Concern over the possibility of dead people voting in the upcoming General Election has been top of mind for a North Texas woman in recent days.
“Of course the light went off in my head,” said Janet Lunsford of Colleyville. “I had just pulled my own voter registration card out of the cabinet and I saw my husband’s and I wondered, 'Is he still registered?'"
Lunsford was forced to ponder that grim question because her husband of 25 years, Garry, died at the age of 66 in June after several months of deteriorating health believed to be attributed to his exposure to Agent Orange during his service in the Vietnam War.
“It just seemed like every day there was something I needed to do to remove his name and provide a death certificate that he was no longer here,” Lunsford said about the process after her husband’s death. “But voter registration is not something that even popped in my mind until this election came up.”
A report in 2012 revealed there were nearly two million deceased people who were still listed on active voter rolls across the country.
According to the Texas Secretary of State’s office, that is not supposed to happen because there are systems in place to remove deceased voters.
“Our office gets death information from a couple of sources: the Bureau of Vital Statistics comes every week to ten days and the Social Security Administration Death Master File,” said Alicia Pierce of the Texas Secretary of State’s office. “We match up with voters. We cancel strong matches. We send weak matches to the counties to investigate with a letter.”
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According to a representative of the Tarrant County Elections office, a local investigation consists of a letter sent to the home of the voter in question informing them that the state believes the person named on the letter has died and to please respond to the letter within 30 days or that name will be removed from the list of registered voters.
In the case of Garry Lunsford, a check of the system shows his name has already been removed.
Janet said she did not realistically think that someone could successfully pass themselves off as her husband, but that it is one less thing she needs to worry about.
“I’m not concerned that they’re going to do that, but I wouldn’t want them to do that,” Lunsford said.
