Illegal Votes Trigger Re-Do in Houston Judicial Election

A new judicial election must be held in Texas’s largest county because 1,751 votes were cast illegally or were wrongly counted, a visiting judge said Wednesday in a major fallout from Houston’s botched ballot count in November 2022.

Judge David Peeples ordered a redo of the 180th District Court race in Harris County won by DaSean Jones (D) over Tami Pierce (R), saying “the true outcome cannot be determined.” He also slapped Jones with $65,000 in attorney fees for bringing a motion to dismiss under the Texas Anti-SLAPP statute that he said—and an appeals court affirmed—was without merit and frivolous. ...