The Texas two-step on voter fraud: make outlandish claims, then walk them back
Incendiary claims by the Texas secretary of state that 95,000 non-citizens are registered to vote in Texas are already being quietly walked back by Texas state officials, who made headlines with what appear to be poorly documented charges. Already, some counties have been informed that some, perhaps thousands, of registered voters deemed ineligible to vote were wrongly flagged as potential non-citizens. The state also faces at least one lawsuit from the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), charging state officials with voter intimidation.
Texas Secretary of State David Whitley (R) initially claimed to have found 95,000 possible non-citizens registered to vote statewide, some 58,000 of whom have cast a ballot at some point since 1996. State officials issued an advisory last week that advises local election officials to verify the names that fall in their jurisdictions.
The secretary of state’s office has already notified some counties of errors.
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“[Attorney General] Paxton’s move is an attack on newly naturalized citizens, not ‘illegal’ voters,” Danielle Lang, co-director of voting rights and redistricting at the Campaign Legal Center responded in an email.