Well, that didn’t take long. One day after a list of 95,000 Texans suspected of being registered to vote despite being non-citizens was brandished by Donald Trump as a sign of Very Bad Things, the Texas secretary of state’s office admitted that there are big problems with the list (which grew to 98,000 from its original 95,000). The secretary of state’s office told counties not to run out and start demanding proof of citizenship from people on the list, since a lot of people don’t belong on it—they became citizens before registering to vote.
Cameron County elections administrator Remi Garza said that the secretary of state’s office notified him Tuesday morning that the number of non-citizens registered to vote “may have been overstated.” That “may have been overstated” was definitely understated: 300 out of 1,500 people on the Cameron County list shouldn’t have been there.
The state has told counties not to start sending out letters demanding proof of citizenship, which is big of them. But of course this news didn’t come until Trump had already used the flawed number as fodder for one of his favorite conspiracy theories.