Texas Republican group seeks to block certification of state’s election

What the report says

A Texas Republican Party affiliate has gone to federal court seeking to stop certification of the state’s upcoming election results, according to Al Jazeera. The lawsuit was filed Tuesday by the Potter County Republican Party and its chairman, Daniel Rogers, just days before the US midterm elections.

The plaintiffs are asking for every ballot in Texas’s races to be hand-counted before any results are certified. They argue that voting systems could be vulnerable to interference from artificial intelligence or other “malicious actors,” and they also raise concerns about machine parts allegedly made in China. The complaint says the possibility of manipulation justifies a full manual verification of paper ballots or records, even though Texas law already requires some hand-count audits when electronic tabulators are used.

Al Jazeera reported that the filing does not identify any compromised voting machines in Potter County or elsewhere in Texas, and the county Republican group acknowledged that no prior election there had been altered by a third party. The challenge comes amid a closely watched Texas US Senate race, where Democrat James Talarico has recently led Republican Ken Paxton in some polls, a contest that could help determine control of the chamber.

Texas election officials had not commented on the lawsuit at the time of publication. The case adds to a broader national pattern of election-related legal fights and heightened scrutiny of voting systems ahead of the midterms.