Does Texas Have Non Citizens Registered

Austin, TX, January three, 2022 — The first phase of a Texas elections audit has found that in that location were 11,737 potential non-citizens registered to vote concluding yr, with 3,063 of those in Harris Canton solitary.

Concluding week, the Texas Secretary of Land (SOS) released a progress report on what is to be a total forensic audit of the November 2020 elections in the state's two largest Democrat and two largest Republican counties — Dallas, Harris, Collin, and Tarrant.

Equally function of the audit, investigators sought to identify registered voters who may be ineligible due to death, felony confidence, or not-citizenship across the country and in the targeted counties. The review too worked to identify and remove duplicative registrations.

By comparing voter registration lists with other records, the land was able to cancel nearly 200,000 registrations for deceased voters but forwarded some other 23,928 names of the potentially deceased for further investigation by the four counties.

Additionally, the SOS found that voter registrations for 1,628 potential felons had been identified and canceled beyond the state but noted that the agency has express visibility into notices provided to canton voter registrars from the courts. Amidst the four counties analyzed, there are 328 potential felon voter registrations under review.

By comparing voter registration information with citizenship data from the Department of Public Safety, SOS also constitute xi,737 potential non-citizens on statewide voter rolls and referred the information to county registrars for review. Of those, ii,327 records have been removed.

Of the 4 counties audited, Dallas and Harris counties had the highest numbers of potential non-citizens registered merely did non provide status updates for inclusion in the report. SOS says that while nearly 1,200 of these have been removed in Dallas County, Harris County has non yet canceled any of the three,063 non-denizen registrations. Collin county, with 327 potential non-citizen registrations, has non reported whatever cancellations.

The SOS written report states that staff will work to verify what steps Harris Canton has taken to verify these registrations.

State Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston) who formerly served as the Harris Canton voter registrar said the situation is unacceptable.

"It's a bedrock issue that only citizens exist allowed to vote in any ballot," Bettencourt told The Texan . "The citizenship checks have to be washed, if non, it's a strike against the integrity of the voter roll and whether yous tin can trust the election."

County registrars typically send notices past mail to request proof of citizenship, but voters have 30 days to answer. According to federal election lawmaking , registrars may not remove these voters for not-response within 90 days of a federal election. Consequently, they will remain on the county's voter rolls at least until after the 2022 primary fix for March ane and primary runoff elections prepare for May 24.

"The Harris County Elections Administration is in compliance with state law and is actively investigating the citizenship status of those placed on the list provided by the Secretary of State'southward role," Harris County elections said in an official statement provided to The Texan .

"We are doing our due diligence to cantankerous reference citizenship status in our database and have distributed letters accordingly."

In add-on to assay of not-eligible voter registrations, the SOS report notes that there were only a few discrepancies discovered in the manual recounts required in one percent of elections precincts in each canton, but besides noted that since Harris County did not utilise equipment with paper ballots in 2020, a hand count was non possible.

The SOS report carefully notes that not all ineligible registrations are related to actual votes, just reports that information technology is reviewing 236 potentially deceased voters who seem to have voted in the November 2020 election, and another 509 who may take voted in more than ane state or jurisdiction.

The SOS will launch phase two of the audit this spring which will include closer examination and inspection of elections procedures and materials, but Harris County leaders have vowed to oppose whatsoever investigation of its elections processes. Concluding year, county Approximate Lina Hidalgo chosen ballot audits a "political play a trick on," and commissioners voted iii to 2 along party lines to instruct the canton attorney to "do everything possible to contest" the audit.

While resisting audit attempts, Harris Canton's elections ambassador Isabel Longoria has as well asked a federal judge to issue an injunction against state laws that prohibit the sending of unsolicited mail service ballot applications to registered voters. If she succeeds, Longoria plans to send the applications to county voters in fourth dimension for the 2022 main elections.

While SOS says they are withal attempting to verify the number of ineligible voters who voted in the 2020 elections, the report states they will refer all illegal votes cast to the Texas attorney full general.

While violations of election law take previously been investigated and prosecuted past the state'southward attorney general, a recent ruling from the Court of Criminal Appeals has undermined the authorisation of the state'due south superlative constabulary enforcement officer to prosecute election fraud. Instead, the courtroom ruled that only local district and county attorneys tin prosecute such cases.

Texas Chaser General Ken Paxton is expected to file a motility for a rehearing of the decision past a January 7 deadline, but under the current ruling there may be little the land tin do to prosecute alleged violations of election constabulary.

Does Texas Have Non Citizens Registered,

Source: https://thetexan.news/texas-secretary-of-state-finds-over-11000-potential-non-citizen-voter-registrations/

Posted by: moorebobtly.blogspot.com

Share this post