A few days ago, a report by Reuters showed that eight U.S. states will be voting this upcoming election to ban noncitizen voting. The only issue? It's already illegal and is legal for municipal races in just 17 localities across the country.
Doubts about the electoral process have largely been fueled by Donald Trump's false claims that his 2020 loss to Joe Biden was due to widespread voter fraud and conservatives have run wild with the theory this election cycle, increasingly monitoring voter registration efforts, particularly those led by Latino advocacy groups.
One of the biggest advocates in favor of the theory has been Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who, over the last few weeks has sued Latino-heavy counties over plans to register voters via mail, which, according to Paxton, "indiscriminately [invite] county residents to register to vote regardless of their eligibility."
He also sued Travis County after it decided to hire Civic Government Solutions to contact non-registered residents and encourage them to register.
On Monday, the final day to register to vote in Texas, Paxton went all in by requesting federal data to verify the citizenship status of over 450,000 registered voters, as Texas Public Radio reports. This group consists of individuals who did not use a state-issued driver's license or ID card when registering to vote, even though the state accepts several forms of identification when people register to vote beyond those two.
"Texans are increasingly concerned about the possibility of non-citizen voting, and I have a responsibility to uphold the integrity of our elections," said Paxton in a letter he sent to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services requesting this information. He also went on to say that:
"Texas has acutely felt the pain of nearly four years of the Biden-Harris administration's disastrous open-border policies, which have led to a flood of illegal immigration both in Texas and nationwide. At the same time, federal law has made it nearly impossible for states to verify the citizenship of voter-registration applicants. Although it is a crime for a non-citizen to register to vote, federal law restricts states from requiring proof of citizenship, and state agencies like those we lead have limited means to verify voter citizenship in many cases."
Paxton's request raises questions about what actions might follow if the federal government cannot confirm the citizenship status of these voters. Under current law, Texas is prohibited from removing individuals from voter rolls within 90 days of a federal election.
Studies have found no evidence to substantiate claims of widespread election fraud, and scholars argue that these concerns are not supported by data. The Brennan Center for Justice, for example, researched claims of illegal voting from politicians during the 2012, 2016 and 2020 elections and found that most allegations of fraud were baseless or due to clerical errors and other forms of election misconduct.
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