Many factors contributed to Texas turning blue in the midterm elections, including strong Black voter turnout and massive swings away from Trump’s GOP by young and Latino voters. The Senate race pitted appealing young state legislator seminarian James Talarico against the grotesquely corrupt Ken Paxton. Progressive organizers have been engaged in long-term movement-building work.
But according to religious-right activist Mat Staver, the real culprit was illegal voting by noncitizens. Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, made this evidence-free assertion in an email to supporters on Thursday:
Only ONE state in the entire nation required citizens to prove they are citizens before registering to vote in last week’s midterm elections.
And Texas’ failure to do so just turned the Free State of Texas into a Democrat stronghold led by a deranged seminary student (James Talarico) who claims that God is transgender.
In other parts of his letter, Staver uses somewhat less categorial language, saying that illegal voters “may” and “might” be the reason for the state’s shift, but his insinuation is clear: “And if you believe Talarico beat his well-known Texan Republican opponent, Ken Paxton, by 1,195,609 legal votes, the Democrats might have a bridge to sell you.”
Staver’s letter does not acknowledge any of the real reasons the state, like most of the rest of the country, shifted strongly away from MAGA Republicans. Or that Paxton’s being well-known was actually a liability, given that his amorality was equally well-known.
Staver’s letter made the bogus claim that “38 states will allow illegal aliens to vote in 2028,” and warned that if “we want to save America from destruction from within, we must pass the Save America Act to stop this nation-destroying insanity.”
Staver is urging Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Senate Republicans to suspend the filibuster rule just long enough to pass the voter-suppressing SAVE America Act during the lame-duck Congress. And he wants his supporters to pay Liberty Counsel to send faxes making that demand to congressional leaders—or for $69 to the whole Republican caucus. Staver also asks for contributions, saying that “a special Defend the Gospel Challenge Grant” will double any gifts.
People For the American Way and a broad coalition of democracy-defending groups oppose the SAVE America Act, which People For calls “a sweeping voter suppression bill pushed by Donald Trump and the Far Right” that “would impose rigid proof of citizenship requirements to register, dismantle mail-in and online voter registration, mandate restrictive photo ID rules nationwide, and trigger aggressive voter roll purges.”
