Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton recently filed a notice of appeal to continue a lawsuit challenging a Bexar County program that unlawfully mailed thousands of unsolicited voter registration applications to unverified recipients.
On September 2, Paxton warned the Bexar County Commissioners Court that its proposed plan to employ a third-party vendor to mail voter registration forms to individuals regardless of the eligibility of the recipients would violate the law.
Nevertheless, Bexar County approved the program the next day over the objection of its own voter registrar. Paxton immediately filed suit, and his office attempted to schedule a hearing on a motion for a temporary restraining order with Bexar County attorneys.
Bexar County claimed that it needed more time to prepare for litigation and agreed to a consolidated preliminary hearing on September 16.
However, on the Friday before the rescheduled hearing, Bexar County filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit in which the county revealed county officials had been acting in secret to expedite the mass mailouts. Because the unsolicited voter registration forms already had been distributed to residents regardless of the legality of the contract or the eligibility of the recipients, the judge dismissed the attorney general’s motion as moot.
Paxton’s office is appealing this ruling and said it will continue seeking appropriate remedies.
“In a display of bad faith, Bexar County engaged in dirty tricks to avoid appropriate judicial review of a clearly unlawful program that invites voter fraud,” Paxton said in a press release. “These actions demonstrate that Bexar County knew what they were doing was wrong, yet expedited the mailout of unsolicited registration forms before the issue could be argued in court.
“I will fight every step of the way to hold them accountable and uphold the integrity of our elections."
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On another front regarding voting issues, Paxton also is urging Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson to request citizenship data from the federal government that would enable Texas to determine the citizenship status of certain registered voters for whom the state cannot verify eligibility to vote.
In a September 18 letter to Nelson, Paxton says “no issue is more important than election integrity.”
“Although it is a crime for a non-citizen to register to vote, federal law restricts states from requiring proof of citizenship, and state agencies like those we lead have limited means to verify voter citizenship in many cases,” Paxton’s September 18 letter to Nelson states. “But those same laws place obligations on the federal government to help us identify potential non-citizen voters. And the Office of the Secretary of State possesses the legal authority to demand the federal government do its job in helping states maintain the integrity of their voter rolls. I have attached a letter for your consideration that would demand the federal government’s assistance in verifying the citizenship of a relatively small percentage of currently registered voters that registered to vote through means by which citizenship cannot be confirmed. …
“As you know, the federal government continues to be the most significant challenge we face in securing Texas elections. Texas has acutely felt the pain of nearly four years of the Biden-Harris administration’s disastrous open-border policies, which have led to a flood of illegal immigration both in Texas and nationwide. At the same time, federal law has made it nearly impossible for states to verify the citizenship of voter-registration applicants.”
Paxton says the letter, along with an accompanying transmittal of registered-voter information that is already public information, would trigger the federal government’s statutory duty to help Nelson’s office verify the citizenship of the registered voters.