Potter County Republicans Seek Federal Injunction to Halt Texas Certification

A federal lawsuit filed Tuesday in Amarillo seeks to prevent Texas election officials from certifying the November 3 midterm election results unless every paper ballot in the state is manually counted. The Potter County Republican Party and chairman Daniel Rogers filed the complaint against Potter County Elections Administrator Christy Benge. They argue that current safeguards are insufficient to protect against hacking, artificial intelligence manipulation, and other cybersecurity threats.

The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in the Amarillo Division of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. The plaintiffs are requesting a statewide class action certification that would make any ruling applicable to all county election administrators in Texas. They ask the court to impose a manual hand count of all voter-verifiable paper records in all precincts before final certification. If the hand count totals differ from the electronic tabulations, the plaintiffs want the manual count to determine the final outcome.

Texas law already requires a post-election hand-count audit when electronic voting systems are used. The complaint acknowledges this existing procedure but contends that counting only a portion of ballots is inadequate for verification. The plaintiffs state that the federal conditions do not establish with certainty that any specific Texas voting machine has miscounted votes in the past. The document explicitly notes that it does not allege any past Potter County election results were altered or inaccurately reported.

The legal argument centers on the presence of foreign-made components in voting equipment and warnings regarding potential foreign interference. The plaintiffs describe the possibility of AI programs manipulating election systems without detection as a constitutional concern. The lawsuit was filed seven days before Election Day, during a closely watched midterm contest that includes the U.S. Senate race between Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico.

David Froomkin, a professor of administrative law and election law at the University of Houston, characterized the lawsuit as weak. He stated that there is no evidence that anyone's right to vote is being infringed by Texas's current counting procedure. Froomkin told the Chronicle that the plaintiffs appear to be offering wild conjectures. He noted that courts generally do not view routine administrative decisions about vote-counting processes as implicating the right to vote.

Texas officials are not currently ordered to conduct a statewide hand count. The request remains a pending motion in federal court. A 2022 state audit of four of the state's largest counties found no widespread voter fraud or serious problems in the 2020 election. The plaintiffs maintain that the potential for undetected digital interference necessitates a complete physical recount before the state certifies the tabulations.

The complaint seeks to add a mandatory verification step to the standard certification process. Under current state law, officials shall certify the tabulations once required post-election checks are completed. The plaintiffs argue that this routine final step should be paused until a full manual audit is finished. The case is scheduled for review in the Northern District of Texas before the November 3 election takes place.