Texas cannot change voter registration without notice

On November 8, the people of Texas will go to the elections in order to vote in a number of high-profile elections, including the gubernatorial election.

Incumbent Greg Abbott, a Republican, faces Democratic challenger Beth O’Rourke. Other seats on the ballot include lieutenant governor, attorney general, comptroller, land commissioner and agriculture commissioner, all of whom serve four-year terms.

The deadline for voter registration ends on October 11, one TikToker the Texans’ consultation went viral check and recheck their voter registration status. The poster claims that a recent court ruling allows the state to revoke voter registration for anyone the state deems to be a non-citizen.

“If you’re in Texas, you need to check your voter registration every day before you vote, because of course the Texas appeals judge just said that they can get off the list of people who they think are non-citizens and not should be able to vote,” the TikToker says. “And they’re not saying who’s on that list. If they ‘think’ you’re a non-citizen, they can deny you and your vote won’t count.”

VERIFY viewer Kimberly also asked us if it’s true that the state of Texas is canceling voter registration without telling them.

Does the state of Texas revoke voter registration without notifying them?

No, the state of Texas does not cancel voter registration without notifying them.

Sign up for the VERIFY Fast Facts Daily Newsletter!

The court ruling that the TikToker mentions applied to non-citizen voters, but it did not allow the state to revoke people’s registration without notice.

Before getting into the details of the ordinance, it’s important to understand how the state recognizes noncitizen voters and who is allowed to vote in the state of Texas.

To vote in elections in Texas or any other state, you must be a US citizen and 18 years of age or older on Election Day. A full list of eligibility requirements is here.

According to Sam Taylor, a spokesman for the Texas Secretary of State, who is the state’s chief elections officer, the eligibility process works like this:

• If a person registers to vote and then goes to the Texas Department of Public Safety driver’s license office and indicates that he or she is not a US citizen, then that person’s registration is reported to the registrar of voters in the county in which he or she is registered.
• The county then mails the voter a notice that their registration has been flagged as potential non-U.S. citizenship, and the person has 30 days to respond to the county registrar of voters with proof of U.S. citizenship. If the person does not respond within 30 days, the voter registration is canceled.

“However, a voter’s registration can be immediately renewed, including at the polls, if the voter provides proof of U.S. citizenship,” Taylor told VERIFY in an email.

According to the Texas Election Codea person who needs proof of citizenship can provide a certified copy of the voter’s birth certificate, US passport, or naturalization certificate to re-register to vote if disenrolled.

Texas is required to notify people who have been designated as noncitizens under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), which establishes guidelines and requirements for voter registration in the United States

More from VERIFY: No, there were not 23,203 registered voters with the same phone number in the 2020 Wisconsin election

Now let’s explain the details of the court’s decision.

Earlier this year, a coalition of civil rights groups sued the state after it refused to provide a list of more than 11,000 people the state said had been identified as noncitizens and ineligible to vote, according to court records. The purpose of the lawsuit was to make sure that the state was complying with the NVRA and that all the people on that list were effectively ineligible to vote.

The groups asked the secretary of state to provide data on each person, including the date the person registered to vote, the date their driver’s license was issued and their voting history.

The state denied the request, saying publishing the list would violate privacy laws. In August, a district court judge sided with civil rights groups, saying the state should have released the records.

But an appeals court overturned that decision on Sept. 29, saying the organizations named in the original case did not have standing to sue the state and therefore the state should not publish the list.

This does not mean that every voter in Texas should regularly check their registration status to see if they are listed as a non-citizen, as the TikToker claimed. We can VERIFY that the court’s decision was about issuing a roll, not about how state flags can and cannot register to vote or be registered to vote.

In Texas, the deadline to register to vote in the election is November 8 – October 11. Voters in Texas can check theirs registration status online through the Secretary of State at this link.

More from VERIFY: Politicians don’t always need a musician’s consent to use songs in ads, but they do need to buy a license