Recent Phony Voter Fraud Claims by TX Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton Are Not Surprising
Virtually every major Texas media outlet has called out Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for falsely claiming widespread voter fraud. They accurately point out that voter fraud is extremely rare and voting by noncitizens is virtually nonexistent.
The aggressiveness of Abbott and Paxton to use false claims of voter fraud to intimidate voters should not surprise anyone. These same Texas leaders have used the phony-voter-fraud-playbook to harass minority voters for decades.
Texas Republican leaders decided years ago to suppress minority voters rather than spend an ounce of real political capital to legitimately earn votes from the growing Hispanic, Black, and Asian populations in Texas. And while his flat demeanor and boring countenance play against type, Greg Abbott has been the point in the spear for hostile and aggressive voter suppression and intimidation.
Whether its terrorizing senior citizens in their homes, purging voter rolls, or legislating to raise practical and legal barriers to voting, Abbott and Paxton have been at it for years.
Terrorizing Elderly African American Woman in Her Home
When Ken Paxton sent state police to barge into the home of elderly Hispanic community activist Lidia Martinez last month, it was a replay of an earlier equally depraved act of intimidation. In 2006, then Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott sent state agents to the home of 69-year-old African American grandmother, Gloria Meeks, to “investigate” voter fraud. Rather than respectfully knock on her door and wait for a response, Abbott’s agents creeped around her house peeping into her windows and startled her as she was stepping naked out of the bath. They didn’t allow her to dry or fully dress. They forced her to sit through an hours long interrogation in her bathrobe. No violations were discovered. No formal legal action was taken. It was an exercise in cruel terroristic intimidation.
Ms. Meeks never forgot it. She joined a lawsuit fighting back against Abbott’s voter suppression, and her efforts standing against Abbott were proudly cited in her funeral obituary.
Discriminatory Voter Purges
Greg Abbott is again bragging about a voter roll purge and using it to pretend that undocumented immigrants and other nonqualified voters are regularly casting ballots. The Dallas Morning News calls it “voter fraud fiction.” They are right, and it’s only the latest time Abbott has used a voter roll purge to suppress and intimidate.
In 2019, a Federal District Court Judge struck down Abbott’s attempt to purge 95,000 Texans. Abbott claimed that the list included dead people, felons, and illegal immigrants – all part of a voter fraud plot. The list was riddled with problems, and Abbott’s claims were lies. Federal Judge Biery’s order was damning:
“It appears this is a solution looking for a problem.”
” … perfectly legal naturalized Americans were burdened with what the Court finds to be ham-handed and threatening correspondence from the state.”
Imposing Discriminatory Voting Laws
For decades, the worst actions of Texas Republicans were thwarted by the preclearance requirements of the U.S. Voting Rights Act which prevented clearly discriminatory laws from being implemented. However, when the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act and stripped out the pre-clearance requirements, Greg Abbott pounced.
In 2011, Governor Abbott and Republicans in the State Legislature pushed through the most discriminatory Voter ID law in the nation, but the Justice Department blocked its implementation. Then, in 2013, less than an hour after the Court overturned the preclearance provision Abbott began enforcing the discriminatory Voter ID law.
Only after years of litigation led by Congressman Marc Veasey was the Texas Voter ID moderated. When the Court ultimately ruled in Veasey’s favor they did not mince words saying the law “…constitutes an unconstitutional poll tax.”
Will Abbott and Paxton Be Held Accountable?
The many acts of overt discrimination by Texas leaders are often reported upon when they occur, but ignored at election time. While it is good to see the media again throw harsh light on the vote suppression and voter intimidation engaged in by State leaders, the real question is will they remember it and hold Abbott and Paxton accountable for their depraved use of discrimination to hold power when both of them face re-election in 2026?
