Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, announced Monday that the state has removed more than 1.1 million ineligible voters, including 6,500 potential noncitizens, from its rolls since 2021.
“Illegal voting in Texas will never be tolerated,” Abbott said in a press release. “We will continue to actively safeguard Texans’ sacred right to vote while also aggressively protecting our elections from illegal voting.”
Abbott signed Senate Bill 1 in 2021. The election integrity measure made it a felony to lie while registering to vote, banned “vote harvesting” and unsolicited distribution of mail-in ballots, and required officials to reject mail-in ballots with errors.
Since then, the state has removed from its voter rolls more than 457,000 dead people, more than 6,000 people with felony convictions, and 6,500 potential noncitizens — 1,930 of whom had a voting history.
“The secretary of state’s office is in the process of sending all 1,930 records to the attorney general’s office for investigation and potential legal action,” reads the release.
Legal noncitizens could have gotten a license from the Texas Department of Public Safety and since become a naturalized citizen, according to the secretary of state’s office. Officials would send these individuals notices asking them for proof of citizenship, and they are only removed if they fail to respond.
This is what happened with the 6,500 potential noncitizens registered to vote, according to the secretary of state’s office. Due to the possibility that this number could include noncitizens who have since been naturalized, the state is referring the registrations
