Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Department of Justice over a dispute involving the agency’s plan to use federal agents as election monitors on Election Day.
In a lawsuit announced Monday, Paxton, who is a Republican, argued that the Biden administration has no authority to send DOJ agents to oversee across elections in eight Texas counties: Atascosa, Bexar, Dallas, Frio, Harris, Hays, Palo Pinto, and Waller. The Texas Election Code does not include federal agents in the list of people who are permitted to be in the “central counting station while ballots are being counted,” the Republican lawmaker said.
“The Biden-Harris Administration’s lawless intimidation campaign infringes on States’ constitutional authority to run free and fair elections,” Paxton wrote in a press release. “Texas will not be intimidated and I will make every effort to prevent weaponized federal agencies from interfering in our elections.”
NEWEST DOJ LAWSUIT: Today, I sued the Biden-Harris Administration and the U.S. Department of Justice for dispatching federal agents to “monitor” Texas elections without any legal authority and in violation of State law. The Biden-Harris Administration’s lawless intimidation… https://t.co/KXAMOQQvGr
— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) November 5, 2024
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The lawsuit comes after the DOJ declared Friday it would send the elections agents to the LoneStar State and 26 other states to “monitor compliance with federal voting rights laws.” With the agency’s move coming just days ahead of the election, DOJ agents are set to patrol polling locations in critical counties across every one of the seven battleground states, as well as states such as Texas, Missouri, and Florida.
“Texas law is clear: Justice Department monitors are not permitted inside a polling place where ballots are being cast or a central counting station where ballots are being counted,” Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson said in a letter following the DOJ’s announcement.
Missouri and Florida have also vowed to oppose the DOJ’s new oversight measures, arguing similarly to Paxton that state law “strictly limits” who is authorized to be present at polling locations.
“The DOJ just doesn’t seem to get it — we don’t need them here; we don’t want them here,” said Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft. “This time, we are taking it a step further and filing a lawsuit against the DOJ to get them to stop the continued harassment.”
Meanwhile, Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd warned the DOJ in a memo Friday that the presence of federal election monitors “would be counterproductive and could potentially undermine confidence in the election.”
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However, he reassured the agency that Florida would send its own monitors to Broward, Miami-Dade, Orange, and Osceola counties to “ensure that there is no interference with the voting process.”
The DOJ promised Florida elections officials in Orange and Osceola counties that federal agents would remain outside the polling locations in question, per the Orlando Sentinel.