A week ago, the Texas Secretary of State David Whitley, who is appointed by the Governor, announced that 95,000 Texans who are registered to vote are not citizens. There were cannons, waving flags, confetti, and all manner of hub bub accompanying this startling announcement. Donald Trump even tweeted it.
They then turned these names over to the Texas Attorney General and sent the names to Texas counties so the counties could mail these people letters telling them that they had 30 days to come in and present proof they are citizens.
Now the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and the Governor’s office are quietly picking up the pieces of a press release shattered by buckshot.
The list was made by first obtaining a list of people who have applied for driver’s license and said they were non-citizens. They took 22 years of those records and cross referenced them with people who are currently registered to vote. Wow, 95,000! Ain’t that somethin’?
Oh dear. They completely forgot that some of those people may have since become citizens but not told the Texas Department of Public Safety. They aren’t required to do so.
Texas naturalizes about 50,000 people a year.
And, they didn’t see if the names matched the right person. Nor did they prove these people had even voted.
The whole damn thing proved Republican leadership in this state is about as helpful as a dumpster possum.
Soon after, the citizenship review effort would buckle, revealing itself as a ham-handed exercise that threatened to jeopardize the votes of thousands of legitimate voters across the state. The secretary of state’s office would eventually walk back its initial findings after embarrassing errors in the data revealed that tens of thousands of the voters the state flagged were actually citizens. At least one lawsuit would be filed to halt the review, and others were likely in the pipeline. And a week into the review, no evidence of large-scale voter fraud would emerge.
Cameron County’s list went from 1,600 to 30, then it went back to about 1,200, and now it’s being looked at again. Sixty percent of Harris County’s was dropped within days. McLennan County was told never mind and their whole list was withdrawn.
In my county, 2 of the first 10 files reviewed by the county were people who filled out a voter registration form, clearly marked non-citizen, and had never voted. They never should have been on the voter roll in the first place but that’s the county’s fault, not the person who filled out the form.
How much egg do Republicans have to get on their faces to serve breakfast and shut the hell up? Apparently, quite a lot.
Republished with permission from JuanitaJean.com
