Texas Republicans want voters to provide proof of citizenship. Arizona’s law holds lessons.

Sign up for the We the Texans newsletter to receive twice-monthly updates on our year-long initiative dedicated to boosting civic engagement and chronicling how democracy is experienced in Texas.

---

This coverage is made possible through Votebeat, a nonpartisan news organization covering local election administration and voting access. Sign up for Votebeat Texas’ free newsletters here.

Republicans are making a big push for legislation requiring Texans to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote, and key lawmakers are signaling that they’ll make it a priority next year.

The push is part of a national effort by the GOP and conservative allies who assert that such legislation is needed to stop noncitizens from illegally casting ballots, even though such cases are already very rare.

Texas Republican lawmakers have filed at least five bills so far ahead of the legislative session opening in January. It’s too early to tell which ones could get traction when the session starts. Some of the bills appear to be modeled after federal legislation considered earlier this year by the U.S. Congress, where the measure passed the House but stalled in the Senate. At least one calls for placing a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot next year for voters to consider. Others mirror a law adopted 20 years ago in Arizona, the only state that currently enforces a proof of citizenship requirement for voters.

Because of conflicts between Arizona’s law and federal voting rights laws, Arizona maintains a split voter roll, with a small percentage of residents who haven’t provided proof of citizenship and are allowed to cast ballots only in federal elections. The makeup of the “federal only” list shows how certain demographic groups — including Native voters and young people — are at greater risk of being disenfranchised over citizenship documentation requirements, a Votebeat analysis has found.

If Texas were to adopt a similar system, experts say, it could also potentially disenfranchise citizens, because research has found that millions of Americans — for various reasons — do not have access to documents that prove their citizenship.

And, as in Arizona, such a law could impose new administrative burdens for election officials who would need additional training and resources in order to comply.

“This will be something that affects you if you're young, if you're old, if you're Republican, if you're Democrat, it really doesn't matter,” said Jasleen Singh, legal counsel for the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, a voting rights nonprofit that has studied the potential effects of requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote. State lawmakers are putting “millions of people at risk of not being able to meet those requirements,” Singh said.

The effects of Arizona’s citizenship proof law

Under federal law, all U.S. voters must attest to their citizenship to register, but they do not need to prove it. Voter registrars in counties across the country have processes in place to check that only eligible citizens make it onto the voter rolls.

Experts say noncitizen voting cases are rare and there is no evidence that they have affected election outcomes. Voting leaves an extensive paper trail, and noncitizens who illegally cast ballots face criminal penalties, including the loss of their residency status and deportation.

Arizona’s law requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote was passed in 2004, and prompted lengthy legal fights that continue even now. In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Arizona must allow residents who do not provide such proof to cast ballots in federal elections. That ruling led to the current split system with the “federal only” voter list.

In Arizona, “federal only” voters make up less than 1% of the state’s voter roll — or 34,933 out of around 4.4 million active voters eligible for this past November election. A Votebeat analysis found that the list includes disproportionately high numbers of voters who live on Native land, on college campuses, and at the state’s main homeless campus. Such voters also were generally younger than the voting-age population in the state, and were less likely to vote this past November than voters who had provided proof of citizenship, the analysis found.

Arizona has struggled to maintain the lists accurately. Officials discovered this summer that for decades, the state has been labeling some voters as having provided proof of U.S. citizenship, when in fact they had never been asked to do so. The confusion stemmed from the fact that some Arizonans who obtained drivers licenses before 1996 were exempted from the requirement. The Arizona Secretary of State’s Office estimated that around 218,000 voters were affected.

Twenty years after it was enacted, Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship requirement remains the only one in the country that is actively enforced. But conservative activists and Republicans around the country have been rallying support for more such laws by raising alarms about the risk of noncitizen voting.

It’s a politically savvy move, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. “Republicans can say they are tough on immigration, border security and illegal voting, too.”

In Texas this summer, Gov. Greg Abbott issued a press release boasting that the state had removed more than potential 6,500 noncitizens from its voter rolls. An investigation by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune, and Votebeat found the governor’s figure was likely inflated and, in some cases, wrong.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the federal government in October, claiming the Department of Homeland Security has refused to help the state check the citizenship status of some registered voters. The federal agency offers states access to a database that can be used to verify immigration status, but Paxton argued it’s inadequate and requires a fee for each verification.

What the Texas bills call for

The five bills filed in Texas so far vary in their details.

