Texas GOP group seeks hand count, block on election certification over AI fears
A Texas county republican group is seeking to stop the certification of the state's upcoming election results unless every ballot is counted by hand.
The Potter County Republican Party and its chairman, Daniel Rogers, claim the election could be interfered with by artificial intelligence or that "malicious actors" could compromise the results of Tuesday's elections.
Lawsuit is not claiming issues in previous elections
The plaintiffs are not alleging that Potter County or Texas election machines have been previously altered or miscounted votes.
Instead, they are calling for a hand count of every ballot in every precinct in the state before election certification, alleging voting machines have components inside made by China that can be manipulated.
What they're saying:
"Recent reports of the ability of rogue artificial intelligence (AI) programs to hack into virtually any voting system, while covering their tracks to avoid detection and even self-destructing to hide their activity, demonstrate an imminent risk of undetectable tampering with election machines to alter the final election results by rogue actors," the lawsuit states.
The plaintiffs argue that while Texas already requires hand-count audits in elections where electronic tabulators are used, it does not go far enough.
"The real likelihood of a clever and undetected hack by recently developed AI programs, which conceal their activity to avoid detection, reinforces the need for a full verification based on a hand-counting of all paper records or ballots in all Texas precincts, prior to certification of the federal results," court documents state.
National Democratic groups seek to intervene in lawsuit
Two national Democratic groups asked to intervene in the lawsuit.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) filed a motion Thursday arguing that the lawsuit would throw Texas' election procedures into upheaval. They're asking to join as defendants in the lawsuit. The lawsuit only names Potter County Elections Administrator Christy Benge as a defendant.
The other side:
"It is not possible to accurately hand count millions of ballots under Texas’s post-election timelines. And because Plaintiffs seek to upset longstanding ballot-canvassing rules mere days before the election, they threaten the chaos and confusion inherent in any ad hoc, compressed, 254-county recount," the brief states.
More than 19 million Texans are registered to vote. Early voting in the state has already surpassed 2022 midterm election numbers. Friday is the last day for early voting in the state.
"Plaintiffs’ requested relief would rewrite state law, inject chaos on the eve of the election, and threaten the timely certification of election results," opponents said in their brief.
Republicans have previously sought to hand-count ballots
Dig deeper:
In December 2025, Dallas County Republicans said they wanted to do a full hand-county of paper ballots for the March primary election.
Those plans were eventually scrapped because the idea was more challenging than expected after they identified financial, logistical and personnel issues with the plan.
The Source: Information in this article comes from court documents filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Information on Dallas County Republicans plans to hand-count ballots comes from previous Fox Local reporting.