Texas’ plan to seek voters’ citizenship proof could drop eligible people from rolls, group warns

With Texas lawmakers likely to debate a new law requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, a top voting-rights group warns the plan could block “millions” of eligible people from casting ballots.

A recent study by the nonpartisan organization VoteRiders shows that 1.3 million Texans who are U.S. citizens of voting age — or about 7% — would have difficulty showing documentation that proves their U.S. citizenship.

“Requiring documentary proof of citizenship in Texas risks disenfranchising millions of voters,” said Selene Gomez, national outreach director for VoteRiders. “The proposed legislation would immediately block eligible voters from the ballot box and deny them their freedom to vote.”

VoteRiders’ research found that young voters were three times as likely to lack the required documentation as older voters and that Black and Hispanic voting aged citizens would have a harder time getting the documentation than whites.

At a hearing last week of the Texas Senate’s Republican-dominated State Affairs committee, lawmakers said they want to adopt legislation modeled after Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship voting requirement, according to a joint report by ProPublica, the Texas Tribune and Votebeat.

Arizona is the only U.S. state with such a requirement. Under federal law, all U.S. voters must attest to their citizenship to register to vote under penalty of perjury, and research shows voting by noncitizens is extremely rare.

Even so the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature looks poised to push ahead with the legislation. The move comes as GOP politicians nationwide echo debunked claims made by former President Donald Trump that Democrats have mobilized noncitizens to vote in U.S., elections.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called last week’s hearing after Gov. Greg Abbott fired off a press release in late August bragging that Texas had booted some 6,500 possible noncitizens from the voter rolls, according to the Texas Tribune.

However, a subsequent investigation by ProPublica, the Texas Tribune and Votebeat found that the governor’s number was likely grossly inflated. Their analysis also revealed that some of the people targeted were actually citizens.

Ironically, VoteRiders’ recent study found that Texas Republicans were more likely than the state’s Democrats to indicate that they don’t have access to the citizenship documents they’d need to register to vote.

“If legislators care about building Texans’ trust in elections, they should stop creating unnecessary barriers to the ballot box for eligible voters,” Gomez said. “The only thing this legislation would actually do is reinforce the false narrative that noncitizens are voting.”

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This article appears in Oct 16-29, 2024.