Abbott moves to certify election results despite legal challenges
State officials certified the November election results this week, moving to usher in billions of dollars in property tax relief and raises for retired teachers despite a series of long-shot lawsuits that have challenged the outcome.
According to state law, constitutional amendment elections cannot be finalized until litigation is resolved. A halfdozen lawsuits filed after the Nov. 7 election threatened to delay the policies Texas voters overwhelmingly approved.
But on Monday, Gov. Greg
Abbott issued a proclamation declaring the results official. The next day, the attorney general’s office filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuits. The plaintiffs didn’t properly serve the secretary of state’s office, the state’s filing said, and now that the election is finalized, their effort is moot. Judges in the cases have not yet ruled.
The state in its filing Tuesday also threw cold water on the lawsuits’ allegations that the November elections used “substandard voting systems.”
“Vitally missing from Plaintiffs’ allegations is any assertion that those allegedly illegal votes materially affected the results of the election and that the result
would have been different had those votes not been counted,” said the filing in Travis County court.
“Plaintiffs have failed to plead a valid election contest,” it added.
One of the main plaintiffs could not immediately be reached on Wednesday. All the lawsuits were filed pro se, meaning the plaintiffs are representing themselves in court without an attorney. They include Jarrett Woodward of Bexar County, who has urged county commissioners in Bexar, Kerr, Uvalde and Medina counties to do away with electronic voting systems altogether and instead count ballots by hand, according to Votebeat, a nonpartisan reporting project on elections and voting that first reported on the lawsuits.
Republican lawmakers had been scrambling in the final days of the fourth special legislative session to shield their priority policies from legal delays. In the election, Texas voters overwhelmingly approved changes to the constitution that included billion-dollar funds to expand state parks and improve Texas’ water infrastructure.
One of the most popular amendments was a cost of living increase for retired teachers receiving a pension.
“We feel confident that our cost of living increase is back on track,” said Tim Lee, executive director of the Texas Retired Teachers Association.