Tarrant County spends $46K on software to keep voter rolls accurate, reduce challenges

In an effort to improve voter roll accuracy and limit voter registration challenges, the Tarrant County Commissioners Court voted to spend roughly $46,000 on software to track voter deaths and residence changes at its July 1 meeting. The vote was 4-1, with Commissioner Alisa Simmons dissenting.

The details

Tarrant County Elections Administrator Clinton Ludwig said the elections department does not get notified when a voter dies outside Tarrant County, which can cause deceased residents to stay on the voter rolls. The software will allow the county to search voter registrations against national public records and databases, Ludwig said.

“We will provide them a copy of our voter registrations, they bounce that off of these various databases [and] death records, then they report back to us,” Ludwig said.

When the software notifies the county of an address discrepancy, such as if the address a voter used to register does not match other public records, the county can contact the residents to confirm their address, Ludwig said.

What else?

Ludwig said he intends to use the software to cut down on voter registration challenges from the public. Under Texas election code, residents can challenge the voter registration status of other people based on residence.

Tarrant County received roughly 14,000 voter registration challenges in 2024, Ludwig said, and the department hopes to use the software to “get ahead” of the address discrepancies and reduce the number of challenges.

"This [software] gives our office the ability to get in front of this and keep them accurate," Ludwig said.