Texas’ Chief Elections Officer Ducks Senators’ Questions About Flaws in His Investigation Into Noncitizens Voting

AUSTIN -- Interim Texas Secretary of State David Whitley on Thursday declined to answer many questions senators lobbed at him about his office's controversial request for county election administrators to check on whether tens of thousands of residents may have been noncitizens when they voted in recent decades.When Whitley did respond to queries at his hearing before the Senate Nominations Committee, he often was guarded, saying he's not a data expert and is reluctant to speak because of mounting lawsuits over the checks of voter rolls he launched on Jan. 25.He said state and federal laws require continuous "maintenance" of voter rolls, and his directive for counties to use driver's license information was in compliance with those laws. Deflecting accusations that the timing was suspicious, he said the matching of driver's license and voter records would have happened years earlier had there not been technical problems. He repeatedly said his goal was having the most accurate voting rolls possible.“We have to get this right,” he said. “We owe it to Texas voters.”  Continue reading...