ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to investigating abuses of power. Sign up to receive our greatest stories as soon as they are published.
This article was produced in collaboration with The Texas Tribune and Votebeat. Subscribe to the newsletter from The Texas Tribune and from Let him vote.
Mary Howard-Ely passionately believes that illegal immigration in the US is a critical issue that only former President Donald Trump can solve. She says keeping his border wall and promised mass deportations will make the country safer.
She agrees with Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that Democrats are opening the borders to allow non-citizens to vote, fearing it could end up costing him the election.
Howard-Ely didn’t pay much attention when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott helped spread that narrative by announcing that the state had removed thousands of suspected noncitizens from its rolls, claiming some of them had previously voted.
Then the US citizen found out that she was among them.
The election office in Montgomery County, north of Houston, sent Howard-Eli a letter in late January saying she had been flagged after she indicated she was not a U.S. citizen in response to a grand jury summons. According to the letter, she had 30 days to provide proof of citizenship to the county or she would be removed from the voter rolls.
The retired Transportation Security Administration agent was baffled as to how the county could have come to that conclusion. And she seethed at the idea that anyone would question the citizenship of a former federal employee with “the whitest last name there is.”
“Who allows people to do this to citizens of the United States? I understand we have a problem with immigration, but come on,” Howard-Ely said in an interview.
The 52-year-old woman disputes the county’s claim that she responded to the jury summons by saying she was not a citizen. Instead, Howard-Eli said, she called and asked to be excused from jury duty because of her custodial responsibilities for her three grandchildren.
The Montgomery County County Clerk’s Office, which handles jury duty, did not respond to repeated questions and declined a public records request for Howard-Ely’s response to the grand jury, saying it was exempt from disclosure.
Regardless of how she was labeled as a noncitizen, Howard-Ely wanted to ensure she could vote. She ordered several copies of her certified Louisiana birth certificate and confirmed the receipt with an election official. She thought the matter was settled.
But Howard-Ely’s registration was not renewed, making her the 10th U.S. citizen identified by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune and Votebeat to be removed from the rolls as a potential noncitizen. News organizations tracked them down as part of the investigation which found that Abbott’s claims that the state had removed more than 6,500 non-citizens were likely overstated and, in some cases, wrong.
The 10 US citizens who were removed from the lists represented a range of racial and political backgrounds, and most were removed as a result of human error.
Abbott’s press release gave Republicans a run for their money by warning that non-citizens could vote in large numbers and sway elections, although experts say such cases are extremely rare.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the federal government last weekalleging that the Department of Homeland Security refused to help the state verify the citizenship status of some registered voters. The federal agency offers states access to a database that can be used to check immigration status, but Paxton argued that is insufficient and requires a fee for each check. Ten more states use the database for purposes related to voting.
Neither Abbott nor Paxton responded to questions for this story. DHS has not filed a response to the attorney general’s lawsuit in federal court.
credit:
Danielle Villasano for ProPublica and The Texas Tribune
The Howard-Ely case shows how eligible voters can be removed from the rolls — and how difficult it can be to get back on them.
New here?
we ProPublicaa non-profit independent newsroom with one mission: to hold powerful people accountable. Here’s how we report democracy this election season:
We showed you how
Zik’laga secret organization of wealthy Christians, including the families behind Hobby Lobby and Uline, is spending millions to try to influence elections and change the country.
We are trying something new. Was it helpful?
She didn’t know her registration had been revoked until reporters called her this month. Darla Brooks, Montgomery County’s voter registration manager, told Howard-Ely and news organizations that she was not renewed in March because her birth certificate arrived after the 30-day period she was given to prove her citizenship.
Brooks said on Oct. 14 that Howard-Ely also missed the deadline to register for this year’s election and will not be able to vote.
The election official made a mistake.
Several suffrage lawyers have drawn attention to a state law which says counties must immediately restore voter registrations that were mistakenly canceled. Brooks initially told reporters that the law did not apply to Howard-Ely because the county followed proper procedures in removing her.
But when news organizations asked the same question to the secretary of state’s office, which advises counties on how to comply with election laws, the answer was different.
Agency recommendation for 2021 directs counties to immediately reinstate voters disqualified for failing to respond to notice once they provide proof of citizenship. They can even be renewed at the polling station on election day.
Less than two hours after news organizations sent the secretary of state’s recommendation to Montgomery County, Howard-Ely was back on the list.
“I’m sorry that Montgomery County has to be shown the law to enforce it,” Howard-Ely said. She added that this election would be the first in more than 30 years that she did not vote for the presidency. “I just hope they never do this to anyone else again because it’s not fair.”
Montgomery County Elections Administrator Susie Harvey said her office has never had to deal with a situation like Howard-Ely’s, and while she likely saw the advisory when it was issued, she forgot the specifics. She said her office worked quickly to reinstate Howard-Eli when news organizations flagged the recommendation, and she’s glad Howard-Eli will be able to vote.
“It would be very tragic,” Harvey said.
Not every voter is as stubborn as Howard-Ely, or news organizations are asking persistent questions about how their case was handled.
“Voting shouldn’t be so difficult that you have to be a lawyer or have the skills of a lawyer to be able to vote,” said Nina Perales, vice president of litigation at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
Perales said it would take a “heroic effort” for the average voter to research the electoral law and advocate for their registration to be renewed.
Even then, the decision will depend on how election officials in their district interpret the laws and guidelines.
The three county election officials gave different answers when asked whether they would reinstate a voter in Howard-Ely’s situation, though all stressed they would try to follow the law.
One said the voter should be reinstated. The other two said they would likely reinstate a voter after the registration deadline only if the county made some kind of mistake.
Those differences give “voters in some districts less rights than voters in other districts,” said Emily Abby French, political director of the voting access nonprofit Common Cause Texas.
Howard-Eli said she was concerned about how close she came to losing her chance to vote. If reporters hadn’t called her, Howard-Ely said, she might have been disqualified from the election.
She said she was concerned about whether there were other eligible voters among those listed as noncitizens, and that Abbott should look into whether there were more U.S. citizens among them. The lifelong Republican said state and county officials must be held accountable to prevent more U.S. citizens from being wrongly removed.
“The system is very flawed,” Howard-Ely said. “I am very sad that we found ourselves in this situation. You can think that in 2024 we will not have such problems.”
She intends to cast her vote for Trump.
