HOUSTON – The Texas Attorney General is doing a victory lap after claiming the U.S. Department of Justice will adhere to his lawsuit by claiming its federal monitors will remain outside of polling locations.
PREVIOUS: Texas will send inspectors to monitor 2024 elections in Harris County
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This comes after the DOJ announced it would deploy federal election monitors to eight counties in Texas including Harris, at the request of 62 other state and federal officials.
This prompted state officials to push back on what they called “the Department of Justice’s attempt to interfere with Texas Elections.”
Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson 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.”
For years, the DOJ has sent out election monitors across the U.S. to ensure ballots are counted at polling sites in standard procedure. In fact, a DOJ spokesperson tells KPRC 2 via email, that the plan was always to keep inspectors outside of the polls and continue to hear from voters on the ground through their hotline/complaint portal throughout Election Day.
Still, local leaders from both sides of the political aisle also held separate news conferences the day before Election Day to share their respective reasons for why the monitors were unconstitutional; advocates, meanwhile, claimed it would help ensure fair and accurate results.
Texas AG Ken Paxton also chimed in later that evening announcing his office would be filing a lawsuit against the DOJ for what he described as “infringing” on the state’s constitutional authority.
RELATED: Texas AG Ken Paxton sues over DOJ’s use of election monitors
And the next morning, he touted victory after the DOJ said it would “abide by Texas election law” and “remain outside of polling and central count locations.”
“Texans run Texas elections, and we will not be bullied by the Department of Justice,” Paxton said in a news statement. “The DOJ knows it has no authority to monitor Texas elections and backed down when Texas stood up for the rule of law. No federal agent will be permitted to interfere with Texas’s free and fair elections.”
The AG’s office says the lawsuit will remain pending until the election has concluded “to ensure the DOJ’s compliance.”