Speed Reads

Voting Rights

Texas tells counties list of 95,000 possible non-citizen voters is flawed

The Texas secretary of state's office has quietly notified several counties that a list of 95,000 registered voters suspected of being non-citizens is flawed, The Texas Tribune reports.

The list was distributed to county elections officials so they could check to see if they are citizens. Officials in Harris, Travis, Fort Bend, Collin, and Williamson counties said they were told over the phone on Tuesday that the secretary of state's office erroneously listed voters who registered at Texas Department of Public Safety offices, and they need to be removed from the list.

There were 29,822 flagged voters from Harris County on the list, and special assistant county attorney Douglas Ray told the Tribune they are "going to proceed very carefully" as a "substantial number" are actually citizens. Dallas County Elections Administrator Toni Pippins-Poole told The Associated Press her office "received a call from the state saying we should put things on hold. Some of the data that they received was flawed. Some of the voters had already proved proof of citizenship." When asked by the Tribune, the secretary of state's office would not say how many people were incorrectly put on the list.