United States Court of Appeals

for the Fifth Circuit

No. 22-50690

Texas State LULAC; Voto Latino, 

Plaintiffs—Appellees,

versus

Bruce Elfant, et al.,

Defendants,

versus

Lupe C. Torres, in her Official Capacity as the Medina County Elections 

Administrator; Terrie Pendley, in her Official Capacity as the Real 

County Tax Assessor-Collector; Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General, 

Intervenor Defendants—Appellants.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Texas

USDC No. 1:21-CV-546

Before Clement, Duncan, and Wilson, Circuit Judges.

Stuart Kyle Duncan, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiffs are two voter registration organizations who challenged 

Texas’s recently revised requirements for voter residency. The district court 

concluded Plaintiffs had organizational standing because the new laws caused 

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

October 26, 2022

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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them to divert resources from other projects and also chilled their ability to 

advise and register voters. On the merits, the district court ruled that the 

challenged laws, in large part, impermissibly burdened the right to vote. 

Texas appealed.

We agree with Texas that Plaintiffs lack organizational standing. So, 

without reaching the merits, we reverse the district court’s judgment and 

render judgment dismissing Plaintiffs’ claims. 

I.

During its 2021 regular session, the Texas Legislature enacted over a 

dozen laws related to election integrity.

1 Among them was S.B. 1111, which 

became effective on September 1, 2021. See Act of May 27, 2021, 87th Leg., 

R.S., ch. 869, 2021 Tex. Sess. Law Serv. 2142. S.B. 1111 made three relevant 

changes to the Texas Election Code’s residency provisions. First, voters 

whose address on their registration form does not correspond to a physical 

residence, such as a commercial post-office box, must provide the registrar 

with documentation of a residential address. See Tex. Elec. Code

§§ 15.051(a), 15.052(a), 15.054 (“P.O. Box Provision”). Second, voters are 

prohibited from establishing or maintaining a residence “for the purpose of 

influencing the outcome of a certain election.” Id. § 1.015(b) (“Residence 

Provision”). Third, voters may not “establish a residence at any place the 

person has not inhabited” or “designate a previous residence as a home and 

fixed place of habitation unless the person inhabits the place at the time of 

1 See generally Keith Ingram, Election Advisory No. 2021-09, Tex. Sec’y of State 

(July 30, 2021), https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/laws/advisory2021-09.shtml; see

also, e.g., Act of June 4, 2021, 87th Leg., R.S., ch. 241, 2021 Tex. Sess. Law Serv. (H.B. 

1264) (requiring registrars to send monthly abstract of death certificates of voting-age 

decedents to voter registrars and Secretary of State); Act of June 14, 2021, 87th Leg., R.S., 

ch. 573, 2021 Tex. Sess. Law Serv. (S.B. 598) (requiring a risk-limiting audit of certain 

statewide elections within twenty-four hours of the ballots being counted). 

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designation and intends to remain.” Id. § 1.015(f) (“Temporary Relocation 

Provision”). What links these provisions, according to Texas, is the 

“fundamental state policy . . . that people should vote where they live.” 

Months before S.B. 1111 took effect, two voter registration 

organizations, LULAC and Voto Latino (“Plaintiffs”), sued various county 

election officials in federal court, seeking to enjoin enforcement of the three 

provisions. They alleged that (1) the Residence Provision violates the First 

Amendment by chilling political speech, and (2) all three provisions violate 

the First, Fourteenth, and Twenty-Sixth Amendments by unduly burdening 

the right to vote. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and other county 

officials (collectively, “Texas”) intervened to defend S.B. 1111.

Following discovery, the parties cross-moved for summary judgment.

The district court ruled largely for the Plaintiffs. Addressing standing first, 

the court ruled Plaintiffs had organizational standing because S.B. 1111 both 

chilled their speech and caused them to divert resources to counteract the 

law’s effects on their voter registration activities. The court also ruled 

Plaintiffs had statutory standing under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 given the direct 

injuries to their pocketbooks and First Amendment rights.

The court then turned to the merits. Addressing the P.O. Box 

Provision first, the court concluded that the measure “help[ed] the State 

prevent voter-registration fraud” and that requiring voters to sign and mail a 

prepaid, preaddressed form confirming a residential address scarcely

burdened their right to vote. It therefore upheld the provision, but “with one 

exception.” The court invalidated the provision to the extent it required 

voters who confirmed a residential address also to include a photocopy of 

their identification. In such instances, the court thought the prepaid form 

should serve as a change of address with no further proof of residence needed.

