Tonight (Sat.) is runoff Election Day for a number of municipalities and other local governments. We will cover significant races tomorrow (Sun.).
HD60 (Safe R): A recount of votes in Parker and Stephens Cos. confirmed Rep. Glenn Rogers’s (R-Graford) runoff victory over Mike Olcott (R) in those counties. A recount in Palo Pinto Co. has not yet concluded, as far as we can tell, but it is highly unlikely that a 300+ vote error occurred there. Palo Pinto Co. comprised 16% of votes cast in the runoff.
CD15 open (Toss Up): A recount confirmed Michelle Vallejo’s (D) narrow runoff victory over Ruben Ramirez (D). The recount added a net 5 votes to her margin of victory, which now stands at 35 votes.
El Paso: Rep. Art Fierro (D-El Paso) has filed paperwork with the city secretary’s office to challenge D6 council member Claudia Rodriguez in the November general election. A third candidate, Christian Botello, has also filed for the race. Rodriguez was first elected to the seat in a 2019 special election necessitated by then-council member Claudia Ordaz Perez’s announcement she would seek a Texas House seat. Ordaz Perez (D-El Paso) won that seat in 2020 and defeated Fierro, 65%-35%, in this year’s Democratic primary in the only matchup of paired incumbents.
Republican Party: Former Rep. Matt Rinaldi (R-Irving) was unopposed for re-election as state party chair. Dana Myers, vice chair of the Harris Co. Republican Party, was elected state vice chair in a three-way race. She succeeds Cat Parks, who did not seek re-election.
The party’s revised platform considered by the full delegation – roughly 5K people – included a resolution rejecting the results of the 2020 presidential election. “We believe that substantial election fraud in key metropolitan areas significantly affected the results … and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected.” There has been no credible evidence presented in more than a year and a half to support any claim of widespread election fraud during the 2020 election.
Election-related planks include:
- Limiting early voting to no more than three days immediately preceding an Election Day (which would be Saturday, Sunday and Monday for primary and statewide general elections)
- Limiting absentee voting only to “those that cannot physically appear in-person [sic]”
- Supporting civil lawsuits “to be filed for election fraud or failure of officials to follow the election code” and increasing criminal penalties to felonies for “willful violations of the election code”
- “Creating processes that will allow rapid adjudication of election law disputes as they occur and before violations can be successfully perpetrated”
- Repealing “all motor voter laws” and the Voting Rights Act of 1965
- Requiring voters to re-register if they have not voted within five years
- Closing primary elections to prevent “campaigns to get liberal Democrats to cross over and move the Republican Party to the left in the primary”
- Drawing districts based on the number of eligible voters, not residents and opposing “any redistricting map that is unfair to conservative candidates in the primary or the general election”
- Establishing an electoral college to elect statewide officials based on the popular votes within each Senate district
- Removing the power to elect U.S. Senators from the people and restoring it to the state legislature
- Establishing recall elections
- Granting the Attorney General’s office with “concurrent jurisdiction to prosecute election fraud” with county district attorneys and ensuring “election crimes will be promptly prosecuted even in counties with progressive district attorneys”
- Requiring constitutional amendments to receive a majority of votes in at least 191 counties, rather than a majority vote statewide, in order to pass; and
- Requiring bond elections to pass with a two-thirds majority “only if 20% of all registered voters in the district cast ballots.”
Votes from the delegates were collected at the end of this weekend’s state convention in Houston and will be tallied and certified in Austin.
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