AUSTIN — Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday seemed to welcome the head of the Department of Public Safety's acceptance of blame for a botched rollout of a more rigorous, ongoing search by Texas for possible noncitizen voting.

Abbott said he stands 100 percent behind his nomination of Secretary of State David Whitley, who runs the other agency involved in the ill-fated release of error-filled lists of voters, which has drawn scornful criticism from a federal judge.

Abbott, who twice criticized DPS director Steve McCraw in recent weeks, declined to directly answer a question about whether McCraw's testimony to a Senate panel on Tuesday has appeased the Republican governor.

Abbott, though, said he has not gone over McCraw's head to complain to the five-member Public Safety Commission, which hired McCraw and could let him go.

"I've not talked to anybody on the board," Abbott said at a news conference at which the music industry's collector of license fees for songwriters, Broadcast Music Inc., announced it is opening an Austin office.

But Abbott spoke sternly about the need for DPS to provide accurate and "understandable" information to Whitley's office in the ongoing effort to try to identify any ineligible noncitizens on state voter rolls.

Abbott conceded that what Whitley calls a "list maintenance exercise" — and which civil rights groups and voting advocates have denounced as an attempt to suppress the votes of minorities, especially Hispanics — has been "rather opaque" and "a mystery."

Satisfied by McCraw yesterday? “I thought his testimony provided greater clarity to a process that seems like it’s been rather opaque,” @GovAbbott tells reporters.



Still 100 percent behind Whitley? “Yes,” Abbott says. #txlege — Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) March 13, 2019

McCraw's testimony

On Tuesday, McCraw told the Senate Criminal Justice Committee that his department should have had a senior official overseeing the production of data to the secretary of state's office. The veteran lawman also tried to shift the blame away from Whitley, saying he was not in office when much of the planning for the citizenship inquiry had taken place.

McCraw took "full responsibility" for problems with the data DPS gave to the secretary of state's office in late January.

Abbott, while not saying if he was appeased, said McCraw's "testimony provided greater clarity to a process that seems like has been rather opaque. It's been a mystery that has to be continually unraveled on an ongoing basis."

Abbott noted that DPS "played an integral role in this process from the very beginning and must maintain an ongoing involvement in the process."

The governor said the check of voter rolls against lists of people who showed they were legally present in the U.S. but not citizens at the time they obtained driver's licenses and photo IDs from DPS is "in part a law enforcement-based issue."

The information "begins with the Department of Public Safety" and must be accurate and in a form that helps Whitley's office "ensure the integrity of the voter rolls," Abbott said.

McCraw has been in Abbott's cross hairs for the last few weeks, as his close long-time aide Whitley drew fire for the noncitizen checks, which erroneously questioned the citizenship of tens of thousands of voters who had already proved their citizenship to DPS.

Blaming DPS

In unusual public scoldings of the head of the state's top law enforcement agency, Abbott has blamed DPS and McCraw personally for bad data given to the secretary of state's office.

Abbott' has not publicly rebuked Whitley, whom he appointed in December and is awaiting Senate confirmation.

While Senate approval of gubernatorial appointees is usually a formality, Whitley's nomination has stalled. Democratic senators have the votes to block him. All have said they intend to oppose him, though Abbott and Whitley are believed to be pleading that Democrats from South Texas relent and let him be confirmed.

Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery of San Antonio has told county election administrators, who received the information from Whitley's office, not to send any more letters to voters questioning their citizenship without his permission.

Austin correspondent James Barragán contributed to this report.