Texas Removes Over One Million People From Voter Rolls, Critics Say It May Be Violating Voting Rights Act

Texas has removed over one million people from their voter rolls in an alleged attempt to ensure more fair elections. 

Texas claims to have removed only ineligible voters – people who have moved out-of-state, deceased voters and non-citizens. According to the governor’s office, nearly 7,000 people who were removed were non-citizens registered illegally, 6,000 were convicted felons and around half were deceased, living in another state or requested to be taken off.

“It is a clean up, but not a one-time cleanup. It is a constant clean up because we have a perpetual duty to ensure that there is nobody on the voter rolls who is ineligible to vote,”  Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) explained in an interview. 

“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,” Abbott said in a statement. 

In response to the 2020 presidential election, the Texas Legislature passed packages of voting restrictions, aiming to make it “easier to vote and harder to cheat,” according to Abbott. 

Texas is not the only state attempting to crack down on illegal voting. Alabama has recently conducted similar measures.

Illegal voting has become a major talking point for presidential candidate Donald Trump and his allied Republicans. 

Claims that illegal voters, particularly non-citizens, have been voting in mass numbers in federal elections have been widespread among Republicans like Trump despite there being no credible evidence that it is a significant problem. 

In a statement, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) stated, “The Biden-Harris Administration has intentionally flooded our country with illegal aliens, and without proper safeguards, foreign nationals can illegally influence elections at the local, state, and national level.” 

The Campaign Legal Center nonprofit has notified the states of Alabama, Texas and Tennesee that their initiatives may violate the National Voter Registration Act.