'Gov. Greg Abbott boasted that Texas removed 6,500 noncitizens from its voter rolls. That number was likely inflated.' was first published by The Texas Tribune,
"Gov. Greg Abbott boasted that Texas removed 6,500 noncitizens from its voter rolls . That number was likely inflated."
Abbott’s claims helped to fan ongoing unsubstantiated Republican allegations that noncitizens plan to cast ballots en masse to sway elections for Democrats, assertions that former President Donald Trump and his party are using to cast doubt on the integrity of the upcoming November election. After attempting to contact more than 70 people across both categories, the news organizations have so far 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 the letters about their citizenship. In each case, they showed reporters copies of their birth certificates to confirm their citizenship, or reporters verified their citizenship using state records.
Asked whether the nine people the news organizations identified as U.S. citizens were included in Abbott’s latest figure, the secretary of state’s office said it could not confirm or deny the inclusion of any specific people. Local election officials said they don’t know which voters were included in Abbott’s tally, but emphasized the data originates at the county level.
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. “It scared a lot of people. We’ve received a lot of phone calls and emails from people who are concerned that they’re not on the voter rolls,” Elfant said.For example, county registrars contact anyone who has marked on a jury summons that they’re not a citizen. The registrars need to confirm if that’s true, because it would mean the person is also ineligible to vote.
The state settled the case 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. “Their claims would likely be dismissed until they could come up with something that actually documents how they got to those numbers,” he said.When Justin Comer, 29, heard that the state had removed thousands of noncitizens from the voter rolls, it never occurred to him that he might be one of them. Comer was born in Harris County, the home of Houston, and grew up in conservative Montgomery County just outside the city.
“I was more just confused,” Comer said. “I’ve lived in Texas my whole life. It was never a question for me.” There are almost certainly additional U.S. citizens among the thousands of removed voters Abbott characterized as noncitizens. For example, reporters identified Texas birth certificates for another two voters whose registrations in Montgomery County were canceled for not responding to questions about their citizenship. The news organizations could not reach those voters for comment., including the loss of their residency status and deportation. In 2017, Rosa Ortega, a U.S.
One of them, Austin resident Son Mai, had no idea he had ever been on the rolls until a reporter contacted him. In Texas, both Abbott and Paxton have promoted claims of noncitizens seeking to vote in the November election.that nonprofits were setting up booths outside state driver’s license offices and signing up noncitizens to vote, which followed anpeddled by a Fox News host, and announced his agency had raided homes in three South Texas counties to investigate allegations of voter fraud.
Noncitizens Voter Rolls Texas Election Claims Removed Investigation
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