Texas has removed 1.1 million names from the voter rolls since 2021
Most of the names removed from the voter rolls were deceased or lost voters, but 6,500 of them were not U.S. citizens.
Since the law was passed in 2021, more than 1.1 million names have been purged from Texas’ voter rolls. Democrats in the state’s House of Representatives initiated a mass purge, warning that the measure would lead to widespread ballot suppression.
Governor Greg Abbott touted the removal of the names in a press release on Monday, pointing out that about 920,000 of those names were of people who had died or whose home addresses could not be verified by local election officials. However, 6,500 names were of non-US citizens and almost as many names were of felons who had been disenfranchised.
And he praised the controversial measure, Senate Bill 1, as a safeguard for the Texas electoral process.
“Illegal voting will never be tolerated in Texas,” Abbott said in the press release. “We will continue to actively protect Texans’ sacred right to vote while aggressively protecting our elections from illegal voting.”
The governor was touting a law introduced amid concerns about voter fraud and other irregularities that emerged in the weeks and months after former President Donald Trump falsely claimed such schemes cost him a second term in the White House.
More: From polls to ballots: What the new Texas election law means for you
The state’s Republican-dominated legislature was in special session in July 2021 when nearly all Democrats walked out of the chamber in protest of the measure. Their absence brought work to a halt because fewer than two-thirds of the chamber’s members were present, meaning there was no quorum under the Texas Constitution.
Democrats retreated to Washington in the hope that the Democratic majority in Congress and Democratic President Joe Biden could pass federal legislation that would effectively override a state law like the one pending in Texas.
Such a federal bill failed to pass and House Democrats returned to Austin after 38 days. Republicans passed the bill and Abbott signed it. Its features include:
- Prohibition of round-the-clock and overnight voting by requiring polling stations to be open for at least nine hours between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.
- Prohibit drive-in voting or voting from a vehicle unless the person is participating in curbside voting due to an illness or disability.
- Texans who vote by mail must include their driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number on the envelope containing their ballot. This number must match the number provided on the previously submitted absentee ballot application.