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Turning to the Residence Provision, the court found it 

unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. The court rejected the narrowing 

interpretation proffered by the Texas Secretary of State and concluded that 

the provision facially prohibited establishing a residence for “obviously 

permitted purposes such as voting, volunteering with a political campaign, or 

running for an elected office.” Accordingly, the court held the provision 

severely burdened the right to vote and “fail[ed] any degree of constitutional 

scrutiny.”

Finally, the court also found the Temporary Relocation Provision 

unconstitutional. The court believed the provision “creates a ‘man without 

a country,’” meaning someone unable to establish residence anywhere in 

order to vote. For instance, the court read the provision to bar college 

students from registering either in their college town (because they do not 

intend to remain there) or in their hometowns (because they are not 

physically present there). The court thus ruled the provision impermissibly 

burdened the right to vote.

As a result, the court permanently enjoined enforcement of the 

Residence Provision and the Temporary Relocation Provision in full, and 

enforcement of the P.O. Box Provision in part. Texas appealed and we 

granted its motion for a temporary administrative stay. We now reverse. As 

explained below, the district court erred in concluding the Plaintiffs have 

organizational standing to challenge S.B. 1111.

II.

We review summary judgments de novo, applying the same standards 

as the district court. Guerrero v. Occidental Petroleum Corp., 33 F.4th 730, 732 

(5th Cir. 2022); Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). We also review standing de novo. 

Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Univ. of Tex. at Austin, 37 F.4th 1078, 1083 

(5th Cir. 2022).

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III.

Texas argues that Plaintiffs lack organizational standing and, 

alternatively, that the challenged parts of S.B. 1111 do not unconstitutionally 

burden the right to vote. Because we agree that Plaintiffs lack organizational 

standing, we do not address the merits.

“An individual has standing to sue if his injury is traceable to the 

defendant and a ruling would likely redress it.” Students for Fair Admissions, 

37 F.4th at 1084 n.5 (citing U.S. Const. art. III, § 2; Lujan v. Defs. of 

Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560–61 (1992)). An association may have standing 

either by showing it can sue on behalf of its members (“associational”

standing) or sue in its own right (“organizational” standing). See id. at 1084 

& n.6; Tenth St. Residential Ass’n v. City of Dallas, 968 F.3d 492, 500 (5th Cir. 

2020). The district court found Plaintiffs lack associational standing because

they failed to identify any members affected by the challenged provisions. 

However, it found Plaintiffs have organizational standing based on two 

theories—diversion of resources and chilled speech. We address each in 

turn.

A.

“The Supreme Court has recognized that when an organization’s 

ability to pursue its mission is ‘perceptibly impaired’ because it has ‘diverted 

significant resources to counteract the defendant’s conduct,’ it has suffered 

an injury under Article III.” Tenth St. Residential Ass’n, 968 F.3d at 500 

(quoting NAACP v. City of Kyle, 626 F.3d 233, 238 (5th Cir. 2010)); see 

Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U.S. 363, 379 (1982). Such an injury 

must be “concrete and demonstrable.” City of Kyle, 626 F.3d at 238 (quoting

Havens Realty, 455 U.S. at 379). An organization can show standing via

diversionary injury by identifying “specific projects that [it] had to put on 

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hold or otherwise curtail in order to respond to the [challenged laws].” Ibid.

(citing La. ACORN Fair Hous. v. LeBlanc, 211 F.3d 298, 305 (5th Cir. 2000)). 

According to the district court, Plaintiffs identified “specific 

projects” curtailed due to Plaintiffs’spending money to counteract S.B. 1111: 

namely, certain of LULAC’s scholarship and law-reform programs, as well 

as Voto Latino’s voter-registration efforts outside Texas. The court noted 

that 2022 was “the first year since 2010 that Voto Latino will be unable to 

run a voter-registration drive in Colorado.” The court also observed that 

“LULAC is, for the first time, ‘spending over maybe $1 million to $2 million 

in Texas’ to counteract election laws like S.B. 1111.” Texas responds that the 

evidence fails to link Plaintiffs’ claimed diversion of resources to S.B. 1111.

We agree with Texas.

Testimony from LULAC and Voto Latino representatives 

consistently attributed their diversion of resources, not to S.B. 1111

specifically, but to a broader group of election-related laws enacted in Texas 

and other states. Emblematic is this exchange between Texas’s counsel and 

a Voto Latino representative. When asked “[h]ow is Voto Latino injured by 

SB 1111,” the response was, in relevant part:

As a result of SB 1111 and all the other laws that came into effect 

post-January, we had to reallocate our funding and lower our 

goals to concentrate on voter education.

