SAN ANTONIO – A Latino civil rights group is taking the state to court on Tuesday over a list of people that the Texas Secretary of State claimed to be "non-citizen voters."
- Lawsuit going before San Antonio judge
- Suing Secretary of State over "non-citizen voter" list
- Claim government is attempting to deprive 95,000 people right to vote
The League of United Latin American Citizens and representatives of the state will go before a judge in San Antonio. The group filed a lawsuit against Secretary of State David Whitley and Attorney General Ken Paxton.
The advocates claim the Texas government is attempting to deprive over 95,000 people of the right to vote in a "non-citizen voter" list that has been called into question. The list included people who already became citizens when they cast their ballot legally.
State leaders backed off initial claims that 95,000 registered voters should have been flagged for citizenship review with the voter registration administrators saying they were told by Whitley to remove several categories from the list. Whitley's list of voter suspects is compiled of individuals who were non-citizens at the time they applied for a driver's license or state ID.
State leaders used information from the state driver license database and voter rolls to determine eligibility to vote. The Texas Department of Public Safety asks all applicants for a Texas ID and driver license to check a box indicating their citizenship status. Legal residents are able to obtain an ID, but they are ineligible to vote until becoming a naturalized citizen. Registrars like Bruce Elfant then determine if the registered voters were naturalized prior to registering to vote.
Advocates claim these citizens are being targeted and removed from voter rolls based solely on the fact that they were born outside the U.S. They said it a violation of equal protection rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.
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