Bexar County Commissioners ignored a warning from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton about what would happen if they proceeded to vote for a new program that would mail voter registration applications to residents who didn’t request them and who may not be eligible to vote.
In a 3-1 vote, the commissioners gave the green light to the program that would use taxpayer funds to hire a third-party vendor to print and send out the voter registration forms. Paxton argued that doing so could “induce ineligible people—such as felons and noncitizens—to commit a crime by attempting to register to vote.” Moreover, counties in the state have no statutory authority to carry out such a program, “making the proposal fundamentally illegal,” the attorney general noted.
Since they failed to heed his warning, Paxton filed a lawsuit asking for an injunction to block the program from taking effect.
“The State seeks emergency injunctive relief against the named defendants to prevent them from giving a partisan organization, in violation of state and local procurement procedures, hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to mail unsolicited voter registration applications to an untold number of Bexar County residents, regardless of whether those residents have requested such an application or are even eligible to vote. Defendants’ actions will create confusion, facilitate fraud, undermine confidence in elections, and are illegal ultra vires acts because they exceed statutory authority,” the filing reads.
“Despite being warned against adopting this blatantly illegal program that would spend taxpayer dollars to mail registration applications to potentially ineligible voters, Bexar County has irresponsibly chosen to violate the law,” Paxton said in a statement. “This program is completely unlawful and potentially invites election fraud. It is a crime to register to vote if you are ineligible.”
