Texas Democrats accuse Gov. Abbott of voter suppression after promotion of voter suspension list
TEXAS - A group of Central Texas Democrats are accusing Governor Greg Abbott of voter suppression.
Earlier this week, Abbott announced the state had removed more than one million people from its voter rolls.
A majority of them are dead, moved out of state, or requested to cancel their registration. About half a million are on the suspension list.
"I don't care what your color is Black, white, brown, Asian, I think everybody wants to see fair elections with the rules followed with no illegal voting," said Abbott.
RELATED: Texas removes over 1M ineligible voters from voter rolls
At a press conference on Thursday, democrats argued there’s nothing wrong with a clean-up of the rolls, but the issue lies in how Abbott is promoting it.
"This is, just as Representative Bucy said, an administrative process that keeps the integrity of our voter rolls up to snuff," said state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt (D-Austin).
There are 463,000 voters on the state’s suspension list. That happens when a county believes a person no longer lives where they are registered to vote.
"Typically, this is because the county mails you your voter registration certificate, a jury summons, or some other correspondence, and it comes back as a return to send or a bad address," said state Rep. John Bucy (D-Austin).
It's an easy fix that requires a quick update to paperwork online or in-person at the polls.
But Bucy said that's not how Abbott is addressing it.
"Unfortunately, what we're seeing right now in the press is people like Governor Greg Abbott are using this information to discourage you from participating in the electoral process, and simply put, this is voter suppression tactics by the governor," said Bucy.
Abbott sees it differently.
"It does suppress not-citizens, it suppresses the votes of dead people, it suppresses the vote of people who moved away from Texas, and no one should be able to complain about that," said Abbott.
Anyone interested in checking voter registration or getting off the suspension list can do so at the Secretary of State website or Vote411.org.