Texas law bars voter registrars from probing addresses

The debate in Harris County over a resident’s challenge to 4,000 voter registrations ended with the county attorney declaring the claim invalid, but drew attention to a quirk in Texas law that bars voter registrars from investigating what they suspect are bogus addresses.

Residents of a county are permitted to challenge the voter registration of other county residents if they have “personal knowledge” a voter has listed an incorrect address. The Harris County attorney concluded local Republican Party official Alan Vera could not possibly know where 4,000 voters lived, and rejected the challenges.

Vera’s list, however, included thousands of voters who listed their residences at business addresses, such as parcel stores and post offices, raising questions about how those applications were approved, and what Harris County can do to correct them.

Texas law requires voters to register where they live. At the same time, state law requires counties to take voters at their word that their voter registration applications are truthful.

Registrars who suspect an address may be invalid can send letters to voters asking them to confirm where the live. If residents re-submit the same address, however, registrars must process the application. Sam Taylor, spokesman for the Texas secretary of state, said the only other remedy registrars have is to refer cases to district attorneys for prosecution.

“The Texas Election Code does not grant any sort of additional investigative authority to a voter registrar in that situation,” Taylor said. “That’s where investigators and/or law enforcement get in-

volved.”

Taylor said the secretary of state’s office has received complaints about the issue in the past but said instances in which voters insist they live at an address that appears commercial are not a widespread problem.

“It does occur occasionally, and we do occasionally hear frustrations from county voter registrars,” Taylor said.

Bungled response

The Texas Election Code defines a voter’s residence address as the street address or the address at which mail is received if the residence has no address, along with the city, state and zip code. A voter registrar must register a person if the application is complete and the person otherwise is eligible, provided the registrar can determine the address claimed and assign it to the proper voting precinct.

The registrar can refer cases to the district attorney if he or she believes an applicant is falsely claiming a business address as a residence address.

David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research in Washington, D.C., said it is common for district attorneys to serve as the registrar’s only option for bringing charges.

Election officials, he said, should reserve referrals to the DA for cases when “it looks like there’s a potential criminal action.”

Harris County Tax Assessor Ann Harris Bennett, who also is the county’s voter registrar, declined interview requests but said in an email that her office checks several databases, such as those maintained by the Department of Public Safety and Harris County Appraisal District, to verify voter addresses.

In August, her office initially bungled its response to the 4,000 registration challenges by placing 1,700 voters on its suspense list but corrected the error within days.

Voter registrars in other large Texas counties described a system in which clerks run voter registrations through a database that marks addresses that appear to be commercial.

Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacquelyn Callanen said her office sends address confirmation cards to registrants whose applications are flagged.

“If it does not come back, we mark their record as a suspense record,” Callanen said. “So, when they go to the polls, they have the opportunity to give a residential address but are still eligible to vote.”

Voters only are purged from the rolls if they are placed on the suspense list and fail to participate in two consecutive federal elections, Callanen said — a process that takes four years.

John Oldham, the election administrator in Fort Bend County, described a similar process in which that county’s clerks use a database to verify addresses. Texas has a statewide voter registration database, called TEAM. Some of the state’s most populous counties maintain their own local databases as well.

Oldham said registration applications on which voters list the physical address of a post office or P.O. box sometimes “slip through the cracks” but said clerks seek to ensure voters list the address at which they live.

“We normally initially reject applications that have a commercial address,” Oldham said. “But if they resubmit with the very same information … we send a letter to confirm.”

Oldham added that his office never has referred a suspected fraudulent voter registration to the Fort Bend County district attorney.

Confirmation letters

The Chronicle reported last month that Bennett’s office mailed letters to voters whose registrations were challenged and asked them to confirm their addresses. The voters were not given the requisite 30 days to respond.

Becker said federal law further mandates that officials complete their voter list maintenance 90 days before an election; in this case, Bennett’s office was operating within the 90day window.

Instead of mailing the letters or putting voters on her office’s suspense list, Becker said that Bennett could have kept a record of those named in Vera’s challenge, then checked after the election to see which of them voted.

Becker said it’s likely more people placed on the suspense list were eligible and would like to vote than were ineligible and attempting to illegally cast a ballot.

“It’s hard to get people to vote. It’s really hard to get people to break the law to vote,” he said.

Galveston County Tax Assessor-Collector Cheryl Johnson says she does not permit voter registrations to list the addresses of P.O. boxes on voter registration forms.

She said her office has seen many cases of residents who live on boats listing parcel stores as their home. Johnson sends letters asking these voters to instead list the nearest intersection or pier, to ensure they are registered to vote in the correct precinct.

Johnson’s two full-time clerks vet each application manually and work with voters to ensure their addresses are valid, she said.

“I don’t think it’s ever a voter trying to scam the system,” Johnson said. “They just don’t know what to do.”

Otis Evbagharu, communications director for the Harris County Democratic Party, said the party has yet to receive complaints from members about inaccurate voter registrations. He said the party has faith in Tax Assessor Ann Harris Bennett to ensure registrations are accurate.

The Harris County Republican Party’s spokesman, Vlad Davidiuk, said the mishandled voter registration challenge shook the party’s confidence in Bennett’s office. Davidiuk said he doubts the county voter registrar is sending confirmation letters to voters who appear to list invalid addresses.

“There was no evidence that corrective step was being taken previously, and I have no confidence it would be taken in the future,” he said.