Texas AG based investigation on debunked noncitizen voter fraud report, lawsuit shows
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an investigation into noncitizens registering to vote based on a report the Star-Telegram debunked the day after it was published, according to court filings.
Paxton’s office credited the disproven voter fraud theory in response to a lawsuit brought by Jolt Initiative, an Austin-based voter registration group that focuses on Latino voters, in September. Jolt claims the AG’s Office waged a “campaign of unconstitutional intimidation” against it.
“On August 18, 2024, an award-winning journalist and prominent Fox Business News anchor reported that organizations and individuals were engaged in unlawful voter registration activities, including potentially registering non-citizens to vote outside of Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) offices,” the AG’s Office said in a motion to dismiss Jolt’s case filed in early October.
On Sunday, Aug. 18, Fox News host Maria Bartiromo cited a friend’s wife in a report of a “massive line of immigrants” registering to vote outside a Department of Motor Vehicles driver’s license office in Weatherford and two others in Fort Worth.
Weatherford does not have a DMV office, but rather a DPS driver’s license office.
A DPS spokesperson told the Star-Telegram on the following day that there had not been any voter registration activities outside the office the entire week prior.
“None of it is true,” the spokesperson said, adding that the report was also “kind of racist.”
Brady Gray, chairman of the Republican party of Parker County, where Weatherford is located, called Bartiromo’s report “erroneous” in a post on X on Aug. 19.
Despite the report’s inaccuracy, Paxton used it as justification for an investigation into organizations like Jolt Initiative for allegedly registering noncitizens to vote, according to the motion to dismiss.
“On August 21, 2024, in light of public reporting, the Attorney General announced an investigation,” the motion to dismiss reads.
“Too many cases brought by the Attorney General are driven entirely by Paxton’s political agenda, and this is a prime example,” Mimi Marziani, one of Jolt’s attorneys in the lawsuit, said in a press release. “It is a clear abuse of power to target our client without any basis in law or fact. None of the evidence in the lawsuit provided any reason to suspect that Jolt or its Volunteer Deputy Registrars engaged in any wrongdoing — and, indeed, they didn’t.”
Paxton’s investigation involved an undercover operation in which a volunteer deputy registrar working on behalf of Jolt “attempted to induce an undercover investigator to fill out an application for his daughter, who was not present,” the filing states.
The AG’s Office said this violated statutes of the Texas Election Code that require a person to register to vote in the county in which they reside and prohibit someone from inducing another to make a false statement on a registration application.
Jolt called the investigation “baseless” and cited another statute in the same chapter of the Election Code that allows an applicant to appoint a spouse, parent or child to register for them.
Paxton’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a press release issued Friday, Oct. 25, Jolt Initiative announced that the lawsuit has been paused pending the outcome of a similar case in which the AG attempted to use a more than 100-year-old statute called Request to Examine.
Paxton’s office served Jolt an RTE on Aug. 30. The organization sued the AG’s Office on Sept. 13.
The AG’s office has attempted to use the RTE statute to force organizations and businesses — from a migrant shelter network in El Paso to a Kansas-based airplane parts manufacturer — to turn over records without giving them time for a pre-compliance judicial review.
A federal judge in Texas’ Western District denied the AG’s use of RTE in the case brought by Spirit AeroSystems, saying the office has “frankensteined” the century-old statute in an attempt to apply it outside the bounds of the law.
Jolt and the AG’s Office agreed to put their suit on hold pending the resolution of the Spirit AeroSystems case, the organization said.
“Paxton’s investigation was a blatant attempt to derail our efforts, but this pause in the case allows us to continue with our work,” said Diana Maldonado, executive director of Jolt Initiative. “Despite these attacks, we remain committed to empowering Latino voters.”
The AG’s investigation also violates the Voting Rights Act, according to Mary McCord, executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University Law Center.
“It’s striking how weak the Attorney General’s evidence is in support of this so-called investigation,” she said. “This intrusive and unfounded demand for documents is not just an overreach that infringes fundamental First Amendment rights. Paxton’s investigation also runs afoul of the Voting Rights Act’s protections against voter intimidation. We are committed to ensuring that Jolt, its employees and volunteers, and the communities they serve can continue their civic engagement without this harassment.”
Jolt is not the only Latino-focused organization with complaints of unfounded investigations by Paxton’s Office.
Executives of the League of United Latin American Citizens called for a federal investigation after the AG’s Office led raids on the homes of prominent Latino activists in San Antonio and other cities just days after Bartiromo’s post went viral in August.
One 87-year-old LULAC activist who has helped with voter registration for years told the media that she was forced to wait outside in her nightgown while law enforcement searched her home in the middle of the night.
Following the news of Paxton’s investigation in August, the Star-Telegram asked the Tarrant County Elections Administration how many registration applications it had rejected due to the applicant not providing proof of citizenship. Of around 53,000 applications at the time, 18 had been rejected or put on hold for confirmation of citizenship.
This story was originally published October 25, 2024 at 1:36 PM.
