Arguments End at Texas Voter ID Trial
A court in Washington may rule soon on what you'll need to produce at the polls in November. Photo by Filipa Rodrigues/KUT NewsAudio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
By Katherine Jacobsen
Closing arguments in the Texas voter ID case took place in Washington today. Texas has been arguing that the new law is needed to decrease voter fraud in the state. As part of that argument, state attorneys cited Travis County as one of 18 counties that did not properly maintain voter registration records.
The Texas attorneys told the court that Travis County has not removed dead voters from the rolls in five years.
Alejandro Garcia with the Texas secretary of state’s office says maintaining records is a combined effort between state and county governments.
“They receive information often, I would say within a month, within a week, or every two weeks or so, that we send them about deceased voters that we get from the Bureau of Vital Statistics,” Garcia said. “The counties also have either personal knowledge of people that have passed away or they get other entities that inform them of deceased voters.”
State officials say these procedures, when properly implemented, should greatly decrease voter fraud.
But Dee Lopez, Travis County’s voter registration director, says the county is constantly removing deceased voters, despite claims to the contrary.
“From what I have seen, and again, 21 years of experience, I can tell you that we have not come across any situations where voters intentionally frauded the system, either through the deceased file, the felon file, or any of those,” Lopez said. “We have not seen any intentional voter fraud cases at all.”
The federal court in Washington is expected to rule by the end of the month on whether Texas can implement its photo ID requirement.
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