Greg Abbott sounds alarm on Houston ‘voter fraud’

Gov. Greg Abbott said “voter fraud is real” after a Texas judge ordered a new election in Houston.

In May, a judge ordered a new election in the 180th Harris County District Court race to be held in November 2022 after finding that more than 1,400 votes cast were illegal and it was impossible to determine which candidate had received them.

Republican candidate Tami Pierce lost by just under 450 votes to Democrat DaSean Jones, who is currently a Texas District Court judge, at the time.

Today, Abbott took to X, formerly Twitter, to share his views on the decision. “Voter fraud is real. Especially in Houston,” he wrote.

Citing a May 2024 article from Houston Chronicleit included the following comment from Judge David Peeples: “The court found that 1,430 illegal votes were cast in the 180th District Court race.

“The judge in the case ordered a redo of the election,” the message continued. “We must end voter fraud.”

News week contacted the Abbott team for comment via email outside of normal business hours.

X users were quick to respond to Saturday night’s post. “Yet none of you have done anything except post here and blow smoke,” user Larry wrote. “Why don’t you hold someone accountable and do something about it.”

John Maziasz posted: “Voter fraud must be accompanied by a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison. »

Another, posting under the name Honkylips, said: “Get rid of the machines and use paper ballots. It’s 2024, you could have fixed this after 2020.” EdBernard12 replied: “Yeah, Greg, keep redoing the election until you get the result you want.”

What happened in Texas?

Following Texas’ 2022 judicial elections, 21 Republican candidates for county offices, including Pierce, filed lawsuits challenging the results.

Peeples had previously upheld the results in 20 of those cases, but in May of this year he ruled that the race between Pierce and Jones for Harris County’s 180th District Court could not be determined due to the small number of votes separating winner from loser. . Pierce lost by just 449 votes.

According to a Texas Tribune report, Peeples said a total of 983 votes were invalid due to residency issues or voters residing outside of Harris County. 445 voters were also found to have failed to provide valid photo identification and 48 absentee ballots were missing signatures or not received by the deadline.

No date for new elections has been set following this decision.