The League of United Latin American Citizens wants the Department of Justice to investigate potential violations of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in Texas. The law provided an enforcement mechanism for the 15th Amendment and outlawed obstacles to voting.
LULAC accuses Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton of engaging in "official oppression of primarily Latino and Black voters."
"We're supposed to live in the greatest country in the world," says Lydia Martinez. "This is a free country. This is not Russia."
Martinez says she has been certified to register voters in Texas for years, but earlier this month, she says investigators from the attorney general's office came to her home with a search warrant. She says they told her they came because she filed a complaint about seniors not receiving mail-in ballots.
Martinez says she was questioned for two hours, and the attorney general's office confiscated her cell phone, laptop and appointment book.
"I'm not doing anything illegal. All I do is help seniors. I'm a commander with the Women's-American Legion. I help veterans," she says. "I said, 'I have five brothers in the military.' I do it in the name of my brothers."
LULAC says 58% of the Texas population is now Hispanic, Black or Asian.
According to the U.S. Census 2023 population estimate, the Texas population was 30.5 million. Hispanics made up the largest part of the population with 12.1 million people followed by White non-Hispanics at 12 million.
"We didn't break any laws," says LULAC State Director Gabriel Rosales. "All we did was go out there to increase the political participation of the Latino community."
In 2021, Texas passed an election integrity law. Since then, Governor Greg Abbott says the state has removed a million people from voter rolls.
Of those, he says 457,000 were dead and 463,000 were on a suspended list. He says 6,500 were non-citizens.
Abbott says, of those 6,500 non-citizens, 1,930 had a voting history.
"The Secretary of State’s office is in the process of sending all 1,930 records to the Attorney General’s Office for investigation and potential legal action," Abbott's office wrote in a press release.
In 2023, the legislature passed a law to make illegal voting a second degree felony.
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