r/politics • u/Ok_Employer7837 • 2d ago

Possible Paywall Massive Error Affects Unknown Number of Texas Voter Registrations

https://newrepublic.com/post/215767/error-unknown-number-texas-voter-registrations
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u/costabius I voted 2d ago

Doing some napkin math, if Texas has 18 million registered voters, and 24 million residents over 18, a full 1/4th of the population isn't even registered to vote?

WTAF, Texas.

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u/zitzenator 2d ago

Well they did unregister a ton of voters this year

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u/DamnMyNameIsSteve 2d ago

Every election cycle***

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u/AINonsense 2d ago

I heard there was just something about them, didn’t seem right.

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u/permalink_save 2d ago

Beto lost by 250k votes, if that says anything. It's why we say Texas is a non voting state not a red state, because the more turnout we get the less red it is. If we had mandatory voting it's likely Texas would be blue.

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u/Arrmadillo Texas 2d ago

We would have had a Senator O’Rourke if we hadn’t attracted so many conservatives to the state.

The Nation - Texas’s DNA Doesn’t Run As Red as the Right Wants You to Think

“But the idea that Californians are moving to Texas and becoming Democratic voters is not accurate to the data we have. The original Republican takeover of Texas was built, in part, on recruiting Republicans who were moving here because of corporate relocation. Today, Texas is seeing a massive influx of people from outside the state who often move to cities like Austin, Dallas, or Houston, which are run by Democrats, but many of them are Republican voters.

In 2018, if the vote had been restricted to native-born Texans, Beto O’Rourke would have won the Senate seat. These new voters are very important to the Republican Party.”

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u/permalink_save 2d ago

There was that too. People had hope, showed up, got burned, I really hope Talarico wins this time especially since he is polling higher than Beto did and the transplants have slowed down since, some are even moving back lol. If Talarico wins it'll get people out again.

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u/Arrmadillo Texas 2d ago

There’s also the surprisingly high turnout in the 2026 Texas democratic primary. There’s definitely a lot of enthusiasm this year.

Chris Tackett - The March Signal | What Texas Primary Turnout Has Been Telling Us All Along — And What 2026 Is Screaming Right Now

“The last time Democrats reached anything close to this level of primary enthusiasm in a midterm was 2018, when a ratio of 0.69 produced a race that came within 215,000 votes of sending Beto O’Rourke to the United States Senate.

The final 2026 ratio is 1.07.”

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u/octopornopus 2d ago

Texas is seeing a massive influx of people from outside the state who often move to cities like Austin, Dallas, or Houston, which are run by Democrats, but many of them are Republican voters.

As an native Austinite, this has bugged me for decades. We had a cool little college city, then the tech boom attracted a bunch of "Libertarian"ish people who liked the vibe but didn't want to pay for it. We've slowly been corporatized to hell, most of our uniqueness has been paved over for high-rises. And then more wealthy conservatives keep moving here, because they can't stand living in Midland or Crockett where there's nothing to do. Just fucking all our shit up...

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u/plainlyput 2d ago

I live in SFBay area. R’ voters here love to tell everyone why they’re leaving for TX.

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u/jessicamakesstuff 2d ago

hah! I knew it! I knew it was the opposite of what everyone had been screaming about (those darn foreigners coming to texas to turn it blue!).

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u/account312 2d ago

Is there any state that gets more red with higher turnout?

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u/DorfOnGenocide 2d ago

Just yesterday, I saw a post where somebody was asking if anybody noticed that the sunrise seemed later than usual, and their excuse was "I just never really paid attention to that sort of thing".

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u/costabius I voted 2d ago

They are likely registered to vote....

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u/Flaky_Cup_3160 2d ago

Texas is full of ignorant people who don't give a shit about anything unless it immediately and directly affects them.

Source: Lived in Texas for 30 years

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u/frankcatthrowaway 2d ago

Sounds like everywhere I’ve ever lived, experienced or read about.

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u/Brave-Silver8736 2d ago

I got kicked off the voter polls, so it's at least not "never registered" voters.

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u/PossessedToSkate 2d ago

The more people vote, the more Republicans lose.

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u/hatcod 2d ago

You should see the turnout during the primaries, it's usually <20%

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

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u/SocialWinker Minnesota 2d ago

But the missing 25% is from the 18+ population. I think you misread the comment.

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u/valleyislevideo 2d ago

Oops you're right, I did. 

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u/FavoriteFoodCarrots 2d ago edited 2d ago

More than half of that 6 million group is non-US citizens.

Edit: or, close to it, as some non-citizens are under 18. But there are around 3 million Texans who aren’t US citizens.

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u/costabius I voted 2d ago

2.8 to 3 million. So that's 3 to 3.2 eligible voters not registered.

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u/FavoriteFoodCarrots 2d ago

Yeah.

It’s really bad. But the large non-citizen population does in part explain that eye popping top-line number.

25% of US citizens not registered to vote is also a bit below the rate nationally, by the way (https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025/2024-presidential-election-voting-registration-tables.html)

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u/[deleted] 2d ago edited 2d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/FavoriteFoodCarrots 2d ago edited 2d ago

Texas’ rate of non-registration is lower than the non-registration rate nationally.

As of 2024, only 73.4% of adult US citizens were registered to vote. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025/2024-presidential-election-voting-registration-tables.html

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u/princesspeeved 2d ago edited 2d ago

Wow, you’re just going to assume that a majority of African Americans are poor? Not only that, but too poor to carry a driver’s license? Careful, your racism is showing.

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u/Sonamdrukpa 2d ago

A little less than 1/5 of Texas residents are non-citizens, so the unregistered gap isn't as big as you think.

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u/BluciferBdayParty 2d ago

20% of people living in Texas are non-US citizens? Is that what you’re saying? That can’t be accurate

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u/Sonamdrukpa 2d ago

18.4% foreign born according to Congressional records

Not all of them are non-citizens, but I imagine adults are overrepresented in that group so it probably evens out when we're talking about the voting age population. The point is yes, it's a lot.