Election-denying Houston Republican Mike May takes his case to the Texas House after 6,000-vote loss

A Republican who lost his Houston-area race for a Texas House seat by 15 percentage points is formally contesting the result, arguing Harris County’s Election Day woes mean the outcome should be “declared void and a new election be ordered.” Mike May, the GOP nominee who ran against state Rep. Jon Rosenthal in House District 135, filed a petition challenging Rosenthal’s win with the Texas Secretary of State’s Office on Tuesday morning. May contends that the result “is not the true outcome” because some voting locations in Harris County ran out of paper used to print ballots in voting machines. Texas Democrats cast the election challenge as a bad-faith political stunt spawned by Donald Trump's baseless accusations that Democrats stole the 2020 election from him through voter fraud and other illicit means. Some Republicans also criticized the effort, arguing it distracts from their more serious efforts to address Harris County's election administration issues.

May's challenge also draws attention to the little-exercised House procedure used to vet these claims, one that is typically invoked in contests decided by dozens of votes, not the several thousand separating May and Rosenthal. State election law directs the secretary of state to deliver May's petition to House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, who will then refer it to a committee of House members to consider whether to recommend that the full House uphold the result or declare it void, thus triggering a new election. Phelan is also directed by state law to appoint another House member as a “master of discovery,” who can throw out the contest by declaring it “frivolous.” Rosenthal received 57.6 percent of the vote, to May’s 42.4 percent, in House District 135. The contest was decided by a margin of more than 6,000 votes, out of over 40,000 total. May could not be reached for comment Friday. Larry Veselka, a Houston lawyer who represented Democrat Hubert Vo when Vo's 2004 election to the Texas House was challenged by his Republican opponent, said the legal standard for voiding an election result and ordering up a redo typically requires "clear and convincing" evidence that would be near-impossible for May to obtain.