AUSTIN, Texas (AP) – Texas elections officials say they’ve identified tens of thousands of suspected non-citizens since the 1990s who have voted.
Texas Secretary of State spokesman Sam Taylor says they “are very confident” the citizenship data used is current. Voting rights activists called the numbers suspect and expressed concerns that eligible voters will wind up being purged from voter rolls.
Texas in recent years has aggressively prosecuted voter fraud cases and has one of the nation’s toughest voter ID laws.
A Mexican national was sentenced in 2017 by a Texas jury to eight years in prison for illegal voting and faces deportation. The severity of the punishment drew widespread attention and criticism.
Texas officials say they identified about 58,000 non-citizens since 1996 who voted and another 37,000 who registered to vote but didn’t.
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