The Republican Party of Texas has received “numerous” complaints that Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, has been sending voter registration mailers to the deceased.
James Wesolek, communications director for the Texas GOP, told the Lone Star Standard that reports of the mailers are coming from surviving family members who have received them.
The mailers, Wesolek said, give “nefarious actors” an opportunity to committee voter fraud – the mailers give them “a name and address to register under.”
In one instance, a mailer was sent to a former Harris County resident who died in 2011.
The mailers, saying that the Texas abortion ban is one of the most extreme abortion laws in the country, urge the recipients to register to vote by the Oct. 11 deadline for the Nov. 8 general election.
Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas Inc., through its Chief External Affairs Officer, did not respond to a request for comment.
In a statement announcing the mailers, GOP Chairman Matt Rinaldi said that Texas election law requires the Secretary of State to keep a list of those ineligible to vote because they are deceased.
This penalty for registering to vote under false pretenses is a misdemeanor; it was recently lowered from under legislation approved last year.
“Voter fraud is real and it happens in Texas," Rinaldi said in the statement. "The Republican Party of Texas has invested over a million dollars in election integrity for the 2022 cycle to root out and stop voter fraud. We have trained and placed thousands of poll watchers and election workers all over Texas to ensure Texans have the free and fair election they deserve. Efforts by far-left radical groups like Planned Parenthood that encourage illegal activity will fail.”
Sam Taylor, spokesman for the Secretary of State's office, said that political mailers going to the deceased usually result from the purchase of an outdated mailing list. He also said that the Secretary of State's office has a front end and back end check to catch those attempting to register under the name of a deceased resident.
"There is a small window to pull if off," Taylor told the Lone Star Standard, "but it's highly unlikely that they will get away with it for too long."
Committing voter fraud by registering to vote under a deceased resident’s name is an ongoing concern for groups advocating for voter integrity.
In 2021, the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) reached a settlement with the Pennsylvania Department of State over the names of more than 21,000 deceased registrants who were on the state’s voter lists a month before the 2020 general election.
"In Pennsylvania, we did find a case where a man registered and voted for his dead wife. He was ultimately arrested by Pennsylvania authorities,” PILF spokeswoman Lauren Bowman told the Lone Star Standard. “This is a perfect example of why it is so important to prosecute election crimes to have deterrence from committing these crimes. Hopefully, the people of Texas know if they register a deceased individual to vote they will be prosecuted."
A recent commentary by election law expert with the Heritage Foundation, Hans von Spakovsky, cites numerus instances of voter fraud through the use of the names of the deceased.
“Melissa Fisher of Quakertown, Pennsylvania, submitted a mail-in ballot on behalf of her deceased mother during the 2020 election,” von Spakovsky wrote. “She pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of violating absentee and mail-in ballot provisions and two unrelated theft charges and was sentenced to three to 23 months in prison and three years’ probation.
And: “Elizabeth Gale of San Diego, California, was charged with four felony offenses after casting an absentee ballot on behalf of her deceased mother during the 2021 California gubernatorial recall election.”
