Texas Finds More Than 2,700 Suspected Noncitizen Voters After State Review

Officials said the review used federal immigration data available to states under the Trump administration to verify eligibility.

A voting sign in Austin, Texas, on Oct. 21, 2024. Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Texas’s election review identified 2,724 individuals on the voter registration list who lack proof of citizenship.

Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson said on Oct. 20 that a comparison of Texas’s 18 million registered voters against the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ SAVE database reveals “2,724 potential noncitizens who are registered to vote in Texas.”

“Only eligible United States citizens may participate in our elections,” Nelson said in her press release. “The Trump Administration’s decision to give states free and direct access to this data set for the first time has been a game changer, and we appreciate the partnership with the federal government to verify the citizenship of those on our voter rolls and maintain accurate voter lists.”

The alleged non-citizen voters will receive a notice from their county and be offered an opportunity to dispute their removal by presenting proof of citizenship to remain a registered voter. If no response is received within 30 days, the registration will be canceled.

The county breakdown of the review released by the Secretary of State’s office showed that Harris County, which holds major parts of Houston, had the most problematic voters, with 362 found. Dallas County wasn’t far behind, with 277, while Bexar County, home to San Antonio, had 201, and El Paso County had 165.

A number of the counties listed zero flagged voters, and many of the more than 250 counties had fewer than 10.

This change comes just over a year after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced that the state removed over a million people from the state voter rolls.

The August 2024 announcement stated that the removals included those who moved out of state, are deceased, or are noncitizens.

The state has also recently been engaged in mid-decade redistricting, which caused conflict between state lawmakers.

Abbott signed the “One Big Beautiful Map” into law on Aug. 29, which could flip as many as five U.S. House seats in favor of Republicans, after the Department of Justice suggested earlier this year that some of the state’s Democratic districts were unconstitutionally drawn and had to be revised.

“Today, I signed the One Big Beautiful Map into law,” Abbott wrote in a statement on X. “This map ensures fairer representation in Congress. Texas will be more RED in Congress.”

This move was hotly contested by Democrats in the State House, who accused Republicans of gerrymandering. Many Democratic state lawmakers left the state in protest to prevent, at least for a while, the approval of the map.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) retired after the redistricting kerfuffle.

“If this racially gerrymandered Trump map is rejected, as it should be, I will continue seeking reelection in Congressional District 37 to represent my neighbors in the only town I have ever called home,” the lawmaker said at the time. “If the courts give [President Donald] Trump a victory in his scheme to maintain control of a compliant House, I will not seek reelection in the reconfigured CD37.”

Of the more than a million voters who were removed last year, more than 6,500 were found to be non-citizens, and another 6,000 were voters found to have felony convictions. In Texas, those convicted of felonies lose their right to vote while incarcerated, on parole, or on probation.

At the time of the removal, the governor stated, “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.”

The governor also noted that the Secretary of State and county voter registrars have an “ongoing legal requirement” to review voter rolls and remove those ineligible to vote.

By far, the largest groups in the mass removal were deceased individuals, who made up more than 450,000 of the removed voters, and the more than 460,000 who were already on the Texas “suspended” voter list, due to an issue like an unverified address.

Abbott signed House Bill 1243 into law in 2023, which increased the penalty for illegal voting to a second-degree felony. This includes voting by noncitizens.

Texas’s recent purge comes less than a month after the Department of Justice announced a suit against six states for allegedly failing to provide the government with their voter registration lists.

The Justice Department filed suit on Sept. 25 against California, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania, citing the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which it says requires states to provide voter registration records to the attorney general upon request.

States’ review of their voter rolls comes pursuant to President Donald Trump’s March 25 executive order, “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections,” which called on officials to “identify unqualified voters registered in the States.”

Just days before the suit, officials in Orange County, California, launched an investigation to verify that no dogs or cats were registered to vote. The Sept. 23 Board of Supervisors action ordered a review of pet registrations to ensure no animals were prepared to “cast a ballot” in the upcoming November special election.

The county investigation followed multiple felony charges against one Costa Mesa woman for allegedly registering her dog to vote.

“Everyone’s right to vote is sacred and must be protected,” Nelson said in her press release. “The SAVE database has proven to be a critically important data set and one of many that we will continue to use in Texas to ensure that only qualified voters cast a ballot in our elections.”

Kimberly Hayek and Jackson Richman contributed to this report.