It took years to build the multi-state system known as ERIC, which weeds out duplicate, deceased and suspicious voter registrations. Texas Republicans want to dump it, but there’s no viable alternative.
Natalia Contreras
Natalia Contreras covers election administration and voting access for Votebeat in partnership with The Texas Tribune. She has covered a range of topics as a community journalist including local government, public safety, immigration and social issues. Natalia previously reported for the Austin American-Statesman, focusing on impacts of government policies on communities of color. Natalia previously worked at the Indianapolis Star, where she helped launch the first Spanish-language newsletter, and at the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. She was born in Tampico, Tamaulipas in Mexico and grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas. She is based in Corpus Christi.
Posted in
Texas Legislature 2023
Texas Senate passes bill to make illegal voting a felony again
The priority bill, backed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, reverses a change the Legislature made two years ago during an omnibus voting bill that made illegal voting a misdemeanor.
Posted in
State Government
Conspiracy theory whirlwind threatens to blow Texas out of national program that keeps voter rolls updated
ERIC is a national system that Texas officials say is an important tool to keep voting rolls clean. But a band of right-wing voting fraud activists, joined by state GOP officials, wants to gut it.
Posted in
Texas Legislature 2023
Texas lawmakers take first step to restoring felony penalty for illegal voting
Republican lawmakers — backed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — are working to reverse a change to state law they approved two years ago as part of a sweeping overhaul to Texas election law that included downgrading illegal voting to a misdemeanor.
Posted in
Texas Legislature 2023
Two GOP legislators in Harris County want to let the state replace local elections administrators
The proposals were filed in response to Harris County’s problems at the polls in recent elections.
Posted in
Texas Legislature 2023
Texas Senate revives effort to make illegal voting a felony
Lawmakers lowered the penalty to a misdemeanor in 2021, but then almost immediately began discussing raising it back.
Posted in
Texas Legislature 2023
Texas taxpayers face a $100 million bill to update voting machines with equipment that doesn’t exist yet
State lawmakers approved the requirement — which attracted little attention or debate — in their massive overhaul of the state’s voting laws during a 2021 special Legislative session.
Posted in
Politics
Three Texas counties are suing the attorney general to get clarity on when the public can access post-election ballots
For decades, the attorney general’s office advised counties to keep ballots for 22 months after an election. Then Attorney General Ken Paxton issued an opinion saying they could be quickly released to anyone who requested them.
Posted in
Texas Legislature 2023
Ken Paxton wants more power to prosecute election crimes. These bills in the Texas Legislature would give it to him.
Although no evidence of widespread voter fraud has been found, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been actively pursuing election-related crimes since he took office in 2015.
Posted in
Texas 2022 Elections
Almost two months after Election Day, Harris County still doesn’t know if polling site problems kept people from voting
Some sites opened late and reportedly ran out of paper in November, but the county says its investigation into the issues “has not yet revealed” whether anyone was turned away.
