Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a notice of appeal to continue a lawsuit challenging a Bexar County-funded program that sent voter registration forms to 210,000 potential voters.
Paxton claimed the county accelerated the mailout because it knew litigation was coming from his 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,” he said. “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."
A state district judge in San Antonio on Monday did not grant Paxton the temporary injunction he sought to stop the printing and emailing out of the voter registration forms through a third-party firm.
Judge Antonia Arteaga found the state's case moot after learning from the Bexar County District Attorney's office that the forms were already mailed last week.
County commissioners on Sept. 3 approved a $392,700 contract agreement with the firm Civic Government Solutions to print and mail 210,000 voter registration forms to potential voters who have moved within the county or recently moved to the county.
Paxton has previously said the county lacked the statutory authority to mail out the forms and sued. Paxton did not appear in court on Monday personally, but his office was represented in court by staffers Ryan Kercher and Kathleen Hunker.
Before the judge's ruling, Kercher said that voter registration should be done the "right way" to prevent ineligible voting.
Bexar County D.A. Joe Gonzales told reporters after the hearing the county has the authority to do such mailings.
"There is an administrative rule under the Texas Administrative Code, specifically Section 81.25 that allows government entities. like county governments, to distribute mailers," he said. "That's what this was — a registration form. It was not a ballot. Nothing about that was partisan."
Paxton argued the forms could fall into the hands of ineligible voters. Local Republicans, including Precinct 3 County Commissioner Grant Moody, said Civic Government Solutions has ties to the Democratic Party.
Local Republicans also said with nearly 1,000 volunteer deputized voter registrars in the county, there is no need to spend county funds to register voters.
Precinct 2 County Commissioner Justin Rodriguez, who sponsored the proposal, has previously said that many of those efforts by volunteer deputized voter registrars are passive in nature, such as someone setting up a tent and asking passersby if they want to register. He said this is a targeted approach.
County Judge Peter Sakai said the voter registration effort is a non-partisan effort to boost voter participation. He added that there are safeguards to check on the eligibility of voters.
"Elections administration verifies every registration," he said. "The Secretary of State verifies all the registration. I have full faith and total confidence in our elections administrator that she will ensure there will be voter integrity in Bexar County."
