Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced this week that the state has successfully removed over one million ineligible voters from its voter rolls since Senate Bill 1 was passed in 2021.
“Election integrity is essential to our democracy,” Abbott said.
“I have signed the strongest election laws in the nation to protect the right to vote and to crackdown on illegal voting. These reforms have led to the removal of over one million ineligible people from our voter rolls in the last three years, including noncitizens, deceased voters, and people who moved to another state.”
“The Secretary of State and county voter registrars have an ongoing legal requirement to review the voter rolls, remove ineligible voters, and refer any potential illegal voting to the Attorney General’s Office and local authorities for investigation and prosecution. Illegal voting in Texas will never be tolerated. We will continue to actively safeguard Texans’ sacred right to vote while also aggressively protecting our elections from illegal voting.”
In September 2021, Abbott signed Senate Bill 1 into law, after state Democrats delayed the legislation for months.
The legislation bars 24-hour polling stations, places new restrictions on drive-through voting and vote by mail, and gives more authority to partisan poll watchers to be able to observe elections. It also requires voter IDto cast a ballot.
Elections officials are also banned from being able to distribute vote-by-mail applications to people who haven’t requested them after clerks in large Texas counties were found to have been sending out unsolicited applications.
The bill also requires the Secretary of State’s office to check voter rolls every month to attempt to identify illegal migrants who are illegally registered to vote.
“Election integrity is now law in the state of Texas,” Abbott said at the time.
