HOUSTON – As Election Day nears, all eyes will be on ensuring the results will be fair and accurate. However, some state officials are pushing back on what they’re calling “the Department of Justice’s attempt to interfere with Texas Elections.”
RELATED: Texas will send inspectors to monitor 2024 elections in Harris County
On Monday, lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle held two separate news conferences to discuss the DOJ’s use of federal monitors on Election Day.
The Harris County Republican Party held its conference at 12 p.m. to discuss what it called in its news release the DOJ’s “attempt to interfere with Texas Elections at the request of Democratic elected officials.”
At 1:30 p.m., Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, along with Congressman Al Green and other officials held a separate news conference.
According to a news release, Ellis and 62 other state and federal officials asked the DOJ to monitor the election in the state’s most populous counties including Harris.
This comes after the Secretary of State issued a letter Friday evening to the DOJ noting their monitors that seek to ensure “compliance with federal voting rights” are “not permitted inside a polling place.”
RELATED: Texas tells U.S. Justice Department that federal election monitors aren’t allowed in polling places
For years, the DOJ has sent out election monitors across the U.S. to ensure ballots are counted at polling sites in standard procedure.
And while “voter fraud” and “suppression” continue to be common buzzwords among political circles, TX Lt. Governor Dan Patrick took to X Friday evening noting there have not been any errors about machines flipping results.
“As of today, there have been less than ten allegations of vote flipping out of nearly 7 million votes cast across the state,” He said in his post on Friday. “There has NOT BEEN A SINGLE confirmation that it actually happened.”
I talked with Lara Trump today about social media stories on machines in Texas flipping votes from Trump to Harris. There were actually no errors to correct once we investigated those few cases. In Tarrant County, we have only had one person say their vote was flipped out of… https://t.co/Kqnv5OnmAz
— Dan Patrick (@DanPatrick) November 1, 2024
Texas AG Ken Paxton also chimed in on Monday evening announcing his office would be filing a lawsuit against the DOJ for what he described as “infringing” on the state’s constitutional authority.
“The Biden-Harris Administration’s lawless intimidation campaign infringes on States’ constitutional authority to run free and fair elections,” he said in a news release statement. “Texas will not be intimidated and I will make every effort to prevent weaponized federal agencies from interfering in our elections.”
