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At the Texas Capitol today, Texas Secretary of State David Whitley has his nominations committee hearing. He’s sure to be asked some tough questions about his office’s troubled effort to remove alleged noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls. #TXlege
Whitley is talking about his voter purge effort — which he’s referring to as list maintenance. He says his office has been training local election officials since the start. However, local officials have told me they’ve felt lost on how to verify the state’s list.
Democratic State Sen. Kirk Watson asks about the accuracy of the voter list, Whitley says it’s not wrong, “it’s collaborative.”
Whitley admits that there are names on his original list of alleged non-citizens that are wrong. He said at first he was “confident” in the list, but won’t say he made mistakes.
Whitley admits that the data the SOS’s office has available to them “could be improved” but stops short of saying the list was flawed.
Watson says documents show the SOS asked DPS for information back in March 2018. Apparently the first list that was compiled had millions of names. But it included a wider net — including people with temporary visas who applied for state IDs.
So @KirkPWatson has been grilling Whitley about how much he vetted the data about the non-citizen voter purge before releasing it. At times Whitley’s recollection is hazy, but mostly it sounds as if he didn’t look closely at the data and trusted the vendor that compiled it.
Asked if the list made it sound like he is accusing people of crimes, Whitley simply says he doesn’t have the authority to prosecute as the Texas Secretary of State.
Watson is now asking about why Whitely gave the state AG’s office that very first list, which we now know is flawed. Whitley says because this was the first voter purge like this, he wanted the data “in the hands of someone who could do something with it.”
Whitely says part of the reason he sent the list to Paxton is because it was a way to ensure the info is accurate. Important to note that Paxton’s office doesn’t do list maintenance, he prosecutes.
This is true: Whitley pointed out that county election officials mostly don’t have a timeline for finishing this process. This could be going on for weeks or months, depending on the county. Many officials are having a tough time vetting the list and say it will take a while.
At one point, Whitley said he doesn’t know how TX AG Ken Paxton carries out his voter fraud prosecutions. Well, I’ve done some reporting on that. You can read my story here for @NPR: npr.org/2018/10/28/661…
Whitely says he doesn’t know how many people erroneously on the state’s voter removal list were sent letters asking them to prove they are citizens. And won’t say whether he’s concerned about that happening.
Sen. Alvarado is asking Whitley why he’s pointing to a 2013 law as the reasoning for this non-citizen voter removal effort. She says she doesn’t know why this is happening 5 years later. He says technology was mostly to blame here.
By the way, two Republicans (Seliger & Kolkhorst) have raised questions about the accuracy of this list and how Whitley’s office responded. The tougher questions are coming from Dems on the committee, though.
Alvarado asked if Whitley is worried about how this list affects Latino voters. Whitley says thats not a factor they looked at in the data they compiled. Also worth noting, three lawsuits recently filed will be tackling this very question too.
Sen. Miles is now asking Whitley about whether the White House had any role in this alleged non-citizen voter removal effort. He said no. Miles is also asking about how much he communicated with the governor’s office about this, which Whitley said he did do.
Sen. Hall, a republican, tells Whitely that he thinks that if he were in the office earlier “things would been done differently” implying that the SOS before him is more to blame in this situation. Some folks in the room clapped at this.
Sen. Menendez is circling back to one of the bigger questions about Whitley’s effort, which is why alert the AG’s office for possible prosecutions if this was just the beginning of a lengthy vetting process of whether there are ineligible voters on the rolls.
Whitley was asked if he thinks his office intimidated eligible voters with his original advisory, he said his office “was sensitive to these issues.”
Whitely, who was appointed to be Texas’ Secretary of State, was asked how he defines “voter suppression.” His first answer was that the question is “irrelevant.” Again this is the state’s elections chief.
Watson is now asking Whitley whether he is willing to tell local officials not to send proof of citizenship letters until all the vetting of this list is done. Whitley says he doesn’t want to “commit” to that.
The Texas Senate nominations committee will be taking a vote on Whitley's confirmation Feb. 14.
