Secretary of State Scott Schwab, shown here during a June 21, 2024, meeting, partnered with Texas to swap voter rolls, which he says will improve accuracy and election integrity. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
TOPEKA — Nine states are swapping voter rolls with Texas, and officials say the agreement will “improve the accuracy of voter registration records.”
Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab’s office announced the partnership Thursday, describing it as a way to identify duplicate registrations. Schwab, who is running for governor, said the agreement with Texas helps Kansas to maintain accurate voter rolls, which bolsters election integrity and administration.
The basis of Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson’s agreements with Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia is outlined in memoranda that allow the states to exchange voter registration data with Texas while “adhering to strict confidentiality and cybersecurity protocols.”
“This is a common sense step toward cleaner rolls and better election administration,” Schwab said. “We look forward to establishing agreements with other states in the future.”
Schwab said the agreement is part of a growing trend among states. Any duplicate registrations or instances of potential voter fraud identified through the data swapping would be referred to the appropriate authorities for further investigation, Nelson’s office said.
The agreement comes as some Republican secretaries of state, Schwab included, are resisting turning over sensitive voter information to the U.S. Department of Justice. A spokesperson for the Kansas Secretary of State’s office, Whitney Tempel, said Texas can’t share other states’ data with the federal government. A provision in the agreement prohibits states from sharing data with any third party.
“Secretary Schwab has been steadily adding new tools throughout his tenure to improve voter list maintenance, and this agreement is another step in that ongoing effort,” Tempel said.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas sued the state in 2018 over privacy concerns for its use of Crosscheck, a program that had been used to compare voter data across state lines. The program produced false positives 99% of the time, and officials mistakenly exposed sensitive information, including partial Social Security numbers, of nearly 1,000 Kansas voters under former Secretary of State Kris Kobach.
Schwab settled the case after he took office in 2019 by agreeing not to use the program.
The ACLU of Kansas is not convinced the agreement with Texas is much different than Crosscheck. Esmie Tseng, a spokesperson for the organization, said in a statement that the agreements politicize the right to vote and undermine “every Kansas voter’s right to privacy.” The organization fears the agreement will put thousands of Kansans’ data at risk because of “how insecure and error-prone government databases and sharing processes are,” she said.
“This is another example of how politicians are weaponizing xenophobia and the total myth of voter fraud to remove eligible voters from the rolls and attack our fundamental right to vote,” the statement said. “Secretary Schwab may claim this is not the same as Crosscheck, but there is little evidence of how he has moved to meaningfully ensure Kansans will be protected from data breaches or being removed incorrectly.”
Voter fraud is extremely rare in Kansas. The ACLU won a high-profile legal battle with Kobach in 2018 when he failed to prove his claims of widespread voter fraud.
