Texas Judges Find No Issues With Electronic Voting Equipment

Texas’s November 2023 election results will stand after voters challenging the outcome failed to show how their alleged grievances about voting machines—even if true—would’ve made a difference.

In a unanimous opinion Tuesday, the new statewide appeals court found no evidence suggesting internet-connected devices used to check in voters “have ever compromised a Texas election.”

Reversing a trial court that allowed the claims to proceed, the Court of Appeals, 15th District, said the voters that brought the suit failed to show “the true outcome would have been different if their claims were valid.”

Texans approved 13 of 14 amendments to the state constitution in November 2023, most of them by overwhelming margins.

Three voters in the San Antonio area, acting pro se, challenged the electronic voting systems used in the election, alleging the certificates of accreditation for the labs that tested them were signed by the wrong federal agency official.

The voters say it was impossible to show the outcome would’ve been different if their claims about the machines are valid. But that argument didn’t sit well with the appeals court, which noted the voters could’ve compared results from counties that used electronic voting systems and those that didn’t.

The appeals court did side with the voters in one instance. In asking for the case to be dismissed, Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson (R) said that the suit from the voters listed the wrong deadline for the state’s response; the justices called that error “inconsequential.”

The case is Nelson v. Eubanks, Tex. App., 15th Dist., No. 15-24-37-cv, 11/26/24.