And so we lowered our goals in voter registration roughly about 

25 percent and for voter outreach roughly at one point for 1.3 

million to 500,000 so that’s roughly about 62 percent—60 

percent. And then we also had because there—the laws that were 

passed in the state of Texas and others, we actually had to shut down 

our Colorado program.

It’ll be the very first time that we are not doing voter 

registration and education in Colorado since 2010. And 

because of the things that I think we can all appreciate is that 

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there is not infinite amount of money or time. And so I’ve 

also—we’ve also had to retool and teach our volunteers, 

educate them, provide information around primaries specifically to 

SB 1111 and the other—the other laws as well, and spent time on 

my counsel filing this lawsuit and the list goes on.[2]

ROA.1258–59 (emphases added). Similarly, LULAC’s representative was 

asked whether the organization had to divert funds from immigration and 

criminal justice reform projects “on account of SB 1111 specifically.” The 

witness avoided giving a definite answer. Instead, he responded: “We’re 

going to reduce those efforts, and it’s not only SB 1111, but SB 1, it’s both.”3

Even assuming this evidence adequately shows a diversionary injury 

under Article III, it fails to link any diversion of resources specifically to S.B. 

1111. It is not enough merely to claim the organizations have spent money to 

counteract “S.B. 1111 and all the other [election] laws” passed in Texas and 

in other states around the same time. An organizational plaintiff must show

it diverted resources “as a direct result of” the challenged law—not as a 

result of the challenged law and others like it. Ass’n of Cmty. Orgs. for Reform 

Now v. Fowler, 178 F.3d 350, 360 (5th Cir. 1999) [“ACORN”]; see also City of 

Kyle, 626 F.3d at 238 (explaining the diversion of resources must be made “in 

order to respond to the [challenged law]”). Plaintiffs have not done so here.

Therefore, they fail to satisfy the traceability and redressability prongs of 

2 To the extent Plaintiffs rely on the assertion that they “spent time on . . . counsel 

filing this lawsuit,” our precedents squarely reject the notion that a diversionary injury can 

be shown by “the mere fact that an organization redirects some of its resources to litigation 

and legal counseling.” La. ACORN, 211 F.3d at 305 (cleaned up).

3 S.B. 1 is a wide-ranging election integrity law recently enacted in Texas. Among 

other things, it imposes criminal penalties for certain forms of intentional voter fraud and 

requires the Secretary of State to carry out periodic, randomized audits of election results. 

See Texas Election Integrity Act of 2021, 87th Leg., 2d C.S., ch. 1, 2021 Tex. Sess. Law 

Serv. 3783. LULAC has separately challenged parts of S.B. 1. See La Union del Pueblo Entero 

v. Abbott, No. 5:21-CV-844 (W.D. Tex.). 

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Article III standing. See, e.g., Inclusive Cmtys. Project, Inc. v. Dep’t of Treasury, 

946 F.3d 649, 655 (5th Cir. 2019) (“‘Th[at] triad of injury-in-fact, causation, 

and redressability constitutes the core of Article III’s case-or-controversy 

requirement[.]’” (first alteration in original) (quoting Steel Co. v. Citizens for 

a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 103–04 (1988))). 

Contrast Plaintiffs’ meager showing on this point with the concrete 

showing our court required to prove organizational standing in ACORN.

There, the organizational plaintiff challenged Louisiana’s alleged lack of 

compliance with the National Voter Registration Act (“NVRA”), which 

required the state to facilitate voter registration at public aid offices. 

ACORN, 178 F.3d at 360. The organization presented specific evidence that 

it regularly conducted voter registration drives in Louisiana, registering 

people at “welfare waiting rooms, unemployment offices, and on Food 

Stamp lines,” and concentrating its efforts in areas where households 

receiving food stamps had low rates of voter registration. Id. at 361. We found

that this detailed showing was sufficient evidence that the organization had 

“expended resources registering voters in low registration areas who would 

have already been registered if [Louisiana] had complied with the [public aid]

requirement under the NVRA[.]” Ibid. In other words, concrete evidence 

showed the organization’s diversion of resources was a direct response to the 

defendant’s challenged actions and, as such, satisfied the injury, traceability, 

and redressability prongs of Article III standing. Here, by contrast, Plaintiffs

have merely made vague assertions that they diverted resources in response 

to “S.B. 1111 and all the other laws,” both inside and outside Texas.

4

4 While “general factual allegations of injury resulting from the defendant’s 

conduct may suffice” at the pleadings stage, more is required to survive summary 

judgment, as here. ACORN, 178 F.3d at 354 (citation omitted). To demonstrate standing 

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We therefore cannot agree with the district court that Plaintiffs 

showed they curtailed “specific projects” in order to counteract S.B. 1111. 

