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DonViejo

(60,536 posts)
Sat Jan 26, 2019, 11:02 AM Jan 2019

Activists Cry Foul As Texas Officials Say 95,000 Non-Citizens On Voter Rolls

Source: Talking Points Memo/The AP



By PAUL WEBER
January 26, 2019 9:43 am

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas elections officials said Friday that they have identified roughly 95,000 non-U.S. citizens on voter rolls going back to 1996, raising alarms among voting rights activists who called the numbers suspect and feared new efforts to tighten access to the ballot box.

The state has been one of the nation’s biggest voting rights battlegrounds in recent years and drawn attention over severe punishments in voter fraud cases. In 2017, a Fort Worth jury sentenced a Mexican national who has lived in the U.S. since she was a baby to eight years in prison for illegal voting, after which she faces deportation.

Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton highlighted that case in a statement about the latest numbers released by state elections officials. Roughly 58,000 of the suspected non-citizens are believed to have voted in at least one Texas election, and Paxton said his office “will spare no effort in assisting with these troubling cases.”

Nearly 16 million people in Texas are registered to vote. Paxton said his office last year prosecuted 33 people for voter fraud, though it was not immediately clear how many of those cases involved non-citizens.



Read more: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/activists-cry-foul-texas-officials-95000-non-citizen-voter-rolls

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Activists Cry Foul As Texas Officials Say 95,000 Non-Citizens On Voter Rolls (Original Post) DonViejo Jan 2019 OP
In Texas parlance, that means brown people who vote for Democrats. Lonestarblue Jan 2019 #1
Ken Paxton is a criminal and a fraud. dalton99a Jan 2019 #2
Yep, literally not fooled Jan 2019 #13
Just assuming 58K voted in the election in 2016 TexasBushwhacker Jan 2019 #3
I don't believe it. Paxton must show the names to a State or Federal court or apologize. nt NCjack Jan 2019 #4
If Paxton's saying it, it's a lie. Count on it. (nt) Paladin Jan 2019 #5
It took 22 years to find this? Something stinks. nt chowder66 Jan 2019 #6
Texas is getting ready for a Latino on the Democratic ticket next year. McCamy Taylor Jan 2019 #7
my question would be WHO registered these 95K (if this is true) not_the_one Jan 2019 #8
KKKobach claimed there were 10,000+ illegals voting each time in Kansas elections...... Bengus81 Jan 2019 #9
of the suspected non-citizens are believed .. noneof_theabove Jan 2019 #10
My question is why do leaders like this douche keep getting elected/appointed/etc Doremus Jan 2019 #11
I doubt it . old guy Jan 2019 #12
There is a huge group of immigrants from Russia in Texas and Florida. Don't know their status allgood33 Jan 2019 #14
Texas Secretary of State Questions Citizenship of 95,000 Registered Voters Gothmog Jan 2019 #15
From the ACLU Gothmog Jan 2019 #16
am thankful for ACLU's action in this matter diva77 Jan 2019 #18
Texas back tracks Gothmog Jan 2019 #17
You know it sounds like there needs to be a personal lawsuit filed against the officials cstanleytech Jan 2019 #19
I just got an e-mail from the State Party on this mess Gothmog Jan 2019 #20
The number of supposed noncitizens registered in Texas are already falling apart on minimal scrutiny Gothmog Jan 2019 #21
From the Brennan Center Gothmog Jan 2019 #22

Lonestarblue

(10,011 posts)
1. In Texas parlance, that means brown people who vote for Democrats.
Sat Jan 26, 2019, 11:19 AM
Jan 2019

And they’re probably too poor to fight the state. Republicans are worried because Beto got a lot of votes, and all the major cities except for Fort Worth have turned blue. This will be only the first effort to kick people off voter rolls before the 2020 election. I expect other voter suppression efforts to follow, along with making sure old voting machines are “programmed” correctly. In many counties, the machines mysteriously changed a vote for Beto to one for Cruz when voters chose the straight Democratic vote. The Beto-Cruz switch was the only vote changed. Officials called it voter error. Uh-huh. They’ve known about the problems with these machines and the capability for flipping votes for at least a decade.

It’s ironic that the Ken Paxton was indicted for securities fraud three years or so ago. He has used high-powered lawyers and friendly Republican judges to delay and get some parts of the indictment changed. He still keeps being elected even though voters know he cheated clients.

not fooled

(5,801 posts)
13. Yep, literally
Sat Jan 26, 2019, 06:54 PM
Jan 2019

although the Texasistan puke criminal cabal is shielding him from justice:

[link:https://www.texasobserver.org/with-texas-court-ruling-ken-paxtons-felony-case-may-fizzle/|]

As I wrote last month, Paxton’s criminal charges — two first-degree counts of securities fraud and one third-degree count of failing to register as an investment advisor — stem from allegations that have haunted him ever since the bruising 2014 GOP primary that ushered the tea party darling into the attorney general’s’ office. When the case ultimately landed in Paxton’s home turf in Collin County, the local DA, a friend and sometimes business partner of Paxton’s, recused himself. A local judge turned to three high-profile attorneys from Houston to prosecute Texas’ top lawyer. The judge set a $300-an-hour rate for the three special prosecutors.

