Texas AG Office Files Suit Against Harris County Over Targeted Voter Ads

The Texas Attorney General's Office filed a lawsuit against the Harris County clerk on Thursday, seeking to stop a series of get-out-the-vote advertisements. The state argues the digital campaigns are racially discriminatory because they targeted specific groups while excluding others.

The petition asks a Harris County district judge to order the removal of the ads or their reconfiguration. The goal is to eliminate identifiers that target voters based on race and ethnicity. The state contends that the county acted unconstitutionally by prioritizing people of certain backgrounds in its outreach.

According to the filing, the ads ran on Meta platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, from late September into early October. The campaigns used specific tags to direct content to users with African, Asian, and Latino interests. The list included references to African-American literature, Latin music, and Hispanic kitchen trends. It also named 27 different countries and foreign cities such as Madrid and Bangkok.

The lawsuit states there is no legitimate reason for the county to target these specific ethnicities and cultures while ignoring European ones. It notes the ads did not target interests specific to Houston or Texas, where the voters reside. The filing asserts that every day the ads run with this targeting, the defendants violate the Texas Constitution.

The Harris County Attorney's Office responded by calling the suit a pathetic political distraction. In a statement, the office said it remains focused on protecting eligible voters rather than engaging in what it called sideshows. The county argued the ads simply encouraged neighbors to plan their vote and access information.

A statement from the Attorney General's office accused the Harris County clerk of aiming to increase turnout among particular races. The office noted that Attorney General Ken Paxton is not participating in the case personally because he is the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate. His office did not specify when he recused himself or how the team discovered the ad targeting.

U.S. Rep. Christian Menefee, a Democrat representing part of Houston, criticized the lawsuit in a social media post. He said Paxton wanted to stop Houstonians from going to the polls. Menefee described the ads as basic communication about voting locations and times, noting that Paxton seemed upset that diverse voters were making their voices heard.