Registering people to vote is good. Don’t let baloney about immigrants derail it | Opinion

Think conspiracy theories have few or no real-world consequences? Consider recent fights over registering new voters in Texas.

Many Republicans, prodded for years by former President Donald Trump, are concerned that there is or will be sweeping vote fraud in just about every election. So, Republican officeholders, responsive to their political bases, have launched investigations, task forces and new laws. The snipe hunt goes on and on, with very little prey ever caught.

The latest scare is over whether immigrants in the country illegally might cast ballots this fall, leading to almost comical over-reactions over registering new voters.

In the Fort Worth area, for instance, a Fox News host’s hasty post and TV mention of third-hand information about activity at a Department of Public Safety office in Weatherford sparked a panic over whether immigrants were being registered to vote.

In Weatherford. Trump won 82% of votes in Parker County in 2020.

Not surprisingly, it turned out not to be true. But it was enough for Attorney General Ken Paxton, Texas’ conspiracy theorist in chief, to launch an investigation into groups helping new voters sign up.

If such efforts are intimidated, a funny fantasy tips into real harm. Texas makes it too hard to register to vote already. We don’t need additional speed bumps that hurt volunteers trying to get others involved in democracy.

Tarrant County, however, seems determined to erect as many barriers as possible. County commissioners recently voted to prevent voter-registration drives inside county facilities, driving volunteers and potential new voters out into the heat. Such activity in a government building was deemed “non-regular use.”

The panic over illegal immigrant voting isn’t grounded in reality. That’s not to say it never happens, but generally, people who are not supposed to be here don’t go out of their way to participate in a voluntary activity for which they are asked to identify themselves and their addresses.

In Tarrant County so far this year, 18 registration attempts have been rejected for insufficient proof of citizenship, a county spokesman told the Star-Telegram. That’s out of 53,000 applicants.

Gov. Greg Abbott recently touted that more than 1.1 million ineligible voters have been removed from state rolls under a 2021 law. Of those, his office said, more than 6,500 were noncitizens.

Yes, the ideal number of noncitizens signed up to vote is zero. It’s good to police the voter rolls. But these numbers indicate a minor problem, at best — far short of the resources that have been dedicated to it.

County elections officials have been inundated lately with challenges to voter registrations, the Texas Tribune reports. Investigating these requires attention and precision, particularly to ensure that someone isn’t stripped of their voting rights without proof. It’s one more job with which anti-fraud zealots have strained county resources without much result.

Then, of course, there is Tarrant County’s voter fraud task force, established with much fanfare by County Judge Tim O’Hare, District Attorney Phil Sorrells and Sheriff Bill Waybourn. As of June, more than a year after it was formed, the unit had investigated 12 complaints, along with 70 more handled directly by the Sheriff’s Office. Zero instances of fraud had been prosecuted.

High levels of illegal immigration chafe Republicans about the potential for future amnesty that would make millions of recent arrivals eligible to vote. And they believe such people are likely to vote Democratic. It’s theoretical, but it tracks with a mistake some Republicans continually make about voter turnout.

Many seem to agree with Democrats that if more Americans vote, Republicans lose. As we’ve noted before, research by University of Texas at Austin professor Daron Shaw shows that not to be the case. As turnout rises, it tends to mirror distribution of opinions in the overall population.

In other words, Republicans can win high-turnout elections. Many just seem to lack Reaganesque confidence in their positions.

Vote fraud is real; it’s just not as extensive as some want to believe. Vigorous enforcement is good. Ensuring accurate voter rolls is important.

But as with any enforcement action, these can go too far. The resources and energy devoted to this could be valuable somewhere else. And worse, if the perception takes hold that vote registration drives, or even the act of registering oneself, could lead to trouble with the law, some fully eligible people might be wrongfully deterred.

Texans can verify that they’re registered using the site Texas.gov. And if you’re not, you have until Oct. 6 to get an application — available online and at government facilities, including libraries — and mail or deliver it to your county elections office.