On Sunday, November 1, 2020, the Texas Supreme Court denied a Republican-led petition to throw out nearly 127,000 ballots cast at drive-through voting stations in Houston, a largely Democratic county. The all-Republican court denied the request without an order or opinion, just as justices did last month in a similar lawsuit brought by some of the same plaintiffs.

The Republican plaintiffs are pursuing a similar lawsuit in federal court to try and get the votes thrown out. They argue that drive-through voting violates the U.S. Constitution, as the drive-through program was ‘an expansion of curbside voting,’ and under state election law should only be available for voters with disabilities. The effort to have the ballots thrown out was set to be taken up during a hearing in federal court on Monday of November 2nd, 2020, in a federal district court in Houston. This happened a day before election day, which caused concern for many people.

District Judge Andrew S. Hanen was responsible for deciding the outcome of the hearing. The effort to invalidate all 127,000 votes was rejected, with Hanen stating that those who opposed drive-through centers had no standing to bring a lawsuit.

“We cannot allow participation to be limited simply because there are those who choose to think that they have the ability and the authority to decide who votes,” Democratic Representative Al Green of Houston said outside the courthouse after the ruling. “It’s the Constitution that determines who votes.”

A rejection of the votes would have been a monumental disenfranchisement of voters. Drive-through ballots account for about 10 percent of all in-person ballots cast during early voting in Harris County. The county is the nation’s third-largest and crucial battleground in Texas, where Donald Trump and Republicans are currently bracing for the closest election in decades.