In unprecedented move, a candidate won a precinct chair election. Then the Tarrant Republican Party chair deemed him ineligible

Chris Rector won a Republican primary election to chair Tarrant County Precinct 4230 with 75% of the vote. A week later, the head of the Tarrant County Republican Party declared him ineligible. Party Chairman Bo French sent Rector a letter, dated March 13, in which he accused Rector of pretending to be a Republican in order to dissolve the party and merge it with the Tarrant County Democratic Party. As a result, French wrote, he would not issue a certificate of election to Rector. “Under our governing parliamentary authority, the Republican Party of Tarrant County is not obligated to permit as members Democrats who are set on dissolving the Republican Party and disrupting our operations,” French wrote in a statement to the Fort Worth Report.

Rector disputes French’s allegations — and said he is considering filing complaints of voter suppression and election interference with the Tarrant County Election Integrity Unit. The unit was formed by County Judge Tim O’Hare, Sheriff Bill Waybourn and Criminal District Attorney Phil Sorrells in 2023 to investigate election fraud. A political science expert told the Fort Worth Report he’d never seen a party chair declare someone ineligible after they’d won, and said it could result in a legal challenge in court. The Texas Secretary of State’s election administration office advised Rector, he said, that French’s actions were improper. The Texas Secretary of State declined to comment to the Report. “The fact is, he’s changed the outcome of the election because he didn’t like the results of it,” Rector said. Rector ran as a Democrat in 2022 during a primary election for Texas House District 97; public records show he also filed a statement of candidacy for Congress as a Democrat in June 2023, but withdrew from consideration and terminated his campaign committee in November 2023. He pointed toward his 2021 Fort Worth mayoral campaign, where he said he ran on a conservative platform. Questions about Rector’s eligibility should’ve been handled by the party chair before his application for a place on the ballot was accepted, Bob Stein, a political science professor at Rice University, said. “I would say shame on the county party chair, who couldn’t do his job in both recruiting and screening candidates for this,” he said.