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Texas is suing the DOJ over the agency’s deployment of election monitors to eight counties

Posted on by Nargang
Texas is suing the DOJ over the agency’s deployment of election monitors to eight counties

Attorney General of Texas Ken Paxton sued the Justice Department over a dispute involving the agency’s plan to use federal agents as election monitors on Election day.

In a lawsuit announced Monday, Paxton, who is a Republican, argued that the Biden administration lacked the authority to send DOJ agents to oversee elections in eight Texas counties: Atascosa, Bexar, Dallas, Frio, Harris, Hays, Palo Pinto and Waller. The Texas election code does not include federal agents in the list of people allowed to be in the “central counting station while the ballots are being counted,” the Republican lawmaker said.

“The Biden-Harris Administration’s lawless campaign of intimidation violates the states’ constitutional authority to hold free and fair elections,” Paxton wrote in a press release. “Texas will not be intimidated and I will make every effort to prevent armed federal agencies from interfering in our elections.”

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The lawsuit comes after the DOJ said Friday it would send election agents to the LoneStar State and 26 other states to “monitor compliance with federal voting rights laws.” With the agency’s move coming just days before the election, DOJ agents are poised to make it patrol polling places in critical counties in each of the seven battleground states, as well as states like Texas, Missouri and Florida.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC 2024, at the National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland, Friday, Feb. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

“Texas law is clear: Department of Justice monitors are not allowed inside a polling place where votes are being cast or a central counting station where ballots are being counted,” Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson said in a statement. -a letter after the DOJ announcement.

Missouri and Florida have also vowed to oppose the DOJ’s new surveillance measures. arguing similarly to Paxton that state law “strictly limits” who is authorized to be present at the polls.

“The DoJ just doesn’t seem to get it – we don’t need them here; we don’t want them here,” said Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft. “This time we are taking it a step further and filing a lawsuit against the DOJ to get them to stop the ongoing harassment.”

Meanwhile, Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd warned the DOJ in a memo Friday that the presence of federal election monitors “would be counterproductive and could undermine confidence in the election.”

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However, he assured the agency that Florida would send its own monitors to Broward, Miami-Dade, Orange and Osceola counties to “make sure there is no interference with the voting process.”

The DOJ promised Florida election officials in Orange and Osceola counties that federal agents would stay out of the polling places in question, according to Orlando Sentinel.