In may sound tongue-in-cheek, but a Texas lawmaker is dead serious. Congressman Brian Babin wants federal funding withheld from counties that "do not annually check their voter lists against the Social Security Administration’s most recent death records."
In an official news release, his office states: “My bill will prevent any funds from the U.S. Departments of Transportation or Education, with the exception of those going toward law enforcement agency grants, from going to counties of any state that do not annually check their voter lists against the Social Security Administration’s most recent death records in order to purge them of any individuals found to be deceased. All elected officials, from your local city council member to your U.S. President, have an obligation to obey the law and prevent fraud in our elections, and Congress should not be awarding taxpayer dollars to any counties or states that refuse to do the job they swore to do.”
Babin serves the 36th Congressional District of Texas, just northeast of Houston, which includes includes Newton, Jasper, Tyler, Polk, Orange, Hardin, Liberty, and Chambers counties, as well as portions of southeastern Harris County.
The news release also says: "U.S. Congressman Brian Babin (TX-36) issued the following statement regarding his new bill, the You Must Be Alive to Vote Act, introduced earlier today (12/2) following allegations of voter fraud, especially the ballots of deceased individuals being cast absentee in the 2020 presidential election.
The right to vote is one of the most vital pillars of our democracy, the foundations of which are election integrity and confidence in our democratic processes,” said Babin. “The ease with which someone is able to steal the ballot of a deceased person and cast an illegitimate vote should disturb, alarm, and outrage every American citizen, no matter what side of the aisle they sit on. To protect our democratic process and Americans’ faith in our elections, we must ensure that deceased individuals are not allowed to remain on state voter rolls.”