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Voter Purge Controversy Continues, Although Some Errors and a Compromise Fix Are Being Sought

Posted byHoumanitarian
Image: Texas Tribune

(Mike Morris, Houston Chronicle)
Harris County Judge Ed Emmett has brokered a deal with the Texas secretary of state to restore about $700,000 in funding the state had cut off after the county tax assessor said he would not purge presumed-dead voters from the rolls before the Nov. 6 election.

Tax Assessor-Collector Don Sumners on last week said he would delay the purge after hundreds of very-much-alive voters called his staff, upset about a letter they had received from his office saying they may be dead and would be removed from the rolls if they did not act within 30 days. Those voters were on a list of about 9,000 names generated by the Secretary of State’s Office using data from the Social Security Administration’s master death file, as mandated by a new state law.

State officials, saying the purge is required by law, accused Sumners of jeopardizing the integrity of the election and cut off his voter registration funding. Sumners had received about $31,000 of an expected $732,404 this year before being shut off, secretary of state spokesman Rich Parsons said.

Emmett blamed Sumners for the mix-up, revealing the tax office had been sent two lists by the secretary of state, but only acted on one. One list included 9,000 names the state considered “weak” matches to death records. The second list was composed of about 1,000 names considered “strong” matches to death records. Sumners’ office only sent letters to voters on the “weak” list. Sumners, who serves as the county’s chief voter registrar, acknowledged his office erred, believing until late last week that the 1,000 names on the “strong” list were among the 9,000 on the other list.

Emmett’s deal is based on the “strong” list. The secretary of state has agreed to restore Sumners’ funding if the taxman sends letters to the names on the strong list, canceling those whose relatives confirm they are dead and removing from the voter rolls those for whom there is no response after 30 days, Parsons said.

On the weak matches, Parsons said, Sumners simply needs to cancel registrations of voters who are confirmed dead, as Sumners said he already has been doing. Sumners then could handle those who do not respond from the weak list “as he determines necessary for the county,” Parsons said. “We’re trying to make this work so that the secretary of state sends us the money, everybody who has the right to vote gets to vote, and people who are deceased get removed from the rolls,” Emmett said. “This is just a mess.”

Sumners said he expects to mail letters to the strong-match voters and remove those whose families confirm their deaths. Late Monday, he said he would decide on Tuesday whether to go along with removing voters on the strong list who don’t respond after 30 days.

“Frankly I don’t want to set a precedent that the secretary of state can just unilaterally decide whenever they get the idea that they can just cut their voter registrars off,” Sumners said. “They need to follow the law, too.”
(Read more of this story at the Houston Chronicle)

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