How does Ellis County keep watch for ineligible voters?

ELLIS COUNTY – Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced recently he has removed more than one million ineligible voters from voter rolls in the past few years.

From a local standpoint Jana Onyon, Ellis County Elections Administrator, explained how her office handles voter registration in Ellis County.

“I can speak to what we do in our office, which is according to the election code on how to process a voter,” said Onyon.

“When a voter fills out the registration form, they must answer the question, ‘Are you a U.S. Citizen’ and if yes, they are entered into the voter registration system. 

“If ‘No’, then they are sent a letter stating they are not eligible to vote. 

“Once entered into the Ellis County system their information is submitted to the state system.

“The TEAM system has to verify the voter before they become an active voter. If they don’t get an active status, the state will let us know what is not matching with the database system and then we will contact the voter for more information.” 

Onyon said, “Every potential voter gets compared to multiple statewide department database systems to verify citizenship status.” 

Last week Abbott announced that since he had signed Senate Bill 1 into law in 2021, Texas has removed over one million people from the state’s voter rolls, including people who moved out-of-state, are deceased, and are noncitizens. 

“Election integrity is essential to our democracy,” Abbott said. 

“I have signed the strongest election laws in the nation to protect the right to vote and to crackdown on illegal voting. 

A media release from Abbott’s office stated, “The Secretary of State and county voter registrars have an ongoing legal requirement to review the voter rolls, remove ineligible voters, and refer any potential illegal voting to the Attorney General’s Office and local authorities for investigation and prosecution.

“Illegal voting in Texas will never be tolerated. We will continue to actively safeguard Texans’ sacred right to vote while also aggressively protecting our elections from illegal voting.”

The media release indicated of the more than 6,500 potential noncitizens removed from the voter rolls, approximately 1,930 have a voter history. 

The Secretary of State’s office is in the process of sending all 1,930 records to the Attorney General’s Office for investigation and potential legal action. 

To continue to safeguard the state against illegal voting, last year Abbott also signed House Bill 1243, increasing the penalty for illegal voting, including voting by noncitizens, to a second-degree felony.