Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office sued the Harris County Clerk on Thursday to halt a series of get-out-the-vote advertisements, arguing the county had unlawfully targeted Black, Latino and Asian voters.
The lawsuit accuses Teneshia Hudspeth and members of her staff of spending $43,429 on a month’s worth of social media ads through Meta platforms in an effort to target voters by race or ethnicity, claiming that action violated the state constitution. The ads began running on Facebook and Instagram in September and are designed to direct voters to county election resources, according to the complaint.
The suit includes screenshots of the County Election Department’s Meta ad library page, which show the county had prioritized showing ads to users with interests like “African-American literature,” “Hispanic kitchen” and “Latin dance” — tags that purportedly make the posts more discoverable to specific demographic groups.
“Troublingly, these voter awareness ads intentionally target certain racial and ethnic groups,” the complaint says, “but do not target other demographics.”
Trending
Paxton is the state’s Republican Senate nominee and faces a tight race against Democrat James Talarico. His office said he has recused himself from the lawsuit because he is on the November ballot.
Hudspeth did not immediately return The Washington Sun’s request for comment. The Harris County clerk’s official Facebook page was still running the ad as of Thursday evening.
Anchored by Houston, Harris County is Texas’ largest county and a Democratic stronghold in the state.
Meta’s ad library website explains that ads can be purchased to reach users based on “age, gender and location,” which may also include “people beyond the targeting criteria but are likely to find an ad relevant.”
State government lawyers are asking a Texas district court to deactivate the ad or have the targeted tags removed, as well as block such targeting in the future.
The attorneys also noted that their request comes a day before early voting ends and five days before Election Day, writing: “Every moment that these advertisements remain active and improperly targeting users based on their race or ethnicity, Defendants are violating the Texas Constitution. But once the 2026 Election is over, the harm will be done (at least, for this series of ads).”
Author
