Election officials slam school for bolstering voter registration ID claims for 'obviously false'

Elon Musk dubbed an X/Twitter post “extremely disturbingAfter he claimed that large numbers of voters were registering in the US without IDs, but election officials in Texas and Arizona were quick to call him out for spreading misinformation.

The Positioncreated by one of Musk's favorite accounts @EndWokeness (far-right Tesla CEO account he answers to nonstop), stated that “the number of voters without photo ID is soaring in 3 key states: Arizona, Texas, and Pennsylvania.”

The bill cited data released by the Social Security Administration (SSA) as part of the Help America Vote Verification program, which was created in 2004 to help states with voter registration. Whenever a state registers a new voter who provides only a name, date of birth and Social Security number — in other words, no driver's license or other photo ID — the data is submitted to the SSA for verification.

Post X reported that data showed that more than two million voter IDs in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Texas had been verified with the SSA since early 2024, suggesting that “illegals can't get licenses there. But they can get Social Security Cards (for work authorizations).”

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer tweeted Musk's post with an eight-part response, offering the billionaire a clearer picture behind how voter data is processed and presented. (Richer is a registered Republican and a self-described “owner of many, many Musk-related products,” according to his post.)

“Only 39,653 new voters are registered in Maricopa County in 2024 overall. For Arizona, that number is about 60,000,” Richer said.

Richer further explained that Arizona requires proof of citizenship to register to vote, and while it can use social security numbers to verify proof of identity, it places them on a “federal only” list (meaning they have only provided federal identification material instead of a state driver's license or ID) — with only about 30,000 voters across Arizona on that list.

“Most studies show that these people are disproportionately college-aged women (perhaps who don't have ready access to a birth certificate),” Richer said. “But the suggestion in the original post that 220,731 illegal immigrants are registered in Arizona in 2024 is not true.”

Jane Nelson, Texas Secretary of State, too issued a statement on Wednesdaycalling the data from the Social Security Administration “obviously wrong” and saying an investigation is underway to determine why “there is such a large discrepancy.”

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

Nelson went on to say that number is down from the previous two election years, when 65,000 new people registered to vote in the first three months of 2022 and 104,000 people registered in the first quarter of 2020. He also clarified that voters in Texas should sign up with either a driver's license number or a verified social security number.

Pennsylvania, the third state highlighted in the original post, had 530,518 cases, according to SSA data. The Pennsylvania Department of State did not immediately respond to a request for comment Rolling rock Wednesday.