Texas finds 2,700 illegal immigrants on voter rolls in state review

The Texas Election Review identified thousands of Illegal immigrants Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson said Monday that she is on the state’s voter rolls.

Nelson said A check of state voter records found that more than 2,700 potential illegal immigrants were registered on the voter rolls, prompting an eligibility review across the nation’s 254 counties.

The data came from a complete comparison of Texas’ 18 million registered voters with federal citizenship records in the USCIS’s SAVE database, according to the secretary of state’s office.

“Only qualified United States citizens may participate in our elections,” Nelson said. “Trump administration The decision to give states free, direct access to this dataset for the first time was a game-changer, and we appreciate partnering with the federal government to verify the citizenship of people on our voter rolls and maintain accurate voter rolls.

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A voter wearing a protective mask and gloves signs a document at a mail-in ballot drop-off center in Austin, Texas. (Sergio Flores/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

After conducting a SAVE check, state officials were able to identify 2,724 potential noncitizens whose voter files were sent to local counties for further investigation, the investigation showed.

This process falls under Title 16 of the Texas Election Code, which requires counties to verify each voter’s eligibility and remove confirmed noncitizens from the rolls.

Nelson said the review is part of an effort to maintain an accurate list of voters and to protect the integrity of the election ahead of the 2026 election cycle.

“Everyone’s right to vote is sacred and must be protected,” Nelson said. “We encourage counties to conduct rigorous investigations to determine whether any voter is ineligible — just as they would with any other data set we provide.”

Each reported voter will receive a notice from their county registrar giving them 30 days to provide proof of U.S. citizenship. If the voter does not respond, their registration will be cancelled, although they can be reinstated immediately once proof of citizenship is provided.

Nelson’s statement said confirmed non-citizens who voted in previous Texas elections will be referred to the Attorney General’s Office for further review and possible prosecution.

The announcement comes amid increased national scrutiny of voter rolls as several states — including Georgia, Arizona and Florida — have conducted similar audits of voter eligibility.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said that since Senate Bill 1 was signed into law, Texas has removed more than 1 million ineligible or outdated registrations from the state’s voter rolls, calling the efforts necessary to protect Texans’ right to vote.

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The State of Texas has confirmed that non-citizens who voted in previous elections will be referred to the Attorney General’s Office for further review and possible prosecution. (Getty Images)

“These reforms have removed more than 1 million ineligible people from our voter rolls in the past three years, including noncitizens, deceased voters and people who have moved to another state,” Abbott said. “The Secretary of State and county registrars of voters have an ongoing legal requirement to review voter rolls, remove ineligible voters, and refer any potentially illegal voting to the Attorney General’s Office and local authorities for investigation and prosecution. Illegal voting will never be tolerated in Texas. We will continue to actively protect Texans’ sacred right to vote while also vigorously protecting Our elections of illegal voting.”

Abbott called the initiative proof that Texas “leads the nation in election integrity.”

The Secretary of State’s Office released a breakdown of information showing Harris County had the largest number of potential noncitizens at 362 people, followed by Dallas County (277), Bexar County (201), and El Paso County (165).
Smaller counties, including Andrews, Llano and Cook, have reported fewer than a dozen reported recordings.

In total, all 254 Texas counties were included in the SAVE database review. Districts began sending verification notices this week as part of the 30-day review process.

In June, Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson announced that she had referred the attorney general’s office to investigate the names of 33 potential noncitizens who voted in the November 2024 general election.

The statement from Nelson said the referral came within weeks of Texas gaining access to USCIS’s SAVE database.

“Having access to this database has been a game changer,” Minister Nelson said. “Not only were we able to identify individuals who should not have voted in the last election, we were also able to confirm the naturalization of dozens more.”

The audit was made possible after the Trump administration granted states direct, free access to the federal SAVE database for the first time.

The tool allows election officials to confirm a voter’s citizenship against immigration and naturalization records.

The statement also said Texas was among the first states to join a pilot program with DHS, USCIS and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to improve the database’s functionality.

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“We are in the early stages of this pilot program, but we are already seeing promising results,” Minister Nelson said. “This may be the newest and most accurate data set out there when it comes to citizenship verification.”

County registrars are expected to complete their investigation by early December, with formal removals and potential referrals to follow.

The secretary of state’s office said the review will continue, with periodic checks on federal databases to ensure accuracy.

“The SAVE database has proven to be a critically important data set and one of many we will continue to use in Texas to ensure that only eligible voters cast ballots in our elections,” Nelson said.