Sen. Bryan Hughes, a Republican from northeast Texas, first introduced a bill requiring proof of citizenship during the 2023 legislative session. The bill was approved by the Senate, but never got a hearing in the House. In a bill analysis, Hughes cited the 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed Arizona to move forward and called for a similar system. He has now reintroduced the same bill as Senate Bill 309, which would task the Texas Secretary of State with crafting a process and rules to require voters to submit proof of citizenship to the registrar. Hughes did not respond to requests for comment.

At a legislative hearing in October, Hughes said the legislation is a major priority. “We need to get it done,” he said.

In the Texas House of Representatives, House Bill 892, filed by Rep. Briscoe Cain, a Republican from East Texas, mirrors some of the requirements in place in Arizona and also some from the federal SAVE Act, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican, and pending in Congress. The Cain legislation would require voters to present one of the following: a certified copy of a U.S. birth certificate; a U.S. passport or passport card; a naturalization certificate; or a consular report of birth abroad issued by the U.S. State Department.

Cain’s bill would also allow volunteer deputy registrars — who conduct voter registration outreach at community events and college campuses but aren’t employed by counties — to check for proof of citizenship.

Cain’s bill would have to pass the state Legislature and then be approved by voters next year. Arizona’s law was also created through a ballot proposition. Cain did not respond to requests for comment.

Rep. Brooks Landgraf, a Republican from West Texas, filed House Bill 219. In addition to birth certificates, passports, and naturalization certificates, Landgraf’s bill would allow voters to provide a Texas driver’s license or a state ID. The bill also requires voter registrars to follow up with the voter to ensure they provide the required documentation if the application was mailed or faxed. Landgraf could not be reached for comment.

None of the bills that identify a list of acceptable documents include tribal documents, which Arizona does accept. The legislators did not respond to Votebeat’s questions about whether they would consider including them.

Arizona law took years to straighten out

Experts warn that a proof of citizenship requirement could have unintended consequences for voters and election officials, and must be crafted carefully.

Tammy Patrick, who was the elections administrator in Arizona’s Maricopa County from 2003 to 2014, said it took election officials years to effectively implement the proof of citizenship requirement there. There were hours of additional training for election workers and money spent on voter education outreach so voters could be aware of the new rules, among other things.

A lot of time and resources were also spent on verifying voters’ information, Patrick said.

Initially, the law required naturalized voters to provide a number from their naturalization certificates to verify their citizenship status. But officials later found the number the law asked for could not be used to verify that information. The law also wasn’t clear on whether officials could accept an expired U.S. passport as proof of citizenship, Patrick said.

Over time, the law had to be updated to clarify which documents could be accepted.

Election officials must also verify voters’ information and compare it to state and federal data to check citizenship status. That information wasn’t always up to date or accurate, Patrick said.

In some instances, longtime voters who’d never missed their opportunity to cast their ballot found that when they moved from one county to another, they had to re-register but didn’t have the documents they needed to provide proof of citizenship.

“People think it sounds easy. It sounds like it makes sense. Why wouldn't you have to prove your citizenship, right?” said Patrick, who is now the CEO for programs at the National Association of Election Officials. “But there are details in the implementation that get very messy very quickly.”

In Texas, some voter registrars have a lot of questions about how implementing this requirement would work in their offices and what exactly would be required of voters.

Chris Davis, the voter registration division director in Travis County, home to Austin, says lawmakers should consider how these rules would work in tandem with requirements officials already have to follow.

If election officials are tasked with verifying citizenship, that’ll likely require an update of training materials for election workers, Davis said.

“Then there’s the responsibility (and) liability that you’re putting on volunteer deputy registrars, if they are part of the process… Are they the ones that get to handle those documents?” Davis said. “It just doesn't work in terms of, who’d want to entrust a passport or a birth certificate to a VDR? These are very, very precious documents.”

If such documentation has to be stored as part of the voters’ record, he said, it will become public information and will have to be redacted before being released publicly, which will also take time and likely additional workers. None of these steps would be as easy to pull off in smaller counties already short on funds, he said.

“The legislature should really think this through in terms of unintended consequences and in ensuring security of these documents and in understanding the time that's going to be required to process these,” Davis said.

Natalia Contreras covers election administration and voting access for Votebeat in partnership with the Texas Tribune. She is based in Corpus Christi. Contact Natalia at ncontreras@votebeat.org

Disclosure: Texas Secretary of State and University of Houston have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.