Alarm as Texas quietly restarts controversial voting program

Texas officials have quietly restarted a controversial program to ask people on the voter rolls to prove their citizenship, sparking alarm that thousands of eligible voters could be wrongfully targeted.

But election officials in Harris county, the most populous in the state, are concerned about the accuracy of the data being used to challenge voters.

In Cameron county, along the US-Mexico border, election officials have sent out 246 letter since September, almost all to people with Hispanic surnames, according to the Texas Monthly, which first reported the program restarted. About 60 people have been cancelled so far.

Voting rights groups say they are trying to better understand the process the state is using, but are concerned eligible voters are getting targeted.

But Buser-Clancy noted that those who were able to affirm their citizenship likely only represented a fraction of the eligible voters who were probably affected.