A federal judge has ruled that part of a Texas law that enacted voting restrictions is unconstitutional, banning the state from investigating voter assistance efforts as a criminal act.
The ruling, dictated by U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez, said a 2021 Texas provision violated the U.S. Constitution by being too vague, restricting freedom of speech and the 14th Amendment. The decision immediately halted controversial investigations on voter fraud spearheaded by Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Under Texas law, a person who knowingly provided or offered vote harvesting services— collecting completed absentee ballots from voters and delivering them to polling places— in exchange for compensation was committing a third-degree felony. This meant that organizers of voter outreach organizations and even volunteers could spend up to ten years in prison and be fined up to $10,000 for giving or offering these services.
That rule allowed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to raid the homes of voting rights activists, under the guise of investigating allegations of voter fraud.
One of Paxton's cases that made the most noise was related to activists from The League of United Latin American Citizens. In one instance, an 87-year-old volunteer for LULAC was raided by a swat team in an election fraud probe. LULAC is a non-partisan, volunteer-based Hispanic civil rights organization headquartered in Washington.
"It is disgraceful and outrageous that the state of Texas, and its highest-ranking law enforcement officer is once again using the power of his office to instill fear in the hearts of community members who volunteer their time to promote civic engagement," Gabriel Rosales, Texas LULAC's state director said in August denouncing the raids.
Republican lawmakers have long advocated for the anti-voting harvesting law, also known as SB1, arguing the provision was put in place to prevent voter fraud and secure election integrity. But the federal judge noted that there was widespread confusion about how to implement the canvassing restriction from local election administrators. This confusion also left voter outreach organizations uncertain about whether they could provide volunteers with food or bus fare because it could look like compensation.
Rodriguez's decision comes after the sweeping anti-voter legislation was put to the test at a six-week bench trial last year in a consolidated lawsuit brought by several voting and civil rights groups— including LULAC, La Union del Pueblo Entero and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund— and the U.S. Department of Justice following the law's enactment.
The original lawsuit challenged multiple aspects of SB1, such as the empowerment of partisan poll watchers, a ban on 24-hour and drive-thru voting, the criminalization of many voter outreach efforts, a ballot collection ban, mail-in ballot signature matching rules, new methods to cancel voter registrations and more. The challenges on those provisions have not been ruled on yet. In fact, Saturday's ruling only dealt with ballot harvesting.
The decision was celebrated by voting rights activists, which were among the most affected by the ballot harvesting allegations.
"Today's ruling means that voter outreach organizers and other advocates in Texas can speak to mail ballot voters about issues on the ballot and urge voters to support improvements to their communities," said Nina Perales, vice president of MALDEF.
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