A right wing extremist group calling itself Palo Pinto County Conservatives and Grassroots Mineral Wells, filed a lawsuit in Federal Court in Fort Worth last week seeking an order preventing the county from enforcing its new electioneering rules for polling places on County property for the upcoming City of Mineral Wells election on May 4. The treasurer and apparent leader for both groups is Johanna Miller.
The new rules were passed by the Palo Pinto County Commissioners Court in response to voter harassment and intimidation at the County Annex during the primary election on March 5 at the County Annex in Mineral Wells.
Early in the morning of March 5, Olcott supporters led by Palo Pinto County Conservatives invaded the parking lot taking up dozens of spaces in the small parking lot with trailers, flags and other vehicles. Throughout the day they confronted and harassed voters, and even persons who were not there to vote but to conduct other county business.
They confronted citizens before they ever got out of their cars, telling them who to vote for and following and harassing persons who would not take their information or who were there to vote for another candidate or in the Democratic Primary. Persons who wanted to vote for Glenn Rogers were berated and called communists and other insults. The police had to be called on at least one occasion to restore order.
To prevent this from happening in the future, and make sure all citizens could exercise their right to vote free of harassment and intimidation, the County Commissioners Court held two public meetings to discuss the issue and adopted regulations governing the time, place and manner of electioneering on County property as permitted by state law.
Now the Palo Pinto County Conservatives responsible for the harassment and trouble at the annex have filed suit to enjoin the County from enforcing its rules for the May 4 city election. In other words, they want to be free to use voter intimidation to win elections, including in the upcoming and highly contentious City Council election.
We are continuing to monitor this situation and investigate claims of voter intimidation to determine if legal action is needed to protect the right of every citizen to cast their vote free of intimidation.
"Right Wing Extremist Group"? This makes me laugh. I was actually approached and harassed by a Rogers supporter. I told them to F OFF. That's how you handle that. In fact the only outburst I saw all day was when a Rogers supporter assaulted another individual. The case is being heard at the Federal Court of Appeals in New Orleans on 7/09/24.
We have so far to go to overcome gerrymandering, that the most effective tool in the short term has to be acting like we don't have gerrymandered districts... Finding common ground with people who are still in the shadows when confronted by these kinds of ruffians who intimidate voters. Keep it up!