Texas flagged some voters as ‘potential noncitizens’ but they had already provided proof of citizenship

Texas officials have now determined that 11 registered voters in Travis County flagged as potential noncitizens actually provided proof of citizenship while obtaining a driver’s license or state ID at the Texas Department of Public Safety, according to county leaders.

Votebeat earlier this month reported that hundreds of individuals the Texas Secretary of State’s Office identified as potential noncitizens had registered to vote at DPS, which requires proof of citizenship or legal presence.

State officials generated the list of potential noncitizens by checking the state’s voter roll — more than 18 million registered voters — against a federal database used to verify citizenship. The Trump administration overhauled the database, known as SAVE, this year, making it free for states to use and easier to search, and it has urged election officials around the country to use it to search for potential noncitizens on their voter rolls.

The Texas Secretary of State’s Office said it had not initially checked the list of 2,724 potential noncitizens flagged by the federal database against DPS records. State officials in October sent the list to county officials and directed them to investigate the citizenship status of those flagged registrants.

Many election officials and advocacy groups have questions about the accuracy of the results SAVE cross-checks generate. Advocacy groups including the League of Women Voters have sued over the changes to SAVE, and the lawsuit is pending in federal court.

Celia Israel, the Travis County’s tax assessor-collector and voter registrar, said the verification that the 11 Travis County registrants had already provided proof that they were U.S. citizens is “confirmation that SAVE is not a reliable resource.”

In an emailed statement that stressed the need to “ensure that only eligible citizens participate” in elections, Alicia Pierce, a spokeswoman for the Texas Secretary of State’s Office, described SAVE as “the preeminent data source on citizenship.” She noted that it is “a new tool for us. We are treating it as we would any data source, incorporating our normal checks and balances.”

DPS and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that oversees the SAVE database, did not respond to requests for comment.

Israel and her staff had for weeks asked both state agencies for help in verifying the flagged registrants’ citizenship status, hoping to prevent the removal of eligible voters from the rolls.

Earlier this month, DPS confirmed to Votebeat that the Secretary of State’s Office had requested information on 97 voters, matching the number flagged in Travis County, and Christina Adkins, the state’s elections division director, recently forwarded the results to county officials.

Adkins also told Israel that her office will run the list of 97 Travis County registrants initially identified as potential noncitizens through the SAVE database again “to see if there have been any updates to any individual statuses,” according to emails Votebeat obtained in response to a public records request.

“It would have made sense to have this from the beginning,” Israel said in an interview with Votebeat on Tuesday.

The Secretary of State’s Office did not respond to a question from Votebeat about whether it plans to check the entire list of 2,724 potential noncitizens against the DPS records.

Election officials are worried database is flagging eligible citizens

Votebeat sought information from 24 counties and to date, election officials who have responded confirmed they have collectively identified at least 33 U.S. citizens on the list. At least 218 people flagged, and potentially more, registered at DPS and should have been required to provide proof of citizenship that the agency should have on file, according to officials from 11 counties.

Israel said the new findings from the state raise questions about the accuracy of SAVE but also about DPS’s voter registration processes.

Her office initially found that 26 out of the 97 individuals had registered to vote at DPS. But the new information provided by the state shows that only eight out of the 26 who registered at DPS provided proof of citizenship to the agency.

The three other registrants on the Travis County list who had documented proof of citizenship on file with DPS had not registered to vote through the agency, Israel said, and 18 people who had registered through DPS nonetheless did not have documented proof of citizenship on file.

Israel said it’s not clear from the findings, when the registrants provided proof of legal presence to DPS. There’s a chance that some may have naturalized since. She said she is now seeking more details from the state, including dates of when the individuals provided their documents to DPS.

In October, when the Texas Secretary of State’s Office sent each county a list of voters it had identified as potential noncitizens, election officials were required to mail out notices to them seeking additional proof of citizenship. After 30 days, if there was no response, the registrations would be canceled. However, if proof is provided later to county officials, by law the registration must be reinstated immediately.

Responses to counties have been sparse, and at least one county official said that reports of arrests of U.S. citizens by federal immigration officials across the country could be a factor.

Remi Garza, the election administrator in Cameron County in the Rio Grande Valley, said he got a call from a family member of a registered voter who was hesitant to walk into a county building to turn in proof of citizenship documentation, even though they are an American citizen.

“They were afraid that there were going to be federal officers that would approach them while they were trying to resolve this,” Garza said.

The state flagged 68 potential noncitizens in Cameron County. Garza said multiple individuals had registered at DPS but declined to say exactly how many, citing his office’s ongoing investigation about the registrants’ eligibility. Garza said he plans to reach out to the Texas Secretary of State’s Office to ask for help confirming whether any of the individuals flagged have already shown proof of citizenship.

His office is also sending out additional notices to the individuals that were flagged in the county who have yet to respond, he said.

“We’re going to do everything we can to restore an eligible voter’s right to cast a ballot,” Garza said. “Hopefully, if they see that we’re working diligently on their behalf, that they’ll understand that we’re there to facilitate the process, not to become a barrier or obstacle.”

Natalia Contreras is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with The Texas Tribune. She is based in Corpus Christi. Contact Natalia at ncontreras@votebeat.org.