Texas has removed over 1 million people from the state’s voter rolls since Senate Bill 1 was implemented in 2021, Governor Greg Abbott announced in a news release on Tuesday, Aug. 27.
According to the release from Abbott’s office, those removed from the voter rolls include individuals who have moved out of state, are deceased or are non-citizens.
“That removal process has been, and will continue to be, ongoing,” according to the news release.
“Election integrity is essential to our democracy,” Abbott said in the news release. “I have signed the strongest election laws in the nation to protect the right to vote and to crackdown on illegal voting. These reforms have led to the removal of over one million ineligible people from our voter rolls in the last three years, including noncitizens, deceased voters, and people who moved to another state. 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. 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.”
Those totals include 6,500 “non-citizens” who have been removed from voter rolls and nearly 2,000 of those non-citizens have a voter history, according to Abbott’s Office.
Abbott’s Office said, “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 potential legal action.”
The El Paso County Elections Department issued the following statement:
“The El Paso County Elections Department continues to process voter registration applications just as we always have as required under Texas law. The election code directs county election officials on how to process a voter registration application and verification is done at the state level. The numbers released by Governor Abbott are the result of the routine list maintenance conducted by county election officials. Our voter rolls are maintained daily, and voters are encouraged to check their voter registration status by visiting our website at, https://epcountyvotes.com/voter-information/dashboard or by calling our office at (915) 546-2154.”
Here is a breakdown of the voter purge:
