to remove Indiana registrants from the list of eligible voters without direct communication from the voter and without following the notice and waiting period required by the NVRA. These are critical tenets of the NVRA that must be maintained, as they prevent unfair removal of voters. In the case of Husted v. A. Phillip Randolph Institute, the Supreme Court upheld an Ohio voter purge practice that removes infrequent voters from the registration rolls. The right to vote cannot be treated as a use-it-or-lose-it right. The League strongly disagrees with this ruling and submitted an amicus brief in defense of the hundreds of thousands of eligible voters who were properly registered, and did not lose their eligibility, but were nonetheless purged from the rolls. All legislation governing list maintenance, removals, and purges must result in transparent, accurate, and legal list maintenance under the NVRA as currently written.
Another effort to change our election processes that would weaken the NVRA is the recent push to require documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC) to register to vote. DPOC requirements violate the NVRA and have been declared an unlawful mandate in case after case including Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Ariz., Inc., Fish v. Kobach, LWV v. Newby, and Kobach v. EAC. Processes to ensure our elections are secure and that only eligible voters are casting ballots are already in place. State election officials have systems to verify an individual voter’s eligibility and ensure voter rolls are accurate.
State elections officials have failed to provide evidence that large numbers of non-citizens are illegally registering to vote and casting ballots. Thus, it is completely unnecessary to require citizenship documentation to register to vote. It would result in millions of voters being prevented from voting, and voters in every state are already required to affirm or verify their citizenship status when registering. DPOC legislation has already been implemented by some states and has had a demonstrable negative impact on voters’ ability to participate in elections. Efforts to require documentary proof of citizenship at the state level have been struck down in Arizona, Alabama, Kansas, and Georgia.
Recent efforts to add documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC) to the national voter registration form have emerged through several avenues—including portions of a presidential Executive Order that were permanently blocked by a federal court, a petition from America First Legal Foundation to the EAC, the SAVE Act, and similar proposals at the state level. While the motivations behind these efforts vary, imposing a DPOC requirement would significantly hinder the ability of eligible Americans—Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike—to register or update their voter registration. Such a change would introduce barriers that run counter to the NVRA’s core purpose of ensuring broad, equitable access to the franchise.
The NVRA must maintain its power to protect voters and facilitate voter registration, and Congress must ensure that every eligible US citizen has the freedom to vote. For questions, please feel free to reach out to our staff via Jessica Jones Capparell, Director of Government Affairs at [email protected], or Kristen Kern, Federal Policy and Advocacy Manager at [email protected].