Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson fights Republican lawsuit seeking closed primaries [View all]

Texas’ top election official is opposing a GOP lawsuit that seeks to close the state’s primaries, arguing in new legal filings that a decision to restrict voting to registered party members should be up to lawmakers, not the courts.

Quoting from an earlier court decision, Republican Secretary of State Jane Nelson wrote in her filing that a court ruling on the GOP lawsuit now, just before the March primaries, threatens to “confuse voters, unduly burden election administrators, or otherwise sow chaos or distrust in the electoral process.”

In her filing, Nelson also took aim at Attorney General Ken Paxton, a fellow Republican who has sided with the Texas Republican Party in court, calling a joint motion he filed with the party “brazen and misguided.” The motion asked the court to require Nelson to close the primary.

Texas Republicans say the state’s open primaries violate their constitutional right to freedom of association, alleging in their legal filings that some Democratic and independent-leaning voters are casting ballots in Republican primaries and boosting more moderate candidates.




https://www.votebeat.org/texas/2025/10/31/secretary-of-state-jane-nelson-opposes-gop-plan-closed-primaries-voter-registration/