East Houston News

With communities across the country preparing for a record number of voters to cast their ballots by mail, the heated debate continues over the potential pitfalls of an election in which mail-in votes will play a bigger part in deciding the outcome than ever before.

Eric Smith, Chambers County Republican Party chair, said that he fears inaccuracies in the voter rolls could lead to ballots being mailed to the wrong address, leaving the ballot open to fraud. Additionally, voters who have not recently updated their information may never receive a ballot.

“I am not convinced universal mail-in voting would be successful due to the fact that voter rolls are so often incorrect,” Smith told the East Houston News. “I have been an election judge for many years and always have voters show up who have not updated their registration or let their registration expire.”

And remedying that problem is no simple fix, he said.

“It's very hard to keep up the voter rolls. Smaller counties seem to be more successful at it, given their populations are not so transient, but large counties would have to dedicate a lot of effort to remove dead voters or voters who have moved,” Smith said.

Primarily, though, Smith is most concerned that outdated information in the voter rolls could lead to fraudulent votes cast by people who get their hands on ballots belonging to someone else, such as the survivor of a deceased relative.

“If I have info on the former resident of an address, I could steal their vote. I could do the same to other residents, such as elderly family,” Smith told the East Houston News. “Frankly, I feel absentee ballots need to be scaled back. With early voting, very few people would be away during an election.”