{"id":510483,"date":"2026-01-12T09:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T09:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/510483\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T09:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T09:04:09","slug":"prepare-for-messy-2026-primaries-courtesy-of-the-dallas-county-gop-chair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/510483\/","title":{"rendered":"Prepare for messy 2026 primaries courtesy of the Dallas County GOP chair"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you prized conspiracy thinking over substance in the last primary election, this is on you. If you skipped the 2024 primaries, this is also on you.<\/p>\n

Regardless, we all feel the pain of bad government.<\/p>\n

You can thank Dallas County GOP Chair Allen West, elected in 2024<\/a>, for the confusing mess he has cooked for this year\u2019s primaries. <\/p>\n

An aborted plan to hand-count Republican ballots<\/a> will affect Dallas County voters in both primaries. Officials say it\u2019s likely that come Election Day on March 3, citizens will have to vote in their precincts<\/a> as opposed to any voting center in the county, taking away the flexibility to cast a ballot wherever it\u2019s most convenient for the voter. <\/p>\n

A possibility remains that Republicans would have to vote in their precincts while Democrats would be allowed to vote in the countywide voting centers, but officials say the state is unlikely to authorize that. That in itself would also be a mess.<\/p>\n

Opinion<\/p>\n

Get smart opinions on the topics North Texans care about.<\/p>\n

By signing up, you agree to our\u00a0Terms of Service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n

So if you haven\u2019t paid much attention to who the local party chair is, it\u2019s time to tune in. <\/p>\n

West, a known peddler of conspiracy theories about election fraud, convinced local party leaders to pursue a plan to hand-count ballots on Election Day. As our colleague Tracey McManus reported, West secured $420,000, but he couldn\u2019t get enough workers to move forward with the hand-count, falling short by about half of the 3,000 people or so needed.<\/p>\n

Citing potential legal troubles, West said in a statement on social media that he was abandoning the plan to hand-count ballots, but he noted that the local GOP would move forward with precinct-based voting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this case, discretion is the better part of valor,\u201d he said, as if he hadn\u2019t needlessly upended planning for Election Day in Dallas County.<\/p>\n

The hand-count stunt was ridiculous from the start. GOP workers would have had to have counted tens of thousands of ballots by the state deadline, which is 24 hours after polls close on Election Day. <\/p>\n

We\u2019re not sure what election integrity West thought he would safeguard with a hand count. Time and time again, machine counting has been shown to be significantly more accurate and less error-prone than human ballot counters. <\/p>\n

In his statement, West argued that precinct-based voting would allow the party to maintain \u201cbetter control.\u201d What we fear will happen is that voters of all stripes, Republican and Democrat, will be confused. Countywide voting centers will be an option for citizens in Dallas County during the early voting period, but if they wait until Election Day, they can\u2019t just pop into any polling place. Those who are turned away might not bother to go to their precincts.<\/p>\n

Dallas County elections officials will have to work extra hard to communicate process changes to voters. As for voters, they need to wake up. West won the party chairmanship in 2024 with 70% of the vote. Records show he is running for reelection uncontested.<\/p>\n

Dallas County voters from across the political spectrum will pay the consequences of his poor leadership. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you prized conspiracy thinking over substance in the last primary election, this is on you. If you…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":510484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,6083,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-510483","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-editorials","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-tx","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115881329762171948","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}