McKinney Recall Effort Draws Federal Civil Rights Complaint Over Alleged Intimidation
Collin County Citizens for Integrity has filed a federal civil rights complaint over concerns of political voter intimidation aimed at preventing residents from signing a McKinney City Council recall petition.
Last week, the group announced it submitted a civil rights complaint to the U.S. Department of Justice requesting that the agency review a “developing and increasingly concerning situation in McKinney, Texas, involving conduct that appears intended to intimidate, harass, discourage, or otherwise interfere with registered voters who are considering signing a lawful recall petition involving elected officials of the City of McKinney.”
Paul Chabot, chairman of Collin County Citizens for Integrity, told the Daily Signal the complaint is necessary to protect the rights of local residents.
“We filed this complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice because we are seeing a troubling pattern of intimidation and harassment directed at McKinney residents who are signing or helping collect signatures for the recall petition,” he said. “People should not have to fear being photographed, publicly identified, researched online, or having their jobs and livelihoods targeted because they participate in a lawful political process. Political disagreement is protected, but intimidation and retaliation have no place in our community.”
The complaint, sent to Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, states that as the recall process is in the signature-gathering stage, there have been “statements and conduct that appear directed toward identifying, singling out, harassing, intimidating, or discouraging individual citizens from participating in the petition process.”
According to the complaint, former elected officials, politically active community members, and others have made public statements discussing methods of disrupting the signature-gathering process and discouraging people from signing.
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One particular concern for the group stems from a radio interview about the recall in which individuals associated with creating or supporting the petition were publicly identified and discussed.
Another concern involves conduct on social media. Collin County Citizens for Integrity alleges that individuals acting as administrators or moderators have “permitted the use of those platforms in ways that appear designed to identify, target, criticize, or harass voters and would-be petition signers.” The group said this includes photographing and videotaping signers for “public shaming.”
The group also alleges that some who have signed the petition or expressed an intention to sign have been publicly identified by name in Facebook groups or related online discussions.
In response, Collin County Citizens for Integrity is asking individuals who have experienced or witnessed intimidation to contact the group.
One McKinney resident, Craig Fylling, told the Daily Signal that he received an anonymous text message after announcing that he would host his house as a location for residents to sign the petition.
The anonymous message said the sender respected Fylling’s right to recall the mayor and council members but disagreed about the reasons for doing so. The message also stated that “dozens of individuals in the DFW area and elsewhere” had Edward Jones accounts and would be closing them.
Fylling said he retired from Edward Jones in June but believed the message was intended to pressure or intimidate him because of his participation in the recall effort.
“The anonymous message I received specifically referenced people supposedly moving their Edward Jones accounts in response to the recall effort,” Fylling said. “Interestingly, I retired from my previous employer in June. Therefore, if the sender believed that financial pressure connected to my former employment could influence me, they apparently did not know that I had already retired.”
Fylling isn’t the only individual who has reported concerns.
Another individual contacted one of the petition organizers, John Aselton, and said she no longer felt comfortable signing the petition out of fear that she could be doxxed because of the alleged threats.
Additionally, this person said that her husband’s employment contract states that neither he nor anyone else in the household may “engage in controversial issues.” As a result, she “could not even sign as a petition circulator.”
Collin County Citizens for Integrity is asking the DOJ to review the statements and conduct described in the complaint and determine whether they constitute “intimidation, threats, coercion, attempted coercion, retaliation, harassment, interference with voting rights, or violations of any other applicable federal law.”
The complaint states: “We recognize that political disagreement, criticism, advocacy, and even harsh rhetoric are constitutionally protected. We are not asking the Department to investigate anyone merely because they oppose the recall or because they criticize its organizers. Rather, we are asking the Department to examine the distinction between protected political opposition and conduct designed to identify, expose, intimidate, harass, or pressure individual citizens into abandoning participation in a lawful process that determines whether an election will occur.”
Chabot said that the group would also like Gov. Greg Abbott’s office and Attorney General Ken Paxton to investigate the matter.
Fylling told the Daily Signal that the issue is about whether residents can exercise their rights “without being made to fear what may happen to them because they do so.”
“I believe this is a story about more than one person or one recall effort. It is about the political environment in McKinney and whether citizens feel free to participate in a lawful democratic process,” he said.
The McKinney City Council and the DOJ did not respond to a request for comment by publication.
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