Texas Refers 117 Voter Citizenship Cases for Investigation; Naturalized Chinese Voters Can Check Registration Status Online
The Texas Secretary of State's office ran the state's roughly 18 million registered voters through the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database. The first pass flagged 2,724 people as possible noncitizens; after manual review and county investigations, 117 cases were ultimately referred to the state Attorney General's office for investigation.
The review showed that 578 of those initially flagged proved they are U.S. citizens. Of those, 506 had been flagged because their passport information was entered into the system only after the first comparison, and the Secretary of State's office has told counties to restore their registrations.
Secretary of State Robert Howden said citizenship is a legal requirement for voting in Texas, and that the state has a duty both to ensure only eligible voters cast ballots and to make sure eligible citizens can exercise their right to vote.
Naturalized Chinese-American voters should note that a referral for investigation is not a finding of wrongdoing, and the final outcomes of the 117 cases have not yet been made public. Voters can check their registration status on the Secretary of State's website, VoteTexas.gov, and anyone who receives a citizenship letter from their county voter registrar should submit documentation by the deadline in the letter to avoid having their registration canceled.
Source: Texas Secretary of State's Office
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 位于 Austin 的德州议会大厦。LoneStarMike 摄，Wikimedia Commons，CC BY 3.0。 / The Texas State Capitol in Austin. Photo by LoneStarMike, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0.
