AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Legislative Black Caucus on Tuesday condemned Governor Greg Abbott’s announcement to purge more than a million people from Texas’ voter rolls. The caucus is concerned that the state’s minority voters would be most disadvantaged by such mass actions.
Governor Abbott justified the deletions by citing a law he signed in 2021 that includes those who have moved out of state, died and lack citizenship. But caucus chairman Rep. Ron Reynolds says in reality most of these deletions are part of routine voter roll maintenance, which is required by law anyway.
He believes that not only do such announcements undermine confidence in the integrity of our elections, but his group is also concerned about legal voters being wrongfully purged from the rolls, especially since history has shown that voters of color are typically the most affected.
“Voting is the most fundamental and valuable right we have as American citizens,” Reynolds said.
He says one of his own constituents, a longtime voter, reached out to him because he had been inexplicably removed from the Texas voter rolls.
“This is an African-American woman, she called me and said, hey, she was worried,” Reynolds said. “How many people out there who were screened out are actually eligible to vote?”
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On Monday, Governor Greg Abbott announced that more than a million voters have been purged from the voter rolls since the election reform bill was signed into law in 2021. The governor’s office says 457,000 of those people have died, while another 134,000 have left the state and more than 6,500 are non-citizens.
65,000 simply did not respond to the mail, which can happen for a number of legitimate reasons, according to the American Civil Liberties of Texas.
“He’s falsifying these numbers,” said Ashley Harris, an attorney with the ACLU of Texas. “He’s taking them out of context to make it look like something suspicious is happening.” ((2:41))
Dr. Josh Blank of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Austin in Texas says this type of cleanup is actually quite normal and required by law.
“The word purge has a lot of connotations,” Dr. Blank said. “The reality is that in a state as large as Texas, voter rolls need to be regularly maintained to remove inactive voters.”
He says the political nature of this announcement ten weeks before election day cannot be overlooked.
“Ultimately, this sends a message to Republican voters that the state is actively trying to investigate any suspicion of voter fraud, even if there is no evidence of it,” Dr. Blank said.
But Harris says history shows these purges disempower voters. She says in 2019, Texas falsely flagged more than 95,000 registered voters, the majority of whom were citizens of color.
“Minority voters and voters of color are most vulnerable to public allegations of inaccuracies,” Harris said.
Both the ACLU of Texas and Representative Reynolds encourage you, whether you are a first-time voter or a seasoned voter, to check your registration status online here.
“We cannot assume that you are registered. Please, ma’am, please, sir, check your voter registration,” Reynolds said. “So that you do not have any problems casting your vote when you go to the polling place.”
The deadline to register for this year’s election is October 7. The Texas Politics Project recommends that if you have not registered, visit your local county clerk’s office to correct the problem.
We have asked the governor’s office for comment, but he declined at this time.