Texas sues to block U.S. Justice Department from monitoring state’s elections

AUSTIN (The Texas Tribune) -- The state of Texas sued the U.S. Justice Department on Monday, seeking to block the federal agency from monitoring the state's elections after it announced plans to dispatch monitors to eight counties on Election Day to ensure compliance with federal voting rights laws.

The Justice Department regularly sends monitors across the country to keep an eye out for potential voting rights violations during major elections.

The agency said on Friday that monitors would be on the ground in 86 jurisdictions in 27 states. The Texas counties are Atascosa, Bexar, Dallas, Frio, Harris, Hays, Palo Pinto and Waller counties.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argued in his lawsuit that the Justice Department did not have any authority to dispatch election monitors, and that federal election monitors are not among those allowed inside Texas polling places or in central locations where ballots are counted under state law. Paxton asked a federal court to block the federal agency from monitoring voting in Texas this election and beyond.

Election Day is Tuesday.

For decades, the Justice Department has dispersed election monitors across the country to observe procedures in polling sites and at places where ballots are counted. That was a power granted to the federal government under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed discriminatory voting practices and sought to equalize voting access. After the U.S. Supreme Court gutted parts of the law years ago, the agency now must get permission from state and local jurisdictions to be present or get a court order.

Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson told the federal agency late Friday evening that its election monitors are not permitted inside Texas voting places and central count stations. A spokesperson from her office said that there is nothing Nelson can do to change who is allowed in a polling place, and that the office is merely following the law.

The Texas Election Code lists who is authorized to be inside a polling place, and does not include federal election monitors. Election monitors are still allowed outside polling places.

The Justice Department's announcement that it would monitor elections in eight Texas counties did not detail if that included staff being inside polling places or central count stations.

“Rest assured that Texas has robust processes and procedures in place to ensure that eligible voters may participate in a free and fair election,” Nelson wrote in a letter to a DOJ official Friday evening.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday evening, after Paxton's office filed its lawsuit.It declined to comment after Nelson's letter.

Nelson's statement came shortly after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick debunked social media claims about voting machines in Texas flipping votes from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to Vice President Kamala Harris.

"There has NOT BEEN A SINGLE confirmation that it actually happened," Patrick wrote.

[Here’s your ballot for the Nov. 5 Texas elections]

Officials in Florida and Missouri barred federal election monitors in 2022 — and this year, Arkansas officials told ABC News they wouldn’t be allowed there.

The Justice Department didn’t say Friday why it picked those eight Texas counties — though it will send monitors to as many jurisdictions in Massachusetts. The Justice Department has regularly dispatched monitors to Texas — including in 2022, when those monitors were sent to Dallas, Harris and Waller counties. A group of Texas Democrats at the local, state and federal level had called on the federal agency in September to send election monitors to the state’s five most populous counties — though it ultimately planned to send monitors to three of them.

A spokesperson for the Texas Secretary of State’s office told ABC News this week that state election inspectors would be sent to “various locations” throughout Texas.

Xiomara Moore contributed to this story.