Texas Attorney General launches illegal voting tipline'

AUSTIN (Nexstar) -- Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Wednesday announced his office is launching an email tipline enabling the public to report "suspected violations of Texas election law."

Paxton encourages Texans to report suspected violations to the email address "illegalvoting@oag.texas.gov."

Nexstar asked the Attorney General's office how exactly they plan to review and investigate the tips, how much funding is dedicated to the tipline and how many tips they have received so far. They did not respond.

Voter fraud is a vanishingly rare issue, but Paxton has made fighting it a top priority. Since 2005, the state has successfully prosecuted 155 individuals for election fraud out of millions of ballots cast.

Democratic lawmakers criticized the attorney general's common denouncements of voter fraud as a waste and abuse of his office.

"The Attorney General is misusing his investigative authority," State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin, said Thursday. "There is scant evidence of any kind of voter fraud in the State of Texas. We have had Secretary of State after Secretary of State say that our elections are clean, fair, efficient, effective. This is pure political theater designed to intimidate and scare people off from showing up."

Texans can check their voter registration and update their address at VoteTexas.Gov. The deadline to register to vote in the November presidential election is Oct. 7.