DALLAS (1080 KRLD) - Three months ago, Texas rolled out a flawed voter purge list, claiming at least 95 thousand people on the rolls were not US citizens when they actually were. The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the national ACLU Voting Rights Project, the Texas Civil Rights Project, Demos, and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law filed the lawsuit against Texas Secretary of State David Whitley and Director of Elections Keith Ingram, as well as local elections officials in eight counties.
The list included a vast number of naturalized citizens. Tommy Buser Clancy, an attorney with the ACLU of Texas says the state will rescind the list. "The right to vote is sacrosanct and should never be stripped from people on false pretenses. These lawsuits were designed to protect those rights and we will be prepared to bring any further lawsuits to protect the rights of Texans."
Andrew Segura, legal director for the ACLU of Texas said: "After months of litigation, the state has finally agreed to do what we've demanded from the start - a complete withdrawal of the flawed and discriminatory voter purge list, bringing this failed experiment in voter suppression to an end."
Texas interim Secretary David Whitley issued the following statement.
"I want to thank the Texas Legislature, county election officials from across the state, and the parties in this litigation for working with our office to develop a sustainable non-citizen list maintenance process. From the beginning, this process was designed to be collaborative, and today's agreement reflects a constructive collaboration among all stakeholders. It is of paramount importance that Texas voters can have confidence in the integrity, accuracy, and efficiency of the electoral system in which they participate. Today's agreement accomplishes our office's goal of maintaining an accurate list of qualified registered voters while eliminating the impact of any list maintenance activity on naturalized U.S. citizens. I will continue to work with all stakeholders in the election community to ensure this process is conducted in a manner that holds my office accountable and protects the voting rights of eligible Texans."
According to the terms of the settlement, the state will rescind its original advisory announcing the purge effort and agree to a new voter database maintenance process that is much more limited in scope. The state has also agreed to provide and maintain information regarding the implementation of the process.