Texas Republican attorney general sues over voter registration efforts in Democrat strongholds

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued two of the state’s largest counties to block efforts to register voters ahead of the November general election, drawing claims of voter suppression from state Democrats.

Paxton announced Friday a lawsuit to block Travis County, which includes the state capital of Austin, from using taxpayer money to hire a third-party vendor to identify and contact eligible but unregistered voters to try to get them registered before the Oct. 7 deadline.

That followed a lawsuit earlier in the week against Bexar County, which includes San Antonio; that county hired the same company for a similar registration effort. Paxton has also threatened legal action against Houston’s Harris County if it engages in a similar voter registration effort.

Paxton’s lawsuits are the latest round in an ongoing fight between Texas Republicans, who have long dominated state government and insist they are taking measures to bolster election integrity, and Democrats, who have strongholds in Texas’s largest urban areas and complain the GOP-led efforts amount to voter suppression, particularly of Latinos.

In the lawsuits, Paxton claimed the contracts went to a partisan vendor and argued they go beyond the local government’s legal authority. Paxton said Texas law does not explicitly allow counties to mail out unsolicited registration forms.

“The program will create confusion, potentially facilitate fraud, and undermine public trust in the election process,” Paxton said Friday.

Paxton had warned Bexar County officials he would sue if they moved forward with the project. But the county commission still voted Tuesday night to approve its nearly $400,000 contract with Civic Government Solutions, the same organization hired by Travis County. Paxton filed the lawsuit against Bexar County the next day.

Tracy Davis, vice president of marketing at Civic Government Solutions, said the organization is nonpartisan.

“Our focus is solely on identifying and assisting unregistered individuals. We do not use demographic, political, or any other criteria,” Davis said. “As someone deeply committed to civic engagement, I find it concerning that an initiative to empower Texans and strengthen democratic participation is facing such aggressive opposition.”

U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, an Austin Democrat, accused Paxton of attempting to suppress Latino votes ahead of the November general election.

“I applaud the Bexar County Commissioners for not yielding to his threats and moving forward as planned,” Doggett said. “Paxton is so fearful that more Latinos, who constitute the biggest share of Texas’s population, will vote as never before.”

Last month, the League of United Latin American Citizens, a Latino voting rights group, called for a federal investigation after its volunteers said Texas authorities raided their homes and seized phones and computers as part of an investigation by Paxton’s office into allegations of voter fraud.

No charges have been filed against those who had their homes searched this month around San Antonio. The targets of the raids, including an 87-year-old campaign volunteer, and their supporters say they did nothing wrong and called the searches an attempt to suppress Latino voters.

Paxton has said little beyond confirming that agents executed search warrants.