/https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5fa032bab4de9a4b14642774/0x0.jpg?cropX1=0&cropX2=4500&cropY1=231&cropY2=2763&w=1200&resize=1200,675&ssl=1 "Federal Court Rejects Last-Minute GOP Effort To Discount Nearly 127,000 Drive-Thru Votes In Texas")
Topline
Nearly 127,000 votes cast using a drive-thru program in Harris County, Texas, will be counted, a federal judge decided Monday, dismissing the last-ditch attempt from a group of Texas Republicans to invalidate votes in the state’s most populous—and largely Democratic—county.
An election worker accepts mail in ballot from a voter at drive-through mail ballot drop off site at … [+]
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Key Facts
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen rejected the petition to toss the early votes and ban the use of drive-thru voting on Election Day in Harris County, which houses Houston, after an emergency hearing on Monday.
Hanen, a George W. Bush appointee who is considered one of the most conservative federal jurists on the Texas bench, was skeptical from the start of the plaintiffs’ argument, saying they would have an uphill battle in convincing him that Harris County had an “evil motive” in allowing drive-thru voting, and ultimately disagreed with the argument the program was less safe than in-person polling sites.
“I ain’t buying that,” said Hanen, announcing that the challengers—conservative activist Steven Hotze and three other members of the GOP—did not have legal standing to sue.
The plaintiffs, as their lawyer Jared Woodfill argued on Monday, sought to have the ballots tossed on the basis that the drive-thru voting program was an illegal expansion of curbside voting that was not approved by Texas Legislature.
Richard Mithoff, the lawyer for Harris County, defended the program as legal and necessary amid the pandemic, pointing out that drive-thru voting had been in the works for months and received bipartisan approval from county commissioners.
Several legal groups—including the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Texas branches of the NAACP and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee—joined in defense of the drive-thru program, along with longtime GOP election lawyer Benjamin Ginsburg and Republican Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives from 2009 to 2019 Joseph R. Straus III, who filed an amicus brief against the lawsuit on Sunday.
Judge Hanen did, however, order Harris County to maintain records of drive-thru voting in case the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals disagrees with him in an anticipated appeal from the plaintiffs.
Chief Critic
“There are more than 125,000 horses out of the barn,” wrote Hollins’ attorneys in a Sunday brief asking Hanen to reject the lawsuit. “These voters cast ballots for candidates of both political parties in good-faith and justified reliance on the legality of the drive-through polling places.”
Key Background
This lawsuit, filed against Harris County Clerk Chris Collins on Wednesday, was the third attempt from these plaintiffs to discount the drive-thru votes in Harris County, which a Houston Chronicle analysis found came disproportionately from precincts won by Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Beto O’Rourke in 2018. The other two efforts were knocked down by the Texas Supreme Court.
What To Watch For
Woodfill said on Sunday he is prepared to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Further Reading
“Texas Supreme Court Rejects Republican Petition To Toss Nearly 127,000 Drive-Thru Votes” (Forbes)
“Texas Supreme Court Weighing Whether To Throw Out More Than 100,000 Drive-Thru Votes” (Forbes)
“Longtime GOP Election Lawyer Calls Out Texas Republicans for ‘Last-Minute’ Attempt to Disenfranchise Thousands of Voters” (Law & Crime)
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