Sen. Perry Files Two Bills on Election Integrity

LUBBOCK—Today, Senator Charles Perry filed two bills with the aim of ensuring election integrity in the State of Texas.

“My first Session, I was proud to co-sponsor and help pass the Voter ID bill,” said Senator Charles Perry. “Election integrity is important, we cannot have individuals cast multiple ballots or allow non-citizens to remain on our voter rolls.”

The first bill, SB 795 would implement an interstate crosscheck program to ensure individuals voting in Texas are not registered to vote in multiple states. This is a bipartisan program that comes with no fiscal note to the state, complies with the Voting Rights Act and was even recommended by the Presidential Commission on Election Administration.

According to news reports, Illinois, a state with 7.5 million registered voters, turned up 211,000 potential duplicates when they implemented an interstate crosscheck program in their state. This large duplication rate leaves the door wide open for election fraud.  

The second bill, SB 796 will improve our ability to investigate voter fraud by removing restrictions in place for using noncitizen lists compiled in the jury selection process. Current law prevents the publically available noncitizens list from being used in most situations to identify if non-citizens voted in an election.

“When people question the integrity of the election process, they are less likely to vote,” said Perry. “According to a recent Washington Post poll, 81% of Americans believe that election fraud is a real problem.”

“The act of voting is one of the most precious rights we as citizens can exercise. To protect the integrity of the process, we must ensure the principle of one person, one vote is upheld,” continued Perry. “Implementing both of these bills will go a long way towards restoring voter confidence and ensuring our elections are fair and reliable.”