{"id":140987,"date":"2026-01-28T10:11:28","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T10:11:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/140987\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T10:11:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T10:11:28","slug":"lawsuit-filed-to-extend-early-voting-in-district-18-runoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/140987\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuit Filed to Extend Early Voting in District 18 Runoff\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Texas Civil Rights Project filed<\/a> a lawsuit Sunday on behalf of Houston advocacy groups demanding that early voting in the Congressional District 18 runoff between Amanda Edwards and Christian Menefee be extended to compensate for weather closures.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Specifically, they\u2019re asking that polling locations be open on Wednesday and Thursday, when the weather is predicted to be above freezing, to accommodate voters who couldn\u2019t go to the polls on Sunday and Monday, when early voting sites were closed due to inclement weather.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An emergency hearing has been called for 1:30 p.m. Monday, January 26, in Judge Latosha Lewis Payne\u2019s 55th District Court. Texas Civil Rights Project voting rights attorney Karla Maradiaga said she anticipates a ruling could be made immediately after arguments are heard.<\/p>\n

As it stands now, early voting in the special runoff election is slated to close at 7 p.m. Tuesday, and Election Day is Saturday, January 31.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The District 18 seat has been vacant since March 2025, when former U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner died. Gov. Greg Abbott could have called a special election immediately, but instead postponed the race to November. Sixteen candidates competed for the seat and Menefee and Edwards were the top two vote-getters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Voters expressed confusion<\/a> over whether they could still vote in District 18 after a Republican-led redistricting effort last summer changed the boundaries. Because the election is to fill an unexpired term, voters who cast ballots when Turner was elected in 2024 could do so in the November election and the runoff, even if they\u2019ve been moved into a different district.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Menefee and Edwards have both already filed to run for the full term and will compete again in a March primary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Menefee, the former Harris County attorney, released a statement saying he is \u201c100 percent\u201d supportive of the legal action to extend early voting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernor Abbott delayed for months before calling this election for the 18th Congressional District,\u201d Menefee said. \u201cNow a storm has knocked out two of the seven days of early voting. That\u2019s not right. Folks in TX-18 have already gone nearly a year without a voice in Congress. We shouldn\u2019t have to settle for just five days to vote early in such an important election.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edwards, a former Houston City Council member, also said she agrees with the civil action filed to extend the dates. She said in a statement that the changes to the early voting schedule were made in addition to \u201cdeliberate voter confusion, racial gerrymandering and the governor\u2019s intentional delays.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis district has waited long enough to get its voice and its vote back,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

The advocacy nonprofit groups Pure Justice<\/a> and Houston Justice<\/a> are named as plaintiffs. County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth, County Judge Lina Hidalgo and each of the four Harris County commissioners are named as defendants because they made the decision to close polling locations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Menefee said Texas law does not allow local election officials to extend voting days on their own.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to get a court order just to do what makes sense,\u201d the candidate wrote in his statement. \u201cThat\u2019s why this lawsuit matters. It\u2019s about making sure people have the time and opportunity to vote.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

This article appears in Private: Jan 1 \u2013 Dec 31, 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Texas Civil Rights Project filed a lawsuit Sunday on behalf of Houston advocacy groups demanding that early…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[7835,4952,59411,2065,226,56,58,57,1932,7837,38652],"class_list":{"0":"post-140987","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-amanda-edwards","9":"tag-christian-menefee","10":"tag-congressional-district-18","11":"tag-early-voting","12":"tag-homepage","13":"tag-houston","14":"tag-houston-headlines","15":"tag-houston-news","16":"tag-lawsuit","17":"tag-runoff-election","18":"tag-texas-civil-rights-project"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}