Houston Chronicle: Texas Republicans want out of a national program that targets voter fraud

04.6.2023 / By Cayla Harris
Houston Chronicle: Texas Republicans want out of a national program that targets voter fraud

“States leaving ERIC and creating their own independent registration system increases the potential for election fraud,” Katya Ehresman, the voting rights program manager at Common Cause Texas, testified last week. “The GOP and conservatives for years demanded the kind of results ERIC has produced, and states withdrawing from the compact undercut efforts to keep voter rolls clean and prevent illegal voting.” Ehresman also has questioned whether Nelson’s office could run its own system. She pointed to the office’s botched voter roll purge in 2019, when then-Secretary of State David Whitley used faulty data that questioned the citizenship of tens of thousands of Texas voters. The staffers who worked on that effort “are probably not the people we want to create a new system for maintaining voter rolls,” Ehresman said.

“States leaving ERIC and creating their own independent registration system increases the potential for election fraud,” Katya Ehresman, the voting rights program manager at Common Cause Texas, testified last week. “The GOP and conservatives for years demanded the kind of results ERIC has produced, and states withdrawing from the compact undercut efforts to keep voter rolls clean and prevent illegal voting.”

Ehresman also has questioned whether Nelson’s office could run its own system. She pointed to the office’s botched voter roll purge in 2019, when then-Secretary of State David Whitley used faulty data that questioned the citizenship of tens of thousands of Texas voters.

The staffers who worked on that effort “are probably not the people we want to create a new system for maintaining voter rolls,” Ehresman said.

 

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