San Antonio (USA).- Texas has removed more than a million people from the state’s voter rolls since 2021, according to a report by Republican Governor Greg Abbott, which came under fire from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Tuesday.
Abbott said that since a 2021 law to purge voter registration rolls went into effect, more than a million names have been removed as part of his strategy to combat voter fraud.
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More than 463,000 people were on the suspended list, which is the classification of voters whose current address is unknown.
Another 457,000 voter names were removed from the rolls because they died, and more than 134,000 voters moved out of state.
More than 6,000 voters were convicted of a felony, barring them from voting under Texas law. The names of 6,500 people were also removed because they were deemed noncitizens, according to state records, and while that figure represents less than 1% of the purge, the Republican has emphasized the purge of immigrants.
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“These reforms have led to the removal of more than one million ineligible people from our voter rolls over the past three years, including noncitizens, deceased voters, and people who moved to another state,” the Republican said in a statement.
He said that of the more than 6,500 immigrants removed from the voter rolls, approximately 1,930 have electoral records, which will be investigated by the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
The ACLU on Tuesday said the data presented is “out of context.” Ashley Harris, an attorney with the ACLU of Texas, said Texas has a “long history of incorrectly flagging people as potential noncitizens,” which calls into question the data provided by the Abbott administration, according to information cited by Fox.
The ACLU stressed that maintaining voter rolls “is routine and does not indicate misconduct.”
Abbott was criticized for fueling fraud rhetoric when fraud cases are rare in Texas.
The organization encouraged people to check their voter registration and reminded that voters can register before October 7 in Texas.
The data was released by Abbott just as Texas is in the eye of the storm after the state Attorney General’s Office ordered raids on volunteers and Democratic activists who promote voter registration last Tuesday for alleged electoral fraud.
Lulac, the oldest Hispanic group in the United States, asked the U.S. Department of Justice on Monday to investigate the raids carried out on the orders of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican.
