After the Democrats’ 2026 midterm electoral victories, a meme accurately showed many counties across Texas had more registered voters than adult citizens.
The meme appeared to have used outdated census estimates for the population of Texas, which increased by nearly 2.5 million people between 2020 and 2025. Even still, Snopes could not replicate the meme’s alleged findings.
After Democrats in Texas flipped control of the state House of Representatives and won the governorship during the 2026 midterm elections, a meme circulated suggesting there may have been election fraud in the historically Republican stronghold.
According to the meme, the number of registered voters exceeded the number of voting-age citizens in counties across the state. Several social media posts relayed the image, which showed a map of Texas’ 254 counties, including on Instagram and Facebook. Some posts on X also shared the meme, including one that said “97 counties are over the adult-citizen count” (archived):
The meme claimed the counties in red had more registered voters than adult citizens, and the ones in yellow had at least 10% more registered voters than adult citizens. The image gave numbers for only six counties as evidence of its claim — Collin, Denton, Fort Bend, Montgomery, Parker and Williamson — saying that in each of them, the number of registered voters exceeded the number of adult citizens.
The meme cited as its sources the Texas secretary of state’s November voter registration figures and Census 2020-24 adult citizen estimates.
We could find no evidence for the meme’s claim. Using the most recent U.S. Census’ adult citizen estimates (2024) in these counties and comparing them with the Texas secretary of state’s numbers on voter registration per county, we could not replicate the image’s alleged findings. For this reason, we rate the claim false.
The meme carried a watermark for the X account @_Patriot1776Q_. We reached out to the account asking for more information about the numbers and we will update this report should we receive a response.
It should be noted that Texas’ population was the fastest-growing in the country between 2024 and 2026, and our calculations do not account for this growth due to the fact that the U.S. Census’ most recent estimate for adult citizens is for 2024. (This also means that comparing the number of registered voters in 2026 to an older, smaller population estimate, as the meme claims to do, would be a flawed comparison.)
An attempt to replicate the meme’s calculations
In January, the Redistricting and Voting Rights Data Office of the U.S. Census published its estimates for citizens of voting age by race and ethnicity for 2024. Snopes uploaded that data into a spreadsheet organized by state and county, with the six counties the meme mentioned highlighted them in yellow.
Next, we pulled data about registered voters and actual voters in each county in Texas. (To reflect population changes, we included July 2025 U.S. Census data and calculated the estimated number of adults, citizens and noncitizens combined, per county.)
We compiled the data for the six counties used in the meme and six more among those marked yellow — that is, counties where there were supposedly at least 10% more registered voters than adult citizens. Our calculations did not demonstrate the map’s claim.
In an attempt to replicate the meme’s numbers, we used the 2024 estimated number of adult citizens against the 2026 number of registered voters. For these numbers to be accurate and definitive, we would need to have 2026 actual numbers of adult citizens in these counties, as opposed to estimates.
For example, the meme said there were 34,319 more registered voters in 2026 in Montgomery County than there were registered adults based on 2020-2024 estimates. We found there were in fact 20,076 fewer adult citizens (based on the 2024 estimate) than there were registered adults in 2026.
The meme also said Parker County counted 111% registered voters relative to the number of estimated number of adult citizens. Our calculation found 108%. Once again, this number did not reflect the updated number of adult citizens in the county in 2026; Parker County is reportedly one of the fastest-growing counties in the nation.
Texas also places voters “in suspense” before removing them from the voter rolls when election officials believe a registered voter may have moved. This means that the number of registered voters reported for a county includes people who may no longer live in that county. Parker County, for example, had just under 9,000 voters in suspense in November, according to the state.
It also should be noted that voter turnout across Texas was roughly 50% in the 2026 midterms, and no county had more votes than adult citizens.
For further reading, Snopes also debunked the claim that Texas “found” 20 million votes to flip it to a Democratic majority.
