AUSTIN, Texas (AP) – Texas is unusually shaky ground for Republicans as voters head to the polls in America’s biggest red state.
The high stakes in Texas ripple beyond whether President Donald Trump is genuinely at risk of becoming the first Republican presidential nominee since 1976 to lose the Lone Star State.
Democrats were also within reach of seizing the majority in the Texas House chamber for the first time in nearly 20 years.
Nearly 10 million Texans cast ballots in person or by mail during the three weeks of early voting, surpassing the number of ballots cast in the 2016 election.
Lines forming early at the polls on this Election Day…full coverage @WBAP247NEWS @570KLIF pic.twitter.com/qRRf7QRjN1
— Clayton Neville (@ClaytonNeville) November 3, 2020
The changes to voting rules due to the pandemic sparked a litany of court cases over rules related to voting and the counting of ballots, and rulings continued right up to Election Day.
In Texas Monday, Republicans challenged more than 100,000 votes in Democratic-leaning Harris County, which includes Houston, because they were cast at drive-thru polling places, but a judge dismissed the suit Monday, saying the plaintiffs lacked standing.
A Nevada judge tossed a GOP challenge that sought to stop the use of a signature verification software for not being stringent enough and to let poll watchers get closer to officials counting ballots.