Senate Bill 16 would create new barriers for voters and new burdens for election officials.
In a quick vote after little debate, the Texas Senate approved a bill that would require voters to provide proof of citizenship before registering and would restrict them to voting in congressional races only if they do not.
The bill, a Republican legislative priority, still needs approval in the state House before it can become law. It would cost state officials nearly $2 million over the next five years to implement, according to the bill’s fiscal note, which doesn’t include any costs expected to be borne by local election officials.
Senate Bill 16, written by state Sen. Bryan Hughes, and supported by all Senate Republicans, is modeled after an Arizona law that requires proof of citizenship to vote in state and local elections, but there are some important differences.
For one thing, it would apply to already registered voters in Texas, rather than just new applicants. It would bar voters who don’t provide citizenship proof from voting in presidential elections, as well as state and local ones — a provision that federal courts have so far blocked in Arizona. And it prescribes new duties for local election officials to continually check the citizenship status of voters on their rolls — with potential felony charges for lapses.
The Republican lawmakers are responding to a nationwide GOP campaign to raise alarm about the threat of noncitizen voting, even though it doesn’t occur in significant numbers.
“Most Texans have already proven their citizenship when they got their driver’s license, but the feds have not allowed us to do this for voter registration. Senate Bill 16 will address that,” Hughes said Tuesday during a Senate floor debate on the bill. Hughes said the process for voters would be “seamless.”
But voting rights advocates say the bill could create a new barrier to voting for Texas’ more than 18 million registered voters and could diminish the rights of eligible voters who are not able to provide documents proving their U.S. citizenship.
“This is going to upend the way we do elections here in Texas,” Elisabeth MacNamara, advocacy chair for the League of Women Voters of Texas, told Votebeat. “This is a huge burden on voters. It’s also a huge burden on election administrators and we already don’t over-resource our elections so this is going to make things a whole lot worse.”
If approved by the Legislature, the new law would go into effect in September. Some election officials are concerned that the bill’s requirements will confuse voters.
“It’s not enough time to get everyone familiar with the requirements. We have a primary in March” of 2026, said Jennifer Doinoff, president of the Texas Association of County Election Officials. “It could create a huge influx in provisional ballots.”
Doinoff said election officials across the state are still trying to understand how the bill will be implemented. Among unanswered questions is how the process will work for Texans who vote by mail. In Texas, only elderly voters, people with disabilities, and those who are away from their county on Election Day, including members of the military, can cast ballots by mail. The bill doesn’t address that, she said.
In addition, election officials are asking legislators to consider including a backup option, such as an affidavit voters can sign if they can’t provide proof of citizenship. “We use something similar to that at the polls for voters who can’t provide an ID,” she said.
What the state would need to do to implement the change
If passed, the sweeping bill will require much work and additional resources. It directs the Texas Secretary of State’s Office to, by the end of the year, send all counties lists of already-registered voters who had not provided proof of citizenship prior to September 2025. Election officials would then have to document every effort made to check for such proof.
If they can’t verify that a voter is a U.S. citizen, they would have to notify the person that they are permitted to vote only a “federal limited ballot” unless they can provide proof. A voter who has provided proof before or has been verified as a U.S. citizen wouldn’t have to provide proof when updating or changing their registration information.
According to the bill’s fiscal note, the Texas Secretary of State’s Office would need a modification to the state’s voter registration management system in order to record whether a person has submitted evidence of citizenship, since the system currently isn’t set up to do so.
The state has estimated the cost of that at $578,931 in 2026 and $84,000 per fiscal year thereafter, the fiscal note says.
In addition, the Secretary of State’s Office said it would need two additional staff members to conduct citizenship verification reviews and to coordinate with county voter registrars. The two positions would be paid $70,662 per year, and benefits and other costs for both positions would cost around $45,000 per year. The agency also estimates that the positions would require roughly $16,000 in setup costs in 2026.
The agency declined to comment.
Opponents question why the bill is needed
Last month, during a two-hour public hearing on the bill, more than 200 people signed up to oppose it and many testified against it. Twenty-six people supported it, including people from across the state who identified as Republicans.
Some Senate Democrats Tuesday pressed Hughes on why the bill was necessary and warned that it would set up the state for legal battles, much as it has in Arizona. Hughes denied that would happen.
In arguing that the bill isn’t necessary, Sen. Carol Alvarado, a Houston Democrat, cited the findings of an investigation by Votebeat, ProPublica and the Texas Tribune that showed an announcement from Gov. Greg Abbott about noncitizens removed from the state’s voter rolls inflated, and in some cases misstated, the numbers.
Alvarado also said the bill could become cumbersome for local election officials and lead to voter confusion.
Hughes said there would be “plenty of time” to prepare ahead of next year’s elections and said he believes many Texans have already shown proof of citizenship while obtaining a driver’s license. Election officials will be able to verify others, he said. “So we’re talking about a relatively small group of people,” Hughes said.
Which documents would be accepted as citizenship proof?
Under the legislation, voters could prove their citizenship by providing any of the following:
- a copy of a U.S. passport;
- a passport card;
- a certified copy of a birth certificate issued by a U.S. state or territory;
- “United States citizenship papers”;
- identification issued by the U.S. agency responsible for citizenship and immigration; or
- for citizens born outside the U.S., a consular report of birth abroad.
The list does not include tribal documents, which Arizona does accept. Anyone who shows up to the polls who has yet to provide proof of citizenship will have six days to provide it in order for their full ballot to count. If a voter does not provide it, only the federal races will be counted.
A big part of the bill is new duties and burdens for election officials and others who manage voter registration. Deputy registrars — volunteers who work at voter registration drives — would have to notify people registering to vote that they must present documented proof of citizenship to their local county registrar. In addition to checking for proof themselves and documenting their efforts, local election officials would have to report the names of voters who have not provided proof to the state attorney general. And they would be subject to potential criminal penalties, including jail time, for knowingly registering an applicant without first verifying that they are citizens.
The provision requiring already registered voters to prove their citizenship could affect voters who registered prior to the 2002 Help America Vote Act, which created voter identification procedures, and the 2005 Real ID Act, which requires people obtaining a state-issued ID or driver’s license to provide proof of citizenship or proof of lawful presence in the U.S.
Source: Natalia Contreras, Votebeat & The Texas Tribune
Photo Credit: Voters visit the White Oak Community Center during the first day of early voting on Oct. 21, 2024. Credit: Michael Cavazos for The Texas Tribune
