Texas’ voter rolls and noncitizens: What you need to know

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^{The Texas Senate State Affairs Committee is scheduled to meet at 9 a.m. One of its discussion topics is noncitizens who are registered to vote. The above video may appear blank until the hearing starts.}

This article is co-published with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power, and with Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration. Sign up to receive ProPublica’s biggest stories here and Votebeat’s newsletters here. And sign up for The Brief, The Tribune's daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

Texas senators on Wednesday will discuss ways to prevent noncitizens from registering to vote and casting ballots — something Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick deemed a legislative priority after Gov. Greg Abbott boasted that the state removed more than 6,500 noncitizens from its voter rolls.

But an investigation by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune and Votebeat found the governor’s figure was likely inflated.

[Gov. Greg Abbott boasted that Texas removed 6,500 noncitizens from its voter rolls. That number was likely inflated.]

After attempting to contact more than 70 people removed from the rolls, the news organizations found at least nine U.S. citizens in three Texas counties who were incorrectly labeled as noncitizens or removed from the rolls because they did not respond to letters about their citizenship.

Abbott’s claims helped fan allegations that large numbers of noncitizens plan to cast ballots in support of Democrats, claims that former President Donald Trump and his party could use to cast doubt on the outcome of November’s presidential election.

The Senate State Affairs Committee, made up of nine Republicans and three Democrats, will meet at 9 a.m. Wednesday. You can watch a live stream above.

The secretary of state’s office identified 581 people, not 6,500, as noncitizens, according to a report it gave Gov. Greg Abbott. The secretary of state’s office said it had “verbally” provided the governor’s office with a separate number of people removed from the rolls who failed to respond to letters alerting them that there were questions about their citizenship.

The governor’s news release combined the two figures. Elections experts said the announcement implied officials had confirmed the noncitizen status of 6,500 people when they had not. Abbott’s office edited its press release after publication, softening it by adding the word “potential” before noncitizens.

U.S. citizens who simply never received or responded to letters seeking confirmation of their citizenship are almost certainly included in Abbott’s 6,500 number.

Marc Meredith, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on election administration, said Abbott’s release “reduces trust in the Texas voter registration process in an unnecessary way.”

The former registered voters whom Gov. Greg Abbott called noncitizens were among more than 1 million people taken off voter rolls since September 2021 through a routine practice local election officials conduct that includes culling the names of people who have moved or died.

Any number of things can trigger a question about a voter’s eligibility. For example, county registrars contact anyone who has marked on a jury summons that they’re not a citizen. The secretary of state’s office also gets information weekly from the Texas Department of Public Safety about people who have signed up for licenses and state identification and identified themselves as noncitizens.

County election officials must follow up with registered voters if there are questions about their citizenship and give people 30 days to respond before they’re removed from the rolls. Failure to respond to a letter questioning someone’s citizenship is not a confirmation that they are not a citizen, election officials said.

Routine maintenance of voter rolls is important, and if noncitizens are registered, they should be removed, said Marc Meredith, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on election administration.

Travis County officials mislabeled at least five people removed from the rolls as noncitizens even though they are U.S. citizens. Bruce Elfant, the Travis County tax assessor-collector and voter registrar, acknowledged the errors. But he also said the numbers suggested that noncitizen voting “is an infinitesimal, small issue.”

In 2019, Texas officials suggested that nearly 100,000 noncitizens were registered to vote and that nearly half of them had cast ballots. Attorney General Ken Paxton immediately turned to social media, posting “VOTER FRAUD ALERT.” Abbott thanked Paxton and the secretary of state’s office on Twitter for “uncovering and investigating this illegal vote registration.” Trump also piled on with a tweet calling the state’s numbers “just the tip of the iceberg.”

But the state’s claims quickly unraveled under scrutiny and spurred a lawsuit and settlement that now governs how Texas can flag someone as a potential noncitizen.

Many of the flagged registered voters turned out to be naturalized citizens whom the state incorrectly identified as ineligible because it was using outdated DPS data from driver’s license and state identification card applications.

The state settled the lawsuit and agreed to only flag people with the secretary of state’s office if they identify as noncitizens when applying for a new ID with DPS and if they previously registered to vote.

In Abbott’s more recent press release, the state appears to have presented a figure without fully explaining its methodology or double-checking the information, said David Becker, executive director and founder of The Center for Election Innovation & Research.

With the election less than a month away, claims about noncitizen voting have continued to ratchet up despite numerous elections experts saying such instances are very rare.

On a single day in August, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said his office would investigate an allegation that nonprofits were setting up booths outside state driver’s license offices and signing up noncitizens to vote and announced his agency had raided homes in three South Texas counties to investigate allegations of voter fraud. The next day, Paxton appeared on the radio show of conservative personality Glenn Beck pushing debunked claims that President Joe Biden is allowing immigrants to enter the country illegally so they can vote for Democrats in elections.

In recent weeks, Paxton put out a flurry of news releases, continuing the hunt for noncitizen voters.

He also urged Secretary of State Jane Nelson to demand the federal government’s assistance in identifying potential noncitizens on the rolls. Nelson later provided Paxton the voter records for anyone who does not have a Texas driver’s license or identification card number on file in its statewide voter registration system. The list was accompanied by an explicit warning.

“The records do not reflect, and are in no way indicative of, a list of potential non-United States citizens on the State’s voter rolls,” Nelson wrote.

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