Texas to Commence Removal of Illegible Voters from Roll

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott waves on stage on the third day of the Republican National Convention (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, in a press release on Monday, said that the state of Texas has removed over a million ineligible voters from voter rolls since Senate Bill 1 was signed into law in 2021.

“Election integrity is essential to our democracy,” Governor Abbott stated. “I have signed the strongest election laws in the nation to protect the right to vote and to crackdown on illegal voting. These reforms have led to the removal of over one million ineligible people from our voter rolls in the last three years, including noncitizens, deceased voters, and people who moved to another state.”

Those removed from the voter rolls include over 134,000 people who have moved out-of-state, over 457,000 deceased individuals, over 6,500 noncitizens, over 6,000 voters with felony convictions, over 463,000 voters on the suspense list, over 65,000 voters who failed to respond to a notice of examination, and over 19,000 voters who request to cancel their registration.

Within the 6,500 figure of noncitizens removed, 1,930 have a voting history in the state. The secretary of state’s office is sending the records of the non-citizens with a voter history to the Attorney General’s office for a review, as well as potential legal action.

“The Secretary of State and county voter registrars have an ongoing legal requirement to review the voter rolls, remove ineligible voters, and refer any potential voting to the Attorney General’s Office and local authorities for investigation and prosecution. Illegal voting in Texas will never be tolerated. We will continue to actively safeguard Texans’ sacred right to vote while also aggressively protecting our elections from illegal voting,” the press release continued.

In addition to Senate Bill 1, Governor Abbott also signed Senate Bill 1113 and House Bill 574 into law in 2021, which turned knowingly counting invalid votes or refusing to count valid votes a second-degree felony, as well as empowers the Secretary of State to withhold funds from counties that fail to remove noncitizens from their voter roll.

The focus on removing ineligible voters follows the massive influx of illegal immigrants under the Biden administration, ahead of the upcoming presidential election in November.