A federal judge in Harris County, Texas has thrown out a republican complaint to invalidate 127,000 ballots cast by voters using a drive-in voting system set up by election officials, KTRK ABC 13 in Houston reports.

After yesterday’s decision in the state Supreme Court, this ruling appears to put a nail in the coffin for republican attempts to invalidate the ballots, which were collected by election workers stationed in tents at ten locations around Harris County, which is home to Texas’ biggest city, Houston.

The process was set up to help people vote safely in the age of the coronavirus. 

Three republican candidates and a republican operative brought the suit in an attempt to void the ballots, thereby forcing those voters to stand in line to vote Tuesday.  Conservative Steven Hotze and Harris County Republicans state Rep. Steve Toth, congressional candidate Wendell Champion and judicial candidate Sharon Hemphill brought the suit.

According to a CNN broadcast, Judge Andrew Hanen balked at the idea of invalidating the votes, but also questioned the judgement of Harris County election officials because a rule in Harris County requires voting be done in a structure on Election Day.

The plaintiffs claimed that a tent is not a structure, and while the judge did not make a ruling on that, he did question election officials’ decision to use tents as polling places, insinuating that the voting process would not be valid on Election Day.