Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton introduced a tipline on Feb. 16 where people can email and report suspected voter fraud and state election law violations. However, experts say these issues are rare.
“When most people think of the term ‘voter fraud’ they think of someone trying to vote more than once or intentionally vote while ineligible,” Carl Blair, election protection attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project, wrote in an email. “In our experience, this type of conduct is extremely rare, and we have systems in place to catch and discourage it.”
The attorney general’s office published the email tipline, [email protected], with an advisory the day before early voting in the primary elections began. In the advisory, Paxton cited “growth of the noncitizen population in Texas” as a potential risk for election integrity. According to the release, Paxton’s office will “thoroughly investigate any suspected voter fraud.”
Ashley Harris, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said there are processes in place to prevent noncitizen voting.
“There are multiple steps in the registration process, and then also in the statewide process, around voter list maintenance that ensures that citizens are only registered to vote,” Harris said. “So these claims about noncitizens being on voter rolls are simply not a real, meaningful issue.”
According to the advisory, people can be sentenced up to 20 years in prison and be fined up to $10,000 if they vote in Texas without being a U.S. citizen and a Texas resident.
The advisory and news release do not specify if any regulatory information, such as a location or the names of people involved, is required in the emailed submission. The attorney general’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
“Under my watch, there will be no stolen elections in Texas,” Paxton said in the news release. “Your liberties and your representation in our government depend on secure elections.”
The Texas Secretary of State is responsible for ensuring statewide policies are implemented and that election code is followed in all counties, said Emily French, policy director at Common Cause Texas. Each county has offices dedicated to completing voter registration, poll worker training and ballot counting, French said.
“The truth is that we have a really strong net of protections in the election code, in the county election’s office and at the Secretary of State’s office to ensure election integrity in Texas,” French said.
Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE, Act, which would require states to submit voter rolls regularly to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Blair wrote allegations of noncitizen voting usually coincide with legislation like this.
“In Texas, we know that most people are just trying to confidently cast a ballot to have their voices heard in order to elect their representatives of choice,” Harris said. “There’s very little evidence that anything nefarious or fraudulent happens around elections in Texas. They’re known to be safe and secure.”
