'Shadowy' GOP-linked group in Houston knocking on doors in mostly Black neighborhood seeking sensitive voter info

A Houston resident said two men wearing Texas Election Network badges came to her door asking her to sign an affidavit verifying her voter address "under penalty of perjury."

The Harris County attorney's office is investigating complaints that members of the Republican-connected grass-roots organization were snooping around the Sunnyside neighborhood, where about 75 percent of residents are Black and 20 percent are Hispanic, and asking residents to sign official-looking documents, reported the Houston Chronicle.

“The people canvassing residents are grass-roots volunteers for the nonprofit organization called Texas Election Network and they are wearing badges that clearly state the name of the organization with the nonprofit registration number on the back," said Alan Vera, chair of the county GOP's ballot security committee and a Texas Election Network board member. "These volunteers are not employees of any political party. The nonprofit’s mission is to empower citizens to ensure and protect fair and transparent elections."

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The county elections office issued a warning Wednesday against "scammers" pretending to be government officials and collecting sensitive personal information, but the county attorney's office said they had not found evidence that anyone had misrepresented themselves as a public employee, which is illegal.

"I'm sure they'll say they're just a bland nonprofit, but to a voter who does not have a law degree, who does not have a background in law enforcement, you are a lot more likely to believe that this is some kind of quasi-official visit," said James Slattery, senior staff attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project. "This is one of the precise situations I have been most worried about this election — people in shadowy volunteer groups who suggest in one way or another that they are acting under official authority questioning the eligibility of voters directly by knocking on their doors."