Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced this week that more than 1 million people have been removed from the state’s voter rolls in the last three years, citing the removals as part of an effort to protect voting rights and prevent voter fraud — an already illegal and extremely rare occurrence that Republicans have used as a focal point of their immigration attacks.
In a statement issued on Monday, the Republican governor blamed the sweeping removal of ineligible voters from state records — which he described as being “noncitizens, deceased voters, and people who moved to another state” — on election legislation he enacted in 2021.
“Illegal voting in Texas will never be tolerated,” Abbott informed the crowd. “We will continue to actively safeguard Texans’ sacred right to vote while also aggressively protecting our elections from illegal voting.”
However, his statement does not hold up under inspection. According to election experts, such withdrawals are simply ordinary voter roll maintenance (not to mention a federal law obligation), and Abbott’s words risk reinforcing skepticism in the electoral process. “A spokesman for Mr. Abbott referred questions to the secretary of state’s office,” the New York Times said. A coalition of voting rights groups in the state has also expressed worry that qualified voters may have been mistakenly identified as noncitizens and deleted off voter records, as has happened in other jurisdictions, according to NBC News.
Abbott’s assertion that he is defending voter rights is also questionable, given that Texas Republicans have been accused of imposing undue hurdles on nonwhite and disabled voters by restricting access to the ballot box, particularly in blue regions of the state.
Last week, state Attorney General Ken Paxton authorized searches on the residences of prominent Latino Democrats and members of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), a nonpartisan Latino civil rights organization. Paxton claimed that the operation was part of an “election integrity investigation,” but his administration declined to explain why specific homes were targeted. LULAC stated that it has not been aware of the specific claims against any of its members. The group has requested that the US Justice Department investigate Paxton’s office for suspected violations of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.