List of suspect Texas voters shrinks by 20,000 by some estimates
Texas’ list of voters flagged for citizenship scrutiny has dropped by more than 20,000 names.
In addition, at least one lawsuit has been filed and several requests for retractions have been made since Secretary of State David Whitely questioned the citizenship of 95,000 Texas voters in an announcement on Jan. 25.
“This was about politics,” said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at SMU in Dallas. “The announcement was for political purposes and (many believed it) would have to be walked back very soon.
“It would never survive scrutiny.”
Some say Whitely’s announcement was geared to intimidate voters. His announcement suggested that 58,000 non-citizens may have voted between 1996 and 2018.
“It was an attempt to pull the wool over the Texas public’s eyes,” said Beth Stevens, voting rights legal director with the Texas Civil Rights Project, during a conference call Friday afternoon.
The Secretary of State’s office hasn’t publicly adjusted the numbers of Texans flagged for citizenship scrutiny, but estimates show that more than 20,000 voters have been removed from the list.
State election officials pulled 1,100 people in Tarrant County from a list that began at 5,800. In Dallas, a list of nearly 10,000 was cut by more than 1,700. Houston’s list of nearly 30,000 voters dropped by around 18,000, election officials have told media.
And in McLennan County, home to Waco, the entire list of 366 voters was removed from review because all those people already had proved their citizenship, according to Waco Tribune-Herald reports.
On Friday, the Secretary of State’s Office sent out another advisory, this one making sure election officials check their lists for naturalized citizens who are eligible to vote. That means countless naturalized citizens could have been on the original list.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has indicated this review is far from perfect.
“This is what you would categorize as a process,” Abbott told media Thursday in Austin. “They’ll get it right, but I do want to be emphatic: It is essential that the secretary of state, [the Department of Public Safety], counties, anybody with any authority over this whatsoever work collaboratively and swiftly together to make sure our voter rolls are accurate, to ensure integrity in the election process.”
Voter fraud has been a longtime concern for Texas lawmakers who have said that a law was needed requiring people to show a photo ID when voting, despite a small number of convictions.
Illegal voting is a second-degree felony, punishable by two to 20 years in prison.
Fallout
Whitley’s advisory suggested that names on the list be checked to determine people’s citizenship.
The reason: Some people showed identification such as a green card to the DPS while they were getting a driver’s license or identification card. Some may have later gained citizenship, registered to vote and actually voted, but ended up on the list because they initially presented a green card to DPS.
Lawyers for the League of United Latin American Citizens filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Whitley and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, claiming voter intimidation and voter suppression.
Attorneys indicated in the complaint, filed in a federal court in San Antonio, that the state advisory issued in January likely was geared at impacting how many and which voters head to the polls in May.
“It’s clear that the right-wing elements in Texas government are trying to rig the system to keep power and disenfranchise 95,000 American citizens,” Domingo Garcia, national president of the group, said in a statement. “There is no voter fraud in Texas, it’s a lie, repeated time and again to suppress minority voters and we’re going to fight hard against it.”
And civil rights groups have called on state election officials to rescind the advisory, saying it’s riddled with bad methodology.
“Tens of thousands on the original list should not have been on the list at all,” Stevens said.
There are more than 15.8 million voters across Texas, including more than 1.1 million in Tarrant County.
It could take months in Tarrant County to determine if any “non-U.S. citizens” cast a ballot, Garcia has said.
This story was originally published February 1, 2019 at 5:25 PM.
