Sen. Ted Cruz, a conservative leader in the Senate, is in a tight battle for reelection in Texas — and in a narrow race, critics say his Democratic opponent may be poised to get “thousands” of illegal immigrant votes to pad his totals in November.
“Hundreds, if not thousands of non-U.S. citizens, are registered to vote in Texas, and some have cast ballots in elections,” according to Dallas’ local news station, WFAA. The station reported the disturbing findings on Wednesday.
“Direct Action Texas, a conservative grassroots organization, originally made the claim at a news conference in Farmer’s Branch last week,” WFAA’s Turns out, it is true. Non-citizens are registered to vote in Texas and the bureaucracy is partially to blame.”
The Heritage Foundation reports that at least 20 people have been convicted of election fraud, vote buying, and illegally casting ballots in Texas since 2014.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Direct Action Texas’ Aaron Harris said in a statement: “In checking the voter rolls against the [Department of Public Safety] citizenship status, the analysts found 280,000 registered voters who – at the time they were issued a DPS ID – were not citizens. Non-citizens are ineligible to register and vote.” More than four million registered voters in Texas don’t match anyone in public databases, the group said.
With the critical 2018 midterm election just months away, critics are demanding answers. Officials blame a broken bureaucratic system, and say they believe the total amount of election fraud in minimal — but admit it does happen.
“We think it’s very likely we’ve had non-citizens cast ballots. We had that in Tarrant County. We prosecuted somebody who had done that and they ended up in prison for eight years,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told WFAA.
Authorities say they’re investigating, and take these claims seriously.
In a statement, the Texas Secretary of State’s office says they’re working to fix the problem. “The Texas Secretary of State’s office has been working diligently with the Texas Department of Public Safety to obtain the type of data our office is permitted to provide to counties so that they may investigate potential lawfully present non-citizens who may be on their voter rolls. As always, our office will continue to exercise our authority to the maximum extent allowed under current law to ensure the integrity of the voter rolls in our state,” said Sam Taylor, the office’s spokesman.
That fix can’t come soon enough.
In an increasingly tight 2018 election, election integrity is of the upmost importance.