Leaders of three of the state’s largest urban counties — all of whom have drawn the scorn of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for their plans to spend county funds registering new voters — vehemently defended the legality of the idea Friday at the Texas Tribune Festival.
“We sought legal advice, legal opinion, and we are on legal ground that we have the authority to move forward, and we’re prepared to defend that premise in a court of law,” Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai told a room of roughly 200 festival attendees at the Omni Austin Hotel.
“My personal opinion is that the right to vote is one of the most precious constitutional rights,” he said. “I’m not out here to try to tip the scale. What we wanted to do in Bexar County was to reach out and register voters.”
Sakai appeared alongside Travis County Judge Andy Brown and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo on a panel discussion that was dominated by talk of the state’s growing appetite to involve itself in county voting operations.
This week Bexar County commissioners voted to hire the company Civic Government Solutions LLC (CGS) to find and register new voters for the 2024 election, amid complaints from local Republicans who said it would unfairly help Democrats.
The move immediately drew a lawsuit from Paxton, who is also suing Travis County for hiring the same firm. Harris County, which has its elections operations taken over the state, dropped plans to hire a company for similar work after the AG warned against it.
As the county leaders were taking the stage at the festival in Austin on Friday afternoon, media was gathering at the Bexar County Courthouse in anticipation of the attorney general’s request for a temporary restraining order to stop the voter registration letters from going out.
But the presiding judge closed up shop with no sign of the attorney general on Friday evening.
Asked whether they expected legal action from the state to stop this latest voter registration effort, Brown said no.
“I’m a little bit of an optimist, and I also have great lawyers at Travis County, who looked at the law, and it’s clear as day that we’re allowed to do this,” he said.
“Paxton does this every time there’s an election coming up,” Brown continued. “He tries to stir, create fear and uncertainty about elections and, frankly, that is all that he’s doing right now.”
In a nod to their confidence, Hidalgo said that despite the lawsuits in Bexar County and Travis County, Harris County could still pursue hiring a firm to register new voters for the 2024 election.
It scrapped plans last month to hire a firm to send out text messages to unregistered voters, but hasn’t ruled out other options.
With an Oct. 7 voter registration deadline for the 2024 presidential election quickly approaching, Hidalgo said it would depend on how quickly the forms could be sent out.
CGS founder and CEO Jeremy Smith was also floating around at the Tribune’s festival on Friday. He said his contract with Bexar County has been signed, and the company is working quickly to get the voter registration forms out in the mail.
CGS buys data from various sources to create a database of unregistered voters, then mails out prefilled voter registration forms with prepaid return envelopes to those potential voters.
It’s supposed to target voters regardless of their political affiliation, but its work has come under fire from Republicans due to Smith’s past work with Democratic groups.
Sakai said on Friday that Bexar County’s contract isn’t “chasing everybody in Bexar County that has never registered.”
Rather, it’s targeting people who’ve just moved to the county.
