But do count his votes, because they are legally required to be countable.
Not that Jerry Garcia
(Photo by Carl Lender, CC BY 2.0.)Reversing itself from a day earlier, the Harris County Democratic Party on Thursday said a constable candidate who was accused by another candidate with the same name of getting on the primary ballot to confuse voters and help the incumbent win, cannot withdraw from the race, after all.
Party officials on Wednesday said candidate Jerry Garcia had withdrawn from the race, but his name would remain on the ballot for the March 3 primary. Any votes cast for him, a party spokeswoman said, would not count.
The party revised its position Thursday, saying its legal counsel determined that the Texas Election Code does not allow candidates to withdraw from a general primary election “after the first day after the date of the regular filing deadline,” which was Dec. 9.
Votes for Garcia will count, though he has the option to withdraw from the race should he make the runoff. If he wins the primary outright, securing more than 50 percent of the vote, he could withdraw from the general election before August, the Democrats determined.
See here for the background. I was curious about this myself – as I said in that post, I didn’t see anything in the elections code that suggested to me that votes for him could be disregarded. And if he does somehow win and wants to withdraw again, then Section 145 of the Elections code would (I presume – remember, kids, I Am Not A Lawyer) apply, in which case there would be no Democratic nominee for Constable in Precinct 2. For those of you with long memories, this is basically the Tom DeLay 2006 situation. It could get more complicated than that, and as this is a county office and not a federal office there may be reasons to relitigate the whole matter, but we’re getting way ahead of ourselves. Let me reiterate what I said on Friday: It would be best of the Other Jerry Garcia had no effect on the outcome of this race. Those of you in Constable Precinct 2, please know who you’re voting for.