Texas Removes Over 1 Million Voters from Rolls Since Passage of Anti-Voting Law
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) announced Monday the state has removed over one million people from its voter rolls since Republican legislators passed a sweeping voter suppression law three years ago.
In a news release, the Republican governor said the people who’ve been removed include voters who moved out of Texas, are deceased or are noncitizens. “That removal process has been, and will continue to be, ongoing,” Abbot’s office said.
“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 illegal voting to the Attorney General’s Office and local authorities for investigation and prosecution,” Abbott said.
According to the release, the highest portion of voters removed from the rolls — over 463,000 — were on the “suspense list,” which essentially means the county is unaware of the voter’s current address.
Additionally, Abbott’s office said of the over 6,500 noncitizens removed from the voter rolls, about 1,930 have a “voter history” and their records will be sent to the attorney general’s office to investigate and potentially take legal action. The release notes that last year, Abbott signed House Bill 1243 into law, which raised the penalty for illegal voting to a felony. Over 6,000 of the voters removed from rolls have a felony conviction.
In 2021, Abbott signed Senate Bill 1, a package of anti-voting measures including one that criminalizes ballot harvesting and another that requires the Secretary of State to conduct audits of elections every two years.
The laws, passed in the wake of the 2020 election, were met with fierce opposition from pro-voting groups and Democratic Texas legislators. A lawsuit filed against Abbott over the legislation in September of 2021 is ongoing.