For instance, the district court noted that “[t]his is the first year since 2010 

that Voto Latino will be unable to run a voter-registration drive in Colorado.”

But the evidence did not show that the Colorado program was suspended 

because of money Voto Latino had to spend on S.B. 1111. Rather, the 

testimony was that “because [of] . . . the laws that were passed in the state of 

Texas and others, we actually had to shut down our Colorado program.” 

ROA.1259 (emphasis added).5 The court also observed that LULAC was 

spending “$1 million to $2 million in Texas, to counteract election laws like 

S.B. 1111.” ROA.1914 (emphasis added). Again, this is not sufficient. 

Plaintiffs sued to enjoin S.B. 1111—not “laws like S.B. 1111.”

In sum, Plaintiffs failed to demonstrate their own standing to 

challenge S.B. 1111 based on diversion of resources. We can assume without 

deciding that Plaintiffs’ testimony about diverted funding adequately shows

an injury-in-fact. See Inclusive Cmtys. Project, 946 F.3d at 656 n.9 (assuming 

injury-in-fact). Even so, Plaintiffs did not show that the diversion was a direct 

response to S.B. 1111 specifically, as opposed to an undifferentiated group of 

recent election laws in Texas and elsewhere. Plaintiffs thus failed to show 

that their claimed injury was traceable to S.B. 1111. See Bennett v. Spear, 520 

at this stage, Plaintiffs “must point to specific summary judgment evidence showing that it 

was ‘directly affected’ by [Texas’s] alleged . . . violations.” Ibid. (citation omitted). 

5 Later in her deposition, the same witness suggested that “shutting down the 

Colorado program” was “specifically” due to S.B. 1111. But the witness did not try to 

explain why spending money on S.B. 1111, in contrast to all the other election laws in Texas 

and elsewhere, caused suspension of the Colorado program. More specificity is needed to 

show that resources were diverted “as a direct result” of the challenged law. ACORN, 178 

F.3d at 360. In any event, a few pages earlier, the same witness attributed suspension of the 

Colorado program, not specifically to S.B. 1111, but to “the laws that were passed in the 

state of Texas and others.”

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U.S. 154, 162 (1997) (standing requires injury to be “fairly traceable to the

challenged actions of the defendant”); ACORN, 178 F.3d at 359 (holding 

diversion of resources must be “fairly traceable” to the “conduct . . . that 

[plaintiff] claims in its complaint is illegal”). For similar reasons, Plaintiffs

also failed to show redressability. See Larson v. Valente, 456 U.S. 228, 243 

n.15 (1982) (redressability requires that “a favorable decision will relieve a 

discrete injury to [the plaintiff]”) (emphasis added). If Plaintiffs’ injury arose

from various election laws in Texas and elsewhere, as the testimony at most 

suggests, enjoining S.B. 1111 would not likely redress the drain on their

resources. See Leal v. Becerra, No. 21-10302, 2022 WL 2981427, at *2 (5th 

Cir. July 27, 2022) (unpublished) (“Redressability is also a problem when 

declaring one law unenforceable may not provide relief because a different 

law independently causes the same injury.”).

In sum, the district court erred in concluding Plaintiffs had standing 

based on a diversion-of-resources theory.

B.

We turn to Plaintiffs’ second theory of organizational standing, 

namely that the threatened enforcement of S.B. 1111 chills their speech. A

plaintiff suffers an Article III injury if the credible threat of a law’s 

enforcement chills his speech or causes self-censorship. Susan B. Anthony 

List v. Driehaus, 573 U.S. 149, 158–59 (2014); Barilla v. City of Houston, 13 

F.4th 427, 431 (5th Cir. 2021). The chilling effect must have an objective 

basis; “[a]llegations of a subjective ‘chill’ are not an adequate substitute

. . . .” Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. 1, 13–14 (1972). To assess standing on this 

basis, we ask (1) whether the plaintiff intends to engage in a course of conduct 

arguably affected with a constitutional interest; (2) whether that conduct is 

arguably proscribed by the challenged policy; and (3) whether the threat of 

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future enforcement is substantial. Barilla, 13 F.4th at 431–432 (citing Speech 

First, Inc. v. Fenves, 979 F.3d 319, 330 (5th Cir. 2020)).

The district court held that Texas’s threatened enforcement of S.B. 

1111 objectively chills Plaintiffs’ First Amendment right to conduct voter 

registration drives and engage with prospective voters. It credited Plaintiffs’

fear of being prosecuted if they gave advice to voters that conflicted with S.B. 

