Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Tuesday his office is investigating more than 100 cases of “potential noncitizens” voting in two recent election cycles. The investigation is focused heavily on alleged election crimes in Harris County, although the Republican attorney general is also looking into instances of potential noncitizens voting in Cameron, Eastland and Guadalupe counties.
Paxton's office released a statement saying it was investigating more than 100 potential noncitizens having cast over 200 ballots in the 2020 and 2022 election cycles. More than 11.3 million people voted in Texas in 2020, and more than 8.1 million voted in 2022, according to the Texas Secretary of State’s Office.
"Illegal aliens and foreign nationals must not be allowed to influence Texas elections by casting illegal ballots with impunity. I will not allow it to continue," Paxton said. "Thanks to President Trump's decisive action to help states safeguard the ballot box, this investigation will help Texas hold noncitizens accountable for unlawfully voting in American elections. If you're a noncitizen who illegally cast a ballot, you will face the full force of the law."
Houston attorney Cris Feldman said the move is an attack on the integrity of Harris County elections.
"This appears to be nothing more than a pretext for the attorney general to come in and actually undermine the will of the people by scaring voters away from the polls," Feldman said.
Feldman pointed to the 2022 election cycle, in which Republicans raised accusations that shortages of ballot paper at several polling stations in Republican-leaning neighborhoods were part of a deliberate scheme to suppress Republican votes.
A five-month investigation by Houston Public Media found no evidence to support the idea that the appointed Harris County elections administrator was interfering with the conduct of elections by deliberately shorting election supplies to GOP-leaning neighborhoods, nor did it find any evidence that such shortages affected the outcome of most elections.
Nevertheless, largely as a result of such accusations, the 2023 Texas Legislature passed a law that forced Harris County to abolish its elections administrator's office, shifting control of elections back to the elected county clerk and control of the voter rolls back to the elected county tax assessor-collector. It also passed a law spelling out conditions under which the Texas Secretary of State could impose "administrative oversight" on Harris County's elections.
"They’re the ones that are engaging in election interference, and they are doing it in a way to where they can use it as a pretext to come in and try to run Harris County elections," Feldman said. "Why? Because they don’t want the will of Harris County voters to influence the statewide vote. Because if all of Harris County votes are properly cast, there’s a risk to the statewide Republican leadership regarding their continued dominance in statewide elections."
Harris County, which includes Houston, has more than 2.5 million registered voters, out of roughly 18.6 million registered voters across Texas, according to data from the Texas Secretary of State’s Office. The county has leaned Democratic in most election cycles over the past decade.
The move comes just ahead of a special session of the Texas Legislature in which lawmakers will consider whether to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to give the attorney general's office the authority to prosecute election crimes.
"Without a doubt, this is all part of the smoke and mirrors game to allow statewide office holders to diminish the influence [of Democratic voters]," Feldman said. "Absolutely this will be used as a pretext for the attorney general to grab more authority away from the people for himself."
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