Texas Voters Disenfranchised: Denny and Voters Robbed of Win in Appellate Race

by EMMA JIMENEZ

The Bible Belt of West Texas may be known for many things, from their love of God and family, to their staunch adherence to conservative values, but currently the Republican Party Chairs of Cochran and Collingsworth Counties are known for an omission that created one heck of a pickle in the 7th Court of Appeals, Place 4 race. At the conclusion of the Republican Party Primary, Steven Denny emerged as the winner by a majority of the 91,649 voters who cast ballots in the election. The problem was, the two aforementioned Chairs, failed to add this election to the ballot in their counties.

Republican Party of Texas (RPT) Chairman, James Dickey, justifiably stated to both candidates that all counties were provided sample ballots to review and each had the opportunity to correct any errors or omissions prior to the onset of the election. Dickey told the candidates that any exclusions of candidates on the ballot were the fault of the Party Chairs. He further stated that whoever emerged as the winner upon submission of all the ballots in the District that were cast, would be declared the winner of the race – that candidate was Denny.

Denny, a criminal law attorney from Amarillo, would be the only sitting criminal law attorney on a court where a majority of the cases presented are criminal law cases. If the results of the actual election are retained – all other Jurists on the 7th Court of Appeals are civil law attorneys, including Doss. With 91,649 ballots cast, Denny won by a narrow 297 vote margin. The term of Governor Abbott’s appointment to the seat ends on 12/31/2020 so Larry Doss is trying to keep the seat appointed to him.

Doss challenged the validity of the election stating that it was unfair to the 1,214 voters who were unable to participate in the election. What should have been considered is the fact that when the votes cast were voided and the election became a “do-over,” it unfairly disenfranchised the 91,649 voters in the 44 counties who did vote in counties that conducted their elections properly. There does not seem to be any logical reason to completely erase the entire election and move it to the ballot to be re-voted on in July. There also does not appear to be a logical reason for the Texas Republican Party Chair’s decision to be overturned by either the district or appellate court.

Voter turnout for run-off elections are traditionally very low. To further compound the likelihood of low voter turnout in the July run-off election is that judge races are down-ballot races which ride the coattails of higher profile races such as Sheriff, Senator, President, etc. – in other words, judge races are in and of themselves not a motivating factor to drive the average voter to the poll. In several of the counties this may only have this race on their ballot.

This being the case, in the effort to “do the right thing” for the voters who did not have the race on the ballot, tens of thousands more voters, who will be disenfranchised by this decision will have been cheated by the ruling of the court to void their votes in this race. This decision was upheld on appeal and creating a further disservice to the largest majority of the voters in this region. Dickey made the correct choice on behalf of the Republican Party of Texas. The courts dramatically failed tens of thousands more voters than the slightly more than 1,200 voters whose ballots did not contain this race.

In defense of Doss, he did what any candidate would have done in his position, which is request that those voters have the opportunity to participate in this election. That does not mean the election should be overturned, but Doss did have the right to ask. The courts should have said, no. That is not Doss’ fault, it is just a very bad ruling by two courts who should have deferred to the decision of the RPT Chairman. Once an election is over, the voters who participated have made their decision and the election should be decided by the will of the voters who participated.

Election campaigns are very expensive and time consuming. The candidates prepared a campaign, with themselves and their campaign staff and volunteers spending countless hours, money and efforts, purchasing and placing campaign signage, knocking on doors, marketing to each county, advertising and appearing at many events leading up to election day. For those efforts to be discarded by the courts takes the wind out of the sails of the winner who has to rinse and repeat an election he already won and it gives the loser an unfair advantage in that he gets a second wind and knows where he was weak and can focus solely in those areas.

The voters decided this race already, and the decision to the contrary does not bode well for anybody associated with this race because of all the effort involved being devalued from the money, to the endorsements, to the actual will of the voters, themselves – the decision of the courts was a dumpster fire. The Democrat Party did not field a candidate thus the winner of the Republican Party Primary will be the Jurist to occupy the seat.

It is the job of the Republican Party Chair of each county to prepare their ballots for each election. Each Party Chair is provided sample ballots from the Secretary of State. It is the responsibility of each Party Chair to review these sample ballots to assure that every race is included and that all candidates for each race are listed on the sample ballot prior to the election. It is at this stage that the Party Chairs can make changes to the ballot to correct any ballot errors that may occur. If they do not, then the election is not on their ballot.

According to Steven Denny, no voter from either of the two counties complained to the elections commission before or during the election. This was despite the fact that an error had already occurred and was corrected by the Party Chair of that county. Doss was aware this error occurred and was fixed; however, even after this, Doss failed to make sure the race was on the ballots of every county in his voting district, including the two omitted counties. This being the case, Doss benefitted from the mistake he easily could have prevented had he done his diligence.

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak and historic low turnout for runoffs, it is inconceivable that a turnout for a new election could come anywhere close to the number of voters from the original election. There are considerably less races in run-off elections than there were in primaries, thus voter apathy is inherently expected.

//pf