Matt Bush, FISM News
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The Texas Secretary of State (SOS) released its first progress report from their audit of the 2020 election. The report, known as “Phase 1,” shows that almost 12,000 voters have not shown proof of citizenship, and while there is no information as to whether or not they voted in the 2020 election, that number of illegal voters could potentially affect statewide elections.
On September 10, according to SOS John Scott’s website, voter records were sent to four counties to identify non-U.S. citizens for the purpose of removing them from the state’s voter rolls. The actions stated intention was to restore faith in the electoral process in Texas by ensuring that everyone who votes is both registered and legally able to vote in a state or local election. The four counties chosen were Collin, Dallas, Harris, and Tarrant Counties with the combined voters in these counties making up 35% of votes cast in the state in 2020.
This audit originated on January 25, 2019, when then SOS David Whitley, “issued an advisory to county registrars announcing the transmittal of a list of 95,000 people who indicated they were noncitizens when they applied for their driver licenses, and who are currently registered to vote.” At the time, Whitley suggested that almost 100,000 registered voters in the state were non-U.S. citizens, however, the USCIS website shows that almost 70,000 Texas residents become U.S. citizens each year which potentially skewed Whitley’s data. Further research showed, that while there were non-U.S. citizens illegally registered to vote, there was not 100,000 of them.
An injunction was later brought against Whitley, and the case of LULAC vs Whitley established a revised process under which maintenance of election rolls could be executed. This included purging the registration of voters who had either died, been convicted of a felony, or were not American citizens. This case also created an agreed upon process to make these changes while also using the process to audit the 2020 electoral process in Texas.
The Phase I report has so far revealed 278 confirmed non-citizens who were registered voters. There are also still thousands more suspected cases that are in the process of being confirmed. This confirmation process includes requesting documents to prove citizenship from each identified voter and after 30 days, removing them from the roll. All records that indicate an illegal vote was cast, according to the SOS website, will be referred to the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) for further investigation and potential charges.
In Texas, the punishment for casting an illegal ballot was recently reduced from a second-degree felony to a Class A misdemeanor. A Class A misdemeanor has a maximum one-year of jail time but can be settled by a fine, while a second-degree felony has a maximum 20-year prison sentence. Governor Abbot recently signed a bill into law that helped to simplify and secure the voting process, but also included the reduced punishment.
Governor Abbot has since called for the old punishment to be reinstated saying at a press conference, “By increasing penalties for illegal voting, we will send an even clearer message that voter fraud will not be tolerated in Texas.”
Phase II of the audit will come out soon, and the level of fraud present in the 2020 election will be clearer. Texas Republicans have stated that they intend to continue to push for laws that would increase the security of elections while also making it easy for legal citizens to register to vote.