AUSTIN — A federal election integrity commission search for state-level voter information is on pause, but Texas Democrats say sending the information could yield “bad data” and disenfranchisement, no matter what the judge says.

“This is just not well thought out,” said Glen Maxey, legislative affairs director for the Texas Democratic Party. “Say we find millions of people with the same last name and same date of birth registered in multiple states, or who are dead. 

“There are people who will use this to take them off voter rolls. There’s clearly an agenda.”

Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos said in a statement that he would supply the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity “public information,” but the commission earlier this week asked states not to send voter information pending a court ruling.

The American Civil Liberties Union earlier this week filed a lawsuit over the commission’s lack of transparency, and according to the ACLU of Texas website, “there are no laws that force the state of Texas to comply with the panel’s request.”

According to the secretary of state’s office, public information includes most voter addresses and dates of birth with some exceptions, but not Social Security numbers.

The commission also requested voter-histories from 2006 onward. 

The secretary of state’s office does not track political party affiliation on a statewide basis, but a spokesman said in an email that “voting history … will contain the type of primary in which a voter voted only if the voter participated in a primary.

“Voter history only includes whether the voter voted on Election Day, voted early by personal appearance or voted early by mail. This does not include who a person voted for in any given election, just whether or not he/she voted and the manner in which he/she cast a ballot.”

The commission has run into resistance from more than 40 states that “have refused to provide certain types of voter information,” according to CNN.

In Weatherford, 30 miles west of Fort Worth, Don Markum, the county elections administrator, said that as of Wednesday, one person had called to ask what information would be supplied, and a couple “came in and asked to be removed from the rolls before Trump got their information.”

The Republican Party of Texas didn’t respond to a request for a comment on issues.

But Henry Teich, 69, a Republican farmer/rancher from Cresson, 25 miles southwest of Fort Worth, said he encountered instances of voter fraud while working campaigns in other states.

“The only reason some people fear this is that they know it’s likely to uncover voter fraud,” Teich said. “It’s not a matter of personal info. 

“It’s a matter of how bad (voter fraud) is. If there’s nothing there, as they contend, they shouldn’t be afraid to find out.”

Jim Garvin, 75, a retired Democrat in Cleburne, 30 miles south of Fort Worth, said voter-fraud claims were overblown.

“If I were a betting man and someone bet me $100 that the 3 million Trump alleges voted fraudulently in last year’s election is an accurate number, I’d take that bet,” Garvin said. “I bet the true number is closer to maybe 1,000 nationwide than 3 million.

“Voter fraud in Texas is almost unheard of. They have you on the rolls, check ID. This is another knee-jerk reaction by Trump and the Republicans to suppress the vote.”

Tom Perez is former head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Perez said in a January TribTalk interview that while investigating voter fraud in Texas “the state’s own witness admitted that out of more than 46 million votes cast in the past 10 years, they hadn’t found a single case of unlawful non-citizen voting and had presented a grand total of two convictions for impersonation fraud.

“That’s a rate of 0.000004 percent.”

A 2016 NBC News report of over 2,000 alleged election-fraud cases in 50 states between 2000 and 2012 found “10 cases of voter impersonation, the only kind of fraud that could be prevented by voter ID at the polls.”

Maxey said that the kind of information the commission is seeking could ultimately disenfranchise voters.

For instance, without Social Security numbers, Maxey said, those with common names who share a birthdate, and appear to be registered in more than one state, could be dropped from rolls and only learn of it when they showed up to vote.

And Maxey noted, when it comes to running elections, it’s states that pass voter laws. 

“If there’s been massive fraud it’s been under Republican watch,” Maxey said. “The point is, it didn’t happen.”

John Austin covers the Texas Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach him at jaustin@cnhi.com. Cleburne Times-Review reporter Matt Smith contributed to this report.