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Following a series of raids on the homes of Democratic activists and politicians that were allegedly conducted over voter fraud concerns, a leading Latino advocacy group this week asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R).
“I’m reaching out to express our deep concern regarding the recent actions of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, which we believe constitute a serious violation of the civil rights of Latino citizens in Texas,” wrote Roman Palomares, the president of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), and the group’s CEO, Juan Proaño. “These actions echo a troubling history of voter suppression and intimidation that has long targeted both Black and Latino communities, particularly in states like Texas, where demographic changes have increasingly shifted the political landscape.”
The LULAC officials highlighted the case of 87-year-old Lydia Martinez, who has been a member of the organization for 35 years.
According to the letter to DOJ, her home was raided on August 20 at 6:00 am by several armed officers. Even though Martinez cooperated with them, she was interrogated for three hours while her house was searched, and her electronic devices and voting materials seized.
“This unwarranted intrusion has left Lydia and her family deeply traumatized, with her family now urging her to cease her civic engagement work out of fear for her safety,” the LULAC officials wrote.
Texas, once a solidly red state, has slowly become more competitive in recent years. While it seems unlikely that Donald Trump would lose there this year, or that Sen. Ted Cruz could be defeated in his reelection campaign, the Lone Star state could turn purple in the near future as it is becoming home to a greater share of minorities, especially Latinos, who tend to vote for Democrats.
Recent actions taken by Paxton and Gov. Greg Abbott (R) should be viewed in that light.
For example, the governor announced this week that his administration has purged more than one million Texans from the voter rolls.
When announcing this “success story,” Abbott presented a list showing that “over 6,500” of them were noncitizens.
However, later in the same press release, he clarified that they were merely “potential noncitizens,” i.e., Texas residents who did not respond to officials’ requests to provide additional information about their citizenship status, which does not mean at all that they are ineligible to vote.
And Paxton announced last week that investigators from his “Election Integrity Unit” conducted “undercover operations” that showed that nonprofit groups were registering Texans to vote outside of Department of Public Safety Driver License offices.
Paxton noted that citizens already can register to vote when getting or renewing their licenses and ID cards.
It seems to exceed the attorney general’s imagination that nonprofit groups may want to help Texans register to vote who might be unsure whether they are eligible or have trouble navigating bureaucracy. Instead, he says, “There is no obvious need to assist citizens to register to vote outside DPS offices — calling into question the motives of the nonprofit groups.”
However, LULAC views these actions as flimsy excuses for voter suppression.
“Voter ID laws, purging of voter rolls, and aggressive gerrymandering have disproportionately affected Latino communities,” Palomares and Proaño wrote. “These modern tactics are often justified under the guise of preventing voter fraud, yet they primarily serve to disenfranchise Latino voters, particularly in states like Texas, where Latinos now comprise 39.78 percent of the population.”
As a result, the LULAC officials call on DOJ’s Civil Rights Division to “initiate a thorough investigation into Attorney General Paxton’s actions,” adding that they believe “that his conduct constitutes a direct attempt to suppress the Latino vote through intimidation and harassment, in violation of the Voting Rights Act and other federal civil rights laws.”
