On September 15, 2025, the Dallas County Precinct Chairs voted to require precinct-based voting for the 2026 Republican Primary Election Day and any subsequent runoff, rather than the county-wide approach.

Initially, Allen West, the Dallas County GOP Chair (at the time) followed his instructions, and faithfully formed a written contract with the Dallas County elections administrator, Paul Adams, on December 31, 2025. But then West decided to amend that contract without any authority and go to county-wide voting. Chair Allen West and Dallas County Elections Administrator Paul Adams then signed a First Amendment to the initial contract which changed the upcoming runoff election from precinct voting to countywide voting.

Despite multiple notices to Adams that West did not have authority to make that change, Adams publicly confirmed his intent to proceed under that unauthorized amendment on April 7, 2026, and was going to conduct the election using the county-wide system that has been famously flawed.

A number of precinct chairs, led by Barry Wernick, assisted by Stan Woodward and Beth Biesel, and further supported by more than a dozen other chairs who provided declarations, engaged Norred Law to file a petition for writ of mandamus to force Paul Adams to conduct the elections consistent with the original contract, so voters would vote in their precinct on Election Day.

In Texas, a writ of mandamus is a legal command by a Court of Appeals or the state's Supreme Court that tells a government official to do his job. The petition was filed on behalf of Wernick against Paul Adams and Susan Cumby. Cumby is included only because Allen West resigned from his position once he realized that the party wasn't putting up with his shenanigans, making Cumby the responsible person to receive instructions from the Court of Appeals.

We filed the petition on Friday, April 17th. We expect the application to be accepted (when it is file-stamped and gets a case number) on Monday, and the Court of Appeals may act immediately and request a response by the end of the week, or the court could sit on the issue until too late. It's always hard to predict what a Court of Appeals will do.

Cheers!

Warren

This post will be amended to add the petition after it is accepted.