Precinct Chair Barry Wernick prior to the start of the Dallas County GOP’s regular meeting, at the Sheraton Galleria, in Dallas, Texas, Monday, April 20, 2026.
Anja Schlein/The Dallas Morning News
A Dallas County Republican has sued to force the county’s election chief to return precinct-based voting in the May 26 runoff, saying the party’s former chair acted illegally when he scrapped the system without the group’s approval.
Barry Wernick, a GOP precinct chair, filed the writ of mandamus petition Monday in the Fifth Court of Appeals, about a month after former chair Allen West amended the party’s contract with the elections department to restore countywide voting, allowing residents to cast ballots at any vote center regardless of address.
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West said he made the runoff change to protect the party from litigation that may allege disenfranchisement after thousands of confused voters were turned away at polls on the March 3 primary and redirected to their neighborhood precincts.
But the action was counter to a vote nearly 200 members of the party’s executive committee took last year to use precinct-based voting for the 2026 primary cycle – a decision that, under Texas law, blocked Democrats from using countywide voting as well.
At a Dallas County Republican Party meeting Monday, a majority of precinct chairs passed two resolutions backing the spirit of the lawsuit, escalating the fight that prompted West to resign last week amid the internal pushback.
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One 93-35 vote reaffirmed the group’s desire for precincts and said any contract amendment made without executive committee approval is void. The second resolution, passed 102-24, authorized Wernick to alert state officials the original agreement to conduct precinct-based voting stands. Both votes were taken in executive session after the committee required media, candidates and spectators to leave the room.
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“Our decisions bind the party,” Wernick told the packed conference room at the Sheraton Galleria. “We are the sovereign voice of the Dallas County Republican grassroots and for too long we’ve quietly allowed the inherent power that we have to drift upward.”
Earlier this month, Elections Administrator Paul Adams told the commissioners court he was moving forward with the amended contract to return to countywide voting, saying it was too close to the runoff for the party to make any more changes. He did not respond to a request for comment Monday on the petition.
“Our focus remains on ensuring a smooth, secure and accessible election for all Dallas County voters,” Adams told The Dallas Morning News last week.
Wernick, an attorney who is running for Dallas County Commissioners Court District 2 in November, filed the petition independently from the party after retaining Arlington attorney Warren Norred. And while the majority of the precinct chairs that make up the executive committee backed his resolutions, dissent by some GOP members and candidates revealed a rift in how the pushback is impacting party operations.
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Dallas County Republican Party Vice Chair Tami Brown Rodriguez speaks at the start of the Dallas County GOP’s regular meeting, at the Sheraton Galleria, in Dallas, Texas, Monday, April 20, 2026.
Anja Schlein/The Dallas Morning News
Will Campbell, a Republican running for House District 109, said the intraparty fighting has “given cannon fire to our opponents” and distracted party leadership from supporting candidates running for office in a blue county. The executive committee will vote May 4 to elect a new chair to succeed West.
“The chairman was not the cause of this problem,” Campbell said. “He followed through with precinct-based voting, and it resulted in near-disastrous results, embarrassed the party, and the events since that time have made this worse.”
Late challenge
On March 17, one day before West amended the GOP’s contract with the county, precinct chair Stan Woodward warned Adams in an email the executive committee did not authorize any change. While a chair signs an agreement, Woodward cited election code stating an election contract is between the county and a party’s executive committee.
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It’s unclear what impact the Republicans’ legal effort will have on the county, state and federal runoff process, as another recent case demonstrated the difficulty of compelling election changes weeks out from the start of voting.
Precinct Chair Stan Woodward prior to the start of the Dallas County GOP’s regular meeting, at the Sheraton Galleria, in Dallas, Texas, Monday, April 20, 2026.
Anja Schlein/The Dallas Morning News
In early 2024, the Williamson County GOP’s executive committee tried to void its elections contract after its chair signed it without requested security measures, but the effort failed.
Judge Dib Waldrip denied a temporary restraining order, saying courts can step in only when there’s enough time to resolve disputes without disrupting an election.
He cited state and federal precedent warning courts against late changes, noting “the risk of voter confusion increases as an election draws nearer” and that he had “no discretion” to rule otherwise.
The Dallas County Republican executive committee voted in September to hold a separate 2026 primary from Democrats and return to precinct-based voting.
In Texas, county officials control the early voting period, so the switch applied only to the primary and runoff election days. But the change affected Republicans and Democrats alike because state law only allows the use of countywide voting when both parties agree.
Precinct chairs also approved a hand count of tens of thousands of Republican ballots, contingent on staffing and funding.
In December, West said the party lacked workers, scrapping the count but moving ahead with a separate primary and precinct-based voting.
The result: widespread confusion March 3, as thousands showed up to former vote centers and were redirected to neighborhood precincts.
“I was there, I experienced it,” precinct chair Jack Kocks said Monday while opposing the resolution. “It was an embarrassment to be a Republican judge in this last election, and it could have been avoided.”
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Political fallout
To manage the confusion, Dallas County stationed navigators at 75 polling sites with party-specific tablets to look up precincts and redirect voters, while workers at more than 270 other locations used similar tools.
But some navigators didn’t ask party affiliation, sending voters to the wrong sites, and others relied on standard poll books instead of the tablets. The Secretary of State’s online tool also misdirected some voters because it didn’t reflect updated precinct maps.
After the Texas Legislature pushed a mid-century redistricting last year, the U.S. Supreme Court did not uphold the GOP-friendly congressional maps until December, compounding confusion with last-minute precinct changes.
Backers of precinct-based voting blamed county and state failures for the chaos, not the use of precincts. They said countywide voting is less secure, though the universal system is sanctioned by the state and has no confirmed evidence of fraud.
“We just need to make sure that precinct-based voting is implemented smartly and that we enforce the contract,” Republican precinct chair Nate Weymouth said Monday. “We’re not going to tolerate a chairman usurping our statutory authority; that is just wrong, and it’s a violation of the law.”