(Texas Scorecard) – The Secretary of State’s office recently claimed that “Texas Leads the Way Against Noncitizen Voting;” however, its cancellation trend reports from January 2019 to July 2024 reveal 1,023 non-U.S. citizens removed from voter rolls. Since January 2022, the SOS reports that county registration officials have removed 301 noncitizens who wrongly ended up on the state’s voter rolls.
Alicia Pierce, assistant secretary of state for communications, wrote that the claim “is in reference to the safeguards that have been added in recent years.”
In late January 2019, the Secretary of State’s office announced that the Texas Department of Public Safety had identified 95,000 noncitizens registered to vote in Texas, with 58,000 having voted in an election.
The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the largest Hispanic civil rights activist group in the country, immediately sued, claiming that many of the voters targeted for removal were citizens. The SOS settled with a consent decree that forced the use of specific criteria for voter roll maintenance activity.
To address Texans’ continuing concerns about noncitizens on the voter rolls, Texas lawmakers passed Senate Bill 1 in September 2021.
Then on December 31, 2021, the SOS released “Phase I Progress Report: Full Forensic Audit of November 2020 General Election”.
However, the Cancellation Trend Reports (CTRs) cited in that audit don’t match its claims.
For example, the audit claimed 278 noncitizens were removed from September 2021 to December 7, 2021. CTRs show 301 noncitizens removed from September 2021 to November 2021, with the number being presumably higher if including the first week of December.
The audit also claimed, “2,049 voter records have been canceled for failure to respond to a notice from the county voter registrar requesting documentation of proof of citizenship.”
However, CTRs do not state why someone received a notice of examination for citizenship verification. Therefore, one cannot verify a reason for removal unless the person affirmed that they were a non-U.S. citizen registered to vote. Phase II of the 2020 election audit, released in December 2022, did not address these discrepancies.
Other discrepancies appeared: the audit report shows 224,585 deceased removed from November 2020 to December 7, 2021, whereas CTRs show 191,198 deceased removed from November 2020 to November 2021. December 2021 brings that number to 198,162, which is still significantly lower than the audit report, which only goes to December 7. This means the audit over-reported anywhere from 26,423 to 33,387 deceased voters.
Likewise, the audit report shows 1,628 felons removed while CTRs show 1,646 felons removed from November 2020 to November 2021, presumably even higher when adding the week of December 7. At least 18 were under-reported in the 2020 report compared to the CTRs.
The audit report also shows 449,362 state duplicates removed, while CTRs show 450,938 removed from November 2020 to November 2021. When including county duplicates, CTRs jump to 462,722, meaning the audit report underreported at least 1,576 to 13,360 duplicates.
When asked about these massive discrepancies, Pierce told Texas Scorecard, “An important thing to keep in mind about reports pulled from the voter registration database is that they are single snapshots at that time. A report pulled in the morning may look different than a report pulled on the afternoon of the same day. Additionally, the reports are not always comparing the same data sets.”
However, all CTRs show their timestamps in the upper left corner. Except for the March 2021 CTR, showing a November 23, 2021 upload, all CTRs appear within a week of the prior month.
The August 2024 SOS press release came after the August 7 deadline for county registrars to perform “sweeping list maintenance activities” to maintain accurate voter rolls. The National Voter Registration Act mandates election registrars complete list maintenance no later than 90 days before federal elections.
The SOS told Texas Scorecard that Texas had 18,284,745 registered voters as of August 1. Texas added 1,737,044 voters between March 2020 and March 2024. It also removed 4,097,297 voters during that period according to CTRs. Texas suspended 2,116,669 registrations—roughly 12 percent—by March 2024, more than double its 969,374 listed in January 2022.
“That’s actually good because it shows that list maintenance is happening,” Christine Welborn, president of Advancing Integrity, told Texas Scorecard.
The SOS press release adds:
Any Texan can challenge a voter’s registration due to lack of U.S. citizenship by filing a sworn statement with the county registrar. A challenge results in a hearing and cancellation of the voter’s registration if the voter cannot produce adequate proof of citizenship. If a registrar determines that a person on the voter rolls, including a noncitizen, is ineligible to vote, they must report it to the attorney general and the secretary of state within 72 hours.
Texans can also challenge a registration in four other ways: provide evidence of a voter’s death, a felony conviction, or a legal declaration of mental incapacitation; or have a voter submit a signed letter requesting their removal from the rolls.
Additionally, Texans may request another state’s county election administrator send the challenged voter’s new registration records to the Texas county registrar. This cancels an ineligible voter’s registration under state law.
Despite the SOS’ few noncitizen removals, Welborn said “The best deterrent to noncitizen voting is a real presence in the polls making sure that people are showing a valid ID or filling out the reasonable impediment form.”
She also suggests that Texans fill paid, high-influence election worker positions before volunteering to be poll watchers.
“Judges have the ultimate say, the clerks have more say than the poll watchers, and the poll watchers have just observer powers,” stressed Welborn. “Also make sure you’re filling the early voting ballot board and signature verification committee. Then training, training, training.”
The Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign claim to have secured over 150,000 poll watchers and workers nationwide in anticipation of potential vote-center issues.
“There are so many more people working now to secure our elections than in 2020,” Welborn noted. “If we have trustworthy trained people at every polling location we will have a fair election. If we don’t, we won’t. And we need everybody to show up to polls to vote so we have a fair election.”
