Texas removes 1 million people from voter rolls

More than a million people have been removed from Texas’s voter registration rolls since the last presidential election, the state announced Monday.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said in a statement that the removals represent an effort 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,” Abbott said. “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.”

About half of the voters removed have died, requested to be be taken off or are living in another state, based on figures from the governor’s office. Nearly 7,000 were noncitizens who had registered illegally, and about 6,000 were convicted felons unable to vote.

About 463,000 were on what Texas calls its “suspense list,” where counties place voters who don’t respond to requested certification forms.

The removal effort is part of a sweeping package of voting restrictions the Texas Legislature passed after the 2020 presidential election. At the time, Abbott said the law would make it “easier to vote and harder to cheat” in the Lone Star State.

Critics argue it disproportionately affects voters of color and voters with disabilities.

According to the governor’s office, of the nearly 6,500 noncitizens removed from the voter rolls, about 1,930 have a voter history. Those cases will be referred to the Attorney General’s office for possible felony charges.

Texas, along with other mostly Republican-controlled states, passed a raft of new voting restrictions after President Biden beat former President Trump in the 2020 election, which saw a 50-year record turnout and a surge in mail-in and early ballots. Several local jurisdictions, including Harris County, Texas’s most populous county, had adopted new access measures during that election cycle in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Among other provisions, the Texas law that has allowed the removal of a million voters also sets statewide voting hours, prohibits drive-through voting methods that were used for safety during the coronavirus outbreak and gives poll watchers more access to observe the election process. It also bans the mass distribution of mail-in ballot applications.