Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked the Homeland Security Department on Monday to verify the citizenship status of more than 450,000 names on the state’s voter rolls, saying that while the vast majority are likely eligible to vote, he wants to weed out those who aren’t.
The demand is the latest in a renewed effort by GOP-led states to try to clean their voter rolls amid the unprecedented surge of illegal immigration.
Mr. Paxton said federal law requires the national government to help states verify citizenship and he’s asking the Biden administration to make good on that.
“I am confident that you will continue to comply with your legal obligations and provide the requested citizenship or immigration status to my office so that I may ensure Texas elections are fair and secure,” Mr. Paxton wrote in a letter to Ur Jaddou, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Texas says it already verifies citizenship status for people who obtain state driver’s licenses or identity cards, so anyone who used that to register to vote is in the clear.
But he said 454,289 names on the state’s voter rolls registered with other documents, therefore the state cannot be sure of their citizenship status.
“Although I have no doubt the vast majority of the voters on the list are citizens who are eligible to vote, I am equally certain that Texans have no way of knowing whether or not any of the voters on the list are noncitizens who are ineligible to vote,” Mr. Paxton wrote.
The Washington Times has sought comment from USCIS.
Texas recently revealed it removed 6,500 people from its voter rolls that it deemed ineligible noncitizens. Of those, 1,830 had cast ballots in previous elections, the state said.
Republicans have been focusing on noncitizen voting in elections as part of a broader push questioning the integrity of U.S. balloting.
Democrats say the concerns are overblown, insisting that noncitizen voting happens rarely enough to not be worthy of concern, particularly when the steps taken to weed out noncitizen voters could end up snaring eligible citizens, too.
The Justice Department last week filed a lawsuit challenging Alabama’s decision to place 3,251 names on its inactive voter list, saying the move took place too close to an election.
As part of its complaint, the Justice Department said some of the names removed from Alabama’s rolls included citizens.
Alabama said the names had shown up in Homeland Security databases with a noncitizen identifier.
Secretary of State Wes Allen said it’s “possible” that some of the people the feds had issued the numbers to had later achieved citizenship, and the process he started would allow them to verify their citizenship status.
He said Homeland Security refused to cooperate with his efforts.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.