Voting rights groups ask judge to halt “voter purge” letters.
Warning that the “likelihood of severe harm is high,” civil rights organizations asked a federal judge to order an immediate halt to a state-initiated process that questions the citizenship of thousands of registered voters in Texas.
The MOVE Texas Civic Fund, the Jolt Initiative, League of Women Voters of Texas and Texas resident Nivien Saleh filed a motion for a preliminary injunction Wednesday, seeking to prevent any Texans from wrongly being removed from the voter rolls while the groups’ lawsuit against the state and five county elections officials proceeds.
The request focuses on a Jan. 25 advisory sent by Secretary of State David Whitley asking local election offices to look into the citizenship status of 95,000 people on the voter rolls. Whitley recommended that counties send notices to people the state flagged as possible noncitizens, giving them 30 days to prove they’re eligible to vote by presenting proper documentation. If they don’t respond, their registrations would be canceled by the county voter registrar.
Even if a notice is returned as undeliverable, the advisory instructs the county to cancel the registration.
“The 30-day clock is already running for any flagged eligible citizens in Defendant counties, at the end of which they will be purged from the voter rolls,” the motion reads. “A preliminary injunction to preserve the status quo and prevent citizens from being removed from the voting rolls is necessary.”
The ACLU of Texas, along with the Texas Civil Rights Project, Demos and the Lawyers’ Com-
mittee for Civil Rights Under Law, filed the lawsuit against Whitley and Director of Elections Keith Ingram. The suit alleges that the state’s advisory discriminates against naturalized citizens.
Also named in the suit are the election administrators in Galveston, Blanco, Fayette, Caldwell, and Washington counties, who sent out notices threatening to cancel voter registrations based on the list.
The names on the list are drawn from documents people submitted to the Department of Public Safety when they were applying for drivers licenses. Noncitizens, such as temporary residents, asylum-seekers and refugees, can get a Texas driver’s license but can’t register to vote unless they become U.S. citizens.
Whitley has said the list includes 58,000 people who have cast ballots in Texas elections. Since the advisory was sent out, thousands of names have been removed from the list after officials determined they were qualified to vote. Many were naturalized after obtaining driver’s licenses.
The new motion asks a Galveston federal court to order Whitley to instruct counties to refrain from any actions that would remove people from voter rolls because of the list, and to order counties to retract notices already sent.
A third request in the motion asks that no further notices be sent out on the basis of the list.
Whitley’s office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The civil rights groups argue in the motion that people could be removed from voter rolls as soon as Feb. 27 and that the registration deadline for May elections is approaching quickly, meaning some people might not have time to re-register if they’re wrongly removed.
“Plaintiffs ask that, to preserve the status quo and to prevent disenfranchisement of qualified voters, this Court prohibit any removals or demands for documentary proof of citizenship pursuant to the Purge List until such time as the Court may fully evaluate the lawfulness of Defendants’ voter purges based on the Advisory,” the motion reads.