A federal judge has barred Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton from dissolving the charter of Jolt Initiative, one of the largest Latino voter registration groups in the state.
In a preliminary injunction issued this week, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman said Paxton had “not produced any credible evidence” that Jolt was improperly registering voters, as the attorney general had alleged. Paxton accused the group of “attempting to register illegals, who are all criminals.”
Jolt is based in Austin and operates more than a dozen chapters on college campuses across Texas.
“Today’s decision is a resounding victory for Jolt, our volunteers, and the thousands of young Latino voters who refused to be intimidated by political bullying,” said Jackie Bastard, Jolt’s executive director. “For over a year, we have faced a relentless campaign of harassment designed to completely crush our organization and silence our community.”
Paxton began targeting Jolt in 2024 after Fox News host Maria Bartiromo posted on social media that friends had seen groups outside driver’s license facilities in Fort Worth attempting to register immigrants who were in the country illegally to vote. Bartiromo did not provide additional proof, and local officials in Tarrant County said they found no evidence of such activity. Nonetheless, Paxton singled out Jolt, calling it “a radical, partisan operation that has, and continues to, knowingly attempt to corrupt our voter rolls and weaken the voice of lawful Texas voters” in a press release last year.
The ruling marks another high-profile setback for Paxton in efforts to halt voter registration groups. Last year, he sought to shut down Powered By People, a political action committee led by former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, accusing the organization of illegally raising money and using it to effectively bribe Texas House Democrats to leave the state in opposition to redistricting maps later approved by Republicans. A federal court sided with O’Rourke’s group, allowing it to resume voter registration efforts.
O’Rourke said in an interview on the Texas Take podcast earlier this month that the claims were baseless and intended to disrupt voter registration work. He said the group spent more than $400,000 in legal expenses defending itself — funds he noted would otherwise have supported volunteer efforts in the field.
“It was to bleed us dry of the resources we need to support our volunteers in the field,” O’Rourke said.
Voter registration in Texas has risen sharply over the past decade, with organizations such as Jolt and Powered By People credited with helping shift Harris County, Bexar County, and communities along the Interstate 35 corridor toward Democratic candidates.
Texas now has about 18.5 million registered voters — an increase of 2.7 million since 2018. Harris, Bexar, Collin, Tarrant, and Denton counties account for roughly 1 million of those new voters, with all five either flipping blue or becoming significantly more competitive during that period.
