If People Vote, Republicans Lose

Greg Abbott says he purged thousands of noncitizens from Texas' voter rolls. @TexasTribune @propublica and @VotebeatUS found at least 9 U.S. citizens in three Texas counties who were incorrectly labeled as noncitizens or removed from the rolls.https://t.co/YCadoNMFHR

— Rebekah Allen (@rebekahallen) October 15, 2024

 Abbott claimed 6500 non-citizens were on voter rolls in Texas, 2000 of them with voting history. Those 2000 are to be investigated by Ken Paxton (who has no criminal authority). All Paxton could do is refer them to DA’s for prosecution; but the threat is the point.

An investigation by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune and Votebeat, however, found that the governor’s claims about noncitizens on the rolls appear inflated and, in some cases, wrong. 

The secretary of state’s office identified 581 people, not 6,500, as noncitizens, according to a report it gave Abbott in late August that the newsrooms obtained through a public information request. 

In response to questions about the basis for Abbott’s larger number, the secretary of state’s office told the news organizations that it had “verbally” provided the governor’s office with a separate number of people removed from the rolls who failed to respond to letters alerting them that there were questions about their citizenship. 

The governor’s news release combined the two figures.

Yeah, start there.

That means U.S. citizens who simply never received or responded to such letters are almost certainly included in Abbott’s 6,500 number. Abbott did not respond to requests for comment, and Secretary of State Jane Nelson declined to be interviewed.

The lies are the point, too.

The article points out that mail delivery is a problem the counties)where registration is regulated) can’t control:

“The post office messes up. We get a lot of cards back or mail back that says ‘undeliverable’ and the person will be like, ‘I’ve lived at this address for 20 years and I’ve never moved,’” said Trudy Hancock, elections administrator in Republican-leaning Brazos County, home to Texas A&M University. “So you have to consider that there are outside circumstances that can affect our efforts to reach them.”

I can attest to that. I’ve lived in my house for over 20 years, and I know my mail has been returned to sender marked “unable to deliver.” But this fearmongering by Abbott is a feature, not a bug:

Elfant, for one, said he was frustrated by Abbott’s public promotion of voter removal data. He said the governor’s press release created confusion among residents who feared they might have been wrongly removed and would not be able to cast ballots in the upcoming presidential election. 

“It scared a lot of people. We’ve received a lot of phone calls and emails from people who are concerned that they’re not on the voter rolls,” Elfant said.

Scared voters don’t vote. Might be a crime, right?

Feature, not bug.