Elon Musk helped publicize a declare that “illegals” are registering to vote in a number of U.S. states on Tuesday. However, like so a lot of Musk’s tweets on X lately, the billionaire’s fearmongering crumbles below the smallest quantity of scrutiny. And on this case, the state of Texas is looking bullshit.
“The variety of voters registering with no picture ID is SKYROCKETING in 3 key swing states: Arizona, Texas, and Pennsylvania,” the account Finish Wokeness tweeted on Tuesday.
The account claimed that Texas added 1,250,710 new voters by means of this system, Pennsylvania added 580,513, and Arizona added 220,731. However that merely isn’t true, a minimum of in accordance with Texas state officers.
The Finish Wokeness account added that Assist America Vote Verification (HAVV), a program that helps confirm voter identification by means of central databases, “permits voters to register with a Social Safety Quantity (4 digits),” falsely claiming that, “Illegals are usually not capable of get licenses there. However they’ll get Social Safety Playing cards (for work authorization permits).”
Musk helped give the tweet extra visibility, including “extraordinarily regarding,” to a quote-tweet of the false claim. However Texas is disputing the declare.
“It’s completely inaccurate that 1.2 million voters have registered to vote in Texas with no picture ID this 12 months,” Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson mentioned in an announcement printed on-line on Wednesday. “The reality is our voter rolls have elevated by 57,711 voters for the reason that starting of 2024. That is lower than the variety of folks registered in the identical timeframe in 2022 (about 65,000) and in 2020 (about 104,000).”
“When Texans register to vote, they have to present a driver’s license quantity or a Social Safety quantity. When a person registers to vote with only a SSN, the state verifies that the SSN is genuine,” Nelson continued.
Nelson additionally famous the assorted safeguards in place to verify solely eligible voters are casting a poll, whereas additionally explaining that details about the variety of occasions states have requested to confirm a social safety quantity is perhaps incorrect on the federal program’s web site.
“Whereas federal regulation permits people to register to vote with no picture ID, Texans should truly present proof of ID to vote. The 1.2 million determine comes from the Social Safety Administration’s (SSA) web site, which is meant to report the variety of occasions states have requested to confirm a person’s social safety quantity. The SSA quantity is clearly incorrect, and we’re working now to find out why there may be such a giant discrepancy,” Nelson mentioned.
Musk’s misinformation has triggered a minimum of one potential legislator in Texas to name for a particular session of the legislature to deal with voting safety, in accordance with Jasper Scherer, a politics reporter on the Texas Tribune.
“The Governor must name an instantaneous particular session on election safety,” Texas State Consultant candidate David Lowe tweeted on Tuesday.
Texas must name a particular session this 12 months if the legislature needs to deal with something in 2024 because it solely meets each different 12 months. Montana, Nevada, and North Dakota are the one states with legislatures that additionally meet simply as soon as each two years.
However don’t count on Musk’s misinformation on X to get corrected anytime quickly. The billionaire constructed himself a secure house the place he spews invective about immigrants, even after a video surfaced that appeared to point out Musk admitting he was maybe stretching the limits of his visa when he got here to the U.S. and began his firm Zip2. Or, as his brother Kimbal Musk put it, the 2 males have been unlawful immigrants.
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