SAN ANTONIO — Toby Ramirez has been voting for a long time. He's registered with a political party, keeps in touch with that party, and has even donated.
"We vote in every election!" Ramirez said. "Every year, we don't miss a voting day."
So when Ramirez got two different letters from The Voter Participation Center inquiring whether or not everyone at this address was registered to vote, he was a bit offended.
"It upset me. Why would they send this if I'm registered to vote and I've already got confirmation that I'm ready to vote?" Ramirez asked.
Then Ramirez read the instructions and saw the registration form didn't require a drivers license number or Social Security number. Suspicious, he called KENS 5.
"Is this real? Are they sending this to everybody?" he asked.
KENS 5 reached out to The Voter Participation Center and the company put us in touch with their president, Tom Lopach, who offered to do an interview.
Lopach told KENS 5 their nonprofit focuses on sending voter registration forms to minorities, unmarried women and people under 35 years of age.
"The work that we have been doing is to register to vote, and turn out to vote, people from underrepresented populations," Lopach said. "We use high-volume direct mail and digital outreach."
Lopach said the nonprofit gets commercial data to identify neighborhoods which they believe are mostly minority neighborhoods, or that have a lot of young people. The nonprofit then sends mailers to the "current resident" of homes in the area.
Bexar County Elections Administrator, Jacquelyn Callanen, told KENS 5 on the phone that her office had received multiple calls from people asking why they were getting these and similar mailers and that sometimes people would register multiple times over, which led to additional work to make sure voting roles are accurate.
Texas residents can go to Votetexas.gov and click on "am I registered?" to get their current registration status at any time.
Lopach said it was not the nonprofit's intention to re-register people but they believed the goal of getting more voters registered was worth it.
"We do our best to limit confusion. At the end of the day our goal is to create a more representative and inclusive electorate," Lopach said. "We can all agree we want eligible Americans voting."
Finally, Lopach said the nonprofit's mailers always comply with current state election law. KENS 5 found Texas election law does, in fact, allow a person to register to vote without providing a driver's license number or Social Security number.
KENS 5 also asked the Bexar County Elections Department, via email, to confirm there were no issues with the mailer. The Bexar County Election Department was not able to answer that question but said voter roles are verified by the Texas Secretary of State.
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