{"id":376508,"date":"2026-07-17T05:43:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T05:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/376508\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T05:43:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T05:43:31","slug":"texas-secretary-of-state-raised-concerns-about-federal-save-program-used-to-verify-voters-citizenship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/376508\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas secretary of state raised concerns about federal SAVE program used to verify voters\u2019 citizenship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Texas\u2019 free newsletter here.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Texas Secretary of State\u2019s Office used a controversial federal data tool to flag more than 2,000 potential noncitizens on the state\u2019s voter roll last year. But in an April letter to federal immigration officials, Secretary of State Jane Nelson raised concerns about its accuracy. <\/p>\n

In that letter to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials, obtained as part of a public records request by Democracy Forward<\/a> \u2014 a nonprofit legal organization advocating for democracy through litigation and public policy \u2014 and shared with Votebeat, Nelson said her office wanted \u201cto make sure that you are using the most accurate data,\u201d and asked agency officials to notify her office if they are able to \u201cconfirm the citizenship of any individuals previously identified as non-citizens\u201d in the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, system. <\/p>\n

Alicia Pierce, a spokesperson for the secretary of state\u2019s office, said the agency has not yet received a response from USCIS. Nelson resigned from her role<\/a> last month. Her last day is July 17, and the governor has not yet appointed a replacement.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration overhauled SAVE last year, making it free for states to use and easier to search, and has urged election officials around the country to use it to search for potential noncitizens on their voter rolls. Texas was notably among the first states to start using the program<\/a> to check voter eligibility.<\/p>\n

How Texas safeguards elections \u2014 and what still poses a threat<\/p>\n

Get the latest reporting on voting technology, misinformation, the push for hand-counting ballots, and more in Votebeat Texas’ free newsletter, delivered twice a month.<\/p>\n

But experts and election officials have raised concerns<\/a> about the SAVE program\u2019s accuracy, and officials in multiple states have said it incorrectly flagged at least some citizens. <\/p>\n

\u201cTexas\u2019s use of DHS\u2019s illegally-expanded SAVE system has always raised significant risks of voter disenfranchisement, given that system\u2019s known inaccuracies\u2014and these records prove that state election officials are concerned about this as well,\u201d said Dan McGrath, special counsel, oversight at Democracy Forward, in an emailed statement to Votebeat. <\/p>\n

States\u2019 use of the revamped SAVE tool is currently in limbo in the wake of multiple court rulings. In June, a federal judge blocked<\/a> the overhaul of the SAVE program, saying it violated privacy and voting rights. That ruling prompted the Trump administration to pause certain features in the SAVE system to comply. Earlier this month, though, a different federal judge ordered Homeland Security to restore access to the revamped system for four states<\/a> \u2014 Florida, Ohio, Iowa, and Indiana \u2014 due to an earlier settlement agreement.<\/p>\n

The rulings also do not prevent Texas or other states that previously used the revamped program from continuing to investigate the status of any potential noncitizens it flagged on the voter roll. In Texas, those investigations are still ongoing, but Nelson\u2019s letter pointed to the fact that they have raised questions about SAVE\u2019s accuracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs my staff has informed you, county voter registrars have obtained citizenship documentation from some Texas voters who were identified in the SAVE system as potential Non-citizens,\u201d Nelson\u2019s letter says. \u201cWe are aware of instances in which state driver\u2019s license records inaccurately reflect a person\u2019s current citizenship status. In addition, we have learned of individuals who were mistakenly registered to vote\u2014such as due to a clerical error by a voter registrar\u2014even though they acknowledged on a voter registration application that they are not U.S. citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nelson added that those examples are why her office urges county election officials to \u201cuse all available sources to confirm a person\u2019s citizenship status.\u201d <\/p>\n

She praised the Trump administration\u2019s move to make the tool free for states to use and said SAVE has \u201cproven to be a critically important data set,\u201d describing it as one of the many sources her office will use to ensure only qualified voters cast ballots. <\/p>\n

Additional records obtained in the records request also show that Nelson\u2019s staff in March met with Homeland Security officials, suggesting the meeting touched on the questions Nelson raised in her letter. <\/p>\n

The Texas Secretary of State\u2019s Office last fall sent counties the list of potential noncitizens generated by checking the state\u2019s voter roll <\/a>of more than 18 million registered voters against the SAVE program. Soon after the state released the list, counties began to investigate the eligibility of the flagged registrants and mail notices asking them to provide documented proof of citizenship.<\/p>\n

County election officials have since confirmed some of the flagged voters were citizens, though it isn\u2019t clear exactly how many. They\u2019ve also found that hundreds of the flagged voters<\/a> had registered through the Texas Department of Public Safety, which requires proof of citizenship, such as a passport, and keeps copies of such documents on file.<\/p>\n

The Texas Secretary of State\u2019s Office in December told Votebeat and the Texas Tribune that it did not initially check the registrants flagged as potential noncitizens against DPS\u2019 records<\/a> before sending the list to county election officials to investigate. That decision prompted a March lawsuit from voting rights groups and some Texas voters<\/a> who said the state should have done so. The lawsuit is still pending in federal court.<\/p>\n

In May, Votebeat reported that the secretary of state\u2019s office later asked DPS to check the list of 2,724 potential noncitizens<\/a> flagged by the SAVE program against its records to verify whether any of them had already provided proof of citizenship. In a meeting with election officials, Christina Adkins, the agency\u2019s elections division director, said there were \u201cdiscrepancies\u201d between DPS data and the data provided by the SAVE. <\/p>\n

Pierce said DPS has provided the data the agency requested, and that state officials are reviewing it and \u201cwill send to counties soon.\u201d <\/p>\n

Natalia Contreras covers election administration and voting access for Votebeat in partnership with the Texas Tribune. Natalia is based in Corpus Christi. Contact her at ncontreras@votebeat.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[133150,9538,133151,27,29,28,2281,3602,216,19681],"class_list":["post-376508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-federal-data","tag-jane-nelson","tag-noncitizen","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-secretary-of-state","tag-texas-tribune","tag-tx","tag-votebeat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376508","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=376508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}