WACO, Texas (KXXV) — The Texas Secretary of State's Office recently came out with a list alleging there are more than 2,700 potential non-citizens that are registered to vote in Texas.
To see the full list, click here.
That makes up less than one percent of the state's more than 18M registered voters.
25News Bobby Poitevint took a look at what those numbers look like here in Central Texas.
Central Texas makes up just over 4% of the 2,724 with the highest number of reports being in counties like Brazos, Bell, and McLennan.
- Bell County - 42
- Brazos County - 21
- McLennan County - 30
However are these people registered in the state illegally? The election officials 25 News talked with believe likely not and here’s why:
- They point to a potential lag in getting information to where it needs to go such as naturalization information and some data just not being accurate.
For instance, Trudy Hancock, the Elections Administrator for Brazos County, said the list they received from the SOS office had only 20 names on it where as the SOS office is reporting online 21.
Hancock goes further and said that one of the voters on their list is also registered in Harris County.
- Some officials questioning exactly how the SAVE database works which helped collect that voter data and Texas is one of the first states to partner with the federal government to use the program.
Notices have been sent to those people with voter registration that's under question right now and they have 30 days to provide the documents needed to prove citizenship.
Meredith Bender is the Bell County Public Information Officer and, in relation to this story, is the elections spokesperson for the county.
She said, “and so if they do not prove citizenship that registration will be canceled but if they are verified they will come off the list from the Secretary of State.”
Bender added that lists like this are routine and it helps keep voter roles up-to-date.
Hancock said, “I hope maybe in a couple of weeks, maybe we can get back together and see how many responses we’ve had to see what kind of results that we have from our 19 potentials.”
25 News does plan to circle back around with election officials in the coming weeks to get further updates.
We did reach out to McLennan County election officials for comment.
