Texas Removes 1.1M Voters After 2021 Law

Over 1.1 Million Names Purged from Texas Voter Rolls Following Controversial Law

More than 1.1 million names have been removed from Texas' voter rolls since the enactment of the contentious Senate Bill 1 in 2021, which prompted a mass walkout by state House Democrats amid concerns of widespread voter suppression.

Gov. Greg Abbott announced the removals in a news release Monday, attributing an estimated 920,000 to deceased individuals or those with unverified home addresses. Additionally, 6,500 were non-U.S. citizens and nearly as many were felons with revoked voting privileges.

Abbott defended the measure, stating, "Illegal voting in Texas will never be tolerated. We will continue to actively safeguard Texans’ sacred right to vote while also aggressively protecting our elections from illegal voting."

The legislation was introduced amid unfounded voter fraud claims following former President Donald Trump's election loss. In July 2021, nearly all House Democrats left the chamber to protest the bill, causing a standstill due to the lack of quorum. Democrats hoped the federal government would pass legislation to counteract the state law, but no such law was enacted.

Key provisions of Senate Bill 1 include:

• Prohibiting 24-hour and overnight voting, requiring polls to be open a minimum of nine hours between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.
• Prohibiting drive-thru voting unless the voter is participating in curbside voting due to sickness or disability.
• Requiring Texans voting by mail to include their driver's license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number on the ballot envelope, matching the number provided on the vote-by-mail application.