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Former Texas Republican Party chairman Allen West gives remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Sunday, July 11, 2021, in Dallas. (Elias Valverde II\/The Dallas Morning News)<\/p>\n
Elias Valverde II\/Staff Photographer<\/p>\n
Dallas County GOP chair Allen West\u2019s decision to return to countywide voting in the May 26 runoff has triggered a backlash inside the party, one that could cost him his post.<\/p>\n
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The Republican Party’s executive committee will vote April 20 on whether to oust West as chair after he broke from the group\u2019s earlier agreement to hold precinct-based voting <\/a>for this year\u2019s primary and runoff election days.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The GOP\u2019s demand to use precincts <\/a>in last month\u2019s primary also prevented Democrats from using the countywide system in place since 2019 in which residents can cast a ballot at any vote center regardless of their address.\u00a0<\/p>\n The switch caused thousands of confused Republicans and Democrats alike to be turned away from polls and redirected to their neighborhood precincts.\u00a0<\/p>\n West said he is facing resistance for refusing to follow a course he believes could harm the local party. In his weekly blog post on Monday, West said he chose to return to countywide voting for the runoff to protect the party from potential litigation that may allege \u201cwillful and intentional voter disenfranchisement.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But after he amended the GOP\u2019s contract with the county elections department to reflect the change last month, about 35 party members signed a petition pushing back, West told The Dallas Morning News on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Make Dallas News a preferred source so your search results prioritize writing by actual people, not AI.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n West, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, said it was his idea to hold a vote at this month’s regular meeting on whether to vacate his seat.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cI made that (runoff) decision fully aware of the consequences and ramifications, just like the decision I made to protect my soldiers in combat in Iraq,\u201d West wrote in his blog.<\/p>\n He continued: \u201cI firmly recognize that continuing down the path of precinct based voting on runoff election day will expose the DCRP to a most dangerous course of action \u2026 The left is always looking out to make an example of those who would challenge them.\u201d<\/p>\n Without mentioning West by name, Barry Wernick, a precinct chair and the Republican candidate for Dallas County Commission District 2, wrote on X last week that the party’s\u00a0executive committee had not voted to abandon precinct-based voting for the runoff.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNothing\u2019s changed,\u201d he wrote. Wernick called countywide voting \u201cunlawful and unconstitutional.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n While political parties have authority over their primary\u2019s election day in Texas, state law gives control of the early voting period to county officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n County Administrator Paul Adams maintained countywide voting for the primary\u2019s early voting period, making the switch to precincts effective only on election day.<\/p>\n If he is voted out of office, West, who was reelected to a second two-year term last month, said he will turn the seat over to Vice Chair Tami Brown-Rodriguez. West on Tuesday could not confirm whether the party would have to hold a special election to select the next chair.<\/p>\n It will be more turnover in the county GOP\u2019s history of inconsistent leadership, with seven chairs in the past 10 years. The Republican Party is the political minority in Dallas County.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n “My removal will not be due to any nefarious, corrupt, or scandalous actions on my part,” West wrote. “It will be because a group of individuals wishes to have their way, and expose the organization to potential harm. I will not be a signatory to such, as it would violate every leadership principle that I know.”<\/p>\n In September, more than 200 Republican precinct chairs voted to hold a separate primary from Democrats for this year\u2019s primary, return to precinct-based voting and hand count tens of thousands of GOP ballots. The party dropped the hand-count<\/a> portion in December after failing to secure enough workers to perform the manual tally.\u00a0<\/p>\n By signing up, you agree to our Terms Of Use<\/a> and acknowledge that your information will be used as described in our Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n While West decided to return to countywide voting with Democrats in the May 26 runoff, it will remain a non-joint election as was done in last month\u2019s primary. This means separate check-in tables, workers and voting machines for each party inside shared locations during early voting and on election day. Voters will be selecting their parties\u2019 remaining candidates for county, state and federal offices then.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n At Tuesday’s Dallas County commissioners’ meeting, Democrat John Wiley Price asked whether\u00a0the Republican Party could rescind West’s recent contract amendment and force a return to precinct-based voting. Adams, the elections administrator, said that change would occur too close to the runoff to be feasible and he wants to move forward with the signed contract he has in hand.<\/p>\n “What happened in the last election is proof that we do not want any last-minute changes,” Adams said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Texas Republican Party chairman Allen West gives remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Sunday, July…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":{"0":"post-239052","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-plano","8":"tag-plano","9":"tag-plano-headlines","10":"tag-plano-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239052","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=239052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"image\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775016909_917_rawImage.jpg\" "\\"#\\"")
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