Attorneys gave closing arguments in the first case to go to trial in an effort to overturn the result of one of Harris County’s elections last November. But visiting Judge David Peeples, who presides over the first case, said not to expect any rulings any time soon.
The judge said it could be at least a month before he rules in the case.
Former Republican Judge Erin Lunceford is seeking a new election for Harris County’s 189th Judicial District against Democratic Judge Tamika Craft. During closing arguments on Thursday Lunceford’s attorney said various polling sites turned voters away mostly because they were out of ballot paper.
Meanwhile, Craft’s attorney says evidence from Lunceford’s team raise questions about the election but doesn’t answer them.
They say there is not sufficient evidence to prove there were any illegal votes or violation of the Election code.
A five-month investigation by Houston Public Media found no evidence to support the idea that the administrator's office was interfering with the conduct of elections by deliberately shorting election supplies to GOP-leaning neighborhoods, nor did it find any evidence that such shortages affected the outcome of most elections.
Lunceford’s election was one of the closer contests, with only 2,743 votes separating Lunceford from Craft. Craft’s attorneys noted in their opening statement that this was a larger margin of victory than any election previously overturned in Texas.
In their motion to dismiss, Craft’s attorneys argued that Lunceford’s team had failed to show any evidence of illegal votes or violations of the Election Code. They pointed out that the plaintiff’s attorneys hadn’t produced a single voter as a witness who could testify that he or she had not voted after being turned away due to a lack of ballot paper or for other reasons. They called the plaintiff’s claims “unsupported speculation” and further argued that the plaintiff’s case depended on unreliable witnesses.
Andrew Schneider contributed to this report.
