Travis County is suing the state attorney general’s office to block the release of records sought by former Austin City Council candidate Laura Pressley, who is involved in long-running litigation over her 2014 loss to District 4 Council Member Greg Casar.Statesman
The records request is part of Pressley’s effort to question the validity of elections in Travis County. However, she disputes the assertion from the county’s attorneys that the records request is linked to her defeat in the 2014 campaign.
The lawsuit, filed late Friday by county attorney David Escamilla, challenges the state’s ruling that the county must turn over documents Pressley requested on Oct. 14, 2016. (Pressley disputes the date, saying she filed the request in August.) She had asked for emails involving elections contractors and county and state officials.
At issue are nine pages Travis County says it does not want to turn over, alleging they pose a significant security risk to the county and its election process. Additionally, the county says some of the information sought by Pressley contains secured computer information that is considered confidential by law.
“What is Travis County hiding that they’re in disagreement with the attorney general?” Pressley said Tuesday, adding that she’s filed similar records requests with major counties around the state.
Pressley’s inquiry into Travis County’s electronic voting equipment began with her lawsuit contesting the 2014 council runoff, which Casar won with nearly 65 percent of the vote. Pressley alleged that the Travis County Clerk’s Office, which runs the elections, broke the law by not securing “ballot images” from its electronic voting machines. Pressley’s attorneys have argued that made it impossible to determine the actual outcome of the race.
Casar’s attorneys argued that the “cast vote record” maintained by Travis County — a record showing each voter’s chosen slate of candidates — is widely recognized as being the same as a “ballot image.”
A state district court judge threw out Pressley’s case in 2015 and later ordered Pressley and her first attorney, David Rodgers, to pay $100,000 in sanctions for failing to back up key arguments. At the time, Judge Dan Mills warned the fines, which help cover Casar’s legal expenses, would escalate if Pressley appealed and lost.
In December, an appeals court upheld that district court ruling. Pressley spent $215,000 in legal fees to contest the defeat.
In January, Casar’s attorney Chuck Herring estimated Pressley’s side might end up shouldering $190,000 of the council member’s legal bill.
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