Texas sued Harris County on Thursday to stop it from showing get-out-the-vote ads to Black, Latino and Asian voters, calling the targeting racial discrimination. The state is asking a judge to shut the ads down before Election Day, Nov. 3, in the state’s largest county.
The office doing the suing belongs to Ken Paxton, the attorney general, who is the Republican nominee in a competitive U.S. Senate race against Democrat James Talarico. Polls show Paxton behind, Courthouse News reported. His office says he recused himself from the case. The court petition lists other officials from his office, including First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster.
The suit targets the Harris County Clerk’s office and its “Plan. Check. Vote!” ads on Facebook and Instagram. According to the complaint, the county used Meta’s ad tools to aim them at users flagged with interests such as “African-American history,” “Hispanic kitchen” and “Latin dance,” and did not aim them at white users. The county spent about $43,429 on the ads over 30 days.
The state argues this violates the equal rights amendment in the Texas Constitution. The filing says: “By specifically directing voting advertisements to these…racial or ethnic ‘detailed targeting’ terms, it is readily apparent that Harris County is attempting to increase the likelihood that only certain racial and ethnic groups” will vote, rather than all of them.
It asks for a temporary restraining order to “immediately deactivate the advertisements or remove the racial and ethnic targeting criteria,” along with temporary and permanent injunctions against similar practices.
Harris County Attorney Abbie Kamin called the suit “politically motivated.” She said the county’s voter information work is lawful and that officials remain “hyper focused on ensuring every eligible voter’s voice is heard.” U.S. Rep. Christian Menefee, a Houston Democrat, described the suit as retaliation against voters of color for exercising their rights, Democracy Docket reported.
What the state is challenging is outreach, not a vote count or a registration rule. Nothing in the complaint says any voter was kept from the polls. Its target is a county telling people from specific communities that an election is coming, how to check their registration and where to vote. For Black voters in Harris County, whether that message reaches them is what is at stake if the ads come down in the last days of voting.
Early voting ends Friday. A judge has not ruled on the restraining order request.
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