The People’s Republic of Austin is a deep blue dot in the midst of deep red Texas, and Democrats are ramping up election shenanigans to keep it that way.
Local GOP Sues Travis County Over Election Staffing
According to the Travis County GOP, 41 percent of locations on Election Day lack any Republican poll workers.
…UPDATE: The Travis County Republican Party has appealed to the Texas Supreme Court after the 3rd Court of Appeals dismissed the lawsuit as moot.A lack of Republican election staffers, despite the county party having submitted over 900 names to the local election office, has caused the Travis County Republican Party to take drastic action.
According to a press release, the Travis GOP filed an emergency petition against the county elections division for refusing to staff polling locations with Republicans.
The filing alleges “the Travis County Elections Department ignored repeated requests from TCRP for polling location staffing, only delivering the information just four days before the start of early voting. The received information shows a severe lack of Republican presence at Early Voting and Election Day polling locations.”
According to the GOP, 24 percent of early voting locations have no Republican election judges, and 50 percent have no Republican election workers. For Election Day, 41 percent of locations lack any Republican poll workers.
The Texas Election Code requires polling locations to assign someone from the other major party as the alternate judge if they assign someone from one major party as the presiding judge.
“It is totally unacceptable that large portions of our county have no Republican election judges assigned, despite our providing far more than the number of available workers needed,” said Travis County GOP Chair Matt Mackowiak. “As long as I am TCRP chair, we will hold local government accountable when they violate our rights and risk election integrity. This is an egregious example, and we look forward to our day in court.”
Of course, pulling this sort of election shenanigans so close to the election gives very little time to correct the abuse. Here’s hoping the Texas Supreme Court comes back with some form of injunctive relief to have Republicans monitoring election day…
Tags: 2024 Election, Adam Cahn, Austin, Democrats, Elections, Matt Mackowiak, Republicans, Texas Scorecard, Texas Supreme Court, Travis County, Travis County Democratic Party, Travis County GOP, voting fraud
These kind of “shenanigans” should result in the entire result of that election jurisdiction being thrown out. The consequences of trying to run a crooked or biased election, in any way, should result in disqualification for using those voter results for any purpose.
Severe? Yes. Deserved? Yes.
The relief is simple:
The Travis County Republican Party gets to assign as many alternate judges to locations that lack a GOP alternate judge as they wish.
Since the Travis County Elections Department chose to violate the law, they’ve forfeited any input.
Boom, done
Which means the Travis County Republican Party damn well be ready with names for every location
Any news?
Haven’t heard anything. I just dropped Matt Mackowiak an email to check…
Update: “They dismissed it due to time. But they encouraged county to keep placing GOP workers and they are down from 76 slots with no GOP to 63.”
I’m not surprised that SCoTx denied mandamus — why the Travis County GOP didn’t file suit right after the lists came out is beyond me.
The Texas Legislature needs to act on this: create personal liability for statutory damages AND permanent disqualification and removal from office for any County Clerk that pulls this kind of stunt.