Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against Bexar County over voter registration efforts in the Democratic stronghold.
Paxton filed the lawsuit after 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 news website The Texas Tribune.
However, Paxton’s lawsuit seeks an emergency injunction, arguing that the county exceeded its legal authority and bypassed competitive bidding procedures.
Newsweek reached out to Paxton’s office and Bexar County Commissioners Court via email on Wednesday for comment.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) meeting on February 23, 2024, in National Harbor, Maryland. Paxton has sued Bexar County on Wednesday over voter registration efforts in the Democratic county.
Mandel NGAN / AFP/Getty Images
The voter registration plan has faced intense pushback from Republicans, including Paxton. On Monday, the attorney general 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 said 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 also cited his office’s successful effort in 2020 to block Harris County from sending unsolicited applications for mail-in ballots to every registered voter in that county.
“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.”
However, Larry Roberson, chief of the civil division of Bexar County district attorney’s office, previously 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.”
Meanwhile, Paxton has long accused Democrats of pushing permissive immigration policies to gain political advantage through illegal voting, a claim critics say lacks evidence.
In addition, 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.
This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.
