A Panhandle Republican group wants a federal judge to bar Texas from certifying the results of next Tuesday's election until every paper ballot in the state has been counted by hand, according to reporting by The Texas Tribune.
The Potter County Republican Party filed the 27-page lawsuit Tuesday, Oct. 27, in federal court in Amarillo, which is in Potter County. It names Potter County's election administrator as a defendant and asks to bring in voting officials from every Texas county as a class. The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a 2017 appointee of President Donald Trump.
What the party argues
The filing says voting machines could be open to outside manipulation, pointing to possible interference by artificial intelligence programs or by "malicious actors" exploiting machine parts made in countries it calls foreign adversaries, such as China. Only a full hand count compared against machine totals could catch that kind of tampering, the party argues.
"The paper record or ballot provides an independent verification mechanism only if election officials actually compare a complete hand-count of all of the paper records or ballots," the petition says.
The lawsuit does not offer evidence that any equipment or counting process has been compromised, the Tribune reported, and it states that it is not claiming past results in Potter County or statewide were altered or reported inaccurately.
Texas already requires election officials to hand count a portion of paper ballots to check machine tabulations. The party says that check falls short. For scale, Texans cast 11.4 million ballots in the 2024 general election and 8.1 million in the 2022 midterms, according to the secretary of state.
How certification works
In a separate explainer published Thursday, the Tribune described certification as the final step of canvassing, coming weeks after Election Day. County commissioners courts certify local races such as city council and mayor.
