Bexar County moving ahead with voter registration mailings

Bexar County is proceeding with plans to hire a private company to mail out unsolicited voter registration forms, in defiance of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s warning that their actions are “unlawful and reckless.”

On Monday, Paxton issued public letters condemning Bexar and Harris counties for their proposed plan to mail voter registration forms to individuals regardless of the “eligibility of recipients.”

The counties proposed to pay Civic Government Solutions to print and distribute “thousands” of voter registration forms “to unregistered voters in location(s) based on targeting agreed to by the county.”

Paxton said that Bexar’s plan to pay a third-party vendor to assist in the distribution of voter registration forms should be “abandoned,” or else he warned, “I will see you in court.”

“Nothing in Texas law gives counties the power to ‘print and mail State Voter Registration Forms, with postage paid return envelopes, to unregistered voters’ who have not requested such forms,” Paxton wrote to Bexar.

“At best, this proposal is ill-advised because it potentially confuses residents of Bexar County about whether they are eligible to vote. At worst, it may induce the commission of a crime by encouraging individuals who are ineligible to vote to provide false information on the form.”

“Either way, it is illegal, and if you move forward with this proposal, I will use all available legal means to stop you,” Paxton said.

The Bexar County Commissioners Court approved the voter registration measure at question on Tuesday in a 3 to 1 vote. 

The original fiscal note attached to the July 9 item directing Bexar County to negotiate a contract with Civic Government Solutions allotted $591,000 to spend. However, the printing services item adopted on Tuesday amounted to $392,000.

“It is unlawful and reckless for counties to use taxpayer dollars to indiscriminately send voter registration forms with no consideration of the recipients’ eligibility and without any statutory authority to do so,” Paxton said in a press release.

“These counties’ attempts to do so after the Biden-Harris Administration has allowed millions of illegal aliens to enter the country are especially troubling.”