Texas AG Paxton asks feds to check citizenship status of nearly a half million registered voters
The deadline for Texans registering to vote for the November elections was Monday. This means that procrastinators have likely caused the voter rolls in the state to grow by thousands as the clock nears midnight.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also hoped that the federal government could help him identify citizens who are not eligible to vote.
Paxton sent an email to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services requested that the federal government confirm citizenship status for more than 450,000 Texas registered voters.
This group is composed of those who did not register to vote using a driver’s licence or state ID. (The state accepts other forms of identification than just state IDs when registering to vote.
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Paxton made his move after Secretary of State Jane Nelson was asked to provide a list. Nelson was given a Friday deadline by the AG to submit this list.
It is not clear what Paxton will be doing if the federal government cannot confirm the citizenship of some voters on this list. According to federal law, states cannot remove voters from voter lists because there are less than 90 calendar days until a federal election.
Paxton is making his latest effort to identify ineligible candidates, with a focus on noncitizens – a theme that has been common among Republican leaders all over the country this election year.
Bethany Albertson is a political science professor at UT Austin. She told The Texas Newsroom recently that “talk about voter fraud does not match the reality.”
She said that when politicians spread messages about voter fraud, it creates distrust for elections.
Brennan Center for Justice investigated claims made by politicians about illegal voting during the elections of 2012, 2016 and 2019. This study concluded that the majority of allegations of fraud are unfounded or due to clerical mistakes and other forms election misconduct.
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