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reRepublicans in the US state of Texas have failed in an attempt to invalidate around 127,000 ballots that voters cast directly from their cars. The votes were cast in Harris County, which is currently considered more Democratic. Texas has not voted for a Democrat since Jimmy Carter’s victory in 1976. This year, however, polls show a relatively close race between Republican President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden. In this sense, 127,000 votes could also play an important role.
A federal judge in Houston on Monday dismissed a lawsuit filed by four Republicans asking that the ballots not be considered. In light of the Corona crisis, the Harris County Elections Authority also set up tents next to the polling stations, where drivers could cast their votes without leaving the vehicles. In their lawsuit, Republicans argued, among other things, that there was no legal basis for the process.
The judge did not allow the lawsuit because he did not recognize the Republicans as victims. At the same time, however, he made it clear that he would have decided not to cancel the ballot papers, because this would not be in the public interest. At the same time, he restricted that he had prohibited voting in tents on the day of the election, because according to electoral law in Texas, voting must take place in buildings and “the court does not find that a tent is a building.”
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2020 United States Elections
Image: FAZ
Republicans went to an appeals court after the decision, arguing, among other things, that smartphones could distract voters in their cars. Harris County closed all tents on Election Day for safety. He doesn’t want to jeopardize voters’ votes, the official wrote on Twitter. Only one Drive-Thrugh polling place will remain in a sports arena. The complex, where the Houston Rockets basketball team usually plays, has walls and a roof and is therefore “definitely eligible” for voting.
Results of the first elections on the east coast
Meanwhile, it emerged that the first electoral decisions had been made in two small towns on the East Coast: Democrat Joe Biden won the vote in the town of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, with five votes to zero. In neighboring Millsfield, the current Trump prevailed against Biden with 16 to five votes, as announced here shortly after midnight (local time) on a handwritten chalkboard.
The polling station in Dixville Notch has opened at midnight on Election Day since 1960. With fewer than a dozen registered voters at the ski resort near the Canadian border, voting and counting is quick and easy. The result was already clear shortly after midnight (local time). American television stations broadcast the vote and the count live. In the 2016 election, Democrat Hillary Clinton won 4-2 against Trump.
The fact that you can vote so soon is due to a New Hampshire law. It allows municipalities with less than 100 inhabitants to open their polling stations from midnight, both in the primaries and in the presidential elections. The goal was to give railroad workers a chance to vote, go to sleep, and then go to work on time. However, the results for small towns do not always reflect who became president in the end.
