The Tarrant County Elections Office will continue contracting with a third-party data management company that since last summer has incorrectly identified more than 200 living voters as deceased.
County commissioners voted 3-1 Tuesday to renew for one year the contract with Florida-based Interactive Data LLC to help the elections office identify registered voters who have died or are otherwise ineligible to vote. The $45,000 annual contract continues until July 2027 with the option to renew until 2028.
The commissioners court’s three Republicans — County Judge Tim O’Hare and commissioners Matt Krause and Manny Ramirez — voted in favor without commenting. Commissioner Alisa Simmons voted no, and Commissioner Roderick Miles was absent.
It’s unclear how many voters have been removed from the county’s voter roll — meaning they were unregistered to vote — since the contract began last summer.
The elections office mails notices to registered voters identified as deceased asking them to verify within 30 days whether they are alive. Those who respond are kept on the voter roll, but those who do not respond are presumed deceased and purged.
Elections Administrator Clint Ludwig told commissioners that 214 voters who received such notices over the past year verified they were alive. His office asked for the contract with Interactive Data to be renewed because “they are pleased with the vendor,” according to commissioners court meeting documents.
“We have 1.3 million voters, and 100% (accuracy) just isn’t achievable,” Ludwig told commissioners.
Even before contracting with the company, the elections office had misidentified voters as deceased, Ludwig said Tuesday, adding that off the top of his head he didn't know how many.
Simmons, a Democrat running against O’Hare for the county judge seat, said her colleagues should not have voted to extend the contract unless representatives from Interactive Data would publicly answer questions and assume accountability for the misidentified voters.
“Election integrity also means protecting eligible voters from being wrongly flagged, wrongly burdened or wrongly removed,” Simmons said.
Tarrant County doesn’t need to pay Interactive Data to identify deceased voters, as the county clerk’s office maintains death records, Simmons argued.
The elections office uses data from the county clerk’s office, secretary of state and other government records to identify voters as deceased, Ludwig said. He framed the contract with Interactive Data as going “above and beyond” to keep the county voter roll clean.
“We can do the bare minimum if that's what the court wishes, or if you approve, then I will go forth and use the data to get our voter rolls more clean,” Ludwig told commissioners.
Ludwig took office in 2023, succeeding former Elections Administrator Heider Garcia who resigned less than five months after O’Hare was sworn in as county judge. Garcia said he was pressured politically by O’Hare, who made election integrity a focus of his campaign at the time and debuted an election integrity task force shortly after taking office.
Interactive Data promises its “advanced machine learning, cloud-native platform and massive data repository” can identify nearly 100% of the adult U.S. population. The company uses “advanced data analytics tools and technologies” to help its clients “uncover hidden connections, perform risk assessments and make informed decisions” throughout their investigations, according to the contract.
State law requires that county elections offices keep accurate records of registered voters. When voters are identified as deceased, the county must send a “notice of examination” to the address on the voter’s registration record and any other known recent addresses, county elections office spokesperson Colby Erichsen told the Fort Worth Report via email.
Voters who haven’t updated their physical mailing address may be out of luck.
Because Texas does not require voters to register with an email address, there is no statewide system to electronically notify voters, Erichsen wrote.
If a notice of examination is returned to the elections office without a forwarding address, that voter will be removed from the voter roll, Ludwig said. However, he noted, voters who were wrongfully removed after being mistakenly identified as deceased will be able to cast a provisional ballot and get added back to the voter roll the next time they try to vote.
The county’s elections administration is committed to maintaining accurate voter rolls and protecting election integrity, Erichsen wrote via email. Voters may check their registration through the county’s website or contact the elections office by calling 817‑831‑8683, he added.
“No eligible, living, registered voter will ever be prevented from voting in a Tarrant County election,” Erichsen wrote. “Our responsibility is to uphold the law, safeguard the election process, and ensure that every voter has the opportunity to make their voice heard.”
Cecilia Lenzen is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at cecilia.lenzen@fortworthreport.org.
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