The Texas Secretary of State's Office has signed agreements with nine other Republican-led states to share voter registration data. The move comes less than a year after Texas withdrew from a much broader multistate compact designed to combat potential voter fraud.
Secretary of State Jane Nelson announced Thursday that Texas had signed memorandums of understanding to share voter registration data with Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.
"Texans expect fair and transparent elections," Nelson said in a statement. "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 statement said the memorandums would allow states to exchange voter registration data securely while maintaining confidentiality, along with allowing them to catch instances of duplicate registrations or potential voter fraud.
Texas previously participated in the Electronic Information Registration Center (ERIC), which was designed to serve the same purpose. The state withdrew from ERIC last October, amid unsubstantiated GOP claims that the organization was being used to promote Democratic voter registration. At its height, ERIC had 31 member states, plus the District of Columbia. The organization is now down to 26 states plus Washington D.C., largely due to Republican-led withdrawals.
Daniel Griffith, senior director of policy for the election integrity nonprofit Secure Democracy USA, said the bilateral compacts are likely to be less effective at cleaning voter rolls of ineligible voters. He also warned that would raise the risk that eligible voters would be misidentified and incorrectly removed from the voter rolls.
"The Secretary’s office testified, when ERIC was being considered in the [Texas] Legislature in 2023, they noted that they got over 4 million referrals, and they referred about 900,000 out to the counties for possible investigation," Griffith said. "It’s difficult to imagine that they’re going to be able to match that level, that kind of number in an agreement with fewer states."
Copyright 2025 Houston Public Media News 88.7