“We will stand together as Democrats, defeat this lawsuit, and move forward to victory in November.” – Carol Donovan Dallas County Democratic Party Chair
The Dallas County Democratic Party (DCDP) filed an answer today to the lawsuit filed by the Dallas County Republican Party meant to remove 128 Democrats from the primary ballot. DCDP lead attorney Randy Johnston asserts that the Republican’s case is completely baseless and should be dismissed as frivolous litigation. The answer will seek sanctions and legal fees and counter the falsehoods perpetuated by the Republican Party lawsuit.
The DCDP legal team is also evaluating whether the Republican Party lawsuit violates the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 because it appears calculated to deny minorities the right to vote for candidates of their own ethnicity and disproportionately harms minority Democratic candidates.
The first version of the Republican Party petition was apparently released to the press before it was even filed, and it contained the private information – including home addresses, email addresses, phone numbers and other private information – of elected officials and candidates that could lead to identity theft or other harm. Among the judges whose private information was released are several judges who have active stalkers and who have received death threats.
The Republican lawsuit includes numerous inaccuracies that have been repeated by the news media as if they were true. For example, Chair Carol Donovan did not improperly file ballot applications merely because she did not personally sign each application. The election code does not designate the Chair as the only person authorized to sign. This is simply misinformation. In addition, the Republican Party lawsuit alleges that Carol Donovan’s signature was forged on ballot applications, and some news outlets have repeated this false information as if it were true. In fact, with the explicit instruction of the Texas Democratic Party, which also uses agents to sign applications, Chair Carol Donovan legally appointed the DCDP Executive Director, Carmen Ayala, as an additional agent authorized to sign ballot applications. The signatures that are being called dubious are in fact the signature of Carmen Ayala, acting in her appointed role as agent authorized to sign.
“The frivolous and disrespectful manner in which this lawsuit was distributed to the press before it was even filed has resulted in much of the resulting media attention misconstruing the facts. The facts will come out, and we will seek relief from this attempt to use a lawsuit as a press release,” said Johnston. “The true intent of this lawsuit is to cause confusion among the voters. The Republican Party needs to accept the fact that elections are determined by the voters, not by lawsuits. We cannot tolerate this attempt to disenfranchise voters from this process.”
“Many of the candidates the Republicans are trying to remove from the ballot do not even have Republican opponents, so it is hard to see how the Republican party has been hurt. The Republicans are desperate and fearful of the blue wave they know is coming. They cannot field candidates, so they resort to these tactics. We will stand together as Democrats, defeat this lawsuit, and move forward to victory in November,” said Chair Carol Donovan.
