Fact Check: Have 1.2M People in Texas Registered to Vote Without Photo ID?

On April 2, End Wokeness, a conservative X account with 2.4 million followers, made a post claiming that since the beginning of the year, 1,250,710 people had registered to vote in Texas without showing a photo ID—which, it suggested, was linked to illegal immigration.

The post also said 580,513 people in Pennsylvania and 220,731 people in Arizona—two key swing states—had registered to vote without a photo ID this year.

The X post received more than 24,000 reposts and 53,000 likes, and it was viewed 61.7 million times by other users on the platform. It also attracted the attention of X owner Elon Musk, who commented, "Extremely concerning."

The claims have been denied by Texas' Republican Secretary of State Jane Nelson and Arizona's Stephen Richer, the Republican recorder of Maricopa County.

Irregular migration across the U.S.-Mexico border has increased over the past few years, with a record 2.4 million encounters recorded during the 2023 fiscal year, up from about 1.7 million in 2021. A recent poll found that 68 percent of American adults disapproved of Biden's migration policy versus 31 percent who were in favor.

The Claim

In the viral post, the End Wokeness account wrote: "H O L Y S * * *

"The number of voters registering without a photo ID is SKYROCKETING in 3 key swing states:

"Arizona, Texas, and Pennsylvania.

"Since the start of 2024:

"TX: 1,250,710
"PA: 580,513
"AZ: 220,731

"HAVV allows voters to register with a Social Security Number (4 digits).

"Illegals are not able to get licenses there. But they can get Social Security Cards (for work authorization permits)."

HAVV refers to Help America Vote Verification, a voter registration program introduced under the 2002 Help America Vote Act, which is designed to boost election turnout. Under its terms, an individual seeking to register is asked to provide the state election agency with their driver's license number. If they don't have one, they can instead submit the last four digits of their Social Security number.

The Facts

In a statement published on April 3, Nelson—who, as secretary of state, is responsible for elections in Texas—said the figure given by End Wokeness for the Lone Star State was incorrect.

"It is totally inaccurate that 1.2 million voters have registered to vote in Texas without a photo ID this year. The truth is our voter rolls have increased by 57,711 voters since the beginning of 2024," Nelson said.

"When Texans register to vote, they must provide a driver license number or a Social Security number. When an individual registers to vote with just a SSN, the state verifies that the SSN is authentic. While federal law allows individuals to register to vote without a photo ID, Texans must actually show proof of ID to vote," she continued.

Nelson also said the 1.2 million figure from the federal Social Security Administration was "supposed to report the number of times states have asked to verify an individual's social security number" rather than the number of voters registered without an ID, as stated in the viral post. She also said the figure was "clearly incorrect" and that work was underway "to determine why there is such a large discrepancy."

In an X post directed to Musk, Richer said there was "0 validity to the suggestion in the original post that 220,731 illegal immigrants have registered in Arizona in 2024."

He added that "about 60,000" new voters had registered since the start of 2024 across the entire state.

Richer also said there were "about 30,000" voters in total across Arizona on a "Federal Only" list—which is made up of voters who, "under penalty of law," say they are citizens but cannot provide documentary proof of this.

Richer added that "most studies" showed this number was disproportionately made up of college-aged students, who might not have "ready access to a birth certificate."

In response to a comment request from Newsweek, the 'End Wokeness' account said: "The United States is one of the only democracies on earth that does not have a national ID requirement in order to vote.

"It is deeply concerning that ANYONE is registering to vote without a photo ID, especially given that many states allow mass mail-in ballots, drop boxes, and ballot harvesting. We have millions of illegal immigrants throughout the country, many of whom are receiving Social Security number from the government for their work authorization permits.

"The high number of Social Security 'transactions' in these key swing states is deeply troubling, especially if you look at the numbers in Texas. In one single week in March, over 277k of these 'transactions' were done in Texas- out of roughly 380k throughout the entire country.

"Why aren't journalists looking into these eyebrow-raising government statistics instead of fact-checking me on semantics?"

Newsweek has not independently verified the claims made by 'End Wokeness' in the above statement.

The Ruling

False.

The claims made by the End Wokeness account are clearly false and have been denied by informed authorities in both Texas and Arizona.

The suggestion that 1.2 million people registered to vote in Texas without providing photographic ID since the beginning of 2024 has no basis in fact and is highly implausible for a state with a population of about 30 million people.

FACT CHECK BY NEWSWEEK

Update 04/04/24 5:45 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with comment from the 'End Wokeness' X account.