County election officials investigating the eligibility of 2,724 Texas voters flagged as potential noncitizens have so far found that hundreds of the voters registered through the state Department of Public Safety, which requires proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote while obtaining a driver's license or state ID.
DPS keeps copies of the proof of citizenship that registrants provide, such as birth certificates or passports. The agency also keeps copies of proof of lawful presence in the U.S., such as green cards, provided by immigrants.
But the Texas Secretary of State's Office told Votebeat and The Texas Tribune it did not check the voters flagged as potential noncitizens against DPS' records before sending the list to county election officials to verify citizenship.
And at least one county election official has asked Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson and DPS for help checking DPS' records but has yet to obtain access to them, according to documents obtained by Votebeat through a public records request and an interview.
When Celia Israel, who oversees voter registration for Travis County, asked the state for help determining voters' citizenship, Nelson's office directed her to DPS, according to a letter Israel sent Nelson's office last month. But that agency said it couldn't help her directly, citing state law, records show.
Israel then wrote to Nelson and DPS officials, asking for help obtaining the records. Nelson responded to Israel Nov.
But the Texas Secretary of State's Office told Votebeat and The Texas Tribune it did not check the voters flagged as potential noncitizens against DPS' records before sending the list to county election officials to verify citizenship.
And at least one county election official has asked Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson and DPS for help checking DPS' records but has yet to obtain access to them, according to documents obtained by Votebeat through a public records request and an interview.
When Celia Israel, who oversees voter registration for Travis County, asked the state for help determining voters' citizenship, Nelson's office directed her to DPS, according to a letter Israel sent Nelson's office last month. But that agency said it couldn't help her directly, citing state law, records show.
Israel then wrote to Nelson and DPS officials, asking for help obtaining the records. Nelson responded to Israel Nov. 21 saying her office would "continue collaborating" with DPS.
Nelson's office did not respond to a request for comment from Votebeat Monday asking whether it would seek to obtain DPS' proof-of-citizenship records. But on Monday, DPS responded to a request for comment from Votebeat and said it had "recently received" a request from Nelson's office for information on 97 people — also the number of potential noncitizens the state had asked Travis County to investigate. The agency didn't confirm whether the request concerned those voters.
In an interview with Votebeat on Monday, Israel said she believes officials have a responsibility to check that data before placing a burden on voters. "These are tools that are at our disposal to ensure accuracy, and I think it's our responsibility to use those tools before we ask a voter to demonstrate citizenship," she said.
SAVE flagged several voters who registered at DPS
State officials generated the list of potential noncitizens by checking the state's voter roll — more than 18 million registered voters — against a federal database used to verify citizenship. The Trump administration overhauled the database, known as SAVE, this year, making the database free for states to use and easier to search.
But experts and election officials have raised concerns about the SAVE database's accuracy and reliability, and advocacy groups have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the changes and how SAVE is being used.
The Texas Secretary of State's Office in October forwarded the results of the SAVE check to county election officials and instructed them to investigate the eligibility of the flagged voters.
Votebeat contacted 24 counties regarding the results of their investigations, and counties that responded said they have so far collectively confirmed the citizenship of 16 voters.
Several counties also reported significant numbers of voters who registered via DPS. In Collin County, 59 of the 109 people flagged by the state had done so. In Bexar County, the state flagged 201 voters; 39 had registered at DPS. And in Brazoria County, nearly half of the 48 flagged had registered at DPS.
In Denton County, the state flagged 84 registered voters. Frank Phillips, the county's election administrator, told Votebeat that 12 of the flagged voters have confirmed their citizenship. Of the remaining flagged voters, 14 were registered by county officials in error, even though they had disclosed they were noncitizens and ineligible on the voter registration form. None of those individuals had voted, and their registrations have been canceled, he said.
Phillips said 37 of the flagged voters registered via DPS. Phillips also confirmed that the county has now canceled the registrations of 58 flagged voters who either failed to respond to the county's notices or had the notices returned as undeliverable. Under state law, county officials must immediately restore the registrations if the voters later provide proof of citizenship, even if they do so at the polls on Election Day.
State officials want counties to investigate matches
In her response to Israel's letter, Nelson said the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' SAVE database "is the most current and accurate data set available to states when it comes to determining a voter's citizenship." Nelson said her office searched the SAVE database using voters' first names, last names, dates of birth, and full Social Security numbers.
"Even though the data we received from SAVE is considered a strong match, we directed counties to treat them as weak matches in order to ensure that counties conducted their own
investigation," Nelson wrote, according to a copy of her letter obtained by Votebeat.
Alicia Pierce, a spokesperson for the Texas Secretary of State's Office, said an example of a strong match that would result in county officials removing someone from the rolls without further investigation or notice would be a confirmed death record. In contrast, she said, in instructing the counties to treat the SAVE results as weak matches, the state is ensuring further investigation before voters' registrations are canceled.
Texas is one of more than two dozen states, including Alabama, Louisiana, and North Carolina, using or planning to use the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' overhauled SAVE database to check voters' eligibility. The USCIS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Texas has struggled to identify noncitizens before
Every year, millions of Texans register to vote or update their voter registration information while obtaining a driver's license or ID at DPS. In 2024, 3 million people registered to vote through the agency.
DPS began requiring proof of citizenship and lawful presence to obtain a driver's license or state ID beginning in 2008. In 2011, Texas legislators made the requirement state law.
Israel and other election officials have raised concerns about the accuracy of the list of potential noncitizens forwarded by the Texas Secretary of State, citing issues in the wake of the state's past attempts to flag noncitizens on the voter rolls.
Last year, months before the November 2024 election, Gov. Greg Abbott announced that 6,500 noncitizens had been removed from Texas voter rolls. A joint investigation by Votebeat, The Texas Tribune, and ProPublica later found Abbott's numbers were inflated and, in some instances, wrong.
In 2019, the Secretary of State's Office announced that it had identified 95,000 registered voters as potential noncitizens and said that more than half of them had previously cast ballots. But many of the voters in question turned out to be naturalized citizens flagged due to outdated data, and the state ultimately settled a related lawsuit by agreeing to new procedures.
Those new procedures, which were codified into law in 2021 through the sweeping Senate Bill 1, require that DPS share data monthly with the Texas Secretary of State's Office in connection with individuals who provided proof that they were not U.S. citizens — such as a green card or work visa — when obtaining a driver's license or state ID.
State officials run that data against the voter roll and identify individuals "who registered to vote before they presented documents at a DPS office indicating their non-citizenship," according to a 2021 advisory from the office to counties.
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