Citizens from across the state urged lawmakers Thursday to tighten election safeguards during a House Elections Committee hearing on several interim charges.
The committee’s interim charges included monitoring legislation passed by the 89th Legislature, examining statutory timelines for elections, transparency and ballot privacy, citizenship and voting, and election administration staffing needs.
Citizenship and Voting
Christina Adkins, director of elections for the Secretary of State’s office, first reminded the committee that under Texas law, only U.S. citizens who reside in Texas are allowed to participate in state elections.
“In recent years, there have been numerous legislative proposals at the state and federal level designed to require specific verification procedures to confirm a voter citizenship, most notably the current draft version of the federal Save Act and SB 16 from the 89th legislative session,” said Adkins. “SB 16 from the 89th legislative session was proposed, but ultimately was not enacted.”
Adkins added that besides these verifications, the Secretary of State’s office has also been performing list maintenance for many years to identify potential non-voters.
The process to identify non-citizen voters began about 30 years ago when the Secretary of State’s office used the jury summons process to compare information related to any sort of exemptions or disqualifications from jury service as related to being a non-citizen with the voter rolls.
Potential matches are then provided to county voter registrars for investigation, who then determine whether the individual in question is a non-citizen.
The county voter registrar will send out a notice of examination, giving the individual in question 30 days to provide additional information before their voter registration is canceled.
A second process—this one involving the Department of Public Safety—was created following the passage of Senate Bill 1 in 2021. It requires DPS to send the secretary of state’s office, on a weekly basis, information on individuals who presented evidence that they were not U.S. citizens.
Despite this, citizens and activists testifying before the committee repeatedly raised concerns that non-citizens are voting in Texas elections, arguing that a non-citizen vote dilutes a citizens vote and is a violation of American and Texas sovereignty.
David Stein, president of the Texas Republican County Chairs Association, told the committee that citizens don’t want to be simply told that “it’s fine,” they want visible proof that strong systems are in place.
“The average, common, ordinary citizen like me, I’m a small business owner, I just want to know that you have done everything you can to give me trust in the process and to keep doing that,” said Stein.
Election Transparency and Ballot Secrecy
Adkins also discussed the importance of election transparency and ballot secrecy, which she says are both “principles that can inherently be in tension with one another.”
“Transparency is important to allow citizens to be aware of the steps taken in the election process by their public officials, and to allow candidates and interested parties to have access to the information needed to pursue all of their available legal remedies in the event that a legal challenge to the election is necessary,” said Adkins. She further emphasized that ballot secrecy is a fundamental principle enshrined in the Texas Constitution and must be protected.
Adkins pointed out that due to changes in law and opinions issued by the attorney general in recent years, ballots are more accessible than in the past. Coupled with an increased interest and audits of election records, this has led to instances in which individual voters have been linked to a specific voted ballot. This happened due to connecting “individual data points on different publicly available records to link the voter back to that ballot.”
“Under current law, redaction of specific data points contained in public records is currently the only solution available to allow those records to be made available while still preventing the release of records that could link that voter back to their ballot,” continued Adkins. “However, this is an imperfect solution, because it requires election officials to make record specific determinations of data points, which is often very difficult for election officials to determine when they’re reviewing massive amounts of records.”
This redaction process also requires election officials to seek an opinion from the attorney general authorizing the action—which may delay the release of these records to the public.
According to Adkins, to protect ballot secrecy more broadly would require structural changes to the types of data collected in the election process, modification to how the results are reported, or “the manner in which voters are aggregated into different precincts.”
Although there may be several different solutions available, Adkins says that there is “no one perfect solution” and “no one answer or no one thing that’s going to achieve that perfect balance between transparency and ballot secrecy.”
There are a number of things that could be considered and that the legislature could investigate, and it’s going to be a combination of those things that I think finds the right balance between availability of records and protecting a person’s right to a secret ballot.
Several conservative activists gave recommendations to the committee on how they might accomplish this goal, but still emphasized the tension between both issues.
Christine Wellborn, president of Advancing Integrity, told the committee that when considering legislation on this matter, redaction is not the answer.
“When you’re saying that someone’s vote is exposed and you’re redacting it so other citizens can’t see it, that means that our government officials can,” said Wellborn. “So that means our election officials can see how we voted, and they can figure that out.”
Wellborn argues that the key is to have people in larger buckets when the reporting happens, so they become lost in a “shuffle,” preventing any individual’s ballot being singled out.
“The redaction only hides how the person voted from the other people, from other citizens, not from the government,” she added.
Senate Bill 827 – Auditing Elections
Christina Adkins once again addressed the committee regarding this interim charge, informing House members that this specific law changed requirements surrounding the post-election audit. That audit requires counties to conduct a post-election hand count to verify the accuracy of its voting system equipment.
“One of the primary changes to the existing law was to require that the audit be conducted based on a randomly selected group of polling places, rather than a randomly selected group of precincts for both early voting and Election Day,” said Adkins. “This change was designed to improve ballot security by reducing the number of ballot boxes that needed to be accessed to conduct the count, and to provide a more thorough audit of the tabulation systems used in the election by counting a larger number of ballots.”
Adkins said another significant change brought about by the new law was who is required to conduct the hand count. This was formerly conducted by the general custodian of election records, also known as the election official of each county.
Now, under SB 827, the audit is conducted by an early voting ballot board under the guidance of the election official.
“While they still supervise the count, there’s now a greater level of separation between the custodian, who maintains the records, and the counting process,” explains Adkins. “This provides for more independence and validation of the activities that occurred in the election process.”
The new law also modifies deadlines associated with the “risk limiting audits”—a new audit process that will be utilized fully in the upcoming November 2026 election.
“The bill also provides a requirement to post the results of the post election hand count audit on the general custodians website to allow the public to view the documents associated with the audit and provide transparency into the audit process,” Adkins added.
Citizens testifying say that the current audit process is often more symbolic than substantive. They argued that while laws like SB 827 promise transparency and post‑election checks, practical barriers—such as extremely high fees for records, heavy redactions that strip out most useful data, and delays or non‑responsive counties—make it nearly impossible for Texans to independently verify results.
Election Timelines and Staffing
The committee also heard from the public regarding the timing and sequence of elections, including the need to define deadlines and allow adequate preparation time to ensure a safe and smooth process.
“Not having adequate time and not having these defined deadlines can create significant administrative burdens in the election process; this is particularly evident during primary elections, specifically as it relates to candidate challenges,” said Adkins.
She added that during the primary candidate election process, there is currently a very short time frame between when the candidate filing deadline occurs to when the ballot preparation has to be completed.
This makes it difficult, especially when adding in paperwork and deadlines for mailing out ballots to military personnel overseas.
Staffing shortages for elections were also addressed, which included discussion on recruitment issues, the need for more poll workers due to increasing complexity, and lack of funding.
