Following Florida, Texas sued the Biden-Harris administration Tuesday after requesting citizenship status information about registered voters in Texas, and not receiving it from federal agencies as required by law.
Last week, a coalition of attorneys general, including from Florida and Texas, called on Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to provide the requested information. They made the requests as multiple states removed thousands of noncitizens from their voter rolls. After not receiving the information, Florida sued last week. Other states in the coalition are also expected to sue.
On Tuesday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson sued DHS, Mayorkas, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and its director, in U.S. District Court Western District of Texas Pecos Division.
“Federal and Texas law prohibit non-U.S.-citizens from voting, but non-U.S.-citizens can nevertheless register to vote,” the 15-page complaint states. “Federal law prohibits Texas from requiring documentary proof of citizenship from people seeking to register to vote. But federal law requires the Department of Homeland Security … to respond to inquiries from appropriate Texas authorities about the citizenship status of persons registered to vote. DHS has failed to comply with that duty.”
The lawsuit follows a request Nelson made in September to USCIS “to provide citizenship data to help Texas maintain secure voter rolls,” The Center Square reported.
“Texas demands this information. The federal government must stop hiding the ball. We must have clean elections where only eligible voters cast votes,” Gov. Greg Abbott said at the time, supporting her request.
On Oct. 7, Paxton next sent a letter to USCIS requesting it to verify or ascertain the citizenship or immigration status of each person on a list it provided no later than Oct. 17. This includes “454,289 Texas registered voters who have never had their citizenship verified,” because they registered without a Texas-issued driver’s license or identification card, according to Texas SOS data.
“Although I have no doubt the vast majority of the voters on the list are citizens who are eligible to vote, I am equally certain that Texans have no way of knowing whether or not any of the voters on the list are noncitizens who are ineligible to vote,” Paxton’s Oct. 7 letter states. “Indeed, a recent SOS audit verified that over 1,300 noncitizens were registered to vote in the four randomly chosen counties that were subject to an election audit – and that is just what was verifiable. That is 1,300 too many when so many of our federal, state, and local elections are decided by a handful of votes.”
Neither Nelson nor Paxton received the requested information from the Biden-Harris administration.
By not providing the information, the lawsuit alleges the defendants violated the Administrative Procedures Act, the Declaratory Judgement Act and the Mandamus Act.
The lawsuit asks the court to order the defendants “to comply with federal law and supply Texas the information they are required to supply in order to secure the integrity of Texas elections.”
“The Biden-Harris Administration has refused to comply with federal law, presenting yet another obstacle for Texas to overcome in ensuring free and fair elections in our state,” Paxton said. “The law demands that they provide important information regarding the citizenship of nearly half a million potentially ineligible voters. Since the Biden-Harris Administration has chosen to ignore the law, I will see them in court.”
In a separate statement, Nelson said, “state and county officials are ready for the November election.”
“Many security protocols are new, and others have been around for decades, but Texans deserve to know the ways we are working to secure their votes,” she said, citing examples of security measures put in place before, during and after the Nov. 5 election.
Early voting in Texas is underway and goes through Friday, Nov. 1.
