Texas AG Ken Paxton Sure Does Hate Voting, Part Eleventy Million

If you can't beat 'em, sue em! Then raid em! Then sue em again! Then raid em some more!

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Hey, remember back in 2021 when indicted-for-fraud Attorney General of Texas, dirtbag Ken Paxton, bragged that Trump would have lost the state of Texas without Ken Paxton’s help to block mail-in ballots? Back then, he went on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast and crowed:

If we'd lost Harris County—Trump won by 620,000 votes in Texas. Harris County mail-in ballots that they wanted to send out were 2.5 million, those were all illegal and we were able to stop every one of them.

Had we not done that, we would have been in the very same situation—we would've been on Election Day, I was watching on election night and I knew, when I saw what was happening in these other states, that that would've been Texas. We would've been in the same boat. We would've been one of those battleground states that they were counting votes in Harris County for three days and Donald Trump would've lost the election.

What’s old is new again! Or actually never went away. Republicans can only win if they protect the ballot from the many potential voters who hate them.

Paxton was lying to Bannon, by the way, it was voter registration applications that counties wanted to mail out, not mail-in ballots. Actual voting by mail in Texas is very restricted, only allowed for people who are 65 years of age or older, disabled, out of the country during the elections, about to give birth, or in jail. But Ken Paxton is worried that if even voting registration applications go out by mail, then ineligible people will think they can vote by mail, and probably some of those people will be the undocumented people who he claims are voting all the time, yet has never actually found, also something something George Soros.

So now Paxton’s now EMERGENCY suing Bexar and Travis Counties to prevent voting applications being sent to unregistered voters, again, and has warned Harris County that if they try it, he’ll sue them, too. He’s the rootin’ tootin’ suing-est of them all! The voter registration applications are available at any post office. But with Republicans’ lead in Texas shrinking pretty much by the day, and Kamala Harris now within the margin of error to beat Trump there, every little bit of hassle or intimidation helps.

Why Bexar, Travis and Harris Counties? Bexar has San Antonio, Travis is where Austin is, and Houston is in Harris County, and in 2020 they went for Joe Biden by 58 percent, 56 percent and 71 percent, respectively. Knock those votes off the map and Republicans winning would be smooth as fried butter!

So that is probably why last month Paxton sent to Texas Rangers to raid the houses of 13 Latino Democrats in Bexar, Frio and Atascosa counties, based on some secondhand hunch that they’d been up to illegally helping to register voters. They stuck guns in the faces of an 87-year-old grandma, House District 80 Democratic candidate Cecilia Castellano, the head of Tejano Democrats Manuel Medina, and members of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). The evidence is not the point, intimidation and disruption is.

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With Trump's and Cruz’s Leads Shrinking In Texas, Paxton And Abbott Double Down On Terrorizing Abuelas And Lying

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And it was not the first time Paxton has pulled that crap, he’s been crap-pulling for years, initiating more than 390 cases against accused election fraudsters, and resulting in only a tiny handful of convictions, of mostly people who didn’t know they were ineligible.

Such as Crystal Mason, remember her? In 2016 she was on federal supervised release and didn’t realize she was ineligible to vote. For the crime of filling out a provisional ballot she was given a five-year prison sentence, which was eventually overturned after a six-year legal battle. In 2018, Paxton went after church deaconess Leticia Sanchez, her daughter and two other volunteers, who’d been helping register voters, baselessly accusing Sanchez of being a member of the “Mexican Mafia.” The charges were eventually thrown out because of a lack of evidence, but not before Sanchez lost her job, had to spend massive amounts on legal fees, and had her face splashed all over conservative media pages. 

Others targeted by Paxton who eventually had their charges thrown out include a Republican justice of the peace, Tomas Ramirez III, a conservative who in 2021 was baselessly accused of illegally possessing absentee ballots and faced life in prison and also lost his job, and Mary Jane Balderrama, a 73-year-old missionary.

The lack of convictions in this massive conspiracy is not because there was no evidence, though, said Ken Paxton! It’s because George Soros controls the (all Republican) Court of Appeals, and they won’t let him overturn the 2020 election or prosecute this fraud that does too exist. He told podcaster Michael Berry, “It’s insane, and we have to unseat the three members of the Court of Appeals. I am convinced that this was an effort by George Soros, who gathered DAs in all of these counties.” That George Soros sure does get around.

At least one person appreciates Paxton’s efforts, guess who? Yep, Donald J. Trump, who has dangled the US Attorney General position for him. “He’s very, very talented. I mean, we have a lot of people that want that one and will be very good at it. But he’s a very talented guy.” Pointing guns in faces of grandmas, trying to track pregnant ladies, arresting people under suspicion of being a Latino who votes, blaming George Soros (AKA the Jews) for getting in the way of his police state, just what it takes to win the talent competition of the Trump beauty pageant, even while he’s lacking in charm.

[Washington Post gift link / Texas Tribune / ProPublica]