Then Team Paxton went to work. Paxton leveraged the support of his rich friends, donors and out-of-state benefactors, amassing a legal defense fund war chest to pay for his top-dollar defense team. But it was Jeffory Blackard, a Paxton acolyte and multimillionaire real estate developer, who pioneered the defang-the-prosecution strategy.


TexasBushwhacker

(20,202 posts)
3. Just assuming 58K voted in the election in 2016
Sat Jan 26, 2019, 11:29 AM
Jan 2019

and that's a HUGE assumption, that's 58K out of 8.5 MILLION votes cast in Texas or less than 1% (.68% to be exact). I'm sure Paxton assumes all those illegal votes were cast for evil Democrats, but that would be a mistake. Hispanics supported GOP Governor Gregg Abbott 50/50. 33% of Hispanics in Texas STILL support Trump. So Paxton is going after 67% of .68% of votes cast or .46% of total votes cast AT MOST.

I encourage him to go after anyone who registers or votes illegally, but I sure as hell hope he isn't spending a lot of time and state resources on them.

 

not_the_one

(2,227 posts)
8. my question would be WHO registered these 95K (if this is true)
Sat Jan 26, 2019, 01:50 PM
Jan 2019

I bet the republicans know how to manipulate voter rolls and add whatever/whomever they need, to further the conspiracy...

Bengus81

(6,931 posts)
9. KKKobach claimed there were 10,000+ illegals voting each time in Kansas elections......
Sat Jan 26, 2019, 02:16 PM
Jan 2019

So after 4-5 years of his racist chest pounding he found eight or nine people. All WHITE,mainly mistakenly voting twice when moving to Kansas after voting in another State.

Yep...there's your 10,000 brownies swinging Kansas elections.

noneof_theabove

(410 posts)
10. of the suspected non-citizens are believed ..
Sat Jan 26, 2019, 03:28 PM
Jan 2019

Paxton also believes that snorting Unicorn horn powder will get you 25% longer 100% bigger girth.

Doremus

(7,261 posts)
11. My question is why do leaders like this douche keep getting elected/appointed/etc
Sat Jan 26, 2019, 04:41 PM
Jan 2019

And, once there, how do they STAY there?



Americans are so easy going. Let's take a page out of the French book of kick ass first and ask questions later lol

old guy

(3,283 posts)
12. I doubt it .
Sat Jan 26, 2019, 04:58 PM
Jan 2019

Repub diversion to get the tRump wall fiasco off peoples minds. I doubt it will be successful.

 

allgood33

(1,584 posts)
14. There is a huge group of immigrants from Russia in Texas and Florida. Don't know their status
Sun Jan 27, 2019, 04:51 AM
Jan 2019

but we only look for brown undocumented immigrants when there a many others out there who seldom get challenged for ID for anything.

Gothmog

(145,321 posts)
15. Texas Secretary of State Questions Citizenship of 95,000 Registered Voters
Sun Jan 27, 2019, 07:16 PM
Jan 2019

The Texas GOP is trying to justify some voter purges https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/texas-secretary-of-state-questions-citizenship-of-95000-registered-voters/ar-BBSKH7x?fbclid=IwAR2WBZ_e7FstfaVYxnjTybriiy2CMV87aj8uf1rmVsJ_ovSvQdFfurdFCrA

But Democrats and voting rights advocates were skeptical of the state’s claims. More than 8.3 million people voted in the Texas governor’s race last year, which means that even if all 58,000 people who voted were, in fact, found to be noncitizens and voted in 2018 — a claim that no state official has made — they would have amounted to only 0.69 percent of all votes that were cast.

“Because we have consistently seen Texas politicians conjure the specter of voter fraud as pretext to suppress legitimate votes, we are naturally skeptical,” Representative Rafael Anchia, a Democrat in the Texas House of Representatives, said in a statement.

Kristen Clarke, the president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, also cautioned that the state’s findings, and the speed with which the attorney general raised the specter of prosecution, could foreshadow an attempt at voter suppression.

“Texas has a rich history of undertaking action to make it harder for people to vote,” she said. “Whenever you’re invoking the threat of criminal prosecution, the chilling effect becomes almost unavoidable.”

cstanleytech

(26,293 posts)
19. You know it sounds like there needs to be a personal lawsuit filed against the officials
Tue Jan 29, 2019, 08:25 PM
Jan 2019

for doing this for what is clearly political reasons rather than to actually stop any supposed voting fraud going on which is clearly as mythical as a unicorn.

Gothmog

(145,321 posts)
20. I just got an e-mail from the State Party on this mess
Tue Jan 29, 2019, 09:17 PM
Jan 2019

It is long and I need to read it but the state Democratic Party is serious about this

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