The Bexar County Commissioners Court has largely ignored Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s attempts to stop the county from mailing out unsolicited voter registration forms, and a district court judge in San Antonio seems willing to endorse the commissioners’ tactic.
On Monday, District Judge Antonia Arteaga dismissed Paxton’s request for a temporary restraining order and temporary injunction, ruling that the issue was moot since the county had already mailed the forms.
On September 3, Bexar County commissioners voted to approve a contract with a third-party vendor to mail out unsolicited voter registration forms to about 210,000 people in the county, ignoring Paxton’s previous warning that he would take legal action if they did so. On September 4, Paxton filed a lawsuit against the county.
“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,” Paxton said in a news release.
However, Bexas County Judge Peter Sakai said that he and the rest of the commissioners’ court had sought legal guidance on the matter and felt confident in their position.
“Bexar County’s nonpartisan effort to provide voter registration applications to targeted eligible citizens is within the authority of the County and consistent with State law,” Sakai said, per CNN.
The voter application forms were mailed at the end of last week, just ahead of the judge’s ruling on Monday.
“Our position from the very beginning was that the commissioners had every right to do what they did, and we are very pleased with the judge’s ruling today,” Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzalez stated after the ruling, per CNN.
Paxton’s office issued a statement, avowing that the AG will appeal the ruling and continue to seek “appropriate remedies.”
The AG’s office alleges that attorneys representing Bexar County asked to postpone the initial hearing on the lawsuit because they needed time to prepare for litigation. Both parties agreed to reschedule for September 16. However, the Friday before the rescheduled hearing, the attorneys representing Bexar County filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, revealing that the county had acted “in secret to expedite the mass mailouts,” according to the AG’s office.
“In a display of bad faith, Bexar County engaged in dirty tricks to avoid appropriate judicial review of a clearly unlawful program that invites voter fraud,” Paxton said in the statement. “These actions demonstrate that Bexar County knew what they were doing was wrong, yet expedited the mailout of unsolicited registration forms before the issue could be argued in court. I will fight every step of the way to hold them accountable and uphold the integrity of our elections.”
