A new poll shows that most likely Texas voters, including majorities of Republicans and Democrats, support requiring proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote.
According to Heritage Action, which commissioned the poll, Texas voters strongly supported strengthening “citizen verification and election transparency.” Majorities across parties also supported “key election integrity reforms.”
The survey of 1,409 likely Texas voters was conducted October 10–15 through live calls, online panels, and automated telephone interviews, with a reported margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.61 percentage points.
Poll results show that 82 percent of voters statewide support requiring individuals to provide proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote. This includes 94 percent of Republicans, 83 percent of Independents, and 66 percent of Democrats.
“Texans across the political spectrum agree American elections should be decided by American citizens,” said Stefani Buhajla, Heritage Action’s senior communications director. “Election integrity and voter access do not have to be competing goals. Texas can make it easy to vote, and hard to cheat.”
The poll also revealed bipartisan support for requiring agencies to correct voter records, showing citizenship status on state-issued identification, and mandating that the secretary of state report annually how many voter registrations were removed due to ineligibility.
The question about allowing individuals whose citizenship could not be verified to cast provisional ballots was the only election-policy question that did not draw majority support from both Republicans and Democrats.
More than 65 percent of Republicans questioned opposed the idea, while 56 percent of Democrats supported it.
The poll also asked respondents if they would vote for Republican Ken Paxton or Democrat James Talarico for U.S. Senate.
More than 80 percent of Republicans said they would vote for Paxton and 10 percent for Talarico. Nine percent said that they were undecided.
Ninety percent of Democrats said that they would vote for Talarico, while 3 percent said they would vote for Paxton.
More than 50 percent of Republicans said that they plan to vote early in the midterm elections, with 32 percent saying they will wait to vote on Election Day.
