Drive-thru voting gets green light fromstate’s high court
Republican plaintiffs’ request to halt the option in Harris County is denied
The Texas Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a request by Republicans to halt drive-thru voting in Harris County, an option already used by more than 70,000 residents during the first two weeks of early voting.
The all-Republican court declined to grant two requests from plaintiffs that include the state and county Republican parties and Houston conservative activist Steven Hotze, who argued that drive-thru voting was not permitted under the Texas Election Code and should be stopped.
The majority did not explain its decision. The lone dissenter, Justice John Devine, said Harris County Clerk Christopher Hollins had exceeded his authority in creating the drive-thru option, and by not granting the Republicans’ request, “thousands of ballots continue to be cast through what is likely an unauthorized voting procedure.”
Harris County offers drive-thru voting at 10 polling locations, most of them consisting of tents inwhich voters are checked in by poll workers and presented with an electronic voting machine to cast their ballots while still in their cars.
The legal setback was a latest inaseries of attempts by Republicans to limit voting options in Texas during what is on pace to be the highest-turnout election in state history. The group failed in their attempts to roll back an extra week of early voting and limitwhen mail ballots may be delivered in person.
They succeeded in preventing Harris County from sending mail ballot applications to all voters; Gov. Greg Abbott also decided to limit the number of mail ballot drop- off sites in each county to one .
Thursday’s high court decision was only a partial victory for Harris County leaders, however. The Supreme Court did not declare drive-thru voting to be legal, as the local Democrats had hoped, leaving open the possibility of a post- election challenge of those ballots, Assistant Harris County Attorney Douglas Ray said.
“We believe it’s possible that if the number of votes cast could be material to the outcome of any of the elections, that an election challenge could be filed by the personwho lost, saying they really should have won if all these illegal ballots hadn’t been counted,” Ray said, adding the countywould prepare for such a challenge.
Allen West, chairman of the state Republican Party,
said he was perplexed by the Supreme Court’s decision, and pledged to keep fighting.
“This whole situation would have been avoided if the unelected, partisan ChrisHollins had not abused his position … to manipulate the election process and undermine electoral integrity,” West said in a statement.
Harris County Republican Party Chairman Keith Neilsen acknowledged the lawsuit was a long shot, but said “there are a lot of serious issues with the drivethru voting locations and they need to be addressed.”
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, in a tweet, called the court’s decision “a victory for democracy, for the thousands of courageous voterswho have participated, even in the face of suppression attempts, and it’s a fair interpretation of the law.”
Earlier Thursday, Hidalgo asked Abbott in a letter to confirm that drive-thru voting is legal, amid worries the high court would block the voting method, throwing the legality of about 73,000 ballots already collected into question.
Hidalgo said the governor’s input was needed because Harris County officials unsuccessfully had sought an answer from Secretary of State Ruth Hughs earlier.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton last week issued an opinion in which he suggested Harris County’s drive-thru voting option, newthis year, was unlawful.
Hidalgo and Hollins said they were concerned the Supreme Courtmay invalidate votes cast at drive-thru sites; Harris is the only county to use them. Hollins wrote a letter to Hughs earlier this week, asking her to affirm the legality of drive-thru voting.
“In absence of such an assurance, we can only conclude that
state officials, in concert with the Texas Republican Party, are laying the groundwork to intentionally disenfranchise the tens of thousands of Harris County voters who have utilized drive-thru voting by invalidating their
votes,” Hidalgo wrote to the governor. “If this were to come to pass, it would be an outrageous act of voter suppression.”
The lawsuit and opinion from Paxton puzzled Hollins. Harris County’s election plans have been public since August, and no state official had raised issue with his drive-thru voting plan. The Supreme Court rejected the Republicans’ request to shorten early voting in part because the plaintiffs waited too long to file suit. Changing the rules after voting had begun, the court reasoned in that suit, would cause confusion.
Hollins praised the court’s decision Thursday, adding that voters had raved about their drivethru voting experiences.
“It is unprecedented to have such clear partisan politics attempt to undercut the voting operations of a single county, a county that has provided its voting electorate with more voting access than ever before,” he said in a statement.
More than 900,000 votes have been cast inHarris County so far, more than the entire 2010 and 2014 elections.