Verifying Voter Registration in Texas: A Step-by-Step Guide for Texans

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s day by day publication that retains readers up to the mark on probably the most important Texas information.

Texas voters have lower than a month to register for the Nov. 5 election.

But as county elections officers work to get extra folks registered, greater than 1 million voters have been deemed ineligible. That contains individuals who moved out of state or are useless — and it’s a routine course of.

“We do list maintenance every single day,” mentioned Trudy Hancock, the Elections Administrator for Brazos County. “So you know it's not something that's happened just overnight and something that's been put in place, but it is important to check your registration.”

Gov. Greg Abbott issued a press launch final month touting the removing of ineligible voters, claiming a few of them had been probably noncitizens. Experts rapidly warned the governor’s framing may very well be used to undermine belief in elections. At the identical time, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued to cease two city counties from sending voter registration varieties to people who find themselves eligible to vote, claiming state regulation doesn’t permit that type of outreach and it might threat including noncitizens to the voter rolls.

Election officers have discovered no evidence of widespread voting by people who find themselves not residents in U.S. elections. In 2019, Texas incorrectly flagged 95,000 naturalized residents for removing from the voter rolls, however backed off these earlier removing makes an attempt to settle lawsuits over the matter.

Federal regulation prevents states from systematically eradicating registered voters inside 90 days of a federal election, although there are some exceptions if the voter has died, been convicted of a felony or been declared mentally incapacitated. Checking your voter registration to verify it’s lively and updated might prevent hassle on the polls. You'll need to do this earlier than the Oct. 7 deadline to register. It might additionally assist us report on these points.

Here’s methods to examine your voter registration. The Texas Tribune, ProPublica and Votebeat need to hear from Texas voters who imagine their registrations have been erroneously canceled. Let us know for those who discover points together with your voter registration by the shape on the backside of this story.

Disclosure: Texas Secretary of State has been a monetary supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan information group that's funded in half by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Financial supporters play no position in the Tribune's journalism. Find an entire checklist of them right here.