On May 15, Michele Petty, a candidate for Texas Supreme Court, place 6, filed a lawsuit in state court, seeking to keep her only opponent off the Republican primary ballot for that office. Petty is the only Democrat running. She wants the petition for Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht declared invalid, which would prevent him from appearing on the Republican primary ballot. Thus, he could not run for re-election, because Texas does not permit write-ins in primaries. The lawsuit is Petty v Texas Republican Party.

Here is the complaint. Texas does not normally require petitions for candidates to get on primary ballots, but candidates for partisan statewide judicial offices do need a petition. Such petitions need 50 signatures from each of the 14 state judicial appellate districts. The complaint charges that the petition for the Fort Worth area district did not fill in three blanks at the top of the form. Each petition has a statement in both English and Spanish. Both the English-language sentence, and the Spanish-language sentence, contains blanks. The blanks are to be filled in by the candidate’s name and the name of the office being sought. Judge Hecht’s petition for the Fort Worth district didn’t fill in the blanks in the Spanish part of the form.

Texas courts have usually not enforced ultra-strict compliance with such technicalities.