Ask too many election integrity questions, get fined $100,000 ...

... but that may be changing soon, thanks to the hard work of Dr. Laura Pressley and a recent ruling by the Texas Supreme Court.

As a cringe-worthy side note, Pressley's 2014 Austin City Council election opponent, Gregorio Casar, is claiming victory because the state Supreme Court ruled Pressley's election contest is moot because Casar has now entered his second term in office. However (a BIG however) the Court seems to have given a green light to future legal questions regarding ballot integrity.

This is welcome news for anyone who has ever wondered if all votes are counted or if voting machines can be trusted, but has been too intimidated by hefty fines and years in court (as Dr. Pressley has endured).

As a bonus: a related judgment orders Casar to pay back Pressley's supreme court costs, though the amount has not yet been determined.

Read more about this development in a press release from Dr. Pressley: 

Pressley Prevails: Texas Supreme Court concludes evidence of vote-tabulation irregularities has legal merit 

Court orders Austin City Councilman Gregorio Casar to pay Pressley's court fees, overturns all sanctions 

AUSTIN – A recent Texas Supreme Court ruling leaves the door wide open for future legal challenges over electronic vote counting irregularities raised by a high-profile quest for election integrity. 

“The election activities that Dr. [Laura] Pressley complains about could create a perception of impropriety, and such impropriety might make the election results unknowable,” the Court ruling stated. 

Dr. Laura Pressley’s patient and persistent legal case paid off and those reaping the returns of improved election security for years to come are future candidates and all Texas voters. 

"Now that the Texas Supreme Court has unanimously validated our legal arguments, we're going full speed ahead in the 86th Texas legislative session to strengthen Texas electronic vote counting laws and increase the penalties for county officials that violate those laws," Pressley said. "We want to ensure every vote is legally counted, and we're just getting started." 

The unanimous ruling in Pressley v. Casar may be read here:
https://www.scribd.com/document/398298296/SCOTX-Ruling-in-Laura-Pressley-Election-Challenge 

Four years ago, Pressley filed an election contest in Texas, citing irregularities and illegalities which occurred in the tabulation and recount of her 2014 Austin City Council race.  Because of the electronic tabulation errors, constitutional violations, and illegalities in her recount, Pressley argued that the results were unknowable. The evidentiary and legal claims she presented were a first in Texas. 

Pressley’s election contest was short-circuited from going to trial and was sanctioned by two lower courts more than $100,000 for what they claimed were frivolous legal arguments. But, on Friday, in a unanimous decision, the Texas Supreme Court granted her Petition for Review and reversed the lower courts’ judgments stating, “the sanctions were an abuse of discretion” and reversing the financial penalties.  The Court went further and ordered Gregorio Casar, Pressley's City Council election opponent, to pay Pressley the costs incurred in the Texas Supreme Court. 

Council member Casar has since been re-elected for a second term to the Austin City Council.  Even though the Texas Supreme Court determined that the issue of who won the election is therefore moot, Dr. Pressley prevailed in every other aspect of the case. 

The precedent set by Pressley v. Casar is an important one. Candidates now have the green light to challenge election results using evidence such as statistics, audit log error messages, corrupted memory cards, the lack of paper backup records, and criminal behavior that document mistakes, irregularities, and illegalities committed by election officials in the counting of votes, without the fear of being financially sanctioned for raising the issues. 

“Contesting elections in Texas is also a tedious process in need of reform,” Pressley said.
The legal approach of trotting voters in to court to determine how they voted or going through absentee ballots to gain single or double digit votes to win an election contest is a classical approach to address small margins of victory. Given recent innovations in elections technology, voters and candidates are well-aware that thousands of votes – if not hundreds of thousands – can be manipulated with a push of a button on a central counting tabulation computer on election night. In those situations, candidates may win the vote, but not win the count. 

In the past, election lawyers and candidates have shied away from challenging these types of serious election issues even when evidence exists that vote manipulation may have occurred. The Texas Supreme Court has now opened the door for candidates to challenge and bring evidence when election officers commit electronic counting irregularities and illegalities that could cause thousands of votes to be manipulated. 

Pressley added, “There remain serious questions of integrity regarding our elections process and infrastructure. Many counties still don’t have a verifiable numbered paper ballot consistent with our Texas Constitution and Election Code – so as we sit here today, a true manual recount cannot be performed. We are addressing this..” 

About Dr. Laura Pressley 

Dr. Laura Pressley earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Texas at Austin and holds four U.S. patents in semiconductor technology.  She ran for the Austin City Council District 4 seat and ordered a recount in 2015. When Travis County Elections Office refused to produce authenticated and numbered recount ballots that met the Texas state constitutional and election code requirements, she sued in an election contest citing numerous illegalities and irregularities in the counting of her votes.  

Since her contest began, she has given more than 250 presentations on elections transparency, sparking grassroots interest in a more permanent effort to protect ballot integrity all across the Lone Star State and beyond.  She is the Founder of True Texas Elections, LLC, a company whose mission is to ensure transparency and accuracy in the counting of our votes. 

For more information, contact Dr. Laura Pressley, Ph.D, at (512) 762-3825 or LauraPressley@Startmail.com. 

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