The purge includes:Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced that state officials have removed more than 1.1 million ineligible voters from the state's voter rolls over the past three years.
“Election integrity is essential to our democracy,” Abbott said in a statement. “I have signed the strongest election laws in the nation to protect the right to vote and to crackdown on illegal voting.” The voter roll cleanup follows a 2021 law passed by the Texas Legislature that bolstered security measures for state elections. Senate Bill 1, among its provisions, made lying while registering to vote a felony, criminalized ballot harvesting, and required the Secretary of State to conduct election audits every two years.
Election integrity is essential to our democracy.
Texas’ strong election laws removed over 1 MILLION ineligible voters from our voter rolls.
We continue to safeguard Texans’ right to vote while also protecting our elections from illegal voting.
More: https://t.co/nJq9GrKHNF pic.twitter.com/tht9Ebo6eO
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) August 26, 2024
SB1 also prohibits drive-through voting, authorizes poll watchers to observe more aspects of the election process, bans election officials from sending unsolicited mail-in ballots, and gives voters with defective mail-in ballots the opportunity to correct them.
Abbott’s announcement came just days after Secretary of State Jane Nelson published the findings of a recent audit that revealed multiple failures by state election officials.
“The Secretary of State and county voter registrars have an ongoing legal requirement to review the voter rolls, remove ineligible voters, and refer any potential illegal voting to the Attorney General’s Office and local authorities for investigation and prosecution,” Abbott added. “Illegal voting in Texas will never be tolerated. We will continue to actively safeguard Texans’ sacred right to vote while also aggressively protecting our elections from illegal voting.”
Under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (also known as the “NVRA” or “motor voter law”), state officials are required to maintain a voter registration list that removes ineligible individuals from the rolls. However, states are prohibited from purging names within 90 days of a federal election.
Since 2020, 13 states have passed laws that expand voter roll purges, including: Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, West Virginia, Texas, and Utah.
