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Texas: Limits on Voter Eligibility Challenges

This resource details state and federal laws that guard voters against unfounded challenges to their eligibility.

Last Updated: September 23, 2024
Published: June 10, 2024
View the entire Limits on Voter Eligibility Challenges series

With special thanks to Jenner & Block, LLP

Texas does not allow for challenges to a voter’s eligibility at polling locations during early voting and on Election Day. Texas does allow private individuals to challenge another person’s eligibility to vote outside of the voting period, and this resource details state and federal laws that govern this process and protect challenged voters. Texas’s strong voter protections include requirements that all challenges be made by written and sworn statement and be based upon personal knowledge.

Outside of the voting period, a registered voter from the same county may challenge another voter’s eligibility but only by written, sworn statement.

All challenges must be based on “personal knowledge.”footnote5_DLA6UUOhoL9f9J2TjFPPsNMHy9HqNJFmo3LBvkEG6Hs_yh0aohGjhX7V5Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 16.092(2).Personal knowledge is defined as “knowledge gained through firsthand observation or experience, as distinguished from a belief based on what someone else has said.”footnote6_R2Gz9pBPQi4EzsBlq7ievoVVs6lZPW5RwyZ0ZdrS9w_fJmExAZkX6Wg6Black’s Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014), cited in Texas Secretary of State, Election Law Opinion RP-1, October 10, 2018, 4, https://www.sos.texas.gov/elections/elo/rp-1.pdf.

The following are examples of what is not firsthand knowledge:

The National Voter Registration Act limits when and how voters can be removed from the rolls. Under the act, states and counties are permitted to remove a voter in just five circumstances: if the voter affirms the change; if state law requires, for a criminal conviction or mental incapacity; for the death of the voter; if the voter confirms a change of residence in writing; and based on other evidence of a change of residence, but only after the state sends a notice and the voter both fails to respond and fails to vote in the next two federal general elections. footnote18_c2pGDziFOYg31tsPV5CrtkICNKjuVU5xIMZ6UCP1WA_swsHit5WM9NQ1852 U.S.C. § 20507(a)(3), (d). These restrictions apply regardless of whether registrars are conducting their own list maintenance or responding to challenges.

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Voters in Texas have the right to vote free from intimidation under federal and state law. Baseless challenges to a voter’s eligibility can harass and intimidate the voter being challenged, as well as other voters waiting to vote at the polls. More information on the federal and state laws that protect Texas voters from intimidation can be found here.

 

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