January 26, 2019
The NYT did a very simple step today and performed a great public service. In an article on allegations by Texas Secretary of State that 95,000 non-citizens in Texas might be registered, it put the numbers in the context of the total number of registered voters in Texas.
The piece reported on the conclusions from an investigation which found that 58,000 of these people voted since 1996. The NYT article points out that even if all 58,000 of these votes were cast in 2018, it would amount to 0.69 percent of the votes in the state. It notes that no one claims that all 58,000 votes from these people were cast in 2018.
The article also points out that the secretary of state’s office did not determine that the 95,000 registered voters it identified were in fact not US citizens. It just could not be certain that these people were US citizens. This could be due to name changes or simply inaccurate record keeping. The actual number of non-citizens in this group is certainly less than this figure and possibly much less.
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