Ken Paxton is involved in a lot of different lawsuits these days, but have you heard of the Ken Paxton Voter Registration Lawsuit yet? Well, we’d like you to strap on your seatbelt for a bit because it is going to be a wild case. Just so you know though, the initial events leading to this were sparked when Ken Paxton, the Texas Attorney General, leveled accusations against Travis and Bexar Counties for running what he termed “wild” voter registration programs, you know? And later down the line, here in Travis County, things got so unfortunate that a registration form was mailed out for a dead resident in 1980. That firing incident became an even larger red flag for Paxton. Also, he took a swing against a company called Civic Government Solutions, the county’s vendor for the services, you know? Keep in mind that according to him, that sort of thing was too connected to partisan types to have been letting ineligible people sign up to vote.
Sure enough, for Paxton, this was not merely a filing issue but a menace to the election system. You know, Travis County, on the other hand, defended itself by saying that it was just for the sake of making it easier for eligible voters to register. Their argument? “They followed all the rules, thank you very much.” Yes, that’s precisely what they say.
The Legal Back-and-Forth Gets Messy
Sure enough, just like always, Paxton wasn’t playing here either, he flew straight to the court and sued straight up to stop any voter registration programs. Yes, that’s what he did.
In fact, he would say in Austin that hiring an outside contractor to identify unregistered voters was illegal, and it might even put a few noncitizens on the voter rolls, and you would understand that very well, right? The county shot back with, “Don’t need to know about our outreach,” since it was all above board and part of state and federal laws. Later down the line, the legal ping pong began: first the program was shut down by a state judge; then it flew around courts like a hot potato between federal and state courts. Right now? Back to state court again unresolved, that’s what!
In Bexar County, it turned out that Paxton’s complaint hit a brick wall when a judge tossed the matter. Why, though? By the time the complaint was filed, the voter registration forms had already been mailed out. Well, that’s not how things should work.
This is definitely not the end for Paxton, though, he is doubling down, claiming this is “dangerous” and “opens the door to voter fraud” which is a big thing in the country right now. The counties tend to hunker down, claiming they are only trying to help bring equal access to more Texans in exercising a right that the state prohibits from registering online (which, let’s face it, most would probably prefer).
So, What Paxton is Saying?
Sure enough, as it appears so, Paxton is not shy about where he stands on the issue, but why exactly? Well, he has, in truth, been sounding alarms of what he considers a ticking time bomb fraud, saying that such programs would allow noncitizens to register and vote. And that was a big talking point in the very recent presidential election in the country. The Republican party was all on this matter saying that illegal immigrants shouldn’t be allowed to vote in the United States or in any other country for that matter. If you think about it though, that does make sense. Not just that though, Ken Paxton went on to cite the contention of having removed 6,500 noncitizens from Texas’ voter rolls in recent years, a figure his critics say is bloated and includes people erroneously flagged.