Texas Officials Begin Walking Back Allegations About Noncitizen Voters
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Texas officials are taking a step back on their claim they found 95,000 possible noncitizens in the state's voter rolls. They say it is possible many of the people on their list should not be there.
In a statement Tuesday, the Texas Secretary of State's office said they "are continuing to provide information to the counties to assist them in verifying eligibility of Texas voters."
Last Friday, Texas Secretary of State David Whitley sent an advisory to local registrars asking them to look at their voter rolls. Whitley said his office flagged the names of 95,000 people who at one point in the past 22 years had identified as noncitizens with the Texas Department of Public Safety. In that time span, officials said, they also registered to vote.
Voting rights groups have said the state's list is likely a list of naturalized citizens who recently got the right to vote.
The state has provided little information about the methodology it used to compile the list, which has concerned both local election officials and voting rights groups.
"I don't know how they crafted their list," said Travis County's Tax Assessor-Collector Bruce Elfant, who manages the county's voter rolls.
Elfant says he has been holding off contacting voters on the original list of alleged noncitizens that the state gave him. He says the list had the names of about 4,500 people who live in Travis County, which includes the city of Austin and its suburbs.
On Tuesday, he told state and other local officials that they should remove a group of voters who were erroneously on their first list.
"The list will shrink significantly from the original 4,500 we received," he said.
Elfant said it's unclear how large the new number will be or whether the updated list will be any more reliable.
"It would have nice if they would have vetted this more carefully before they sent it out to the election administrators," he says. "But it is what it is, I am glad they gave us guidance yesterday because it's going to be less ... difficult for valid voters."
James Slattery, a staff attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, says Whitley should rescind the advisory altogether.
"At this point, you have to say the whole process is tainted from the start. We now have very big obvious flaws in the methodology by which this advisory was disseminated," he says. "And it's not just me saying it. It's apparently the Secretary of State's office saying that to county election officials himself."
The state's push comes as Republican-dominated Texas shows signs of becoming increasingly competitive politically. Last fall, Democrats flipped two GOP-controlled House districts and came close to winning a Senate race for the first time in more than two decades.
"The timing of the Texas Secretary of State's announcement — falsely claiming that there are tens of thousands noncitizens on the rolls — we think is directly related to the very high number of Latinos who were registered and were voting in the most recent election," said Nina Perales of MALDEF, a Latino legal defense group.
LULAC, a Latino civil rights group, filed a lawsuit in a federal court in San Antonio on Tuesday. They say the state is violating the Voting Rights Act and intimidating new voters.
"We are going to be able to show that at the end that all of these were legitimate U.S. voters," Domingo Garcia, the national president of LULAC, said. "In the end, this is really about voter suppression, not voter fraud."
Other states, including Florida and Colorado, have tried a similar voter purges aimed at alleged noncitizens. Before the 2012 election, Florida compiled a list of roughly 180,000 names. After local officials combed through it, only 85 people were removed from the rolls.
The focus on possible voting violations comes as Texas lawmakers have just begun their legislative session. One bill under consideration would require people to show proof of citizenship when they register to vote.
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Texas State attorney General Paxton made headlines 5 days ago by claiming that DPS Director McGraw and State Secretary Whitley had researched the voter roles and found 95,000 non
citizens, 58,000 of whom had voted at least once. VOTER FRAUD by Illegals !!!
That apparently was patently false. What they created accidentally, appears to be a list of naturalized citizens from 1996 to the present and what some are disappointed by, is that only 61%
of these new citizens are voting ( which is far more than the rate of natural citizens who vote ).
Crickets from Paxton, McGraw and Whitley...
Whitley's office very quietly began contacting counties Tuesday that the lists were inaccurate and needed to be revised downward, significantly.
Is anyone surprised that this was a partisan stunt? There needs to be something done about politicians who seek to willfully deny people their right to vote. They should be forced to immediately resign their position, forfeit any pension or benefits that they might have accrued as the result of that office, as well as losing their voting rights for 10 years.
Interesting. I couldn't figure out how that could have happened in the first place.
Neither could I, having lived here for many years.
Funny how it hasn't made the news.
Nor do I expect will The POTUS revise or delete his tweets about it.
Of course he won't. Just like he won't point out that where we have combatted voter fraud this year, it's been committed by the GOP!
I wonder if Kris Korbach had anything to do with this stunt?
Unfortunately it's an all too commonly used tactic for stirring up fear and hate of " Others ".
2012 Headline
2012 Election: Nearly 200,000 Florida Voters May Not Be Citizens
Tens of thousands of voters could be dropped from the rolls this election year
By Gary Fineout
Published May 11, 2012
Story later updated with;
But of course "Some" aren't interested in the facts just the shock value of the unkillable lie.
Donald Trump Jr. tweets misleading 2012 headline about Florida noncitizen voters
Same crap was pulled in Pennsylvania;
Is Pennsylvania swarming with illegal voters?
.
BUT, like Florida & Texas the Pennsylvania screaming headline is not holding up well under a sober investigation.
.
Well I'll be horn swaggled......Texas fucks up once again making a mountain out of a mole hill and republicans getting their panties in a bunch over ALTERNATIVE NEWS
Funny that things like this happen when they start losing votes.
I guess Beto was getting to close for them. Time to scare the people and try to disenfranchise others.
I guess it's their last best hope. They've done everything, legal and not so legal, to keep Texas red. Their investment has done them well until now.
I wonder if Perry is rethinking his outreach to get companies from other states to move there. Bringing in all those northern and west coast companies may have screwed up their political demographics just enough to tip the scales.
4 days ago
same shit, no updates
no widespread arrests or deportations.
Just another "my hairs on fire moment" from AG Paxton.