{"id":480068,"date":"2026-10-29T05:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T05:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/480068\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T05:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T05:28:08","slug":"local-gop-lawsuit-wants-hand-count-of-all-texas-ballots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/480068\/","title":{"rendered":"Local GOP lawsuit wants hand count of all Texas ballots"},"content":{"rendered":"

Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy<\/a>, and give us feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Potter County Republican Party has asked a federal judge in Amarillo to require every Texas ballot to be hand counted before the results of the Nov. 3 midterm elections can be certified.<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s lawsuit<\/a> argues that voting machines may be susceptible to outside manipulation, but does not provide proof of vulnerabilities in equipment or the process of counting votes and certifying election results. The lawsuit specifies that it is not alleging that past Potter County or statewide election results have been altered or inaccurately reported.<\/p>\n

Instead, the lawsuit cites potential for interference from artificial intelligence programs or \u201cmalicious actors\u201d taking advantage of voting machine \u201ccomponents manufactured by foreign adversaries\u201d such as China.<\/p>\n

The petition asserts such potential interference can only be detected by a hand count of ballots to compare results with those tabulated by voting machines.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a component is tampered with during manufacturing, it could serve as a point-of-entry for unlawful and malfeasance hackers, allowing for the possibility of synchronized attacks across multiple election machines and jurisdictions,\u201d the lawsuit said.<\/p>\n

When voting machines are used, Texas law requires a portion of paper ballots to be hand counted to verify the accuracy of machine tabulations. That audit, the lawsuit argues, is not enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe paper record or ballot provides an independent verification mechanism only if election officials actually compare a complete hand-count of all of the paper records or ballots,\u201d the petition said.<\/p>\n

Texans cast 11.4 million ballots in the 2024 general election and 8.1 million in the 2022 midterms, according to the Texas secretary of state<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Potter County, in the Texas Panhandle, includes Amarillo. The 27-page lawsuit names Potter County\u2019s election administrator but seeks to include voting officials in every county via class action. <\/p>\n

The petition was filed Tuesday in Amarillo federal court and was assigned to U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who was nominated by President Donald Trump in 2017. Kacsmaryk is a favorite judge for conservative lawyers, including Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton<\/a>, and his previous rulings include suspending federal approval of an abortion drug that was overturned by the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

This is a developing story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy, and give…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2648,3436,9047,145,288,1967,2650,2424,27,29,28,2281],"class_list":["post-480068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-amarillo","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-china","tag-donald-trump","tag-elections","tag-ken-paxton","tag-potter-county","tag-republicans","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-secretary-of-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480068","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=480068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}