- What happened: The recent overturning of Jude DaSean Jones’ 2022 election to a Harris County trial court thrusts the county into uncharted territory and creates major uncertainty for the cases that have already been decided since Jones has taken the bench.
- Jones narrowly won against Republican Tami Pierce by 449 votes. Pierce, along with several other Republican candidates, contested the results.
- Go further: Judge David Peeples ordered a new election after a trial found that 1,430 votes were cast illegally, including by voters living outside Harris County, among other issues.
- Peeples ordered a new election because it’s unknown who received the majority of the illegal votes and because the number of illegal votes was larger than Jones’ margin over Pierce.
- In his own words: “Nobody seems to know what exactly would happen to those cases. This is not a test that has a legitimate grounds of an appeal. I think we don’t know what precisely this would look like.”—University of Houston Political Scientist Brandon Rottinghaus
- What’s next: Peeples’ order doesn’t remove Jones from the seat or invalidate the cases he has already decided. The new election for Jones’ seat has been set for May 3, 2025.
- Jones is on the November 2024 ballot for the Texas Supreme Court.
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