The Texas Supreme Court has rejected a request to throw out 127,000 votes cast at "drive-thru" locations in Harris County. Harris County, which contains Houston, is the state's most populous with 2.48 million registered voters.
Of those voters, 57.91% voted early, including 127,000 people who chose drive-thru locations.
Harris County first started using drive-thru voting locations in the primary run-off in July. The county then set up ten locations for early voters in October.
A Republican activist and three Republican candidates filed a petition for action by the Texas Supreme Court. Sunday, the Court, made up entirely of Republicans, denied the request.
"We had drive-thru voting for a past run-off. The Secretary of State had seen our plans for months," says Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo. "The Texas Supreme Court rejected these disruptive attempts to invalidate what we know to be valid votes."
Drive-thru voters accounted for almost 10% of all votes cast during the early voting period in Harris County.
"No matter who you voted for, we recognize your vote for the treasure that it is," Hidalgo says. "We recognize elections as the cornerstone of our democracy. We are fighting as hard as we possibly can to protect every single vote."
The lawyer representing the four who filed the petition says the Harris County clerk was acting on his own by implementing drive-thru voting sites. Jared Woodfill says drive-thru voting was an expansion of curbside voting, which is only available to people with disabilities.
The office of the Harris County Clerk argued the drive-thru sites were separate polling locations and available to all voters.
Woodfill has filed a federal lawsuit. A hearing is scheduled in Houston Monday morning.
The Texas Supreme had denied a similar request filed by the Republican Party of Texas and Harris County Republican Party October 22.