DOJ Agrees To Keep Monitors Outside Texas Polling Sites Following Paxton Suit

The U.S. Department of Justice has agreed not to send federal monitors to Texas polling places after Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a request to block the department from monitoring the state’s election. As part of the agreement, the state has withdrawn its request to block the department from monitoring the election process.

Paxton had filed the request on Monday, hours before the Election Day, arguing state’s law doesn’t allow DOJ monitors in polling places. The Texas Tribune reported that, as part of the agreement, the DOJ’s monitors will remain outside in eight Texas counties and at least 100 feet away from polling and central count locations.

“Texans run Texas elections, and we will not be bullied by the Department of Justice,” Paxton said in a statement Tuesday. “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 Justice Department has regularly sent monitors across the country to ensure compliance with federal law and prevent potential voting rights violations. This election, monitors would be sent in 86 jurisdictions in 27 states. In Texas, monitors will be present at Atascosa, Bexar, Dallas, Frio, Harris, Hays, Palo Pinto and Waller counties.

Paxton argued the DOJ did not have the authority to dispatch the election monitors, as the state law only gives a list of 15 categories of people allowed in polling locations, including voters and minors accompanied by voters, state and local election officials, and poll watchers who have completed state mandated training.

Despite this, Rochelle Garza, president of the Texas Rights Project and a previous Democrat candidate running against Paxton for attorney general in 2022, told the Houston Chronicle that while law does not expressly bar federal monitors for entering polling places, it does allow “a person whose presence has been authorized by the presiding judge in accordance with this code.” 

Garza added that election judges could choose to greenlight federal monitors at their polling locations.