Texas officials have turned over the state’s voter roll to the U.S. Justice Department, according to a spokesperson for the Texas Secretary of State’s Office, complying with the Trump administration’s demands for access to data on millions of voters across the country.
The Justice Department last fall began asking all 50 states for their voter rolls — massive lists containing significant identifying information on every registered voter in each state — and other election-related data. The Justice Department has said the effort is central to its mission of enforcing election law requiring states to regularly maintain voter lists by searching for and removing ineligible voters.
Alicia Pierce, a spokesperson for the Texas Secretary of State’s Office, told Votebeat and The Texas Tribune that the state had sent its voter roll, which includes information on the approximately 18.4 million voters registered in Texas, to the Justice Department on Dec. 23.
No, but they do track which primary we choose to vote in, which locks you in for any runoffs and serves as a defacto party registration until the next primary.
It does give historical context that “they” use in the “likely <party>” polling forecasts, but the affiliation itself expires at the end of the calendar year of the primary. Not saying that the data can’t be used maliciously, but it’s legally different then what people mean when they talk about their voter registration having that information. States that have that on your voter registration are also likely to have closed primaries, which Texas does not.