The most conservative appellate court in the nation handed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton a victory on Tuesday when it ruled that he can continue probing allegations of vote harvesting, a move activists say is an effort to intimidate Latino voters.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a September decision by U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez that stopped, albeit temporarily, a provision passed by the Texas Senate. In an omnibus bill known as S.B. 1, the state Senate had made it a felony for voter outreach organizations to assist people “in the presence of the ballot” or during the voting process. Under the Texas election code, this could be considered “compensating” someone for their vote.
As previously reported, Paxton’s harvesting probe has led armed authorities to the door of a Democratic candidate for the Texas House and to the home of Dilley Mayor Mary Ann Obregon, as well as to several elderly members of the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC.
Rodriguez had ruled in September that the new restrictions and criminal penalties in S.B. 1 were overly vague. He also found that they potentially infringed on the groups’ First and 14th Amendment rights.
The penalty in Texas for so-called ballot harvesting, or the collection of ballots for distribution to polling places, is 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
LULAC says its activities are not ballot harvesting or some sort of illegal “compensation.”
For example, one volunteer and great-grandmother, Lydia Martinez, said officers who showed up to her home to conduct one of Paxton’s raids interrogated her for two hours over her volunteer work assisting elderly people and veterans obtaining mail-in ballots.
“All I do is take them the application to vote by mail, and I explain to them they can write. And I explain to them exactly how to fill them out,” she told NewsNation in an interview in August.
When Judge Rodriguez ruled in September, he said it was reasonable for canvassers or volunteers to engage in practices like providing language assistance to non-English-speaking voters so they can complete a ballot or to give voting machine demonstrations so people understand how to use them.
Whether these services constitute some sort of “harvesting” or illegal “compensation,” which S.B. 1 also did not define, was unclear. Nonetheless, the ruling from Rodriguez immediately stopped any further probes by Texas authorities into alleged harvesting schemes.
Paxton argues that provisions in S.B.1 prevent voter fraud and protect election integrity. Shortly after Rodriguez’s ruling, Paxton appealed, and on Oct. 4 obtained a temporary stay to block the lower court’s ruling.
The 5th Circuit’s decision on Tuesday means the provision in S.B. 1 will stay in effect until a full appeal by voter rights groups is either approved or denied.
“On the eve of elections in Texas, the district court has entered an injunction that impacts how ballots can be handled. It holds unconstitutional a law that has been on the books for over three years, but that the court did not see fit to enjoin until now,” wrote 5th Circuit Judge James Ho, a Donald Trump appointee.
“It helps their interest to suppress and intimidate Latino voters at the end of the day and set a precedent so other states could essentially do the same.”
– Juan Proaño, CEO of LULAC
Paxton celebrated the ruling, sayingWednesday that he “fought hard” to protect ballot boxes in Texas this election season.
Juan Proaño, CEO of LULAC, told HuffPost on Wednesday that the case is “ongoing” since other challenges to the Texas provision are still underway. Proaño said LULAC fully expected Paxton would appeal the lower court’s ruling and he expects the attorney general will take the fight to the U.S. Supreme Court if needed.
Paxton’s probe is part of a larger strategy to suppress votes and intimidate Latino voters, Proaño said, noting that LULAC has received multiple calls to its national office from U.S. Latinos asking if they should vote and if they’ll be arrested if they do.
“There’s already a federal judge that ruled [the vote harvesting provision] was unconstitutional, and they’re going to continue on unabated because it helps their interest to suppress and intimidate Latino voters at the end of the day and set a precedent so other states could essentially do the same,” Proaño said, noting that LULAC has seen similar laws that originate in Texas cycle through the lowers courts, get through appeal and then be “copied and pasted” in states like Georgia, Florida and Alabama.
“There are no systematic voting harvesting efforts happening in Texas or anywhere around the country,” Proaño said.
In August, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) announced that he had purged 1.1 million voters from the rolls and discovered that 6,500 were noncitizens.
But Proaño said LULAC has looked at those numbers and of the 6,500, only 258 were noncitizens.
Proaño said the 5th Circuit’s decision pending a full appeal means people like Martinez remain “on the hook” during Paxton’s probes.
