Conservative groups and individual activists have targeted tens of thousands of Texans over their eligibility. But state and federal protections are in place.
County election departments across Texas are trying to reassure voters amid a flood of formal challenges questioning whether their registrations are valid.The challenges, filed by conservative groups and individual activists, seek to remove tens of thousands of voters from the rolls on the grounds that they don’t live in the county, are not citizens or have died.
At this point in the election cycle, voters aren’t at risk of being dropped from the rolls because of a challenge. Under federal law, election officials can’t cancel a voter’s registration in the period 90 days ahead of Election Day, except for voters who voluntarily cancel their registration or who are convicted of a felony.
The effort has drawn criticism from election officials, courts and voting-rights advocates. For one thing, they say, the postal database that True the Vote relies on is outdated and not a reliable source for determining voter eligibility. For another, they say, the effort gives credence to false claims that large numbers of people are voting illegally by exploiting deficiencies in registration records.
A voter is placed on the suspense list when the county registrar’s office receives information that the voter no longer lives at that location. Election officials will send a notice to the voter asking them to update their registration information. If a voter stays on the suspense list for two federal general election cycles without casting a ballot or taking action to confirm their address, their registration is canceled.
Hancock says it’s not as simple as that. Some registrations that may seem suspicious based on a limited data set may be perfectly legitimate. Many voters have the same name and even the same date of birth; some voters who don’t have a permanent address, such as someone who is homeless, can list an alternative address on their registration. In other cases, Hancock says, the group is also questioning voters on the rolls who haven’t voted in some time.
And if the list of voters being challenged is derived from the USPS change-of-address database, Oldham said, “then to me that does not constitute ‘personal knowledge.’”
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