Texans wrongly removed from the state’s voter rolls or suspended voter registration have little time to change course, Democratic state lawmakers and civil rights advocates warned Thursday, days after Republican leadership announced the purge. Over 1.1 million names from voter lists.
The law requires states to regularly update their voter registration rolls to remove people who have died or moved or are otherwise ineligible to vote. But Republican Governor Greg Abbott has pushed for regular voter registration A number of election integrity bills he signed into law in 2021.
“Texas’ strong election laws have removed more than 1 MILLION ineligible voters from our voter rolls,” Abbott said. Wrote at X on Monday.
Numbers released by Abbott’s office Since September 2021, the state has confirmed that more than 134,000 voters purged from voter rolls have moved and 457,000 have died.
However, most of the removed voters, more than 463,000, were placed on the suspended list. Names on the suspended list are removed when the state receives information that voters have permanently moved from their registration address or have not voted in two consecutive election cycles.
Although the recent numbers of purged voters appear large, they are consistent with regular maintenance of voter lists over the past few years.
But Democratic state representatives and Houston City Council members are still sounding the alarm more than 2.1 million Texas voters who remain on the suspended listmainly because county officials don’t have current addresses on record.
All with about 13% 17.9 million voters were registered in a state on the suspended list, “it’s more of a barrier to getting their vote counted,” said state Rep. Cristina Morales press conference.
Harris County resident Charleae Vincent said she was placed on the suspended list despite being a consistent voter.
Voters like Vincent receive new voter registration cards in the mail every two years. While Vincent waited for his card, he instead received a letter saying it had suspended status.
When he investigated how it happened, Vincent learned that the voter card never left the post office because the machine couldn’t read the address on the envelope, he said.
Often times, when people’s voter IDs or jury summonses are mailed out and returned as undeliverable, their names are added to the suspended list on the assumption that their addresses may be out of date.
Vincent said the accident was difficult to resolve. This involved him driving 27 miles and face-to-face with people who could help him get his name off the list.
State Rep. Gene Wu said, “To anyone who thinks they are currently registered check out their registration today” to see if they have been added to the suspended list.
Voters with suspended status can vote as long as they have previously updated their address online Texas voter registration closes on October 7. This should result in people being delisted by election day.
If voters find out that they are still on the suspended list after attending their polling station on polling day, they can still vote after completing a “proof of residence” form.
Suspended-status voters who may have moved to other counties will be required to vote in their previous counties or may be required to submit provisional ballots.
Voters on the erroneously removed suspended list must register to vote again earlier October 7said Democrat Annette Ramirez Works for Harris County tax assessor.
Sergio Lira of the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, the nation’s oldest Latino civil rights organization, raised concerns about the timing of Abbott’s announcement.
Homes of several LULAC members, Tejano Democratic Party chairman, State House candidate and mayor was raided on August 20. State Attorney General Ken Paxton said the raids were related to a year ongoing election integrity investigation. Paxton, a Republican, has also been outspoken in making baseless allegations of voter fraud.
“It’s being done strategically,” Lira said.
Lira and Democratic lawmakers added that such efforts by Republican leaders could further intimidate voters, particularly in Latino communities.
“When these decisions and these tactics go down … Latinos are more and disproportionately affected by these actions,” said Houston City Councilman Mario Castillo.
Republicans in Texas and other red states they did electoral integrity is a key part of their campaign messaging on the eve of the presidential elections “creates a fertile ground for false news aboutrigged elections” and non-citizen voting makes it appear that problems are more common than they really are.
For example, a 2017 study of the 2016 election by New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice found that “out of 23.5 million ballots cast, election officials detected only about 30 potential noncitizen ballots.” they did.” Associated Press informed.
Under federal law, only U.S. citizens can vote in federal elections, and regularly updating state voter rolls helps capture that. remove any inappropriate selectors and remove themincluding the stateless.
The latest figures released by Abbott show that efforts to update electoral rolls have helped remove at least 6,500 voters.potential non-citizensfrom the voter registration lists and said that the majority of their voter histories were not registered.
Against this backdrop, Wu said it is important that “every eligible voter registers to vote.”