Governor Greg Abbott introduced as we speak 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 contains almost 500,000 deceased people and 1000’s of noncitizens.
“Election integrity is crucial to our democracy,” said 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 folks 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 overview the voter rolls, take away ineligible voters, and refer any potential unlawful voting to the Lawyer Common’s Workplace and native authorities for investigation and prosecution. Unlawful voting in Texas won’t ever be tolerated. We are going to proceed to actively safeguard Texans’ sacred proper to vote whereas additionally aggressively defending our elections from unlawful voting.”
The in depth overview course of performed by the Secretary of State’s workplace and county voter registrars has yielded vital 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 checklist
- Over 134,000 voters who confirmed they’d 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 response to the press release:
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 strategy of sending all 1,930 data to the Lawyer Common’s Workplace for investigation and potential authorized motion. To higher crackdown on unlawful voting, Governor Abbott signed House Bill 1243 into regulation final 12 months, rising the penalty for unlawful voting, together with voting by noncitizens, to a second-degree felony.
In 2021, Governor Abbott signed Senate Bill 1, Senate Bill 1113, and House Bill 574 into regulation. 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 Bill 5, which elevated the penalty for election employees who knowingly allow noncitizens and different ineligible individuals to vote.
