Messing with Texas
Voting list advisory error underscores need for diligence in determining citizenship.
There it was — an urgent notice that popped up on the computer screens of elections workers in Galveston last week, alerting them that state officials had found problems with the county’s voting rolls. Of roughly 200,000 names on the county’s list, more than 800 appeared to belong to noncitizens.
This was big news. Not just in Galveston but in counties big and small all over Texas that got the same notice.
After years of decrying rampant voter fraud — a claim repeatedly debunked — state officials claimed they had at last found proof that large numbers of noncitizens were availing themselves of the sacred right to cast a ballot.
Secretary of State David Whitley, appointed in December by Gov. Greg Abbott, announced Jan. 25 that after nearly a year of research, his office had found some 95,000 names on the voter registration lists that appeared to belong to noncitizens. Of those, a whopping 58,000 had actually voted sometime in the past 22 years, he said in an advisory and in a tweet widely shared by Republicans from Austin to the White House.
Many pounced on the story because Republicans in and out of office have been voicing concern about voter fraud for years.
In Galveston, employees working for Tax Assessor-Collector Cheryl Johnson, who doubles as voter registrar, swung immediately into action after getting to work last Monday. They readied letters that went out that same day to 112 suspect voters telling them they had 30 days to prove their citizenship or be struck from the voter rolls. By midday Tuesday, Johnson’s staff had prepared another batch of letters they were just about to mail when someone from Whitley’s office called to say there were problems with the list. The call meant 10 letters about to be sent were trashed. What’s worse, the office had to prepare 58 letters of apology to voters to whom Johnson’s staff had sent letters the day before. Turns out, there is no question about their citizenship status.
Thankfully, not every county election official had egg on their faces. Many counties — and we’re happy to say they include Harris County and most of Texas’ largest counties — responded cautiously. Some joined voting rights groups in raising red flags and rightly pointing out that thousands of noncitizens in Texas gain citizenship every month — it’s
called naturalization — and that makes it extremely likely that many who were noncitizens when seeking a driver license could have become citizens by the time they voted.
Johnson defended her office’s hasty response. “My staff members were doing their job,” she told the editorial board, noting that they were as quick to send the oops letter as they were to send the first. Besides, she asked, why would a county official question the validity of a voter list generated by the state’s top elections official?
Why indeed. Johnson’s blind trust may be well-intentioned, but it’s naive these days as we watch partisan politics seep into every corner of state government — including, it seems, the office responsible for ensuring fair elections across Texas.
Many quickly and rightly pointed out that
Whitley’s seemingly cynical ploy wasn’t novel. The Republican Party, in Texas and elsewhere, has a history of efforts to delete citizens’ names from local voting lists under the guise of spring cleaning. Officials in Florida and Ohio, for instance, wiped their rolls clean of thousands of names under the pretext of removing those who had died, moved out of state, or been convicted. Caught up too were many eligible voters who simply didn’t respond to or never received the mailed notices.
That history explains why so many people looked askance at Whitley’s announcement. And why Gov. Greg Abbott’s attempt to brush off reports of the errors sounds so flat.
“This is what you would categorize as a process, a work in progress,” he said as voting rights groups raised objections. “They’ll get it right.”
No one doubts the sanctity of the voting booth, but Republican officials ought to be a lot more careful about the citizens they turn away and maybe try — now where’s a novel concept! — doing everything they can to expand voting access rather than restricting it.
For her part, Johnson wisely said she’s not sending any more letters out, not until she gets answers from Whitley’s office and DPS. She says the whole affair has been a mess.
“I like tidy,” Johnson said in an emailed follow-up to the board. “And this situation is NOT tidy.”
She’s right about that. We might even say dirty. Thankfully, most county officials have chosen to wait before sending their own letters — a responsible approach that earns the confidence of voters at a time when it’s needed the most.