Tyler

State Rep. Leo Berman has been given the green light from Speaker Tom Craddick to begin a study of the prevalence of voter fraud in Texas elections.

Craddick on Thursday released a list of “interim charges” for House committees, and Berman’s Elections Committee has been asked to look at ways to ensure that only eligible voters cast ballots.

“Voter fraud has been an increasing concern throughout the United States,” Craddick said in a news release Thursday. “Voting is a sacred right that needs safeguarding. State and federal law both require all voters to be citizens, but current state law requires no photo identification or proof of citizenship when registering to vote or when voting. We need to ensure that only U.S. citizens who are Texas residents are voting in our Texas elections.”

Berman, a Tyler Republican, will also co-chair a task force on voter fraud.

“Our most important right in this country is the right to vote, but fraud is too often treated almost casually, if not indifferently,” Berman says. “Loopholes and lax enforcement of voting laws have created a system that is susceptible to manipulation.”

During the 2007 legislative session, the House passed two bills requiring some form of voter identification. Neither bill emerged from the Senate, however.

The interim charge and the formation of the task force come after the state auditor’s office issued a report casting doubt on the integrity of the state’s voter registration rolls.

The audit examined state voter rolls for May’s election and compared the data to information from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the Bureau of Vital Statistics.

It found that just more than 49,000 voters — or four-tenths of 1 percent of the state’s 12.37 million registered voters — may have been ineligible. That includes more than 23,000 possible felons and almost 24,000 voters who may be dead. There were duplicate records for almost 2,400 voters.

There are other problems, as well. In June, a Port Lavaca city councilwoman was convicted of illegally assisting non-citizens to register to vote. And in October, a Refugio County commissioner resigned and pleaded guilty to charges of vote fraud.

“The fact that voter fraud exists in Texas to any extent is unacceptable to the voting public and must be stamped out,” Berman says.

He expects to begin committee hearings as soon as January.