Potter County Republican Party v. Benge

With early voting well under way in Texas, the Potter County Republican Party, and its chairman, Daniel Rogers, have filed a lawsuit seeking an eleventh-hour sea change in how Texas counties plan to administer the rapidly approaching midterm elections. They assert, without any basis in fact, that if Texas counties tabulate ballots and certify election results using the methods and processes the counties have followed for years, their rights to vote will somehow be violated.

Based on the groundless claim, the Plaintiffs seek sweeping relief: An order from the court requiring all of Texas’s 254 counties to manually hand count every ballot cast and preventing certification of the election results until the court itself can confirm the results of the hand count. The order they seek would upend countless provisions of Texas election law on the eve of the election, leaving local election officials with no time to stand up procedures for a hand count at such a never-before-seen scale. In turn, it would jeopardize the accurate and timely count of millions of Texans’ votes.  

Just three days after Potter County brought this frivolous claim to court, the ACLU—along with its partners the ACLU of Texas, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the Carter Law Group—moved to intervene on behalf of the NAACP Texas State Conference, the League of Women Voters of Texas, MOVE Texas Civic Fund, and Common Cause to represent the interests of Texas voters, who are counting on their votes being tabulated in an accurate and timely manner. With the motion to intervene, we also filed a proposed motion to dismiss, asking the court to throw out the Plaintiffs’ suit. 

The lawsuit and out motion to intervene were filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.