By PAUL J. WEBER
Associated Press

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Civil rights groups are asking Texas officials to walk back a letter that questioned the citizenship of thousands of voters and prompted President Donald Trump to renew unsubstantiated claims of rampant voter fraud.

The ACLU and a dozen other groups slammed Texas elections officials who say they found 95,000 people identified as non-citizens who had a matching voter registration record.

Trump used that announcement to tweet that "58,000 non-citizens voted in Texas." But even Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told supporters in a fundraising email Monday that many of those people could have become citizens and voted legally.

The groups say Texas runs the risk of purging eligible voters and called the state's method for identifying possible non-citizens "deeply flawed."

Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.