Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton voted from an address where he no longer resided in at least six consecutive elections, including the March 2024 Republican primary, according to reporting by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune. State Rep. James Talarico, Paxton’s Democratic opponent in the U.S. Senate race to replace retiring Sen. John Cornyn, has seized on the revelation to accuse the Republican of committing the voter fraud he has spent years prosecuting.
Paxton moved out of the home he shared with his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, in 2024 but continued voting using that address. Three election experts told the news organizations that Paxton may have broken state law. Texas law permits voters to temporarily cast ballots using an address where they do not reside only if they intend to return—a standard unlikely to apply given Paxton’s ongoing public and acrimonious divorce, election lawyers said.
At a campaign event in Houston, Talarico said: “As our state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton has gone on a voter fraud witch hunt. Turns out, he was committing voter fraud the whole time, voting illegally in six elections in a row from the wrong address.”
Paxton has repeatedly declined to answer questions about his voter registration and residency. When a Dallas Morning News political writer asked why he voted in Collin County on Tuesday, Paxton shook his head as a campaign aide intervened: “We’re just going to answer questions on law enforcement today,” the aide said. His office and campaign did not respond to similar questions from ProPublica and the Tribune.
The Collin County Democratic Party filed a complaint with the Texas secretary of state last week urging an investigation for election fraud. Secretary of State Jane Nelson, whose last day in office was Friday, was succeeded by Robert Howden, appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott. The secretary of state’s office declined to answer reporter questions but told Collin County Democratic Party Vice Chair Mary Higbe in an email Thursday that the complaint “remains under review by one of our staff attorneys.”
The attorney general’s office has not responded to questions about whether it received the complaint or whether it would hire a special prosecutor to investigate Paxton himself. Southern Methodist University political science professor Cal Jillson said the voting revelation reinforces longstanding accusations that Paxton uses his office for personal gain—the central theme of the Texas Legislature’s 2023 impeachment of Paxton on bribery and corruption charges. The state Senate voted to acquit.
Source: https://www.propublica.org/article/ken-paxton-voter-registration-james-talarico
