Governor Greg Abbott introduced at the moment that the state has efficiently eliminated over a million ineligible voters from its voter rolls for the reason that enactment of Senate Invoice 1 in 2021.
This decisive motion consists of practically 500,000 deceased people and hundreds of noncitizens.
“Election integrity is important to our democracy,” stated Governor Abbott.
“I’ve signed the strongest election legal guidelines within the nation to guard the proper to vote and to crackdown on unlawful voting. These reforms have led to the removing of over a million ineligible individuals from our voter rolls within the final three years, together with noncitizens, deceased voters, and individuals who moved to a different state.
“The Secretary of State and county voter registrars have an ongoing authorized requirement to evaluation the voter rolls, take away ineligible voters, and refer any potential unlawful voting to the Legal professional Common’s Workplace and native authorities for investigation and prosecution. Unlawful voting in Texas won’t ever be tolerated. We’ll proceed to actively safeguard Texans’ sacred proper to vote whereas additionally aggressively defending our elections from unlawful voting.”
The in depth evaluation course of performed by the Secretary of State’s workplace and county voter registrars has yielded important outcomes, together with:
- Over 6,500 noncitizens
- Over 6,000 voters with felony convictions
- Over 457,000 deceased people
- Over 463,000 voters on the suspense record
- Over 134,000 voters who confirmed that they had moved
- Over 65,000 voters who failed to reply to examination notices
- Over 19,000 voters who requested cancellation of their registration
In whole, these actions account for over 1.1 million ineligible voters being faraway from Texas’ voter rolls.
In line with the press launch:
Of the over 6,500 noncitizens faraway from the voter rolls, roughly 1,930 have a voter historical past. The Secretary of State’s workplace is within the technique of sending all 1,930 data to the Legal professional Common’s Workplace for investigation and potential authorized motion. To raised crackdown on unlawful voting, Governor Abbott signed Home Invoice 1243 into legislation final yr, growing the penalty for unlawful voting, together with voting by noncitizens, to a second-degree felony.
In 2021, Governor Abbott signed Senate Invoice 1, Senate Invoice 1113, and Home Invoice 574 into legislation. Senate Invoice 1 elevated mendacity whereas registering to vote to a state jail felony, criminalized poll harvesting, required the Secretary of State to conduct randomized audits of elections each two years, banned distribution of unsolicited mail-in poll functions and ballots, and required ID for mail-in ballots. Senate Invoice 1113 empowered the Secretary of State to withhold funds from counties that fail to take away noncitizens from their voter roll. Home Invoice 574 made it a second-degree felony to knowingly rely invalid votes or refuse to rely legitimate votes.
In 2017, the Governor signed Senate Invoice 5, which elevated the penalty for election staff who knowingly allow noncitizens and different ineligible individuals to vote.
