Texas Election Security Safeguards

Every state has laws and rules that protect the integrity of the election process before, during, and after voting takes place. Here are some of Texas’s key safeguards.

Texas has rigorous checks in place to maintain clean voter rolls and ensure that voting systems are secure and accurate. 

• As an initial protection against ineligible registrations, federal law requires that registrants provide their driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number when registering to vote for the first time.
• Federal law requires election officials to remove anyone from the voter rolls who has died, moved, or otherwise become ineligible. Texas officials compare voter registration records against various sources, including USPS National Change of Address data, the Texas Department of State Health Services, and the Texas Department of Public Safety. Officials must also place voters on a “suspense” list if they fail to respond to an address confirmation notice or election mail is returned as undeliverable. If a voter remains on the suspense list for two general elections, officials must cancel their voter registration.
• Texas requires all voting systems to be tested by independent labs to check that they meet security standards.
• State law requires a testing board that should consist of at least one person from each major party to conduct logic and accuracy tests on voting systems. Logic and accuracy tests verify that voting systems are programmed to interpret voter markings and report vote totals accurately, before any voter casts a ballot. Officials must notify the public of the tests and allow public observation.
• Every tabulator in the state must print a zero totals report before use that confirms the count is beginning at zero.

Texas has layers of safeguards to protect voting processes and ensure that only eligible voters can cast ballots.

• There is a paper record of every vote cast. Most in-person voters use ballot-marking devices that mark paper ballots. 
• Texas law requires that the presiding and alternate judges be members of different parties. Presiding judges oversee the election process at a precinct or countywide polling place and ensure compliance with election laws. Alternate judges serve as poll workers unless they need to fill in for a presiding judge unable to serve. 
• If a mail ballot has missing or mismatched identification information, officials must promptly notify the voter. To ensure their ballot is counted, voters must “cure” their ballot no later than the sixth day after the election.
• All mail ballot envelopes must contain the voter’s signature. Under Texas state law, election officials must compare the signature to the one on the voter’s registration application. Officials may also compare the signature to those on file with the county clerk or registrar.
• Voters can track their mail ballot once it has been sent to the county clerk. 

Texas’s safeguards do not end on election night. In the weeks after polls close, election officials go through a series of checks to confirm that vote totals are complete and accurate before certifying final results.

• After polls close, Texas requires the presiding or alternate judge to print and sign a results report from each tabulator, showing the number of ballots cast and results.
• After ballots are initially counted, election officials review and reconcile a variety of records, including polling place records that show the number of voters who checked in and number of votes cast.
• Texas state law requires a risk-limiting audit of at least one statewide contest after each election. Texas law also requires that officials hand count ballots cast electronically from at least 1 percent of early voting and Election Day polling locations, or in three of each.