Texas Attorney General Sues Harris County Clerk Over Mail-In Ballot Applications

[TexasTowelie]

Last week, Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins announced a plan to send mail-in ballot applications to the nearly 2.4 million registered voters in Harris County. On Monday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit in district court against Hollins with the hope of preventing those unsolicited applications from ever hitting Harris County mailboxes.

“Unfortunately, instead of protecting the integrity of our democratic process, the Harris County Clerk decided to knowingly violate election laws by preparing to send over two million ballot applications to many Texans who do not qualify and have not requested to vote by mail,” said Paxton in a statement Monday. “This blatant violation of law undermines our election security and integrity and cannot stand.”

Paxton didn’t spell out a specific law that Hollins would be breaking if ballot applications were sent out as planned, but instead wrote that doing so would be “an illegal ultra vires act,” lawyer-speak for something that’s outside of an elected official’s powers as explicitly listed in statute.

However, the issue isn’t as clear cut as Paxton is making it out to be. “The state doesn’t have a legal basis for trying to stop the county from executing its plan,” said Jared Smith, a public relations representative for the Brennan Center of Justice, New York University Law School’s non-partisan public policy institute.

Read more: https://www.houstonpress.com/news/state-ag-sues-harris-county-clerk-over-mail-in-ballots-11492242

UPDATE:

Harris County Will Only Send Ballots To Voters 65 And Older For Now, After Texas Attorney General Sues

Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins will only send applications for mail-in ballots to voters 65 and older, after being sued by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over a plan to send applications to every voter in the county, KHOU reported Tuesday. Hollins said the change was made pending the results of a lawsuit, and told KHOU, “the law is on (the county’s) side on this, and we’re going to have our day in court, plain and simple.”

More at https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/politics/2020/09/01/380954/paxton-charges-hollins-with-breaking-texas-election-law/

[SharonClark]

1. If it's not specifically forbidden by state law then

wouldn’t local control suggest the county could do this?

[TexasTowelie]

2. I think that the courts will have to decide this since I'm not an attorney.

However, Paxton's decision adds delay which may cause the ballots mailed out to not arrive back timely considering the mess going on with the injunction. I posted an update to the OP and we can be grateful that Paxton couldn't find a judge willing to issue an injunction to keep the ballots from being mailed.

[LeftInTX]

3. I do think it was irresponsible of Harris County

You know how voters are....they don't read...then they mail it in....who knows what they will put on the application......then they won't get their ballot....

In Bexar County, they don't even post Election Day polling locations until Early Voting is done and over with because it "confuses people".