TX Poll: Majority—Including 40% of Latinos—Believe Non-Citizens Vote

A majority of voters in Texas—including 40% of Latinos—believe that non-citizens vote in elections either “sometimes” or “frequently,” according to a University of Texas/Texas Tribune survey released on Wednesday.

The poll found that 55% of white voters, 48% of black voters, and 40% of Hispanic voters believe that non-citizens “vote sometimes or frequently” in state elections.

Though 68% of Texas Democrats believe that non-citizens vote either “never” or “rarely” in state elections, even 22% of Texas Democrats said they think non-citizens vote either “sometimes” or “frequently.”

Among Republicans, 76% believe non-citizens vote “sometimes or frequently” while only 16% believe non-citizens “rarely” or “never” vote.

In January, Texas Secretary of State David Whitley revealed that “roughly 95,000 individuals identified as non-U.S. citizens by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) are registered to vote and, 58,000 of those, 61 percent, voted at least once” between 1996 and 2018.

The poll also found that black voters were most likely to say that eligible voters “are frequently or sometimes prevented from voting”—68% of blacks agreed with that statement along with 49% of Hispanics and 38% of whites.

The University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll of registered voters, released this week, was conducted Feb. 15-24 and has a margin of error of +/- 2.83 percentage points.