(Texas Scorecard) – Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that he is filing suit against Bexar County’s commissioners court and its elections administrator for approving an “unlawful program” that would send out voter registration applications to residents regardless of whether those residents have requested such an application or are even eligible to vote.
Paxton had previously warned both Bexar and Harris counties that a lawsuit would be imminent if commissioners approved such a program.
On Tuesday, Bexar County Commissioners defied Paxton by approving in a 3-1-1 vote a $392,700 purchase order to Civic Government Solutions, LLC (CGS) “to print and mail State Voter Registration Forms, with postage-paid return envelopes, to unregistered voters in locations based on targeting agreed to by the County.”
However, during Tuesday’s meeting, Bexar County Commissioner Justin Rodriguez (Precinct 2) and CGS founder Jeremy Smith stated that the Harris County Commissioners Court tabled their contract with CGS due to Paxton’s threat.
Paxton argues that “The distribution of forms to unverified recipients could induce ineligible people—such as felons and noncitizens—to commit a crime by attempting to register to vote. Further, Texas counties have no statutory authority to print and mail state voter registration forms, making the proposal fundamentally illegal.”
“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,” said Paxton. “This program is completely unlawful and potentially invites election fraud. It is a crime to register to vote if you are ineligible.”
Notably, CGS is a front group for Civitech, a heavily partisan Democrat voter registration organization. Civitech’s blog outlines CGS’ true aims: “targeting” eligible but unregistered voters who will vote Democrat in the general election.
Despite CGS Founder and CEO Jeremy Smith’s repeated media claims that his organization is nonpartisan, CGS and Civitech share an Austin address, their officers share the same titles, and a web domain lookup of CGS shows Civitech as the registrant, indicating direct control over CGS.
Smith admitted to a Democrat bias and overseeing both CGS and Civitech. Smith also blurred company lines at various times. He claimed there was a “firewall” based on CGS’ bylaws and contracts, but also said he founded his company in 2018 or 2019. Public Information Reports confirm Civitech formed in early 2019 while CGS started in mid-2020.
“We worked with the elections division going back to 2018,” Smith told Texas Scorecard. He alleged a former Secretary of State’s office “invited us to create CGS so we could work more closely with them on formal contracts … they had specific projects they wanted us to do right away.”
In his testimony, Smith claimed he worked with three of the last six Secretary of State elections divisions. When asked which ones, Smith told Texas Scorecard he couldn’t remember.
Alicia Pierce, assistant secretary of state for communications, had no comment on whether the office was in talks with Smith. Pierce also stated she was unfamiliar with CGS’ database, and had no information about whether CGS or Civitech had access to the Texas Election Administration Management (TEAM) system, which Smith cited during his testimony.
Smith explained CGS contracts with all types of counties and continually stressed CGS’ nonpartisanship. “CGS just doesn’t look at partisanship and tries not to, the point is we do not want to put our thumb on the scale and we want to make it really clear … the contracts require nonpartisan approaches.”
Its purchase award with Bexar County claims a proprietary methodology in which “Data will be randomized by Contractor to allow scientific measurement of the program’s effectiveness and avoid any biases in the selection of who receives the communications.”
He described the operation as “a localized version of ERIC.”
“My whole message has been the deceptiveness of Jeremy Smith and CGS,” said Bexar County GOP Vice President Kyle Sinclair, who spoke against the contract at the meeting. “Jeremy admitted to me in person that the information from Civitech goes to CGS and so I questioned him on the information going back from CGS to Civitech.” Sinclair received no answers.
Before the vote, Democrat Commissioner Rebeca Clay-Flores (Precinct 1) accused speakers like State Rep. Mark Dorazio (R–San Antonio), Sinclair, and County Commissioner Precinct 1 Republican candidate Linda Prado of engaging in “smears” against Smith, describing citizens’ concerns as “a dog and pony show” resulting from “false rhetoric.” She said these efforts were done to intimidate voters.
State Republican Executive Committeewoman Lucy Trainor, one of the speakers during the public comments, disagreed.
“This extra money and votes will affect all our down-ballot candidates against Republicans and for the Democrats because this is a partisan organization. That’s why I thought it was important to have a grassroots turnout,” said Trainor.
During the hearing, the sole Republican Commissioner Grant Moody (Precinct 3) moved to table the motion, which Democrat Tommy Calvert (Precinct 4) seconded and supported in a bipartisan move. Democrats Clay-Flores, Rodriguez, and Judge Peter Sakai voted it down.
The Democrat trio approved the item, while Moody opposed it and Calvert abstained.
“Either way, it’s a win-win for us because it exposes the corruption for what it is and the commissioners had been given a full story of everything and they still chose to look the other way,” said Trainor. “It’s very clear they don’t care about transparency since it’s an LLC which doesn’t have the same transparency requirements [as a 501c3].”
“We got the top attorney from the top state in the United States to pay attention and seek legal action because of our work, you can’t do more than that,” Sinclair said after the meeting. “This $392,700 just got a hell of a lot more expensive with the lawsuit on it.”