If you read one thing: Loving County has a U.S. Census population of around 65, but approximately 110 registered voters. Many who have left, but remain on the election rolls, say they want to vote where their heart lies, and that they intend to return … someday. But for candidates on the losing end of elections, the practice can look an awful lot like a clique of families threading a legal loophole to keep their kin in power.
What are those losing candidates doing?
Over the years, lawsuits alleging out-of-town voters skewed the outcome of a political race have been a regular occurrence. The November 2022 election alone produced three challenges from candidates who lost by no more than a dozen votes.
"The problem," said Susan Hays, an attorney representing the losing candidates, "is the Jones family can't find enough people to vote for them who actually live here. So they manufacture votes" from out-of-town family and friends.
Reporter Eric Dexheimer describes how those legal proceedings can play out in Loving County…
Election challenges in cities typically are dry affairs, involving impersonal tranches of data and stultifying discussions of ballot procedures. Proceedings in Loving County, by comparison, are personal, even intimate. Texas election laws defining residence are notoriously vague, and in an isolated community dominated by a small number of entrenched clans, the concept of home is informed by nostalgia and blood loyalty as much as location.
Court proceedings resemble a mash-up of "Judge Judy," "Big Brother" and "Fixer Upper." Lawyers grill individual voters under oath about how, where, and with whom they spend their time. Home repairs are noted; furniture use is examined. Medical diagnoses are discussed. Along the way, angry rivalries and secret alliances can be laid bare.
Another person described the legal fights between residents of Loving County as "a blood feud. Family member against family member over power and control."
Read Dexheimer's full story here.
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