Alexa Ura / The Texas Tribune

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected an initial bid by state Democrats to expand voting by mail to all Texas voters during the coronavirus pandemic.

The fight over expanding voting by mail in Texas during the coronavirus pandemic appears to be coming to an end in state courts, but a lawsuit continues at the federal level.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals extended its order Thursday blocking a lower court’s sweeping ruling that would have allowed all Texas voters to qualify to vote by mail during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Texas Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that a lack of immunity to the new coronavirus does not qualify a voter to apply for a mail-in ballot.

With voting in the primary runoff election starting next month in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, the Texas secretary of state on Tuesday issued “minimum recommended health protocols” for elections, including a suggestion that voters bring their own hand sanitizer to the polls and that they "may want to consider" voting curbside if they have symptoms of COVID-19.

A federal appeals court has temporarilyput on hold a lower court’s sweeping ruling that would have allowed all Texas voters to qualify to vote by mail during the coronavirus pandemic.

A federal judge opened a path for a massive expansion in absentee voting in Texas by ordering Tuesday that all state voters, regardless of age, qualify for mail-in ballots during the coronavirus pandemic.

A state appeals court upheld a temporary order Thursday from a state district judge that could greatly expand the number of voters who qualify for mail-in ballots during the coronavirus pandemic, rebuffing Attorney General Ken Paxton's effort to have the ruling put on hold while he appeals it.

A coalition of voters and civil rights groups opened a new front Monday in the legal wars over mail-in voting in Texas during the new coronavirus pandemic.

A state district judge on Wednesday said he will move forward with an order easing restrictions for voting by mail in Texas in light of the new coronavirus pandemic.

A delay in census counting because of the coronavirus pandemic could push Texas redistricting into legislative overtime next summer.

While early reports from other parts of the country indicate black Americans are disproportionately likely to get sick or die from the new coronavirus, it’s virtually impossible to determine if that grim reality is playing out in Texas because information released by state health officials is notably incomplete.

With primary election runoffs scheduled for July and the November general election on the horizon, the Texas Democratic Party has expanded its ongoing fight for more widespread mail-in balloting to federal court, fearful that a Monday U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Wisconsin presidential primary signals a need to get federal litigation in the pipeline quickly.

Each day, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins holds a noon phone call with about 250 first responders, agency heads and others trying to keep a handle on the county’s response to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Across most of Texas, cities, towns and school boards have cancelled their traditional early May elections in response to the new coronavirus pandemic, temporarily shelving proposals for sales tax changes and city charter amendments and delaying contests for seats on city councils and school boards.

As the coronavirus outbreak continues to grow in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday issued a proclamation that will allow municipalities to postpone their upcoming May 2 elections until November.

A week out from Super Tuesday, a recount is moving forward in Dallas County.

State district Judge Emily Tobowlowsky on Tuesday approved the county’s request to redo the tally of votes cast in the March 3 primary after it discovered that an unknown number of ballots from 44 tabulating machines were missed in the initial count. 

For the first time since 2008, more Texans voted in the Democratic presidential primary than in the Republican primary — but just barely.

With all polling places tallied Thursday, Democrats had cast 2,076,046 votes in the pitched contest to take on President Donald Trump in November. Meanwhile, Republicans cast 2,008,385 votes in the presidential contest.

Dallas County officials are seeking a recount of the March 3 primary results after discovering that an unknown number of ballots were not initially counted.

After excessive voting lines on Super Tuesday forced Texans to wait up to six hours to vote, state lawmakers are directing their attention toward challenges voters faced in trying to cast ballots for the presidential primary election.

On the heels of Super Tuesday voting that left Texans waiting for hours to cast their ballots, Democrats are suing the state to overturn Republicans’ decision to kill straight-ticket voting.

Portending a long night awaiting definitive election returns in Texas, voters across the state still faced lengthy lines and wait times to cast their Super Tuesday ballots hours after polls closed.

Texas counties have started seeing updates to the state’s election reporting system that will allow them to break out the vote totals needed to determine how many delegates are won by presidential contenders on Super Tuesday. The refinements to the portal used by the state's 254 counties to report results come after Texas Democrats raised the prospect of a delay in calculating delegates.

As their counterparts in Iowa reel from a disastrously slow election returns process, Texas Democrats on Wednesday raised the prospect that a change in the way Texas reports election results could delay the final tally of delegates won by presidential hopefuls in the upcoming March 3 primary past election night.

The first time former English professor Jarrod Stringer was told he couldn't vote in a Texas election, he sued. A federal appeals court tossed his case on a technicality, but one of the judges ended up admonishing state officials to not let it happen again.

Under the trio of crosses atop its sandy brick building, the McCabe Roberts Avenue United Methodist Church has a history of bringing people together.

Two churches founded at the turn of the 20th century — one with a mostly white congregation, one mostly black — merged to form the small sanctuary on Beaumont's east side. In the 25 years since that union, the church has established itself as a pillar of the community even as its numbers have dwindled.

With a population greater than that of 26 states, speaking more than 145 languages, Harris County can be a difficult place to make oneself heard. That’s especially true at the ballot box.

Houston resident Hyunja Norman has watched her fellow Koreans struggle to participate in a city where politics play out primarily in English and Spanish. 

Worried about the suppression of young voters in 2020, national and Texas Democrats are suing the state over a newly implemented election measure that’s triggered the shuttering of early voting places, including on college campuses, in various parts of the state.

When Crystal Mason got out of federal prison, she said, she “got out running.”

By Nov. 8, 2016, when she’d been out for months but was still on supervised release, she was working full-time at Santander Bank in downtown Dallas and enrolled in night classes at Ogle Beauty School, trying, she said, to show her children that a “bump in the road doesn’t determine your future.”

Navigating the streets to the U.S. Supreme Court on a Sunday morning, veteran civil rights attorney Jose Garza was anxious.

It was the spring of 2018, and in two days the high court would consider whether Texas lawmakers had drawn political maps that purposefully undermined the voting strength of their state’s people of color.