(The Center Square ) – Texas has entered into agreements with nine states to strengthen election integrity measures, Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson announced.
Nelson has signed memorandums of understanding (MOU) with her counterparts in nine states to share voter registration data. They include Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.
The purpose of doing so is to strengthen efforts to prevent duplicate registrations, Nelson said. The MOUs “establish a secure and cooperative process for comparing voter registration records, providing a critical tool to detect and prevent potential voter fraud,” she said. “These agreements are a significant step in our ongoing commitment to maintain accurate voter registration lists and upholding the integrity of our elections. By working together, we are demonstrating how states can responsibly share information while protecting voter data.”
This is in addition to Nelson’s office employing multiple data sources to maintain clean voter rolls, including accessing information from federal and state agencies like the Social Security Administration and the Bureau of Vital Statistics, she said.
“State-to-state agreements provide an additional tool to identify duplicate voter registrations, detect instances of voting in more than one jurisdiction, and ensure voter databases remain up to date,” the SOS explained.
The MOUs outline how the states will securely exchange voter registration data while also adhering to strict confidentiality and cybersecurity protocols. Any duplicate registrations or potential voter fraud would be shared with appropriate authorities for further investigation, the Texas SOS said.
The MOUs serve as a model for future partnerships as Texas plans to establish similar agreements with additional states, Nelson said. The nine MOUs “will further enhance election security by allowing states to work together to identify cross-state duplicate registrations and prevent voting in multiple jurisdictions,” she said.
“Texans expect fair and transparent elections,” Nelson added. “These agreements provide an effective framework for safeguarding our voter rolls, and we look forward to expanding this initiative with other states in the near future.”
The news comes after the Texas SOS launched a new election security grant program to strengthen election integrity in all 254 counties earlier this year, The Center Square reported. Grants are available to help counties comply with paper audit trail requirements, replace decertified electronic pollbooks, ensure video surveillance systems comply with ballot security measures, implement measures to protect election equipment and supplies, and make IT services upgrades.
It also comes after the Texas SOS referred the first batch of 33 potential noncitizens to the Office of Attorney General to investigate alleged voter fraud. The referral was made after the SOS was given access to a federal database to check its voter rolls to determine if any illegal foreign nationals registered to vote or voted, The Center Square reported.
Last year, Texas removed 6,500 noncitizens from its voter rolls but requested information on them and others from the federal government, which it didn’t receive, The Center Square reported. This included a list of 454,289 registered voters in Texas “who have never had their citizenship verified.” Access to information changed under the Trump administration.
Earlier this year, the Texas legislature passed a resolution, SJR 37, to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot for voters to approve or reject, clarifying that only U.S. citizens can vote in Texas. This November, voters will decide on 17 constitutional amendments on the ballot, The Center Square reported.
