Despite legal threats from the Texas attorney general’s office, Bexar County officials voted on Tuesday to press forward with plans to mail voter registration applications to unregistered county residents.
The county’s Commissioners Court voted 3-1 to approve a $393,000 contract with third-party organization Civic Government Solutions, which identifies unregistered voters in the county and sends out voter registration forms to the potential voters, according to a report from The Texas Tribune.
The plan has faced intense pushback from Republicans, including Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who on Monday wrote a letter to officials of Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, saying that he intends to sue the county if officials proceed with the voting registration drive.
Paxton wrote in his letter that the deal with Civic Government Solutions is outside Bexar County’s “authority” under state law and argued that by mass-mailing voter registration applications, “it may induce the commission of a crime by encouraging individuals who are ineligible to vote to provide false information on the form.” He sent a similar letter to Harris County, the state’s most populous county, where officials are considering a similar voter outreach plan.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference on February 23 in National Harbor, Maryland. Paxton has threatened to sue Bexar County over its plans to launch a voting outreach program by mailing registration forms to unregistered residents.
MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
“Your proposal is particularly troubling this election cycle,” Paxton added, writing that concerns around election security are “magnified” this year because “the Biden-Harris administration’s open border policies have saddled Texas—and the entire country—with a wave of illegal immigration that has resulted in ballooning noncitizen populations across our State.”
“It is more important than ever that we maintain the integrity of our voter rolls and ensure only eligible voters decide our elections. Your proposal does the opposite by indiscriminately inviting county residents to register to vote regardless of their eligibility,” Paxton wrote.
Larry Roberson, chief of the civil division of Bexar County district attorney’s office, told the San Antonio Report that he found Paxton’s threats unfounded, saying, “Paxton can sue, but I read through the letter. I found it to be misleading at best.”
Civic Government Solutions CEO Jeremy Smith also assured that outreach efforts by his firm would be nonpartisan.
“I have a personal view on who I would like to win the federal election,” Smith said, per the Tribune’s report. “That is not to say that the contracts that we undertake with governments are in any way partisan.”
Newsweek reached out to the Bexar County Commissioners Court and Paxton’s office via email for additional information on Tuesday.
Republicans across the country have announced plans to shore up election security ahead of November 5. Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced last week that his administration had cleared more than 1.1 million voters from its roll count who were found ineligible, a routine process in the state’s maintenance of the voter database.
As The New York Times reported, some Democratic officials warned that the efforts could intimidate voters so close to Election Day. Mike Doyle, chair of the Harris County Democratic Party, told the newspaper, “The message is we’re going to do everything we can to discourage voting in Texas. Why else would you announce this as a big victory? This is supposed to be a routine accuracy check that has been going on forever.”
GOP Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin also issued an executive order last week that codified election security protocols, including a mandate that all 2024 presidential election votes be cast by paper ballot. The move was celebrated by former President Donald Trump, who continues to push unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him due to voter fraud.
Republicans in Congress have also pushed a bill that would require voters to provide proof of citizenship to cast a ballot in a federal election. It is already illegal for undocumented immigrants to vote in federal elections, and Democrats have argued that the bill, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, would disenfranchise some voters.
President Joe Biden previously said that he plans to veto the SAVE Act if it makes it to his desk, arguing that the “alleged justification for this bill is based on easily disproven falsehoods.”
