(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick calls for new elections in Harris County [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-07 Texas Republicans seem to all but dispute Lina Hidalgo’s slim victory over Alexandra Mealer during last year’s election for Harris County Judge. On Monday, during a meeting at the Magic Circle Republican Women’s Club, Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick (R) called for a fresh new election. How many people went to go vote that didn’t go back? We don’t know. So we do need to have a new election. A redo of an election can be done, but only through court order. But several Texas Republicans, including governor Greg Abbott and Harris County Judge candidate Alexandra Mealer, have yet to back down on their call for a new election in historically Republican Harris County, which includes the city of Houston. x Harris Co. election ballot paper shortage far bigger than initially estimated. It's so big it may have altered the outcome of elections. It may necessitate new elections. It WILL necessitate new LAWS that prevent Harris Co. from ever doing this again.https://t.co/Bc3YE3ix5E — Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) February 1, 2023 x After careful review and analysis of the facts available, I have decided to file an election contest. Every Harris County voter should be deeply concerned about voter suppression and welcome full transparency to ensure free and fair elections. pic.twitter.com/VIwEkVpBEi — Alexandra del Moral Mealer (@alexmealer) January 6, 2023 However, Harris County officials rebutted these new claims from the GOP. Many people were already not enthused with Mealer’s contesting of the election results. Nadia Hakim, a spokesperson for the Harris County election administrator’s office, said the news report Abbott and Patrick cited in their criticism was misleading. Hakim said the report compares turnout numbers at individual voting locations in 2018, before the county allowed voters to cast ballots from any voting center in the county, to the turnout numbers in 2022, when voters had that option. “This apples-to-kale comparison never clarifies whether any site requested or received any additional paper,” Hakim said. She said the Harris County elections office started the November election with nearly 5 million sheets of ballot paper, and over 3 million sheets were returned after all ballots had been cast. “There is no question that the supply of paper was more than sufficient for the 350,000 in-person voters who cast a two-page ballot on Election Day,” Hakim said, adding that additional supplies of paper ballots were delivered to locations throughout the county on Election Day. The Harris County election office’s own report on a paper ballot shortage was inconclusive because officials said they had to rely on anecdotal information from election judges and because the county does not have a tracking system to report whether an issue at a polling place was resolved. The report notes that 68 precinct judges recalled “running out of their initial allotment of paper,” and 61 of those received additional paper. But 22 alternate judges at those locations gave conflicting information saying they had not run out of paper. x Just now on @ktrhnews: @hollyshansen from @TheTexanNews bemoans these signs appearing around Houston ridiculing @alexmealer for denying results of election. Live on-air appearance during Michael Berry’s program, local platform for extremist views and racist content. pic.twitter.com/XkPUb6y3jA — Houston Hate Monitor (@HateWatchHou) February 6, 2023 Since 1952, Republican presidential candidates have never had below 40 per cent of the vote in Harris County. However, Democrats have triumphed in recent elections, even though they never received at least 60 per cent of the vote in the county since 1944. Still, some suburban areas like Klein, Kingwood, Deer Park, and Cypress have a noticeable Republican tilt, and even some areas like Alief, Bellaire, and River Oaks are not completely hostile towards the GOP. x Results for Harris County, Texas (which contains Houston), in the 2020 US Presidential Election. At 4.7M population, it's the third most populous county in the US. A historically conservative county, but under Trump it has drifted considerably towards the Democratic Party. pic.twitter.com/wZpsgiLTKn — José Manrique (@JoseManrique93) December 19, 2020 [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/7/2151597/-Texas-lieutenant-governor-Dan-Patrick-calls-for-new-elections-in-Harris-County Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/