Erin Lunceford
HOUSTON - In 2022, attorney Erin Elizabeth Lunceford ran for election for judge of the 189th District Court in Harris County, losing in the general election to Tamika “Tami” Craft by a margin of 2,743 votes.
On Feb. 3, the First Court of Appeals affirmed a trial court’s final judgment denying her contest to the election results.
The Harris County official canvass report reflects that a total of 1,107,390 votes were cast in that election. Craft received 533,710 votes while Lunceford received 530,967 votes, resulting in a 2,743-vote margin of victory for Craft.
A month following the 2022 election, Lunceford filed suit, alleging that the outcome of the contested race was “not the true outcome.”
According to the opinion, Lunceford alleged that the final canvass of the Contested Race was inaccurate because illegal votes were cast and counted, legal votes were cast but not counted, and election officials prevented eligible voters from voting, failed to count legal votes, or engaged in fraud, illegal conduct, or a mistake.
A trial court conducted a bench trial that lasted seven days, hearing testimony from 11 live witnesses, four witnesses by oral deposition, and 38 others by deposition on written questions, and admitting approximately 120 exhibits.
After the trial, the court rendered a final judgment denying Lunceford’s election contest and declaring that “Craft’s victory in the contest for the Judge of the 189th District Court” was the “true outcome.”
On appeal, Lunceford challenged the factual and legal sufficiency of the trial court’s findings that only between 250 to 850 voters were unable to cast a vote on Election Day due to ballot paper shortages.
She argued the trial court should have factored all 2,600 voters who were turned away from polling places on Election Day due to ballot paper shortages when considering whether it could ascertain whether the reported outcome of the Contested Race was the true outcome.
The First Court held the trial court did not abuse its discretion by finding that Craft’s victory over Lunceford in the Contested Race was the true outcome.
“Given the number of votes cast in the Contested Race, and the number of votes the trial court concluded were ‘affected’ in the Contested Race, we cannot say that the trial court abused its discretion by finding that it could ascertain the true outcome of the Contested Race because the number of affected votes was not large enough to put the true outcome in doubt,” the opinion states.
Appeals case No. 01-23-00921-CV
