The 116th District Court has issued a ruling regarding an emergency petition in a developing election integrity case.

The Honorable Tonya Parker wrote, “IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED [caps in original] that the locked ballot boxes containing the early voting ballots for Vote Center #E0030 Northway Christian Church; Vote Center #E3605 Disciple Central Community Church; and Vote Center #E0043 Ministerios Charisma shall be opened so the early voting ballots can be re-tabulated at the Dallas County central counting station.”

The order came after the judge heard arguments from the district attorney’s (DA) office at her Dallas County courtroom on November 13.

The DA’s office represented Dallas County Election Administrator Heider Garcia, whose office filed an emergency petition to have the locked voter boxes from three precincts opened and re-tabulated after the totals from Central Count were discrepant, The Dallas Express reported.

Attorney Ben Stool explained to the court that when there “is a difference of more than 3 [votes in the Central Count tabulation and the precinct tabulation], the law requires that [elections officials] tabulate those paper ballots.”

The discrepancy, which amounted to several hundred votes across three precincts, was detected sometime after the November 5 general election.

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DX reported that both Stool and Garcia speculated to the court that the difference in vote counts resulted from human error.

The order directed the Election Administrator’s office to conduct the re-tabulation at the “central counting station at the Dallas County Elections Department … on November 14, 2024 and November 15, 2024.”

The order further directed the elections administrator to “report the results of the re-tabulation of the early voting ballots for the three said early voting centers to the Dallas County Democratic and Republican Party chairs and to the Texas Secretary of State.”

The court’s directive appeared to contradict concerns raised by Dallas County Republican Party Chairman Allen West, who had told DX that “this re-tabulation process should be manually done and not through the 850 scanners, which have proven to produce irregularities.”

Dallas County Democratic Chairman Kardal Coleman was contacted for comment but did not respond by the time of publication.

This action comes amid a flurry of lawsuits about election integrity in Texas.

Former Texas House of Representatives candidate and election integrity activist Barry Wernick has been documenting a variety of election integrity cases in Texas since the November 5 general election on his X account.

Wernick authored a 14-page affidavit in an election integrity case in Houston.

He posted his affidavit in its entirety in a thread and wrote, “BREAKING: HARRIS COUNTY SUED FOR VIOLATING VOTER PRIVACY RIGHTS 1/5 I’m proud to have provided assistance to @PILFoundation in this federal lawsuit filed in Texas Southern District Houston Division. It is a case of first impression regarding the constitutional right to a secret ballot. Thank you to @CarolineKaneTX for stepping up to serve as a plaintiff. And thank you @weible_rick for also providing an affidavit to support the causes of action. Please read my 14-page bombshell affidavit averred in the case.”