Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that his lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has succeeded as the federal agency agreed to back down on a plan to place federal monitors inside polling sites.
“We sued them and we asked for a temporary restraining order, and as soon as we did that we got a call from the Department of Justice saying that they would back off of that,” Paxton said during the Chris Salcedo radio show in Houston Tuesday morning.
Paxton explained that the DOJ would still be sending federal monitors, but that they would only be in the parking lot 100 feet away from the polling site entrances to speak with voters who chose to speak to them.
DOJ officials set off a firestorm last week when, in response to requests from Texas Democrats, they announced they would send monitors to eight counties, including the state’s most populous: Bexar, Dallas, and Harris.
“They threatened to send observers, federal observers, like we are some poor country,” said Paxton.
Texas law has long placed strict limits on who may serve as watchers inside polling locations and central count locations. The DOJ has previously sent monitors to Texas, including in 2022, but they were not authorized to enter polling sites.
Paxton’s lawsuit filed Monday mirrored that filed by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey over the DOJ plan to send unauthorized poll monitors to his state.
Texas Democrats, including Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis (D-Pct. 1), claimed that monitors were needed in Harris County and the state’s most populous counties due to “voter suppression.” During a press conference Monday afternoon Ellis cited that state’s prohibition on 24-hour voting and drive-through voting, and a recent removal of ineligible voters from the rolls, as examples.
Republicans such as Texas Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston) responded to the claims by noting that Democratic officials, such as Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth, are running elections this year. A law authored by Bettencourt forced Harris County to return elections management to the elected clerk in lieu of an appointed administrator after the county’s fraught 2022 elections.
The DOJ’s monitors are being sent to seven closely-watched swing states and those formerly listed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as requiring “preclearance” from the federal government for any modifications to election procedures.
In its 2013 Shelby County v. Holder opinion, the Supreme Court struck down the formula for determining which counties require preclearance, noting the requirement relied on 40 year-old data.
On Tuesday morning, U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ordered the DOJ to confirm that no “observers” would be present inside Texas polling locations or election tabulation centers “in violation of the Texas Election Code…or the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as in effect following Shelby County v. Holder.”
The DOJ will send monitors to Atascosa, Bexar, Dallas, Frio, Harris, Hays, Palo Pinto, and Waller counties in Texas.
On Monday, The Texan obtained sworn affidavits filed by five voters in Webb County, Texas alleging that their ballots did not include an option to vote for Jay Furman, the Republican nominee challenging incumbent Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX-28). The district lies along the U.S. southern border with Mexico and carries a D-57% rating from The Texan’s Texas Partisan Index. Cuellar has been indicted by the DOJ on bribery and money laundering charges.
