Nelson said on Monday that an election evaluation in Texas has sparked an eligibility review across the 254 counties after more than 2,700 potential illegal immigrants were found on the state’s voter rolls, according to a report by Fox News.
“Only eligible United States citizens may participate in our elections,” Nelson said, adding that the Trump Administration has given states “free and direct access” to a dataset “for the first time,” which she called “a game changer” in Texas’ election review.
Nelson was referring to federal citizenship records in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ database called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE), which her office said allowed Texas to conduct a full comparison of the state’s 18 million registered voters, providing them with more thorough data.
“We appreciate the partnership with the federal government to verify the citizenship of those on our voter rolls and maintain accurate voter lists,” the Texas Secretary of State said.
After running the SAVE cross-check, Texas’ investigation reportedly identified 2,724 possible noncitizens. Their voter files were then sent to local counties to be further reviewed.
Notably, Chapter 16 of the state’s Election Code mandates that counties verify each voter’s eligibility and remove confirmed noncitizens from the rolls in an effort to maintain a reliable voter list and to safeguard election integrity.
Flagged voters will reportedly receive a notice from their county registrar prompting them to confirm their U.S. citizenship. They will have 30 days to provide proof. Any voter who fails to respond will have their registration canceled — but they may be eligible to renew after proof is given.
Noncitizens who are found to have voted in past Texas elections, however, will be referred to the attorney general’s office for further analysis and potential prosecution.
The Secretary of State’s office also released a breakdown of the data, which revealed Harris County had the largest number of possible illegal immigrants on the voter rolls at 362, followed by Dallas County at 277, Bexar County at 201, and El Paso County at 165.
Smaller counties, such as Andrews, Llano, and Cooke, reported fewer than 10 flagged voter registrations.
All 254 flagged Texas counties have reportedly begun sending verification notices this week, starting the 30-day review process.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said his state has removed more than 1 million ineligible or outdated registrations from its voter rolls since he signed Senate Bill 1 into law in September 2021.
“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,” Abbott said.
“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,” the governor added.
Abbott went on to declare, “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.”
Nelson’s office also noted that Texas election reviews will continue with periodic checks against federal databases.
“The SAVE database has proven to be a critically important dataset and one of many that we will continue to use in Texas to ensure that only qualified voters cast a ballot in our elections,” the Texas Secretary of State said.
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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