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Natalia Contreras covers election administration and voting access for Votebeat in partnership with The Texas Tribune. She has covered a range of topics as a community journalist including local government, public safety, immigration and social issues. Natalia previously reported for the Austin American-Statesman, focusing on impacts of government policies on communities of color. Natalia previously worked at the Indianapolis Star, where she helped launch the first Spanish-language newsletter, and at the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. She was born in Tampico, Tamaulipas in Mexico and grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas. She is based in Corpus Christi.
It took years to build the multi-state system known as ERIC, which weeds out duplicate, deceased and suspicious voter registrations. Texas Republicans want to dump it, but there’s no viable alternative. Full Story
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The priority bill, backed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, reverses a change the Legislature made two years ago during an omnibus voting bill that made illegal voting a misdemeanor. Full Story
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ERIC is a national system that Texas officials say is an important tool to keep voting rolls clean. But a band of right-wing voting fraud activists, joined by state GOP officials, wants to gut it. Full Story
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Republican lawmakers — backed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — are working to reverse a change to state law they approved two years ago as part of a sweeping overhaul to Texas election law that included downgrading illegal voting to a misdemeanor. Full Story
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The proposals were filed in response to Harris County’s problems at the polls in recent elections. Full Story
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Lawmakers lowered the penalty to a misdemeanor in 2021, but then almost immediately began discussing raising it back. Full Story
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State lawmakers approved the requirement — which attracted little attention or debate — in their massive overhaul of the state’s voting laws during a 2021 special Legislative session. Full Story
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For decades, the attorney general’s office advised counties to keep ballots for 22 months after an election. Then Attorney General Ken Paxton issued an opinion saying they could be quickly released to anyone who requested them. Full Story
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Although no evidence of widespread voter fraud has been found, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been actively pursuing election-related crimes since he took office in 2015. Full Story
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Some sites opened late and reportedly ran out of paper in November, but the county says its investigation into the issues “has not yet revealed” whether anyone was turned away. Full Story
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