Rep. Lon Burnam
Late Friday I got an email from the Ramon Romero campaign touting the news that the State Supreme Court had denied a write of mandamus to Rep. Lon Burnam in his electoral challenge lawsuit. You can see the Supreme Court’s order here – scroll down to case 14-0372, the third one listed under “Miscellaneous”. See here, here, and here for the background – basically, he’s alleging that the Romero campaign’s use of iPads to process absentee ballot requests violates Texas electoral law, which only references fax machines. Burnam had asked that county election officials release all the applications turned in for mail-in ballots in this race to investigate potential illegalities such as an “illegal computerized-signature vote-by-mail operation”, with the goal being to have any absentee ballot requested via a Romero iPad thrown out. He was denied by the trial court judge on the grounds that he was fishing for information, then by the 2nd Court of Appeals, and now by the Supreme Court. State District Judge Robert McFarling had agreed to delay the trial until after the appeals court had ruled, and now Burnam has come to a dead end. Accordint to this Star-Telegram story that reported the Supreme Court ruling and recapped the story so far, Rep.-elect Romero has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which will be heard on June 16. If Burnam survives that, I presume a trial date will be next, unless he decides to drop the matter. It’s hard to see how Burnam can prove his case at this point, but I suppose one tends to keep hope alive for as long as one can. Anyway, the next update will be on or around June 16, unless Burnam gives up before then.