‘The chilling effect’: behind GOP-led states’ aggressive efforts to stop some from voting

Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, Alabama and Ohio want to scare off voters of color and naturalized citizens, activists say

Earlier this week, Texas governor Greg Abbott sent out a press release with an eye-popping headline: his state had removed more than 1 million people from its voter rolls since 2021. Among them were 6,500 non-citizens. A little under a third of those non-citizens had some sort of voting history in Texas, where there were nearly 18 million registered voters as of March, and were referred to the attorney general for further investigation.

Two days later, the governor's office quietly revised the statement posted online. Instead of saying 6,500 non-citizens had been removed, the updated version said 6,500 potential non-citizens had been removed. Renae Eze, an Abbott spokesperson, said that the statement sent out to an email list of reporters on Monday contained the phrasing potential non-citizens". She did not respond to a query on why the version that was publicly posted initially omitted the word potential".