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Texas counties receive lists of questionable voter registrants

Over the weekend, the Secretary of State's Office started sending lists to county election officials of registered voters whose citizenship status is in question.

AUSTIN, Texas — By now you've probably seen a few headlines about alleged voter fraud in Texas. Even President Donald Trump tweeted about it over the weekend. 

Now, elections officials across Texas are receiving lists of names of people who possibly registered to vote illegally from the Secretary of State's Office. 

On Friday, the Secretary of State issued an advisory stating about 95,000 people who identified themselves as non-citizens to DPS while getting a driver's license or ID card matched the names of people who are registered to vote. And of those, about 58,000 voted in an election.

Whether those people have become citizens or if there are mistakes on the lists still has to be verified -- a fact that seems lost as the advisory turns political. 

In Williamson County, the elections administrator was notified over the weekend that 2,033 people on the county's voter rolls are on the list of 95,000.

Elections Administrator Chris Davis said, compared to the total number of registered voters in the county (about 330,000), that comes out to less than one percent. 

That's also the case in Travis County, where Monday the tax assessor-collector and voter registrar got a list with 4,547 names. 

Leaders in both counties say they take these claims seriously and will investigate. 

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"That's what we're going to begin doing and have begun doing is looking at these names and investigating them, seeing if we can determine with the information and records that we have at the county level to see if some of these folks are indeed citizens," said Davis. "Perhaps they were naturalized after they applied and received a driver's license or an ID card."

"Election officials throughout Texas, and the country for that matter, take voter fraud very seriously," said Bruce Elfant, Travis County assessor-collector and voter registrar. "And fortunately in our country, and in our state, there's very little voter fraud. And the suggestion by some public officials that there's widespread voter fraud in Texas is both premature and irresponsible at this point."

Elfant pointed out that before the county issues anyone a voter registration card, the Secretary of State's Office has to verify that the person is eligible. 

The men say it will take months to check all the names on the list. 

If after looking into their records they have reason to believe someone that is registered is not a citizen, they will send out letters to the person requesting they verify their citizenship status. The person will have 30 days to comply with the request. 

Attorney General Ken Paxton has vowed to fight all cases of voter fraud and, on Monday, Republican State Senator Pat Fallon of Prosper, Texas, filed a bill that would require a citizenship verification on all voter registrations. 

Meanwhile, 13 civil rights organizations sent a letter to the Secretary of State demanding he rescind the notice or they will take legal action.

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