1111. This fear was credible, the court reasoned, because helping someone 

commit voter fraud is a crime and because of Texas’s avowed priority of 

combatting voter fraud. We disagree.

Plaintiffs fail prongs two and three of the governing test. While 

Plaintiffs may have a constitutional interest in conducting voter registration 

drives, they have not shown under prong two that this conduct is “arguably 

proscribed” by S.B. 1111. Barilla, 13 F.4th at 431 (quoting Speech First, 979 

F.3d at 330) (cleaned up). Plaintiffs must “establish a serious intention to 

engage in conduct proscribed by law,” Zimmerman v. City of Austin, 881 F.3d 

378, 389 (5th Cir. 2018), but neither S.B. 1111 nor any other law cited by 

Plaintiffs arguably prohibits Plaintiffs’ activities.

Plaintiffs argue that it is “a crime under Texas law to help someone to 

register to vote in violation of [S.B. 1111’s] confusing new requirements.” But 

Texas law does not criminalize giving good faith but mistaken advice to 

prospective voters. Rather, the statute on which Plaintiffs rely applies only 

“if the person knowingly or intentionally” “requests, commands, coerces, or 

attempts to induce another person to make a false statement on a [voter] 

registration application.” Tex. Elec. Code § 13.007(a) (emphasis 

added). See also Tex. Penal Code §7.02(a)(2) (making a party criminally 

liable for another’s offense only if he “act[s] with intent to promote or assist 

the commission of the offense”). Plaintiffs do not assert that they plan to

“knowingly or intentionally” encourage people to register who are ineligible 

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under S.B. 1111. Plaintiffs’ argument turns on the “confusion and 

uncertainty” S.B. 1111 supposedly injects into their voter outreach efforts. 

Uncertainty is not the same as intent, however. Accordingly, Plaintiffs have 

not shown a serious intention to engage in protected activity arguably 

proscribed by the challenged law.

Plaintiffs also lack standing under prong three because there is no 

credible threat they will be prosecuted. Barilla, 13 F.4th at 432. The fanciful 

notion that Plaintiffs will be charged under S.B. 1111 depends on a “highly 

attenuated chain of possibilities.” Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, 568 U.S. 

398, 410 (2013). Consider all the dominoes that would have to fall:

1. Plaintiffs “knowingly or intentionally” encourage or induce someone 

to vote or register to vote in violation of S.B. 1111.

2. That person intentionally votes illegally or intentionally submits a 

false registration form.

3. The voter registrar discovers the violation and refers it to a 

prosecutor.

4. The prosecutor unearths the initial connection between the offender 

and Plaintiffs.

5. The prosecutor determines Plaintiffs intentionally violated S.B. 1111.

6. The prosecutor exercises his discretion to bring charges against 

Plaintiffs.

This does not add up to a credible threat of Plaintiffs’ being prosecuted for 

inducing a prospective voter to violate S.B. 1111. See Zimmerman, 881 F.3d at 

390 (no credible risk of enforcement where the circumstances leading to 

prosecution were “speculative and depend[ed] in large part on the action of 

third-part[ies]”).

In response, citing our Barilla decision, Plaintiffs argue that we must 

presume a credible threat of prosecution because this is a pre-enforcement 

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challenge. See Barilla, 13 F.4th at 432. They are mistaken. The presumption 

Plaintiffs rely on applies to “pre-enforcement challenges to recently enacted 

(or, at least, non-moribund) statutes that facially restrict expressive activity 

by the class to which the plaintiff belongs.” Ibid. (quoting Speech First, 979 

F.3d at 335). But S.B. 1111 does not facially restrict any of Plaintiffs’ 

expressive activities. S.B. 1111 applies to voters, not organizations like 

Plaintiffs who advise and register voters. S.B. 1111 therefore does not facially 

restrict Plaintiffs’ ability to engage in their expressive conduct, and the 

presumption of a credible threat of prosecution does not apply.6

In sum, the district court erred in concluding Plaintiffs had 

organizational standing based on a chilled-speech theory.

IV.

Because Plaintiffs lack standing, the district court lacked subject 

matter jurisdiction. We therefore REVERSE the district court’s judgment 

and RENDER judgment dismissing Plaintiffs’ claims.

REVERSED and RENDERED.

6 Even if the presumption applied, it can be rebutted by “compelling contrary 

evidence.” See Barilla, 13 F.4th at 432 (noting that “courts will assume a credible threat of 

prosecution in the absence of compelling contrary evidence”) (citing Speech First, 979 F.3d 

at 335). Such evidence abounds here, given the number of stars that would have to align 

before Plaintiffs could be prosecuted for violating S.B. 1111. See supra.

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