The Texas Secretary of State's Office has flagged more than 2,700 registered voters as potential noncitizens after comparing the state's voter registration list with federal immigration data, officials announced Monday.
Secretary of State Jane Nelson said her office recently completed a full review of the state's more than 18 million registered voters using information from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database — a resource newly made available to states at no cost.
The analysis identified 2,724 Texas voters who may not be U.S. citizens. The Secretary of State's Office has turned those names over to county election officials, who are now responsible for verifying each person's eligibility to vote under state law.
The largest numbers were found in Texas' biggest counties, including:
- Harris County: 362
- Dallas County: 277
- Bexar County: 201
- El Paso County: 165
Conservative leaders have long asserted that noncitizens have voted illegally in U.S. elections, framing it as a threat to election integrity — even though studies have found little to no evidence of widespread voter fraud. In 2021, state lawmakers passed the Election Integrity Protection Act, which tightened voter ID rules for mail-in ballots and increased penalties for election offenses, among other changes.
Under the Texas Election Code, counties must send written notices to voters flagged as potential noncitizens. Those voters have 30 days to provide proof of citizenship before their registration is canceled. Those removed can be reinstated immediately by presenting proof to county officials or at a polling location.
Confirmed noncitizens who are found to have voted illegally will be referred to the Texas Attorney General's Office for investigation.
In June, the Secretary of State's Office sent 33 cases to the Texas Attorney General after a smaller review of voter rolls from the November 2024 election found people who may not have been U.S. citizens. About a month later, Attorney General Ken Paxton launched a separate investigation into more than 100 suspected noncitizens who allegedly cast over 200 ballots in the 2020 and 2022 elections.
However, an investigation by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune and Votebeat last year found that many U.S. citizens were incorrectly labeled as noncitizens and removed from voter rolls in Texas. This followed Gov. Greg Abbott's claim that more than 6,500 noncitizens had been removed ahead of the 2024 election. The investigation found the number was vastly overstated: the Secretary of State's office had actually identified only 581 individuals as noncitizens.
Concerns over the SAVE database
The SAVE database was created in 1986 to verify the immigration status of individuals applying for or receiving federally funded benefits.
Then in April 2025, federal officials announced an overhaul to the database to create a single, nationwide source for verifying non‑citizen status, with the added goal of preventing noncitizens from voting in U.S. elections. The update removed database search fees for states and other government agencies and integrated criminal records and additional data.
But legal and civil-rights groups caution that the SAVE program was created to verify eligibility for government benefits, not as a definitive tool for confirming citizenship in elections. A July report from the Brennan Center for Justice found that SAVE contains incomplete or outdated data and that using it to maintain voter rolls "raises significant concerns" about accuracy and privacy. The report notes that errors could result in eligible voters being wrongly removed.
Earlier this month, a coalition of voting rights groups filed a class-action lawsuit challenging the expansion of the federal database. The lawsuit alleged that expanding the SAVE program violates the Constitution, likening it to the citizen dossiers in George Orwell's 1984.
The Texas Newsroom is a public radio journalism collaboration that includes NPR, KERA in North Texas, Houston Public Media, KUT in Austin, Texas Public Radio in San Antonio and other stations across the state.