Travis County want voter registration lawsuit moved to federal court

Travis County officials are challenging Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s recent attempts to block local voter registration efforts, accusing the state’s top lawyer of violating the National Voter Registration Act.

In a sweeping round of legal action Tuesday morning, county officials sideswiped a lawsuit Paxton filed in a state District Court seeking to halt voter registration efforts in Travis County by filing a “notice of removal” in federal court, which automatically brings the case before a federal judge, according to Travis County Attorney Delia Garza. Travis County also filed a lawsuit in federal court asking a judge to issue an order finding that the county’s work is lawful and allowing the county to proceed with its voter registration efforts as planned.

In the suit, Travis County also accuses Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson of failing to enforce the National Voter Registration Act by failing to take “steps to cause Attorney General Paxton to comply with the NVRA” and “is obligated under the NVRA to facilitate local governments’ efforts to implement the” act.

“The National Voter Registration Act, among other things, made it a duty of local government to take affirmative acts, to locate and register eligible voters and mail voter registration applications,” Travis County Judge Andy Brown said at a news conference Tuesday. “And that’s exactly what Travis County did, and the attorney general of Texas didn’t like it.”

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Neither Paxton’s nor Nelson’s offices immediately responded to American-Statesman requests for comment Tuesday.

Paxton in early September filed a lawsuit in state District Court challenging the county’s hiring of Civic Government Solutions to identify names and addresses of eligible, unregistered voters. He accused the company of being “partisan” and argues that Travis County does not have the authority to collect the names and addresses of potentially unregistered voters, and he sought to stop the registration efforts.

Travis County commissioners at their Aug. 27 meeting approved a contract with Civic Government Solutions at an estimated cost of $3,562.80 per 10,000 “names of Eligible Resident-Citizens,” according to the court’s agenda.

Commissioners Court agenda documents show that Civic Government Solutions was the only respondent to the tax office’s bidding request for “Unregistered Voter Outreach Services,” which was issued July 19 and opened Aug. 12.

“There are clearly a large number of citizens, including new citizens in our community, who have not registered to vote for various reasons,” the request for proposal states. “By implementing a targeted strategy, we have the potential to significantly increase voter registration in Travis County, thereby strengthening our democratic process.”

Paxton’s complaint was filed against Brown, all four county commissioners and Tax Assessor-Collector and Voter Registrar Bruce Elfant. The same officials are the accused in the Travis County lawsuit filed Tuesday morning against Paxton and Nelson.

More: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sues Bexar County over voter registration mailer plan

The lawsuit Paxton filed in early September was one in a recent series of legal challenges by his office against voter registration efforts across the state. Two days before filing his suit against Travis County, Paxton sued Bexar County officials for hiring the same company to identify eligible residents and mail out registration applications. He also threatened to sue Harris County if it hires the same firm for voter registration work.

A state District Court judge threw out Paxton’s case against Bexar County’s similar voter registration efforts, claiming the case was “moot,” the Texas Tribune reported. Lawyers for Bexar County told the judge there was no point in granting an injunction because the forms had already been mailed, according to the San Antonio Report.

More: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton targets Travis County in voter registration lawsuit

Paxton appealed the ruling.

“In a display of bad faith, Bexar County engaged in tricks to avoid appropriate judicial dirty review of a clearly illegal program that invites voter fraud,” Paxton said in a news release. “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.”

Staff writer Bayliss Wagner contributed to this report.