Nov. 3 (UPI) — A federal judge on Monday threw out a last-minute lawsuit by Republican Party candidates in Texas seeking to disqualify some 127,000 ballots cast at drive-thru polling stations, stating the challenge lacked legal standing.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, a President George W. Bush appointee, dismissed the case filed last week by three Republican candidates running for office and a GOP activist who argued curbside voting in Harris County was unconstitutional.
“This is what democracy looks like,” said Andre Segura, legal director of the American Civil Liberties of Texas, which moved to intervene in the case on Sunday night on behalf of the state’s League of Women Voters and several people who used the curbside polling station.
“Our justice system did its duty today to ensure voting rights are protected and our democracy remains intact,” Segura said in a statement.
Hanen said from the bench he rejected the complaint against curbside voting as the plaintiffs failed to show the harm caused by counting such ballots and that they filed their case last week after thousands of people had used drive-thru voting sites, which had been operating since mid-October.
The Republicans immediately filed an appeal with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The ruling is the second to be handed down against the plaintiffs seeking to have the thousands of drive-thru ballots invalidated in two days after the Texas Supreme Court rejected their petition on Sunday.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas’ 18th district told reporters in a press conference after the verdict called the GOP lawsuit part of a “constant barrage of unfortunately frivolous lawsuits” seeking to intimidate voters.
“Today was a victory for the American people, for those who, no matter what their party affiliation, could walk in dignity because their vote was counted,” she said. “Let’s not have any more foolishness that continues and this is not going to stop here, we in the United States Congress will be looking at these actions in the aftermath, so that people will not face this kind of attack on their voting right and their birthright.”
