Texas officials have launched a purge of 95,000 people from the voter rolls, saying they do not appear to be U.S. citizens — just the beginning of a wider, more frequent purging that will happen monthly from now on.

Texas Secretary of State David Whitley said working with the Department of Public Safety, his office has been able to identify the potential non-citizens among those registered to vote, including 58,000 who have cast ballots before in Texas elections.

“Integrity and efficiency of elections in Texas require accuracy of our state's voter rolls, and my office is committed to using all available tools under the law to maintain an accurate list of registered voters,” Whitley said.

Voter advocacy groups pointed out Friday that none of the state’s suspicions have been confirmed yet, and objected to the method used to identify the suspected non-citizen voters. They noted that 50,000 Texans become naturalized citizens each year.

The Secretary of State cannot remove the voters from the rolls. That is up to county elections officials. But Whitley has recommended counties take action by sending notices that would give the people who have been flagged 30 days to prove they are eligible to vote by presenting a birth certificate, passport, or certificate of naturalization. If they fail to respond, their registrations will be canceled by the county voter registrar.

The Secretary of State’s Office said Friday it was not prepared to release a list of how many voters per county are affected, but verified that Harris County has the most.

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Already, the list of 58,000 people suspected to have voted despite being non-citizens is being forwarded to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for potential legal action. It is a felony to vote in Texas when you know you are not eligible.

“Nothing is more vital to preserving our Constitution than the integrity of our voting process, and my office will do everything within its abilities to solidify trust in every election in the state of Texas,” Paxton, a Republican, said in a statement to the media.

The news is almost certain to buoy conservatives from President Donald Trump to Gov. Greg Abbott who have alleged illegal voting and voter fraud are rampant.

Abbott, who made voter fraud a priority item for the Texas Legislature in 2017, said Friday that “illegal voting in Texas will not be tolerated, and as governor, I will continue root it out and punish it.

If the 58,000 voters in fact turn out to have wrongly cast ballots, Texas would give Trump his clearest backing yet on claims of mass voter fraud that he says cost him the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election. Though Trump won the Electoral College, he lost the popular vote by a wide margin.

"In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally," Trump said in a November 2016 tweet.

After being elected, Trump set up a voter fraud commission that ultimately disbanded with no clear evidence of widespread wrongdoing.

It took little time for Republicans to cite the state’s preliminary findings in fundraising pleas: “We knew it was happening and now we have proof,” said an email blast sent three hours after Paxton’s press release.

But voter advocacy groups warn that Friday’s announcement is an attempt to intimidate voters, and the contention that voter fraud is rampant has been repeatedly discounted.

“There is no credible data that indicates illegal voting is happening in any significant numbers, and the Secretary’s statement does not change that fact,” said Beth Stevens, Voting Rights Legal Director with the Texas Civil Rights Project.

Stevens said she is concerned about how the state identified the suspected non-citizen voters.

The Secretary of State’s office relied on documents that the voters themselves submitted to DPS when they were trying to obtain drivers licenses. Non-citizens, such as temporary residents, asylum seekers and refugees, are eligible to get a Texas drivers license, but they are not allowed to register to vote unless they become U.S. citizens.

“It is important to note that we are not using information self-reported by the person regarding citizenship status; rather, we are using documents provided by the person to show they are lawfully present in the United States,” wrote the state’s director of elections, Keith Ingram, in a notice to registrars in all 254 Texas counties.

Stevens said that could be a problem. About 50,000 Texas residents become naturalized citizens every year.

She’s not alone in that concern.

“I hope that the Secretary of State and the Attorney General are extremely careful to ensure that they make accurate matches and do not unnecessarily alarm the public or falsely accuse people who are eligible to vote,” said state Sen. Jose Rodriguez, D-El Paso. “For example, a legal permanent resident with a driver's license who becomes a citizen is not required to go back to DPS and change their status. So just because someone is listed as a non-citizen in DPS records, that does not mean they still are.”

On Monday, counties are expecting a list from the state of suspected non-citizens on their voter rolls, said Williamson County Voter Registration Supervisor Julie Seippel.

Seippel said Williamson County will then review the list, looking for possible errors, before sending letters to registered voters giving them 30 days to prove their citizenship. Those that don't, or can't, will be removed from the rolls.

"If they get a letter and they are a citizen, it's important they provide documentation or mail it out to us. That way we can keep them on our rolls," she said.

Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacque Callanen said typically the county is alerted to possible non-citizen voters through the jury summons process, though it's not a frequent occurrence.

The state flags a few dozen voters a month statewide who are disqualified from jury duty because they declare they are non-citizens, said Sam Taylor, a spokesman for the Secretary of State’s Office. The state then compares those names to the voter rolls and forwards the information to counties.

But the new purge is part of larger effort as the state’s technology allows it to better compare voter rolls with drivers license records. The state now can compare names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and election ID numbers to identify potentially ineligible voters.

This is just the beginning. Taylor called the 95,000 names the “initial backlog.” Going forward, the Secretary of State’s office will use information from DPS on a monthly basis to cross reference the voter registration database to identify potential non-citizens who have registered to vote.

Stevens said the latest efforts — and the overzealous celebration from Paxton and others — are concerning because the next step will be that “the state is going to use this highly suspect ‘investigation’ to try to pass laws that will make it harder for eligible Texas voters to cast a ballot that counts.”

Texas has already been aggressive in passing laws aimed at alleged voter fraud over the past decade, many of which critics say have reduced access to the ballot box. For instance, the state has adopted voter ID laws and restricted voter registration drives. More recently, in 2017, it passed tougher penalties for people who wrongly handle absentee ballots.

Austin Bureau reporter Allie Morris contributed to this report.