Paxton said recipients of the voter registration applications could include people who are ineligible to vote, such as noncitizens, and that mailing them the forms could increase the risk of voter fraud in the election.

“This program is completely unlawful and potentially invites election fraud. It is a crime to register to vote if you are ineligible,” Paxton said in a statement.

Bexar County includes San Antonio and is one of Texas’s Democratic strongholds. While former President Donald Trump won Texas overall by nearly six points, President Joe Biden won Bexar by 18 points.

In the complaint Paxton filed against the Bexar County Commissioners Court, the Republican state attorney general noted that the court voted to authorize spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars for Civic Government Solutions to send the voter registration applications out to Bexar residents.

The county’s plan was to send out 210,000 voter registration applications with the goal of registering 75,000 people to vote, Paxton said.

Paxton said CGS, which touts its enormous database of unregistered voters, was run by CEO Jeremy Smith, who once “showed interest” on a podcast in encouraging people to vote for “progressive candidates.” Smith is also the CEO of Civitech, a “progressive data startup,” Paxton noted.

CGS assured the Commissioners Court that its work would be nonpartisan. The plan for Bexar to enlist the group’s services passed the Commissioners Court in a 3–1 vote.

Paxton said sending mass voter registration applications violates the state’s election code, which prohibits counties from sending unsolicited voter registration forms. In the lawsuit, the attorney general cited a similar suit he brought and won against Harris County ahead of the 2020 election.

“Defendants’ actions will create confusion, facilitate fraud, undermine confidence in elections, and are illegal [acts] because they exceed statutory authority,” Paxton wrote.

It is against federal law for noncitizens to vote, but Paxton noted in the lawsuit that in Texas, a border state that has been ravaged by illegal migration, 6,500 noncitizens have been purged from Texas’s voter rolls since 2021. Nearly 2,000 of those noncitizens were found to have voted, Paxton said, citing a recent announcement by Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX).

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Paxton’s lawsuit came after he warned the Commissioners Court two days earlier that he would file the complaint if the four-member panel approved sending the registration forms.

A spokesperson for the Commissioners Court did not respond to a request for comment.