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A claim made last week by the Texas secretary of state — that 95,000 registered voters had a citizenship status that could not be determined — appeared to fall apart on Tuesday when local election officials said many of the people were known to be United States citizens. Some registered to vote when they applied for a driver’s license at the Texas Department of Public Safety, which requires them to prove citizenship status to state officials.

Voting rights organizations are raising alarm bells about President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Justice, William Barr, whose confirmation hearing kicked off Tuesday in the Senate. The organizations are saying the former attorney general under George H.W. Bush is likely to purge voter rolls and pursue limited enforcement of the Voting Rights Act if he is confirmed by the Senate, as is widely expected. Few individuals at the top levels of government have earned such unified scorn from civil rights groups as Trump’s former attorney general, Jeff Sessions, who reversed the department’s position in two major voting rights cases and avoided bringing any new cases to enforce voting protections. Yet those groups are warning that Barr could accelerate the administration’s efforts, which they see as disenfranchising lawful voters.