A coalition of voting and civil rights organizations, including the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), is suing the state of Texas over its voter review process, alleging that the state relied on flawed data and unfair methods to flag and potentially remove eligible voters from registration rolls.
The lawsuit targets a process initiated by the Texas Secretary of State’s Office in October 2025, when Secretary of State Jane Nelson said the office had compared the state’s voter registration list of over 18 million voters against the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database.
The comparison identified 2,724 registered voters as potential noncitizens, and counties were instructed to investigate their eligibility. It remains unclear whether any voters have actually been removed from the rolls, and the Secretary of State’s Office declined to comment.
The plaintiffs argue that Texas relied on outdated and unreliable data that can wrongly flag eligible voters, particularly naturalized citizens, as noncitizens.
A 2025 report from the Brennan Center for Justice noted that the SAVE database can be incomplete and warned that states using it to maintain voter rolls risk inaccuracy and privacy violations, including the wrongful removal of eligible voters. The lawsuit also claims that Texas failed to cross-check its own records, such as driver’s license data, which could confirm citizenship.
According to the complaint, counties received little guidance on verifying voter eligibility, resulting in inconsistent practices; some voters were asked to prove citizenship on short notice or face removal from the rolls.
The lawsuit requests that a federal judge bar Texas from using the SAVE database for voter verification and require stronger safeguards to protect voters, including restoring anyone improperly removed. The SAVE database, created in 1986 to verify immigration status for federally funded benefits, has recently undergone a federal overhaul to become a nationwide system for verifying noncitizen status.
