By State Rep. Brooks Landgraf
Over the past few years, my fellow Republican lawmakers, Governor Greg Abbott, and I have tirelessly fought to achieve a simple but crucial goal: make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat. The fulfillment of this goal lies at the very heart of our constitutional republican form of government. The authority of government–whether at the federal, state, or local levels–derives solely from the consent of the people. In our system, this consent is delivered through the voting booth. So, when citizens face obstacles to voting, or when noncitizens illegally cast ballots, the people’s consent is distorted and the authority of the government is undermined.
While we have been fortunate to avoid massive noncitizen voter fraud up to this point, valid concerns about illegal voter registration persist. Despite our heightened border security efforts, the noncitizen population in Texas continues to grow. With more noncitizens residing in our state, there are increased opportunities for some to slip through voter registration protocols, either unknowingly or maliciously. This has made the proactive prevention of illegal voter registrations increasingly important.
Fortunately, recent developments affirm that we’re on the right track to addressing this issue. Two weeks ago, Governor Abbott announced that, since 2021, over one million ineligible voters have been removed from Texas voter rolls. These voters had either passed away, moved out of state, or were noncitizens. While this may seem like a routine procedural update, it stands as a testament to the ongoing work of the legislature and the Governor to secure our elections.
A cornerstone of this work was the passing of Senate Bill 1, the Election Integrity Protection Act of 2021. This landmark legislation is what enabled the removal of thousands of noncitizen voters by requiring the Secretary of State to coordinate monthly cross-checks of citizenship status between the Department of Public Safety’s databases and county voter rolls. When a noncitizen is detected, the county must then remove the illegal voter from its roll. To hold potentially rouge counties accountable for this procedure, we passed Senate Bill 1113 which penalizes counties that fail to remove noncitizen voters from their voter rolls by withholding essential election-related funding from them. To be clear, West Texas counties have all been very compliant and helpful in these election integrity efforts.
These measures have significantly enhanced our ability to limit illegal voter registration, but that doesn’t eliminate the possibility that some illegal voters may evade voter roll detection. To address this, we have enacted additional legislation to prevent and deter illegal voting. Several of these new measures were contained within Senate Bill 1, including a ban on drive-thru voting, more identification for mail-in ballot applications, and additional felony offenses for voter fraud.
We built on these provisions in 2023 with House Bill 1243. That bill, which I proudly voted for, increased the penalty for illegally voting from a Class A misdemeanor to a second-degree felony and established a state jail felony for attempting illegal voting. These changes provide further deterrence against those who attempt to fraud our elections.
While we’ve made great strides toward complete election security, I know there is more work to be done. For example, we have made the detection and removal of illegally registered voters more effective through Senate Bill 1, but there needs to be further safeguards in place to ensure that these individuals are unable to register in the first place. That’s why I plan to file a bill in the upcoming legislative session to require proof of citizenship to be presented–in person–when registering to vote. If passed, this bill will add another layer of protection to our electoral system.
With these strong laws in effect, and more to come in the upcoming legislative session, we can be confident in the legitimacy of election results, ensuring that our elected officials have the true and full consent of the people to govern.
God bless Texas!
