Texas voter registration application forms are waiting for people to register at a voter registration drive. As early voting for the Nov. 4 election began, state officials once again raised unfounded claims of “potential noncitizens” on the voting rolls.
Yi-Chin Lee/Staff photographer
Texas voters deserve election officials who solve real problems, not invent new ones. Yet as counties across the state scramble to manage a malfunctioning voter registration system, Secretary of State Jane Nelson has chosen to direct her attention elsewhere — toward a familiar and unfounded specter of “noncitizen voters.”
Just before early voting began for the Nov. 4 election, the Texas Association of Election Officials and three other nonpartisan organizations — representing county judges and commissioners, county and district clerks, and county tax assessor-collectors — sent a letter to Nelson describing “daily inconsistencies” in the state’s Texas Election Administration Management (TEAM) software that “merit immediate action.” They warned that core functions such as voter lookup and ballot issuance were repeatedly failing, increasing “the risk of a voter being issued the wrong ballot, duplicate registrations, and more delays in the polling place,” they wrote.
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These associations represent leaders both Republican and Democrat, from counties both urban and rural, who are doing their best to ensure elections are accessible to all voters.
But instead of addressing their concerns, Nelson’s office announced Monday it had identified 2,724 “potential noncitizens” on Texas voter rolls, using citizenship data from the Homeland Security Department’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database. Nelson’s list includes 97 people on Travis County’s voter rolls, as well as 28 in Williamson County, eight in Bastrop County and six in Hays County. President Donald Trump gave state election officials access to the database by executive order in March.
This pattern has become routine. Last year, Gov. Greg Abbott claimed the state had identified 6,500 “potential noncitizens” on the voter rolls, even though Nelson’s office had told him it was less than a tenth of that. In 2019, the number was 100,000 — a figure that didn’t hold up in court. State officials make a stink with a “big, noisy press release about ‘potential noncitizens,’” Emily Eby French, a voting rights attorney with Common Cause Texas, told us, “only to quietly walk those numbers back in the next news cycle.”
Secretary of State spokesperson Alicia Pierce told us that Nelson is using the SAVE database to fulfill her “obligation to help counties maintain accurate voter rolls.” But in previous years, such reviews largely erroneously flagged legitimate voters who had recently become citizens, or had a name similar to a noncitizen, or had an outdated address or incomplete registration form.
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To be clear, none of the voters on Nelson’s list are being removed from the voter rolls. Only county officials can do that.
Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector Celia Israel, who oversees voter registration, assured us her team is working to verify the citizenship status of the Travis voters on the list.
These false alarms about “potential noncitizen” voters do more than waste public resources. They erode confidence in the democratic process and feed a narrative that Texans cannot trust their own elections — all while genuine problems go unaddressed.
The list of voters flagged under that narrative has become an “extra burden” for county officials who just finished cleaning up the mess with the TEAM system, Israel said. Her team has worked tirelessly since the summer to catch up on the registration backlog — some of it fueled by inaccurate “waves of data” from the TEAM issues — and the “potential noncitizens” have only added to the workload.
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Travis County Clerk Dyana Limon-Mercado, whose office administers elections, said election workers have seen a few instances of TEAM issues affecting voters — typically when someone moves from one county to another and the system hasn’t updated accordingly.
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman
Travis County Clerk Dyana Limon-Mercado, whose office administers elections, said election workers have seen a few instances of TEAM issues affecting voters — typically when someone moves from one county to another and the system hasn’t updated accordingly. This has led to longer wait times for affected voters, but no one has been unable to cast a ballot.
Limon-Mercado’s office shared its questions and concerns about the TEAM update immediately after the rollout this summer. She has seen “no accountability” and a “lack of communication” from the state. “They’re acting as if everything is fine,” she told us.
Asked if the secretary of state’s office was addressing concerns about the TEAM system’s technical failures, Pierce said, “We are.” She did not provide further details.
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Meanwhile, Nelson took a victory lap. On Wednesday, she posted a letter from Trump dated Oct. 8 thanking her for being “one of the first leaders to step up and protect the integrity of our elections by using the SAVE system.” This comes as Texans vote on Proposition 16, an unnecessary amendment to the state Constitution affirming that noncitizens cannot vote — something already prohibited by state and federal law.
Let’s be clear: Voter fraud is vanishingly rare. The far greater threat to election integrity in Texas comes from leaders who would rather chase phantom problems than fix the ones that actually hinder voters.
Nelson should focus on repairing the TEAM system, restoring transparency with local officials and maintaining the infrastructure that keeps elections running. Anything less is a disservice to the millions of Texans who expect competence, not political theater, from those charged with safeguarding democracy.
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