Voting rights groups challenge Texas' removal of potential noncitizens from the voter roll
Voting rights groups are suing the Texas Secretary of State’s Office and some county election officials to prevent the removal of voters from the state’s voter roll based on use of a federal database to verify citizenship. They also claim the state failed to crosscheck its own records for proof of citizenship it already possessed before seeking to remove voters.
Last fall, the Texas Secretary of State’s Office announced it had used a federal database newly overhauled by the Trump administration — a tool from the Department of Homeland Security previously used for years to verify the immigration status of individuals seeking benefits — to verify the citizenship of more than 18 million Texans on the state’s voter roll. The office said at the time it had identified 2,724 “potential noncitizens,” and had directed counties to investigate.
Votebeat subsequently exclusively reported that some voters included in that figure may have already provided proof of citizenship to the state while obtaining a driver’s license or state ID at the Texas Department of Public Safety. At least one county later confirmed that some of the flagged voters there had done so.
In the lawsuit, filed in a federal district court in Austin Thursday, the plaintiffs said the database, known as SAVE, is unreliable, and that Texas’ use of it to remove people from the rolls, including some who are naturalized U.S. citizens, is a violation of the National Voter Registration Act.
https://www.votebeat.org/texas/2026/03/27/save-database-voter-rolls-removal-dps-secretary-of-state/