Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued a Latino advocacy organization, accusing the group of illegally registering noncitizens to vote outside driver’s licenses offices.
The lawsuit, filed in Tarrant County, alleges Jolt Initiative volunteers recruited and helped people submit illegal voter registration applications. Paxton is seeking a court order to dissolve the organization’s charter.
In a rebuke, Jolt accused Paxton of abusing his power and trying to intimidate civil rights groups to block the organization from registering legal Latino voters. Jolt has asked the court to dismiss the suit, which it called frivolous.
“This is a systematic effort to dismantle the infrastructure of Latino civic engagement in Texas,” Jackie Bastard, executive director of Jolt, said in a statement to The Dallas Morning News.
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The lawsuit comes more than a year after Paxton announced he was dispatching undercover agents to driver’s licenses offices across the state as part of an investigation into voter registration.
He launched the investigation following a social media post from Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo, who shared an unverified account from a mother and her 16-year-old son who said they visited three Department of Motor Vehicle sites in North Texas in search of shorter lines.
“First DMV was in Weatherford. Had a massive line of immigrants getting licenses and had a tent and table outside the front door of the DMV registering them to vote!” the post said. “Second one was in Fort Worth with same lines and same Dems out front. Third one was in North Fort Worth had no lines but had same voter registration drive.”
Officials with the Texas Department of Public Safety, which operates the driver’s license offices, and Tarrant and Parker counties said at the time the claims were not true.
Paxton’s new lawsuit provides few details about the alleged registration scheme. In one instance, the suit says, a Jolt volunteer in Universal City told an undercover agent he could submit a voter registration application on behalf of his daughter, which is not permitted per election code.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks at an event hosted by the University of Texas chapter of Turning Point USA on campus in Austin, Monday, Nov. 3, 2025.
Mikala Compton / Austin American-Statesman
The suit also mentions a social media post from a conservative activist, who recorded a Jolt volunteer in San Antonio saying an undocumented immigrant could submit a voter registration application “if they really wanted to.” The same video shows the volunteer explaining that it is illegal for noncitizens to vote.
In its statement, Jolt said it helps people register to vote, but that the state is ultimately responsible for verifying eligibility. Founded in 2016, the Houston-based organization aims to boost civic engagement among Latinos and is most active in Dallas, Bexar and Harris counties.
In a filing, Jolt requested the lawsuit move to Harris County and accused Paxton of trying to shop for a favorable judge. Paxton said he filed the lawsuit in Tarrant County because a “substantial part” of the allegations occurred there, but the suit does not provide instances of illegal voter registration in the county outside Bartiromo’s social media post.
For years, Republicans, including President Donald Trump, have said that noncitizens are voting in U.S. elections.
Trump repeated similar claims following his 2020 loss to Joe Biden and leading up to the 2024 presidential election. Federal and Texas law prohibit noncitizens from voting in elections, and various reports have found little evidence that noncitizen voting is widespread.
Last month, Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson said her agency had identified 2,724 “potential noncitizens” who were registered to vote after cross-referencing the state’s registered voters with a federal database. The list of voters included 277 from Dallas County.
The secretary of state did not remove those it flagged from the state’s voter rolls. Instead, the agency provided the voter files to individual counties for further investigation. If an investigation finds that any noncitizen voted in a prior election, they will be referred to the attorney general.
Paxton, who is challenging incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican primary next year, has filed numerous lawsuits that align with the Trump administration, including accusing the makers of Tylenol of failing to warn consumers about risks of taking the drug while pregnant and challenging the results of the 2020 election.
“Any organization attempting to register illegals, who are all criminals, must be completely crushed and shut down immediately,” Paxton said in a statement.
