Greg Abbott Purges Over A Million Voters From Texas Voter Rolls, Including Thousands Of Noncitizens

Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott announced Monday that his state has purged more than one million ineligible voters from voter rolls in the past several years, including thousands of noncitizens.

Since the Republican governor signed Senate Bill 1 into law in September 2021, Texas officials have removed more than 1.1 million people from state voter rolls, according to a press release from the governor’s office. The number includes hundreds of thousands of deceased individuals, hundreds of thousands on the suspense list and more than 100,000 individuals who failed to respond to an address confirmation notice, among other people who were deemed ineligible.

The purge also included more than 6,500 noncitizens who had managed to be included on the voter rolls, according to the governor.

“Election integrity is essential to our democracy,” Abbott said in a Monday statement. “I have signed the strongest election laws in the nation to protect the right to vote and to crackdown on illegal voting.”

“These reforms have led to the removal of over one million ineligible people from our voter rolls in the last three years, including noncitizens, deceased voters, and people who moved to another state,” Abbott continued. “Illegal voting in Texas will never be tolerated. We will continue to actively safeguard Texans’ sacred right to vote while also aggressively protecting our elections from illegal voting.”

Senate Bill 1 was created with the intention of beefing up election integrity, according to the governor’s office. The bill — which is now law — established uniform statewide voting hours, banned drive-through voting, provided more transparency by allowing poll watchers to better observe details of the election process and expanded voting access for voters who require more assistance.