Greg Abbott signed the 2025 Texas congressional map, which creates five new districts favorable to Republicans and is in use for the 2026 elections after the Supreme Court reversed a ruling that it was likely a racial gerrymander. He signed Senate Bill 1 in 2021; in the 2022 primary, 1 in 7 Texans who asked for a mail ballot saw the request or the ballot itself rejected, a study found.
The secretary of state he appointed, Jane Nelson, gave the Justice Department the full Texas voter roll with driver's license numbers and partial Social Security numbers, and her office's citizenship check flagged 2,724 Texans, some of whom counties found were citizens. In 2024 Abbott said Texas had removed 6,500 noncitizens from the rolls, but the secretary of state's own report identified 581.
Greg Abbott's Election Laws, Map and Voter-Roll Actions
- Abbott Signed a 2025 Congressional Map That Creates Five New Republican-Leaning Districts. On August 29, 2025, Greg Abbott signed House Bill 4, a new congressional map drawn in the middle of the decade after he put redistricting on a special-session agenda; it creates five new districts favorable to Republicans, CBS News reported. A three-judge federal panel blocked the map in November 2025, finding substantial evidence of racial gerrymandering and citing statements that suggested the map-drawer worked to eliminate districts where Black and Latino voters together are a majority, NPR reported; the Supreme Court summarily reversed that ruling on April 27, 2026, and Texas is using the map for the 2026 elections.
- Abbott Signed the 2021 Election Law Under Which 1 in 7 Texans Who Requested a Mail Ballot Had the Application or the Ballot Rejected in the 2022 Primary. On September 7, 2021, Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 1, which overhauled mail-in and assisted voting in Texas; on August 13, 2026 the Fifth Circuit restored provisions a lower court had struck down, so its mail-ballot ID rules apply in the 2026 election. Research published in 2022 found that in that year's primary, 1 in 7 Texans who requested a mail ballot had the application or the ballot rejected after SB 1 took effect, Votebeat and the Texas Tribune reported.
- Abbott's Appointed Secretary of State Gave the Justice Department Texas's Full Voter Roll. Jane Nelson, whom Greg Abbott appointed secretary of state on January 5, 2023, sent the Justice Department the state's complete voter roll for about 18.4 million registered Texans, her office told Votebeat and the Texas Tribune in January 2026; the data included each voter's birth date, driver's license number and partial Social Security number, and Texas signed the department's data agreement when it handed the file over. Correspondence from mid-2026 showed the Justice Department passing voter records to the Department of Homeland Security for use in immigration enforcement, and on October 9, 2026 a federal judge ruled that the department's practice of collecting state voter lists to check against the SAVE citizenship database "violates voter privacy and illegally intrudes on states' authority over elections," the Brennan Center reported.
- A Citizenship Check by Abbott's Appointee Flagged 2,724 Texas Voters, Some of Them Citizens. The office of Abbott's appointed secretary of state began running Texas voters through the federal SAVE database in 2025, and the state said the check turned up 2,724 possible noncitizens on the rolls, Votebeat reported through Texas Public Radio on June 2, 2026. County election officials later found that some of the flagged voters were citizens, and hundreds of those flagged had registered at the Texas Department of Public Safety, where applicants must prove citizenship with a document such as a passport; voting rights groups have sued over the checks at least twice.
- Abbott Limited Every Texas County to One Ballot Drop-Off Site in the 2020 Election. On October 1, 2020, Greg Abbott ordered that counties could offer only one site where voters could hand in their completed mail ballots, after large counties including Harris and Travis had set up several; a federal appeals court let the order stand, the Texas Tribune reported. Harris County, with 2.4 million registered voters, had set up a dozen drop-off sites and had to close most of them; civil rights groups said the order would fall hardest on low-income voters, voters with disabilities and older voters.
- Abbott Claimed Texas Removed 6,500 Noncitizens From Its Rolls; His Own Election Office Counted 581. On August 26, 2024, Greg Abbott's office announced that Texas had taken more than 1 million ineligible voters off its rolls, more than 6,500 of them noncitizens, then edited the release to call them "potential" noncitizens, ProPublica, the Texas Tribune and Votebeat found. The secretary of state's own report to Abbott identified 581 people as noncitizens, and the reporters located at least nine citizens in three Texas counties who had been wrongly marked as noncitizens or dropped from the rolls after not answering letters about their citizenship; Abbott did not respond to their requests for comment.
What Greg Abbott's Election Choices Mean for Texas Voters
- Private data on 18 million Texas voters is in federal hands. Texas is among only 15 states that handed the Justice Department the full voter roll, so identifying information on about 18 million registered Texans now sits with a department that shares voter records with immigration enforcement, Votebeat reported.
- Texans who vote by mail face ID rules in 2026. Mail-in ballots in Texas are subject to the added SB 1 requirements for the 2026 election after the appeals court ruling, which also restored voter-assistance provisions that had been challenged over accessibility concerns.
Frequently Asked Questions About Greg Abbott on Voting rights
What is Greg Abbott's record on voting rights under Trump?
Greg Abbott signed the 2025 mid-decade congressional map that Texas is using in 2026 and the 2021 election law tied to the rejection of the application or the ballot of 1 in 7 mail-ballot applicants in the 2022 primary. His appointed secretary of state handed the Justice Department the Texas voter file with partial Social Security numbers, and her office flagged thousands of voters as possible noncitizens, some of them citizens.
Did Greg Abbott's administration give Texas voters' personal data to the Trump administration?
Yes. Greg Abbott's appointed secretary of state, Jane Nelson, sent the Justice Department the Texas voter file, and the Brennan Center lists Texas among the states that turned over complete files including license and Social Security numbers. Abbott then named his senior aide Robert Howden to run Texas elections when Nelson left in July 2026.
Were U.S. citizens removed from Texas voter rolls under Greg Abbott?
Yes. Greg Abbott announced in August 2024 that Texas had removed thousands of noncitizens from its rolls, and reporters later located U.S. citizens who had been taken off the rolls in that review after missing letters about their citizenship; each showed reporters a birth certificate.
Last updated: 2026-10-26