AUSTIN, Texas (FOX 7 Austin) - Secretary of State David Whitley has submitted a letter of resignation to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, according to the governor’s office. Whitley has been under fire since the release of a flawed voter fraud list earlier this year.
Whitley, a former top aide of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, could not stay in office unless the Texas Senate confirmed his nomination before the session ended Monday. They did not.
Whitley's office rolled out a bungled scouring of voter rolls that flagged nearly 100,000 voters as potential noncitizens earlier this year. President Donald Trump seized on the news out of Texas to renew his unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud, but within days, it became clear the data used was deeply flawed. The botched search reignited tensions over voting rights in Texas.
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