Harris County's election office changed the settings on its online get-out-the-vote ads late Thursday, the same day the Texas Attorney General's Office went to court claiming the ads were aimed at voters by race and ethnicity.
County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth said in a statement Thursday night that the audience tags on the ads had been taken off "to avoid unnecessary distractions" from the election, The Texas Tribune reported. The Tribune said it was not clear what the change means for the state's case.
What the state alleged
The lawsuit, filed in a Harris County district court, says the ads on Meta's Facebook and Instagram were steered toward users with Black, Latino and Asian interests and backgrounds while leaving out European ones. According to the petition as described by the Tribune, the targeting tags included African-American literature, Latin music, East Asia, 27 countries and foreign cities such as Madrid and Bangkok.
The state asked a judge to order the ads taken down or changed so that no racial or ethnic identifiers remained. The ads, which urge people to make a plan to vote, started running in late September and early October, the petition says. The suit argues the targeting violates the Texas Constitution.
Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, is not taking part in the case because he is on the ballot, his office said.
