Texas Border Business
AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Secretary of State’s Office referred 117 cases to the state Attorney General’s Office on Tuesday to investigate potential noncitizen voting as officials continue reviewing voter registration records ahead of the Nov. 3 election.
The referrals do not establish that the 117 people voted illegally. The cases were sent to the attorney general for further investigation after additional state and county reviews of voter citizenship records.
“By law and according to our Constitution, citizenship is a requirement to vote in Texas, and we have a duty to ensure that only eligible voters participate in our elections,” Secretary of State Robert Howden said.
Howden said the state also has a responsibility to protect eligible voters. “We also have a responsibility to make sure eligible citizens can exercise their right to vote, which is why we are taking great care with this data and conducting additional layers of due diligence.”
The latest action follows a statewide review that began in 2025. The Secretary of State’s Office compared Texas’ voter registration list of more than 18 million people with the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, known as database. That initial comparison identified 2,724 registered voters as potential noncitizens. The Secretary of State’s Office sent their registrations to county voter registrars for investigation under state law.
The Secretary of State’s Office later worked with the Texas Department of Public Safety to conduct an additional manual review of the 2,724 cases and requested results from county investigations.
That review confirmed that 578 of the previously flagged voters are U.S. citizens. Of those, 506 were confirmed after passport information was added to the SAVE database following the state’s original comparison. State officials advised counties to reinstate those voters if their registrations had been removed.
The findings show that the original SAVE database matches were potential cases requiring additional verification, not confirmed instances of noncitizen registration or voting.
Texas became one of the first states in 2025 to participate in a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services pilot program allowing states to use SAVE for voter-list maintenance. SAVE is a federal system government agencies use to verify citizenship and immigration status.
Texas law requires U.S. citizenship to register and vote, and county voter registrars must investigate eligibility and remove registrations when required by law.
The Attorney General’s Office will now determine what further investigation is warranted in the 117 referred cases.
