TYLER, Texas — Almost 300 Smith County residents were identified as possible non-U.S. citizens who are registered to vote, according to the Smith County Elections Office.
Smith County Elections Administrator Karen Nelson said the secretary of state's office contacted her office this week regarding the 297 residents who had been identified by the Texas Department of Public Safety.
However, according to the Texas Tribune, after flagging tens of thousands of registered voters for citizenship reviews, the Texas secretary of state’s office is now telling counties that some of those voters don’t belong on the lists it sent out.
"We got the file from the state on Monday," Nelson said. "We are working through the list and looking at each person on the list to see if any of the cases can be resolved by our office before sending the voter a letter of examination.
"We have to send a letter of examination to each person whose case cannot be resolved," Nelson said. "We expect to get the letters sent out by the end of this week."
Last week, the Texas attorney general's office released a statement saying the secretary of state’s office discovered about 95,000 individuals identified by the DPS as non-U.S. citizens who have a matching voter registration record in Texas, and about 58,000 of them voted in one or more Texas elections.
Nelson said the letters being sent by her office will inform the voter the Smith County Elections Office received information questioning their citizenship.
"The person will have 30 days to submit a response and provide a copy of their proof of citizenship, which can be a birth certificate, passport or certificate of naturalization," she said. "If they don't provide the information back to the elections office in 30 days they will be canceled from the voter roll."
She said people will either answer the letter of examination or ignore it, and if it's ignored the office will remove the voter from Smith County's voter rolls and the person will have to vote on a provisional ballot during the next election.
"If someone fails to answer the letter they will be removed from the voter roll," Nelson said. "If they send the proof of citizenship the elections office will mark their file as resolved."
Nelson said if someone sends information that can't be verified or information that looks suspicious the elections office will forward the it to the general counsel.
She said the elections office will make a copy of the voter's proof of citizenship and attach the documentation to the voter's file and mark the case as resolved.
Nelson said she doesn't believe there was a deadline to have information back to the state regarding the 297 people in question.
She said this is the first time the office has been tasked by the state to look at citizenship issues with Smith County voters.
She said she is not aware of any citizenship issues coming up during past elections, but based on the 95,000 people identified by the secretary of state she sees that it is an issue.
She said the 297 people in question in Smith County are among 130,000 registered voters.
Nelson said people who work at the polls are looking at identification and comparing it to the rolls, not looking at or questioning a person's citizenship.
"We work off of the direction of the state and everything on our roll has been approved by the state," she said. "The state has now worked with DPS and flagged the 297 people in Smith County who may not be U.S. citizens."
Nelson went on to say the Smith County voter roll is correct because the elections office has followed the state's directions to register people to vote.
She said prospective voters check a box on the voter registration form saying they are a citizen. To register to vote, prospective voters can come to the elections office to fill out an application or go to vote.texas.gov, fill out the online application and bring it to the office or mail it.
"The voter registration cards get checked at the state," she said. "The state sends them back with a yes or a no and we feel we follow the processes the state requires us to follow and the rolls are accurate within those guidelines."
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Wood County officials reported they will be looking into 21 possible non-U.S. citizens registered to vote, Henderson County reported 90 and Van Zandt County reported 34.
As of 4 p.m. Tuesday, Anderson and Cherokee counties were unable to provide the number of people reported for their counties.
