Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a complaint against multiple Travis County officials on Friday for contracting a voter registration service that identifies eligible and unregistered voters.
The move follows Travis County’s contract approval with Civic Government Solutions late last month. In the lawsuit, Paxton claimed the organization is “partisan” and the county does not have a right to collect the names and addresses of unregistered potential voters. He claims the use of the company’s services will also “create confusion, facilitate fraud (and) undermine confidence in elections.”
The suit, filed against Travis County Judge Andy Brown, all county commissioners and Tax Assessor-Collector and Voter Registrar Bruce Elfant in their official capacities, seeks a temporary injunction to stop the county from using the company’s services.
Paxton cites comments made by the Civic Government Solutions CEO and stated affiliations of another company he is listed as CEO for as evidence for the company’s partisanship.
Texas law mandates that public officials cannot “create, alter, modify, waive or suspend” election practices or standards not directly written in the Election Code. According to the code, people who want to register must submit an application to the county registrar, and that the voter registrar cannot “convince them to register to vote,” as Paxton alleges Elfant is doing.
The state sued Bexar County officials for hiring the same voter registration company on Wednesday.
“The State seeks emergency injunctive relief against the Defendants to prevent them from giving a partisan organization thousands of taxpayer dollars to identify the names and addresses of potentially unregistered voters without statutory authority,” Paxton said in the suit.
In a statement, Travis County spokesperson Hector Nieto said the county is committed to encouraging voter participation and is proud of its outreach efforts to increase voter registration.
“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,” Nieto said in an email. “It is disappointing that any statewide elected official would prefer to sow distrust and discourage participation in the electoral process.”
