Ken Paxton On A Voter Fraud Warpath

The fervent belief in rampant voter fraud has been a motivating factor for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for years. That idea that elections in Texas and across the country have been compromised was on display last year when Paxton spoke at an event for the conservative Heritage Foundation in a speech aptly titled “The TRUTH About Election Fraud.” 

Paxton’s speech, which runs just over thirteen minutes, describes his account of stopping the major counties in Texas from sending out mail-in ballots in 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. He details a call he made to former President Trump, allegedly warning that he was in danger of losing the state of Texas (which he would ultimately win by over 600,000 votes). Paxton then touches on “Soros district attorneys,” mail-in ballots, drop boxes and ultimately he concludes that widespread voter fraud in the battleground states is how President Biden won the 2020 election. “There’s a lot of voter fraud, we have proof of it,” he tells the crowd. 

The speech to the Heritage Foundation provides some key insight into the Texas AG. And his actions the last few weeks demonstrate how far Paxton will go to stop what he perceives is a legitimate and very real threat. 

Paxton’s biggest stunt meant to curtail voter fraud involved several searches and raids on volunteers and members of the Latino civil rights organization LULAC. The actions of his election integrity unit made national news, especially when they concerned the 87-year-old great-grandmother who was forced to wait outside in a nightgown as officers took away a computer, cellphone, and a personal appointment book. 

The President of LULAC Roman Polamares called the raids, “point black voter intimidation” and at a press conference last week he and other officers from LULAC called on the Department of Justice to investigate Paxton and his election integrity unit. Paxton announced the search warrants had been issued in three south Texas counties as part of an “election integrity investigation,” and that there would be no further comments because the case is ongoing.

Though this latest chapter is a stark escalation, LULAC has had a contentious relationship with Ken Paxton in his capacity as Texas Attorney General. LULAC was one of many plaintiffs who sued the state of Texas over the redistricting maps established after the 2020 census. LULAC argued the new maps diluted the Latino vote. The case LULAC et al v. Abbott would snake its way through the courts for years.

As Texas Attorney General, Paxton was responsible for the state’s defense. Documents provided to Texas Signal show that Paxton’s office hired Ard Law Group PLLC, an outside counsel for the case. The contract stipulated that Ard Law Group would command $525 an hour for their services. In April 2023, the Texas AG’s office paid $2,548 to Ard Law Group and noted they would serve as local counsel (but the court docket for the case did not include attorney Joel Ard). 

Joel Ard is an attorney affiliated with the rightwing legal organization the Federalist Society. Notably, he was a lawyer retained by a plaintiff in Washington state who was suing over the Washington State Voting Rights Act. In that case, Ard and his plaintiff were arguing against three other voters in Washington State, as well as LULAC.  

Before these latest events, LULAC had been a prominent and vocal critic of Paxton. The former national president of LULAC, Domingo Garcia, called on Paxton to resign after he filed a case with the Supreme Court to toss out the 2020 election results from four battleground states. “What makes this so hypocritical is that this desperate grandstanding move is coming from one of the most corrupt politicians not just in Texas, but the country,” said Garcia in a statement. “The move reeks of a blatant attempt to get a presidential pardon since Paxton is the subject of an FBI criminal investigation.”

As the November election looms closer, Paxton’s search to uncover and stop attempted voter fraud grows even larger. This week he threatened to sue both Harris and Bexar counties for mailing out voter registration forms.

“It is unlawful and reckless for counties to use taxpayer dollars to indiscriminately send voter registration forms with no consideration of the recipients’ eligibility and without any statutory authority to do so,” wrote Paxton. “These counties’ attempts to do so after the Biden-Harris Administration has allowed millions of illegal aliens to enter the country are especially troubling.”

As for the LULAC members and volunteers who were searched, they maintain that they have done nothing wrong. The Washington Post published a story about how Paxton’s aggressive tactics to combat voter fraud have yielded almost no convictions. They spoke to a former church volunteer Leticia Sanchez who was arrested in 2018 for creating what Paxton dubbed an “organized voter fraud ring.” The case against Sanchez was ultimately dismissed.