Texas AG Files Suit Against State’s 5th Largest County Over Voter Registration Push

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Friday filed a lawsuit against Travis County, which includes the capital of Austin and is the fifth most populous county in the state, over its voter registration policies.
“Travis County has blatantly violated Texas law by paying partisan actors to conduct unlawful identification efforts to track down people who are not registered to vote,” Paxton, a Republican, said in a statement alongside the lawsuit. “Programs like this invite fraud and reduce public trust in our elections. We will stop them and any other county considering such programs.”
The suit, in part, urged the court to block Travis County from giving the group “thousands of taxpayer dollars to identify the names and addresses of potentially unregistered voters” because the county, according to Paxton’s office, lacks the authority “to contract with a vendor to identify and target potentially unregistered individuals who may or may not be eligible to vote.”
A spokesperson for Travis County, Hector Nieto, told The Epoch Times on Friday that it believes Paxton is trying to “sow distrust and discourage participation in the electoral process” by filing the lawsuit.
“Travis County is committed to encouraging voter participation and we are proud of our outreach efforts that achieve higher voter registration numbers,” Nieto said. “We remain steadfast in our responsibility to uphold the integrity of the voter registration process while ensuring that every eligible person has the opportunity to exercise their right to vote.”
Earlier this week, Paxton filed a complaint against Bexar County, which encompasses the city of San Antonio, after it voted to pay the same company to send out voter registration forms to people living in the county.
During a meeting on Tuesday, Smith told Bexar County leaders that his company is nonpartisan.
He has also issued a warning for Harris County, the largest county in the state, about its own voter registration drive. Travis, Harris, and Bexar counties all lean heavily Democratic.
“Texas counties have no statutory authority to print and mail state voter registration forms, making the proposal fundamentally illegal,” he said.
Paxton cited his own office’s successful bid in 2020 to block Harris County from sending unsolicited mail-in ballot applications to registered voters in the county.
The legal activity comes just two months before the presidential election, scheduled for Nov. 5
The Epoch Times contacted Civic Government Solutions for comment but didn’t receive a reply by publication time.