Texas has removed a million people from the voter rolls. Why are we finding out now?
KUT 90.5 | By Blaise Gainey
Published August 30, 2024 at 12:20 PM CDT
It might be hard to believe, but Election Day is now just over nine weeks away. As Nov. 5 rapidly approaches, top Texas officials have been making big moves toward what they say will create a safer and more secure election.
But their actions haven’t come without outcry and controversy, especially over the last half of August. From Gov. Greg Abbott touting removals from Texas’ voter rolls to Attorney General Ken Paxton initiating raids in South Texas over allegations of vote harvesting, it’s been a lot for Texans to process.
“The potentially positive effect that these moves can have is that it can cause people to get angry about efforts to make it harder to vote,” said Bethany Albertson, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies political persuasion and attitudes.
On the other hand, Albertson said things like this can also sow “doubt into the integrity of our elections.”
Whether you’re a longtime watcher of Texas politics or just now peeking your head into the fray, we’ve got you covered. Here’s a breakdown of everything you need to know from the last few weeks.
The state removed over a million voters from the rolls
Gov. Greg Abbott announced on Monday that a whopping 1,150,500 people have been taken off Texas’ voter rolls since 2021.
“That removal process has been, and will continue to be, ongoing,” said Abbott in a press release.
That large number — plus Abbott’s repeated references to illegal voting in his announcement — definitely raised some eyebrows. But identifying exactly which voters were removed paints a clearer picture.
Of those scrubbed from voter rolls, the state said more than 457,000 — nearly 40% — are deceased, while over 19,000 canceled their own voter registrations. More than 6,000 can no longer vote in Texas due to a felony conviction, and another 6,500 were flagged as noncitizens, according to data from the Department of Public Safety.
So, that covers the first 488,500 removals. Of the remaining 662,000, more than 463,000 were removed after being put on what’s called the suspense list. Voters placed on that list got there because their local county elections office believes they no longer live at the address on their voter registration form.
It’s important to note that folks placed on the suspense list don’t get immediately booted from the voter rolls.
“If you are on the suspense list for two federal election cycles, which basically is about four years, then you are removed from the voter rolls,” said Texas Secretary of State’s Office spokesperson Alicia Phillips Pierce.
Of the remaining voters removed, around 134,000 told their county elections office they had moved, while 65,000 did not respond to a notice of examination.
So, while the number of those kicked from the voter rolls is massive, it seems to be normal procedure. But Albertson said Abbott’s announcement itself is unique.
“It’s not typical to advertise that you’re doing it,” she told The Texas Newsroom.
And if all this has you wondering about the status of your own voter registration, you can easily check that out via this handy portal from the Texas Secretary of State. If you find any issues with your registration, contact your local county elections office (you can find contact information here). Someone there can answer your questions or help you get reinstated.
AG Paxton initiated raids on South Texas Democrats
On to the other big news you’ve probably been hearing about: Just last week, Paxton announced he’d issued search warrants in Bexar, Atascosa and Frio counties looking for voter fraud.
In the raids that followed, Paxton said his office was examining allegations of vote harvesting in those counties during the 2022 election cycle. Vote harvesting “is collecting completed absentee ballots from voters and delivering them to polling places or election offices,” reported Texas Public Radio.
The warrants came after a complaint from a Republican district attorney.
Those searched included a Bexar County political consultant, a Democratic candidate for the Texas House, and Manuel Medina, former chair of the Bexar County Democratic Party. According to LULAC, the League of United Latin American Citizens, Medina’s raid led to officers confronting him and demanding electronic equipment while holding assault weapons in the presence of his daughters.
Overall, TPR reported the raids resulted in 65 cell phones, 41 computers and several other digital devices being seized.
Experts, however, say the likelihood the raids will lead to any real fraud being discovered is unlikely.
“Paxton’s office has invested enormous resources looking for fraud where it does not occur and has basically found nothing,” Sean Morales Doyle, director of the voting rights program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told TPR.
Morales also questioned whether or not the raids were a result of real crimes or just manufactured offenses to paint a picture that Paxton is rooting out fraud.
LULAC said it would file a civil rights complaint as a result of the raids and called for a state and federal investigation during a press conference on Monday.
“At the end of the day, none of these things ever lead to any convictions. All it is is something that is done to intimidate voters,” said Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, at the press conference. “When I spoke to the elected official in Frio County, he said, ‘Senator, all this does is scare people from voting, and that’s what they want to do.’”
A GOP focus on voter fraud and noncitizens voting
Paxton isn’t just having people’s homes raided looking for evidence of illegal voting activity. This week, he also launched an Illegal Voting Tipline. Paxton said the hope is that members of the public will report suspected violations of Texas election law.
“Any attempt to illegally cancel out legal ballots with fraud, vote harvesting, or other methods will be met with the full force of the law,” he said.
All of this is part of broader, recent focus from several Republican states on the specter of voter fraud, especially around the idea of noncitizens voting.
“The baseless claim that Democrats will attempt to steal the upcoming election by encouraging recently arrived migrants to vote illegally has become a key talking point for former President Donald Trump and his allies this campaign season,” reported NPR’s Jude-Joffe Block.
Of course, it’s not legal for noncitizens to vote, and there’s no credible evidence this — or voter fraud in general — happens in significant numbers.
But that hasn’t stopped Paxton from spending $3.3 million to investigate claims of voter fraud over the last two years, according to the Houston Chronicle.
Also of note: One of Paxton’s most recent, high-profile investigations stemmed from a claim from a Fox News reporter that there were people parked outside of DPS with tables registering noncitizens to vote. The claims were quickly disputed by the Republican party chair in the area.
Despite the pushback, this narrative could have a big impact on how Texans view the upcoming election.
“When politicians push messages suggesting that voter fraud is rampant, it doesn’t match up with reality,” said UT’s Bethany Albertson. “And it sows distrust in elections.”
Texas lawmakers focus on voter privacy
The Texas Legislature also has its eye on November, especially the secrecy of Texans’ ballots. On Monday, the House Elections Committee met to discuss a wide variety of issues, including the storage and management process for voter registration data.
This comes after an investigation from Votebeat and The Texas Tribune discovered that how people voted could, at times, “later be identified in some cases using public, legally available records.”
The information became accessible as a result of HB 5180, which passed in 2023. It allows the public access to ballot images, cast-vote records and the original voted ballot just 61 days after election day. The bill was passed with bipartisan support. However, it may not have been clear at the time that it could lead to votes being tied to voters.
“Texas’ efforts to make elections more transparent allows the public — in limited instances — to pierce the anonymity of the ballot and find out how people voted,” reported Votebeat and the Texas Tribune.
During Monday’s meeting, the Secretary of State’s Office proposed policy changes that could fix the issue. The main takeaways were that more workers were needed in order to help redact information and voting precincts should be larger.
Christina Adkins, the Secretary of State’s director of elections, told lawmakers that, “if we change the way we draw precincts so that they’re not so small, so we have more people in that defined territory with different ballot styles, it would be harder to identify a specific individual’s ballot.”
But that fix won’t be available for the upcoming presidential election. In the meantime, the Secretary of State’s Office has been working with the Attorney General’s Office to get guidance on what can be redacted in order to help ensure voters won’t be tied to the ballots released to the public.