Will House Democrats Seat the Iowa Republican Who Won by Six Votes?

John McCormack  17 hrs ago

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National Review logoWill House Democrats Seat the Iowa Republican Who Won by Six Votes?

When Iowa officials certified the results of the November election, Republican House candidate Mariannette Miller-Meeks defeated Democrat Rita Hart by six votes out of 394,000 ballots cast. The margin of victory was one of the slimmest in history: 0.0015 percentage points.

a group of people standing in front of a building© Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

To get a sense of just how close the election was, consider that Joe Biden’s tiny margin of victory in the Electoral College tipping-point state of Wisconsin was 0.63 points — 20,682 votes. If Biden had won the state of Wisconsin by the same percentage that gave Miller-Meeks a win in her Iowa congressional district, Biden would have carried the Badger State by just 50 votes.

Iowa officials had already conducted a recount before Miller-Meeks was certified as the winner, but Hart is challenging the result before the House of Representatives.

“The issue relating to Iowa is an issue for the House Administration Committee,” House speaker Nancy Pelosi said at a press conference earlier this month. The “House decides who it will seat.”

As a constitutional matter, Pelosi was correct. The Constitution says that “each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members.” The most recent historical precedent for the House’s overturning the results of a certified election occurred in 1985. After an Indiana Republican candidate was certified the winner of the 1984 election, House Democrats had the General Accounting Office conduct their own recount, which they said showed Democratic incumbent Frank McCloskey winning by four votes. Outraged House Republicans staged a walkout when McCloskey was seated.