Texas election audit identifies nearly 12,000 foreigners suspected of registering to vote

An audit of Texas voter rolls identified nearly 12,000 non-citizens suspected of illegally registering to vote and nearly 600 cases in which ballots may have been cast in the name of a dead resident or by a voter who may also have voted in another state.

Texas Secretary of State John Scott released the findings of the first phase of his audit on the last day of 2021, announcing 224,585 deceased residents were removed from state voters rolls as a result of the review

Statewide, a total of 11,737 potential non-U.S. citizens were identified as being registered to cast ballots, with the lion’s share located in the counties around Texas two largest cities of Houston and Dallas. It is illegal for foreigners to vote in Texas elections.

You can read the full report here.

Last month Scott described why his office launched its first-of-a-kind audit of elections.

“What we’re trying to do make sure there is a little more confidence in the system, in the election integrity,” Scott told a local TV interviewer. “And I think this is one of the hopes of the audit is, to show folks it is very safe. It is secure. Your vote does count when you cast it.

“And where we find issues, we’re going to address those issues,” he added.

Scott’s report Friday criticized some counties for not acting quick enough to investigate the non-citizen status of voters, saying several counties missed a deadline that will now delay their investigations until spring of 2022.

“While several counties took action promptly to work their potential non-U.S. citizen matches, others did not begin investigating or send notices of examination until mid to late November of 2021,” Scott’s report said.

“As a result, the 30-day window in which the registrant could provide proof of U.S. citizenship fell after the federally-required NVRA moratorium on voter registration cancellations had begun,” it added. “This means that many potential non-U.S. citizens identified through the agreed-upon process would have until, at the latest, May 25, 2022 to respond to a notice of examination before their voter registration is cancelled.”

So far 2,327 of the 11,737 suspected non-citizen registrations have been canceled – more than half in Dallas alone – and the Secretary of State office is now investigating whether those canceled voters illegally cast ballots in prior elections, Scott’s report said.

The audit also found several other small irregularities, including:

• 509 potential cross-state duplicate votes were cast in the November 2020 General Election, meaning voters may have cast a ballot in both Texas and another state
• 67 potential votes were cast in November 2020 in the name of deceased people and are under investigation.
• A sampling of four counties found three had discrepancies between the votes tallied by machines and those later checked by hand. Those discrepancies are due to be further investigated in the second phase of the audit.