Governor Abbott announces that over 1 million ineligible voters have been removed from the voter rolls
Governor Greg Abbott announced today that since signing Senate Bill 1 into law in 2021, Texas has purged over one million people from the state’s voter rolls, including people who have moved out of state, are deceased, and lack citizenship. This purging process is ongoing and will continue.
“Election integrity is essential to our democracy,” said Governor Abbott. “I signed the nation’s strongest election laws to protect the right to vote and crack down on illegal voting. These reforms have resulted in the removal of over one million ineligible people from our voter rolls over the past three years, including noncitizens, deceased voters, and people who moved to another state. The Secretary of State and county registrars of voters are required by law to review voter rolls, remove ineligible voters, and refer any potentially illegal vote to the Attorney General’s office and local authorities for investigation and prosecution. Illegal voting will never be tolerated in Texas. We will continue to actively protect Texans’ sacred right to vote while aggressively protecting our elections from illegal voting.”
Since Governor Abbott signed Senate Bill 1 into law in 2021, over 1 million people have been purged from the voter rolls in Texas, including:
| Over 6,500 | Non-citizens |
| Over 6,000 | Voters convicted of a crime |
| Over 457,000 | deceased |
| Over 463,000 | Voters on the Suspense List |
| Over 134,000 | Voters who responded to an address confirmation that they had moved |
| Over 65,000 | Voters who did not respond to an audit notice |
| Over 19,000 | Voters who have requested cancellation of their registration |
| In total | Over 1.1 million |
Of the more than 6,500 noncitizens removed from the voter rolls, approximately 1,930 have a voting history. The Secretary of State’s office is in the process of sending all 1,930 records to the Attorney General’s office for investigation and legal action if necessary. To better combat illegal voting, Governor Abbott signed House Bill 1243 last year, which increases the penalty for illegal voting, including noncitizen voting, to a second-degree felony.
In 2021, Governor Abbott signed Senate Bills 1, Senate Bills 1113, and House Bill 574. Senate Bill 1 made lying on voter registration a state prison crime, criminalized ballot harvesting, required the Secretary of State to conduct random election audits every two years, banned the distribution of unsolicited absentee ballot applications and ballots, and required identification for absentee ballots. Senate Bill 1113 authorized the Secretary of State to withhold funds from counties that fail to remove noncitizens from their voter rolls. House Bill 574 made it a second-degree crime to knowingly count invalid votes or refuse to count valid votes.
In 2017, the governor signed Senate Bill 5, which increased penalties for poll workers who knowingly allow noncitizens and other ineligible voters to vote.
