Thousand believed to be non-citizen voters removed off list for potential fraud

Thousands of individuals were taken off a list compiled by the Texas Secretary of State which had names of 95,000 possible individuals who were flagged for citizenship checks.

The list, sent out January 25, flagged individuals who provided the Texas Department of Pubic Safety with a form of documentation that showed they were not a citizen when obtaining a drivers license, according to the Texas Tribune. Of those individuals, “58,000 cast a ballot in one or more from 1996 to 2018, the secretary of state said.”

A few days later, the Texas Secretary of State told Texas counties some of those voters should not have been on the list.

According to the Texas Tribune, the Secretary of State’s Office incorrectly included some voters who had submitted their voting registration application at the Texas Department of Public Safety.

The Texas Tribunes states El Paso’s County election administrator Lisa Wise received a list of 4,152 names, one of which was one of her staff members: a naturalized citizen.

At the time, Wise told us the list was most likely included legal residents who applied for some form of state identification, then failed to update their status when they became naturalized US citizens. The State of Texas flagged these voters because they were still showing up as non-US citizens on its DPS database.

Since then, tens of thousands of names have been removed from list of flagged voters across the state. El Paso County is now down to about 2,000 names.

“Now we’re just really in the early stages of revieing the list, going through application by application, talking to naturalization courts, and seeing what information we can get before we decide what the next steps are,” said Wise. “Our number one concern is that list is accurate and that people are on there who are allowed to be on there and who aren’t on there who aren’t allowed to be on there.”

Notices are also being sent out to the individuals still on that list. The notices ask the individuals to provide proof of citizenship within 30 days.

Wise told ABC-7, El Paso County has not sent out those letters “because we’re still going through the list. There’s not an accurate count for us and there’s some question on whether or not sending letters to this large group is the best course of action for our county.”

Several organization are suing the SOS including the American Liberties Civil Union and the Lawers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Wise said they are not involved in any law suits.