(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) A Houston-area judge ordered an election redo after 1,430 illegal votes were cast in a 2022 judicial race in the 180th District Court, the Texas Tribune reported.
Judge David Peeples ordered Harris County to hold a new election after Republican candidate Tami Pierce lost by a narrow margin, 449 votes, to Democrat Judge DaSean Jones.
BREAKING: The judge overseeing multiple 2022 midterm election challenges in Harris County, Texas has ordered a REDO for the 180th District Court judicial race after finding that there were many mistakes and violations of election law
"The court has found that 1,430 illegal votes… pic.twitter.com/BwGOaalg48
— George (@BehizyTweets) May 15, 2024
According to Peeples, because of the narrow margin and the 1,430 illegal votes, the true victor could not be determined.
He wrote that the illegitimate votes were caused by “an official mistake” made by the Harris County Elections Administration Office.
However, the county has long been plagued with concerns over its election mismanagement and has faced several vote-fraud scandals in recent election cycles.
“The 2022 election in Harris County was one of the most disastrous elections in the country, probably only bested by the rigged election in Maricopa County, Arizona,” tweeted conservative activist George Behizy. “Voters were disenfranchised on election day and many illegal democrat votes were counted.”
Jones, who is currently running for the state Supreme Court, was the incumbent in the disputed 2022 race. He has been a controversial figure due to his long history of releasing dangerous felons on bond.
It is unclear how the do-over for his current position might impact his November election, in which he hopes to topple Republican incumbent Jimmy Blacklock. Currently, all nine of the justices on the high court are Republican.
Jones’s lawyer, Oliver Brown, said that he expected to appeal the ruling because he believes it “will be overturned.” According to Brown, Pierce failed to “meet the legal standard.”
Brown also issued a statement castigating the state of Texas for allowing the election challenge, thereby “failing to protect democracy.”
Pierce’s lawyer, however, expressed hope that Jones and Brown might allow the voters to decide who the judge should be in a free and fair election.
“We are gratified by the court’s judgment that Tami Pierce deserves a new election,” said Paul Simpson, Pierce’s lawyer, adding that “voluminous, detailed evidence” pointed to “many problems” with Harris County’s “troubled November 2022 election.”
For Pierce, the ruling presented an opportunity to right the wrong of 2022.
Naturally, Republicans in the area celebrated Peeples’s ruling, with Harris County Republican Party Chair Cindy Siegel issuing a statement in response.
“Judge Peeples’s decision to order a new election confirms what the Harris County GOP has been saying since 2022—The previous election administrations’ handling of our elections was beyond negligent, resulting in voters’ confidence in our elections being damaged,” Siegel wrote.
The ruling may, however, have implications beyond just the judicial race alone, as Harris County was one of the messiest elections in America in 2022, with numerous problems coming to the fore, including mismanaged voter rolls and election data.
At least one other race from the 2022 cycle has been subjected to a do-over due to invalid ballots. In Caddo Parish, Louisiana, a judge voided the sheriff’s election after the Democrat candidate won by a single vote after it was revealed that several people had double voted.
However, Sheriff Henry Whitehorn would go on to defeat his Republican challenger in a more decisive win in their March rematch, garnering a 4,000 vote victory the second time around.
