Texas settles lawsuit over ‘noncitizen voter’ advisory, will rescind measure

Texas has agreed to rescind a memo issued by the state’s secretary of state that questioned the citizenship status of nearly 100,000 registered voters, according to media reports.

The agreement comes as part of a settlement, reportedly reached Friday, in which Texas will nearly $500,000 in plaintiffs’ attorney’s fees, the Dallas Morning News reported Saturday.

{mosads}Andre Segura, the legal director of the ACLU of Texas, which represented some of the plaintiffs, told the newspaper that the settlement brought “this failed experiment in voter suppression to an end.”

“After months of litigation, the state has finally agreed to do what we’ve demanded from the start — a complete withdrawal of the flawed and discriminatory voter purge list, bringing this failed experiment in voter suppression to an end,” Segura said. 

“The right to vote is sacrosanct, and no eligible voter should have to worry about losing that right. We are glad that the state has agreed to give up this misguided effort to eliminate people from the voter rolls, and we will continue to monitor any future voter purge efforts by the state to ensure that no eligible Texan loses their voice in our democracy,” Segura added.

Interim Secretary of State David Whitley said in a statement Saturday that the settlement “accomplishes our office’s goal of maintaining an accurate list of qualified registered voters while eliminating the impact of any list maintenance activity on naturalized U.S. citizens,” according to the Dallas Morning News.

Whitley early this year launched the review of the state’s voter rolls, saying that 95,000 registered voters had been flagged for a citizenship status review.

Civil rights groups and naturalized citizens brought a number of legal challenges in response.

A federal judge ruled in February that there was not widespread voter fraud in Texas and called Whitley’s review a “mess.” U.S. District Judge Fred Biery ordered Texas officials at the time to stop removing people from voter rolls.

President Trump initially jumped on the news that Whitley was launching the review, claiming in a January tweet that voter fraud was “rampant.”

“58,000 non-citizens voted in Texas, with 95,000 non-citizens registered to vote. These numbers are just the tip of the iceberg. All over the country, especially in California, voter fraud is rampant. Must be stopped. Strong voter ID!” Trump tweeted.