Texas Attorney General and Harris County Settle the Voter-Ads Fight: the Clerk Removes the Targeted Ads and Keeps Them Off Through the Election
One day after the state sued Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth over voter ads on Meta, the two sides reached an agreement Friday: the clerk's office removes ads that used what the state called racially discriminatory targeting settings, and does not reactivate them during the election period.
The lawsuit lasted a day. The Texas Attorney General's Office and Harris County reached an agreement Friday, a day after the state sued County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth over voter ads on Meta, according to the Attorney General's Office as reported in the Texian Partisan's October 31 daily briefing, read in full this cycle. Under the agreement, the clerk's office removes ads that used targeting settings the state described as racially discriminatory, and does not reactivate those settings during the election period.
The county's account of the deal differs in emphasis, and the desk carries both: Harris County called it an interim agreement and said the settings had already been removed before the deal was reached, KHOU reported, per the same briefing. The station's earlier file (texas-ag-sues-harris-county-clerk-get-out-the-vote-ads-targeting) recorded Thursday's suit; this file is its resolution — the desk is not treating either side's characterization as the whole record.
Harris County is the state's largest county electorate, and the agreement lands four days before Election Day, with the disputed get-out-the-vote advertising question closed for this cycle rather than litigated through it. What the agreement does not do, on the reporting read this cycle, is end the underlying argument about how election offices may target voter outreach — it settles this election's ads, on these settings, through this election period.
