On May 1, independent Texas gubernatorial candidate Carole Strayhorn’s lawsuit against the Secretary of State had a hearing in federal court. Strayhorn is suing over the Secretary of State’s insistence that signatures can only be turned in once, as well as his refusal to use random sampling (even though the code permits it). Strayhorn’s attorney presented 21 boxes of signed petitions, which contain 115,000 signatures. She would like to turn them in, but if she does, she can’t turn in any more, unless she wins the lawsuit.
Statistical sampling should be used to validate for voter registration and whether the signer voted in a primary/run-off primary, but the problem happens when comparing Strayhorn’s signatures against Kinky Friedman’s petition signatures to see if any signed both petitions (which is disallowed).
It will be interesting to see her validation rate, i.e. were the petition signers 1) registered voters 2)who didn’t vote in the primary/run-off primary of either Republican or Democratic party and 3) didn’t sign Kinky Friedman’s petition. I personally witnessed some of her paid petition circulators and the ones I saw did not ask any of the questions above. I think she will have a low rate of valid petition signatures, but with so many to turn in she should make it over the hurdle.