Dallas County Democrats are outraged after hundreds of people who waited hours to cast their ballots may have their votes rejected.

Democrats blame Dallas County Republicans for wanting to have separate primary elections, which meant on Election Day, people would have to vote in their precincts instead of anywhere in the county, like they had been used to doing for eight years.

Despite warnings from the county, some voters went to the wrong precinct locations and were turned away and told where to go to vote. That created long lines.

Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins extended the voting for Democrats only for another two hours on Election Day. But Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a challenge with the Texas Supreme Court, which issued a stay, and the county said at least 2,400 people may have their votes rejected.

Texas Democratic Party Chairman Kendall Scudder sharply criticized Republicans.

“We have been warning Republican leadership since September that this was going to happen,” said Scudder. “We have been consistently trying to call meetings to get joint primaries put on the books in all of these counties. Republicans peddling election conspiracy theories have refused to participate in that.”

“So, this is something that they have been completely warned that this was gonna happen, and it did, and now they’re acting shocked that it happened. It is incompetence to a shocking degree, but it just continues to perpetuate what they have constantly done, which is they are not interested in government actually working. They’re not interested in running an efficient election, which they absolutely had the opportunity to.” 

“I think that all these Republican leaders that have put their own personal politics above us having a functioning democracy, they should be run out of office, because they clearly are putting themselves above our country. It’s just gross.”

But Texas Republican Party Chairman Abraham George praised Dallas County Republicans for the decision to have separate primary elections.

“Well, if the Democratic Party of Dallas County couldn’t get their messaging out to their voters to say, this is where you need to go, that’s their problem,” said George. 

“The Republicans have no obligation to hold combined primaries whatsoever. This is not a general election; this is primary. We can choose our nominees however we want, and they should be able to message that. The fact that they did not have enough apparatus to send that out to their Democrat… their voters says a lot about the Dallas County Democrat Party. So, I’m excited to see how this can unfold, and I think this is a place where we actually can do a lot of damage to the Democrat Party by doing this all over the state.”

Jack asked George if Dallas County Republicans had any problems with their voters being confused and ended up going to the wrong precincts like the Democrats. 

“Some did,” said George, “but not in the way that we went and filed a lawsuit or injunction to get extended hours.”

“It is not difficult. The general election will be open to everyone, just like every year that we’ve had. No changes on that. This is our nomination process. This is also the reason why we want to close primaries.”

This week’s full episode can be found below:

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