TEXAS \u2014 The Texas election code reads that only U.S. citizens can vote or register to vote in Texas, and the state constitution outlines the same thing. But lawmakers concerned about noncitizens voting in local elections got an amendment on the November ballot that would prohibit noncitizens from voting in Texas elections if passed.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
The amendment adds \u201cpersons who are not citizens of the United States\u201d to a list of whose ineligible to vote, which opponents describe as redundant
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As early\u00a0voting began on Monday, Secretary of State Jane Nelson flagged 2,724 noncitizens registered to vote in Texas by comparing the state\u2019s voter registration list against citizenship data in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services\u2019 SAVE database
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Local election officials, who maintain voter rolls year-round, now must verify the eligibility of the voters flagged in their county, the largest number being in Harris and Dallas counties
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Voters listed as noncitizens will have 30 days to respond to notices from their county elections administrator or have their voter registration canceled<\/p>\n
\u201cDue to home rule, a local municipality can say, ‘hey, we\u2019re going to choose who can vote in our local elections,’\u201d said Charlie Kolean with Americans for Citizens Voting.<\/p>\n
The amendment adds \u201cpersons who are not citizens of the United States\u201d to a list of whose ineligible to vote, which opponents describe as redundant.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you believe that this type of legislation would mislead voters to thinking that noncitizen voting is actually occurring in Texas?\u201d said state Rep. Ramon Romero, D-Fort Worth.<\/p>\n
As early\u00a0voting began on Monday, Secretary of State Jane Nelson flagged 2,724 noncitizens registered to vote in Texas by comparing the state\u2019s voter registration list against citizenship data in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services\u2019 SAVE database. Her use of the database earned praise from President Donald Trump, who\u00a0recognized Nelson as \u201cone of the first leaders to step up and protect the integrity of our elections using the SAVE system.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRepublicans are determined to show that illegal voting is taking place, and that voting needs to become more regulated, more difficult. You know, my sense is that there are very few illegal votes actually cast and counted in Texas elections,\u201d said Cal Jillson, a professor of political science at Southern Methodist University.<\/p>\n
Local election officials, who maintain voter rolls year-round, now must verify the eligibility of the voters flagged in their county, the largest number being in Harris and Dallas counties. But Collin County in North Texas is also included in the top number of potential noncitizen voters. The elections administrator Kaleb Breaux says the noncitizen demarcation could be due to human error, not nefarious intent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you deal with a county our size and the amount of applications that can come in in a given election, especially our larger turnout elections, a lot of our work, a lot of our data entry is done by people we bring in who work with us for a short amount of time.\u00a0And I\u2019m not putting that blame on anyone, one in particular, but it does happen,\u201d said Breaux.<\/p>\n
Breaux maintains that the state elections are secure.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are working closely with guidance and direction from the secretary of state\u2019s office to make sure that we\u2019re not disenfranchising any voter as we\u2019re working through this process,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Supporters of Proposition 16 say the state can never be too safe.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe news that came out on Monday of noncitizens being on Texas\u2019s voter rolls makes it obvious that we need to pass Proposition 16. By voting yes, Texas is sending a simple message that only U.S. citizens should be voting in our elections,\u201d said Kolean.<\/p>\n
Voters listed as noncitizens will have 30 days to respond to notices from their county elections administrator or have their voter registration canceled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEXAS \u2014 The Texas election code reads that only U.S. citizens can vote or register to vote in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[6329,1658,132,134,133,6328,1570,102,6363,287,82,27,14568,835],"class_list":["post-19017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-app-capital-tonight","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-capital-tonight","tag-ctv","tag-dallas","tag-erin-davis","tag-politics","tag-san-antonio","tag-texas","tag-texas-elections-2025","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}